Chapter Text
"Maggie, the water heater's out again."
Taako impatiently raps on his side of the bathroom door- the apartment complex used to be a very big house, with the front half made of red brick and the back half being yellow brick. Sometime after world war two it had been split up into many apartments by the owner, and in sloppy ways. More than half a century later of bits and pieces of rooms being added onto the original network of hasty flats, the building is mismatched beyond repair. This is why the bathroom connects to both the hall and Magnus' bedroom, a fact that Taako continues to abuse three years after getting his roommate. "Yo Moose, are you there?"
"I'm gonna kill him," mutters Julia into her pillow. This early in the morning, she's little more than a lavender-scented mass of frizzy hair and fleecy pajamas.
"Not if I kill him first." Magnus says, but he rolls his legs off the bed and pulls himself to sitting. His head swims for a moment before he gets his bearings and pulls on pants. Julia mumbles a swear in Spanish and steals the rest of the covers for herself.
"Magnus!" whines Taako.
"I'm going, I'm going!"
Fixing the nozzles on the water heater is officially Julia's chore, because she's the one who works with that stuff the most. However it is very early in the morning, and she'd just came back from a late shift, so the task falls to the equally-competent Magnus. Or, he likes to believe.
He trots down the stairs to the apartment lobby. They don't creak anymore, thanks to him, and so doesn't disturb the sleeping old beast thing behind the lobby desk.
Everyone says Daniel's a dog, but Magnus has never seen a dog so two-faced and violent. Julia jokes that Selune Flats are guarded by a chupacabra.
Magnus shoots the creature a wary look and rounds the bend to the maintenance hall, which is what the tenants call the spaces where the walls don't quite match up and all the wiring is. There's a staircase down this one, accessed by the staff closet, which is odd really because the actual staircase to the basement was taken out for some reason.
He makes a mental note to replace those when he finds the wood, and sideways-shimmies down the tiny gap in the wall until the stairs open him up to breathing room in cold stagnant air.
"What the fuck?"
Magnus jumps at the voice, yelling and scrabbling for the light. When it finally decides to turn on, Magnus is staring down at Brian.
"You don't live here anymore!" Magnus scolds.
Brian makes a face. "I forgot something."
"In the basement?"
The creepy fucker holds up his hands: two wine bottles with his label on them. The Black Spider Wine Mixer is, according to Brian, "zee next big thing, which I am so very thankful to be running with my fiance." Magnus has never seen Brian's fiance, and doesn't really know what kind of person would want to eventually marry the kind of dude who advertises local wine using his (startlingly numerous) pet tarantulas.
So he sighs and rubs his stubble. "Well, get out. If the boss saw you here she'd flip shits."
Brian grins too wide. "Fair enough. Give my regards to your ever lovely roommate!"
"You're gonna be married! Stop flirting with him!" Magnus steps to the side to allow Brian up the stairs, but he instead goes for an old shelf and pushes it to the side.
"Oh noooo!" Brian giggles. "You've seen my secret getaway! Now I have to kill you!"
"I'm gonna call in Lucretia if you don't knock it off!" Magnus threatens. "Hurry up, I need to fix the water heater!"
Brian scurries into the crawlspace, calling back nonsense to Magnus the whole way while he gets to work fiddling with a nozzle.
Someone upstairs screams. Wrong dial, then! Whoops! He turns it back, just slightly. There, perfect!
"Good job, Magnus! Thanks, Magnus!" Magnus heads back up the stairs, through the gap in the wall, out of the broom closet, and up the main stairwell to his home. He gets his hand around the brass doorknob when he hears Julia yell "Fuck!"
He rushes in, slamming the door open and surveying the scene: Julia is at the stove, batting a small errant flame with a dish towel and swearing. Merle somehow already has the fire alarm in his hand with the batteries taken out, which implies he was expecting Julia to fuck up. He hurries on over to his wife and beats down the flame.
"Hey Magnus, can I take my shower now?" Taako yells. "I'd come out to greet you but I don't need your wife seeing my business, you know?"
"I've seen everything there is to see about you, and trust me, I'm not impressed!" Julia calls back and laughs when she hears Taako's affronted noise. She pours a ladle of pancake batter into a frying pan.
"Go take your shower, Yaakov," Merle says, "Magnus fixed the water!"
