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happiness is

Chapter Seven - I Won't Be President

Plaything

Title: I won’t be president (07/??)
Author: tumbling_down
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2033
Genre: Hancest



Zac

I lugged all of the cat supplies up to the apartment while Taylor ran up the stairs with her in the carrier, grumbling to myself a bit because the litter was fucking heavy and there were three flights to climb up because the elevator was broken. Again. I seriously hated our apartment manager, but the apartment was so perfect that we just dealt with it. I dropped all of the supplies in the middle of the living room and breathed heavily for a while, watching Taylor hold the kitten up in front of his face.

So, okay, he was ridiculously adorable with the kitten and the kitten was really cute. And if it made him that happy to have a furry little creature running around the apartment, I guess I could handle having to clean the litter box when he eventually forgot about it. I just hoped it wouldn’t be for a few weeks.

“Alright, where do you want her bed to go?” I asked him, holding up the ridiculous pink pillow that he had purchased for her. It actually said “Princess” in black along the edges.

“I dunno,” he shrugged. “In our room next to the recliner, I guess.”

“I’m putting the litter box in the bathroom,” I told him. “So keep an eye out…if she has to go, you know? Put her in there?”

He rolled his eyes at me while I picked up the box and the pillow and started kicking the bag of litter down the hallway. Once I’d gotten everything set up, I went back into the living room to find Taylor sprawled out on the couch fast asleep with Princess balled up on his chest. I should have known that he’d need a nap after waking up so early.

Really, it was good that he had fallen asleep. I hadn’t been able to get any time to myself in almost two weeks and I still had to get his anniversary present. He’d had one day when I was sick with the flu or food poisoning or something, when he’d run off for a few hours, and I could only assume what he had done that day. Finally, I had my opportunity. I just hoped the kitten wouldn’t pee on him while I was gone.

I wrote him a quick note and then headed off to Shaw’s jewelers. The bracelet was already on hold, had already been inscribed and placed into a lined box, I just had to pick it up. Matt smiled at me when I walked into his store and immediately went into the storage area to get the item. “It’s about time,” he said as he handed it to me. “I was starting to think you’d broken up or something.”

I smiled and sat down at the chair across the counter from him. “I haven’t had any time to get down here by myself,” I said, watching as he took out the jewelry box and opened it before handing it to me.

The bracelet was simple, made from platinum. The chain was plain and the plate across the center, much like an I.D. bracelet would look, had little swirling designs on it. It was very much something that Taylor could get away with wearing every day and on the back, in tiny cursive lettering that Matt had been forced to call in a specialist for to make it fit, were the words:
You feel like liberation
You give me new sensation
You show me what I need and
You are my life completed.

It was cheesy and cliché, sure, but the song had been written for a reason. I grinned at Matt. “It’s perfect.”

* * * * * * * * * *

I stopped at Noodles and Company on my way home and picked up some take away for us because, honestly, Taylor had lost at least five pounds in the three weeks we had been home since tour ended. He usually lost weight on tour but gained it back as soon as we were home. Apparently I was not doing my job of feeding him well and had been letting him get away with eating just breakfast almost every day.

When I got back to our apartment he was standing in the middle of the living room glaring down at Princess with his hands on his hips and a his lips fashioned into a frown. Princess had a puddle around her. I snorted back a laugh and he turned to place his glare on me. “She peed!” He raised his hands up into the air and gave me a look of absolute horror. Princess looked up at him pathetically and meowed and I couldn’t help the chuckles that came out.

“I told you to keep an eye on her,” I reminded him, setting the bags down on the counter. “Now you’ve got to clean that up and wash her.”

“You suck at life,” he muttered, making a face as he picked her up and carried her into the bathroom, his arms extended as far away from his body as possible.

I smiled and shook my head, cleaning up the mess on the floor and washing my hands before I served up our lunches. Taylor came out of the bathroom with Princess wrapped up in a towel. He set her down on the couch and she promptly fell asleep. “Is that all she’s going to do?” he asked me, eying the plates I had out skeptically. “I’m not hungry.”