"Cool beans, don't call me that!"
"I fixed the water," Magnus tells Julia proudly.
"Not without upsetting Avi you didn't," Julia mentions with a quirk of her lips. "What do you want in your pancakes?"
"Bluuuuuuuueberries!" sings Magnus and opens the fridge to retrieve the carton. "How come you're up?"
"After you left I figured I wasn't going to get any more sleep. But that's okay, I have my coffee." she holds up a mug with what Magnus can smell is hot chocolate, and what he can see is topped with novelty pink whipped cream. He immediately swipes his finger through the whipped cream and pokes her nose. "Ah! Magnus, I'm cooking!" she swats at him, and he laughs and dances out of her reach.
"Bleh!" Merle says, and makes a gagging motion. "Magnus, come help me set the table. It's been a while since we all ate breakfast together."
"That's because last time I made pancakes, Taako's order was to have his in the shape of a dick like in those pancake art videos. And when I did, Magnus kept on laughing and saying 'cock waffle'. Also work got in the way." Julia slides the first batch of hotcakes onto a plate. "Banana-peanut butter-nutella pancakes for you, Merle!"
"Stop bringing up cock waffle, Jules! I'm not a furry!" Magnus says. Julia giggles.
"Magnus, you updated your DeviantArt last week."
"To post woodcarvings! Okay, and also to look at the dog drawings, but I'm not a furry anymore!" he angrily tosses a handful of blueberries into his mouth and pouts. Merle has since heaved himself off his chair and reclaimed his plate of pancakes.
"Being an adult doesn't get any less weirder, kids." he laughs and spears a pancake on his fork. "This is about as good as it gets, and then it's all downhill from here!"
"I heard pancakes from a certain other pan," Taako interrupts, lounging against the hallway threshold in what he might think is seductive. Julia points her spatula at him and clicks her tongue with a wink.
"You know it, monsieur! You wanna get in on this hot atterrissage à plat action?"
"Oh hell yes." Taako says and slides over-- literally slides, his fleece socks providing the perfect swooce across the kitchen-living room-combo hardwood floor.
"Magnus! Setting the table?" Merle calls. Magnus raises his eyebrows and sets down the blueberries on the counter. He'd learned long ago that trying to carry all the plates at once is a Bad Idea, and so when he pulls them out of the cabinet (they're mismatched and cheap china, a staple of four poor people sharing an apartment together) he takes two at a time. The first time, he'd broken four whole plates. No one else had been home and he was hoping to surprise the family with dinner since he was the only one who didn't have to go to a different building for work.
His hands, holding the plates carefully, hover over the table and his expression falls into vacancy.
He tried to balance the plates, and he'd broken them, and he'd got all cut up trying to pick up the shards. He'd tied a pink piece of yarn around his finger, even when he took off the dinosaur pattern band-aids.
"What'cha thinking about, big guy?" Taako shakes Magnus from his reverie, and he sets the plates very carefully down on the table.
"Dunno," he says. He wonders why that memory, so simple, had stopped him in his tracks. He gets one more plate from the cabinet, since Merle has his own, and nearly pulls out the drawer trying to get to the silverware.
"Tits." he mutters, and counts forks and butter knives. Julia's hand enters his field of vision, with her imperfectly painted nails, and closes the drawer. When he looks up, she's looking at him. Curious. She's always curious.
"You got it?" she asks with a quirk of her lips, a twinkle in her eye, and it feels like the weight of the world is a little lighter. He smiles at her, just as crooked, and turns to finalize the table.
Sometimes, love doesn't need words.
Sometimes, love only needs pancakes.
Taako somehow had procured a tablecloth and laid it out under the plates and is sitting in his spot. When Magnus sits down, Julia right on time brings over three servings.
"Plain pancocks for Taako, blueberry pancakes for Magcargo, and mexicà pancakes for me!" she slides into her seat with a sigh.
Taako points his fork at Julia with mock-accusation. "You know damn well those are just flat churros!"
"You're just jealous because I won't give you the recipe!" Julia sticks her tongue out at him.
"Kids, no fighting at the table." Merle says, and one can't be sure he's entirely joking.
Magnus giggles. "What's the plan for today, guys?"
Julia sighs. "Well, first I'm going to alchemize all my blood into coffee, and hopefully get some free time in Pee Gee Haych Metalworks before I take orders. Then I have my last afternoon class at CMU."
"Busy day for the both of us." Taako raises his eyebrows, his expression comical with his cheeks full of pancakes. Magnus thinks he looks like a cockatiel, between chubby cheeks and his pompadour. "My shift at La Gourmandine starts at nine."
"Taako, that's in seven minutes!" Julia balks and checks her fitbit's watch. Magnus guesses that it's 8:53.
"Thanks for the pancocks!" Taako leaves a Taako-shaped dust cloud as he grabs his cardigan hanging off the coat rack and scurries out the door.
"More for me!" Magnus scoops Taako's serving onto his own plate. "Merle, are you busy today?" he hopes the answer is no; everyone seems so busy lately. For him, carpentry comes and goes, but work at a bakery or at a re-purposed steel mill or as an anesthesiologist doesn't ever seem to stop. It would pain him greatly to start losing touch to the various people he lives with, for gods' sakes, just over something like money.
"Sorry kiddo, Daddy's got his job at the UPMC." Merle stands up and puts his plate in the sink.
"Please don't call yourself daddy," Julia rubs her temple. It messes up her already messy hair in an almost messier bun, and Magnus has half a mind to clamber over this table (it could hold his weight he knows, he made the damn thing), and tuck the loose strands back behind her ear.
"Duly noted, Jujube. What's your plan for the day, Magnus? Housesitting?"
He shrugs as noncommittally as he can, to make it seem like he just hasn't decided instead of not knowing at all. "I might run errands. You need anything done?"
"Let me get the list paper!" Julia had recently bought Magnus a clipboard featuring his favorite Sanrio character, Purin. Granted he doesn't know too many Sanrio characters besides what Julia buys, but the gift has been an invaluable one for his wandering mind and even more wandering footsteps. She's inattentive and he's hyperactive, and together it's almost a miracle they get anything done, but the little things like clipboards help. She comes back with the matching Purin pen and paper, and hands them both to Magnus. He has to remember what hand he writes with for a second, but snaps his fingers.
"Hit me!" they've found that him writing the list himself helps him remember more easily, and if you can do it on paper covered in dogs that look like pudding, all the better.
"Okay, I need lead solder, milk, a dozen large brown eggs, and angel hair spaghetti." Julia lists off on her fingers.
Magnus scrawls as fast as she speaks, and when he looks down at the paper he sees he's written "pasketti", whatever that is. He hopes Future Magnus understands what he means when he reads it. "That all?"
"Yep!" She's pulling her messenger bag over her shoulder. "I have to leave to catch the bus now, be good." Julia bends down and kisses Magnus' cheek, and then again on his lips when he turns. She dances to the door with her hands pulling her hair into a better ponytail, and just like that, with a wave and a wink, she's gone.
(she'sgoneshe'sgoneshe'sgone)
Merle must see the flash of emotion in Magnus' eyes, he must see the twitch of his hands, because he says "Earth to Magnus, you there?"
"I'm here." he says, right on time. The words come to him easily, and without hesitation, the way his words often do.
"You wanna talk about whatever that was?" Merle tightens a screw on his prosthetic, now partially dressed in his scrubs.
"Dunno myself." he says back, just as easily, and stands up. He wants to pile the plates up again, but he sees the pink yarn on his pinkie and takes them one at a time instead.
"Maybe it's good you're getting an off day," Merle suggests, "get your head clear. Some time to relax. Don't coop up in the house though, alright?"
"Alright Dad!" Magnus sticks his tongue out at him. "Have a good day at work."
Merle tugs on his sweater, an ugly purple thing with the word HENTAI stitched in bright yellow. The theory is that no one can tell him to take it off without them having to admit they know what hentai is. Magnus thinks this is the kind of perfect genius you get when you're old.
Merle waves too, pats the branch of the potted plant by the door, and then he too is off to work.
Magnus groans. He could've walked with him! But now the apartment is mostly silent, and he's alone.
But most importantly, the day is his.
Selune Flats shares a community garden with the other two shared residencies, and he should probably water the plot Julia and Merle share. And he should probably return Angus' Gameboy SP. And get the groceries. And do a million other things to keep him occupied.
Okay. One step at a time. When Magnus gets overwhelmed he can't even plot out to do simple tasks, the steps get all muddied up in his head and he ends up being unable to do anything.
"One step at a time."
"Okay. You can do this, Magnus."
"Pants."
Executive function has always been the very first adversary for Magnus to overcome, but unlike many evils, like the goblins or warlocks he doodles in his carpentry design sketchbooks, this one is the most often recurring element. But after a few minutes of staring at the laundry he has yet to fold, he manages to to pull on jeans and one of his favorite t-shirts.
(Okay, every t-shirt is his favorite, but this one is one of his most favorites, because it's in the perfect color green. It says in large friendly letters in what he thinks must be very nice typography BELIEVE IN YOURSELF WHEN NO ONE ELSE DOES. And then there is a picture of the Loch Ness Monster.)
Magnus steps out of the flat and into the hall once more, this time in proper clothing, and his backpack for good measure. Above him, he can hear piano and violin. Below him, the animated voices of Killian, Carey, and Noelle muffled by the flooring.
Outside, a bright fall day, despite the overcast skies. The day is his!
Magnus takes the steps two at a time, as he is wont to do when he is not rudely awakened by his roommate. His steps make a big thunka-thunka-thunk the whole way down to the ground floor, and he laughs at the bottom step before jumping extra hard onto the floor. Daniel, now behind the almost-entirely-unused lobby desk, shoots up from his nap and says to Magnus: "whuff!"
"Boof!" Magnus says back, to Daniel's doggish bewilderment. As he opens the front door to the porch, he checks his list once more-- the clipboard holds his keyring, and the carabiner on that can clip to his belt loop or backpack if he doesn't mind his clipboard dangling from either. Keys into the building, keys into the apartment, phone is in his pocket (triple check-- yep, it's there) charger is in his bag (quadruple check-- yep, he put his spare in the other day).
He steps onto the porch and closes the door behind him. And opens a door to endless possibilities!
Hey, that's kinda nice sounding. He should write that down so he can post it on his pinterest!
Magnus does not write that down.
In the mid September air, there are no cherry tomatoes on Julia's prized specimens (despite the red traffic sign that's affixed to the closest telephone pole reading CAUTION: TOMATOES), and the apple tree is too young to bear fruit. She'd said patience pays, but he'd seen her fingers tapping on the windowsill or on the crate of gardening tools as she tracked the tree's progress. He gives its trunk a loving pat as he passes by Merle's soon to be dormant perennials and quickly fading annuals. He tries to not let that thought make him sad.
The community garden is shared by three lots, the other two sitting closer to the street and sidewalk than Selune Flats. Miller Condominiums was, at its time of building, lauded for being a technologically-advanced smart house sponsored by the Carnegie Mellon University, but now it sits mostly empty; as far as Magnus knows there's only one tenant who lives their besides the engineers, and that she might be moving out by the end of the month anyways.
Magnus likes Noelle. She's patient with him, and really good at First Aid, and Killian and Carey are completely over the moon for her. So she's more than alright in his book, and if she can't find a place to live, Magnus just might learn how to fix an elevator so she can live in Selune Flats with everybody else.
Oh, no! He was so caught up in daydreaming he'd been staring at the autumn crocus planted along the picket fence. Right, he's got things to do.
"Morning, Mr. Burnsides!" and just like that his focus is gone-- Mr. Hudson is waving from the porch of the other property brightly, a watering can in one hand.
"Is that Magnus out there?" comes a voice from inside the house. "Tell him to go away!"
"Morning, Mr. Hudson! Morning, Wankins!" Magnus waves, using his entire arm.
"Still calling my husband names I see," Hudson says with a smile that's characterized by his already impressively curled mustache being pulled up at the sides. "No wrong answer, just curious, is that ever going to stop being funny to you?"
"I'll stop calling him names when he stops being a serial killer!" Magnus says, squinting his eyes in suspicion.
"Magnus," Hudson says slowly, "my husband is not a serial killer.1"
"Hudson," Magnus says equally slowly and with all the goodwill-y, neighborly honesty he can muster, "you can't prove that. Oh, tits, I got stuff to do. See you later! Or smell you later, if you prefer!" He waves again and closes the gate of the community garden behind him.