“She’s only like eight weeks old, Tay. It’s been a busy day for her,” I told him, putting a fork on his plate and shoving it into his hands. “And it’s shrimp curry and you like it so eat it.”

He grumbled something in response that I chose to ignore and sat down at the table. I sat across from him and we mostly ate in silence before Taylor put his fork down and said very calmly, “I think that we should get tattoos on our anniversary.”

I probably stared at him for a full minute before his cheeks turned red and he got the look on his face that he gets whenever he thinks he’s done something stupid. He stuttered for a second and then shook his head, smiling, “Sorry, never mind, I-”

“Um…what would we get tattoos of?” I asked once I had regained the ability to speak.

He picked up his fork and twirled it around in his pasta for a second, staring down at it intently before he shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno,” he admitted. “Something that means something to us…so that, like, you’ll always be with me even when you’re not.”

“I am always with you,” I pointed out.


“You know what I mean.”

“Is this something you really want to do?” He nodded. “Like, you’ve thought about this and want something permanently inked onto your body that represents me? Us? Our relationship?”

“Yeah,” he said softly, fiddling a little with his utensil before taking a bite of food.

“If you really want to…I mean, sure,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. “We could do it on Thursday so we don’t have to take Tabby with us.”

“Really?” he asked in an almost squeak. He was a little too excited about it and it was really, really cute.

I smiled and grabbed his hand in mine, squeezing softly. “Sure.”

“Also, I think that we should go to a movie,” he said, glancing down at his watch. “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt is playing at three.”

“Um…” I let go of his hand and stared at him once again. “Are you serious?”

“It’s supposed to be really good,” he said, folding his arms over his chest and pouting at me. “And I really want to see it.”

“Oh…okay…wait, isn’t that the movie with Leonar-”

“So what?” he asked, glancing away and I smirked, standing up and picking up our plates to take into the kitchen with me.

“You so have the biggest crush on him ever,” I said. “We should leave in like five minutes.”

“I’m gonna um…put Princess in the…the bedroom, for while we’re gone, okay?” I nodded and watched him pick her up, leaving the towel in the hamper in the hallway as he walked into our room and closed the door behind him.

He came back out a few minutes later clutching his man purse to his chest. “Maybe you should leave her in the bathroom with the litter box,” I said.

“She’ll be fine,” he told me, waving me off and heading towards the door.

“Fine, but if she pees on our bed you are so cleaning it yourself,” I warned and he leaned over and kissed me on the cheek with a smile.

* * * * * * * * * *

We sat in the last row of the theater and Taylor put his bag on his lap carefully while I set our soda and my nachos down. “When the movie’s done can we stop at the scrapbook store?” he asked me, carefully pulling the strap of his bag from his shoulder.

“Yeah, why?”

“I need to get supplies to make Princess her own scrapbook,” he told me. “And they were supposed to come out with new sheets and I need some stuff to decorate that page from our trip to Florida with.”

“Like what?” I asked, leaning back a bit so I could rest my arm across his back. He shifted so that he was pressed into my side and relaxed against me.

“Um…beach stuff. But the other beach set they had was mostly kids stuff, like sand pails and things. I want more romantic things.”

“We built a sand castle, Tay,” I reminded him. “And we had a sand pail.”

“Yeah but…”

“You also ate ice cream and got it all over yourself.”

“I know that, but-”

“You made us go on It’s a Small World fifteen times,” I said.

He pinched me and I elbowed him in the side before he said, “But we made love in the ocean.”

I cleared my throat and took a sip of soda while the previews began playing and glanced over to find him smirking at me with his hands placed gingerly on top of his bag. “Why are you acting like your purse is made of glass?” I asked him.

“What?”



“You’re carrying it like it might break or something,” I said sounding much more suspicious than I had intended.

“Oh um…I just, you know, am being paranoid because I have my um…my camera in here,” he said and I could tell that he was lying but I really wasn’t in the mood to push it.

“Right,” I said, turning my head to the screen to watch the previews.

He shifted a little bit against me, making himself comfortable, and then I heard it. Right between two of the previews, a very quiet and high pitched meow coming from his lap. My eyes widened and I turned quickly to stare at him. “Taylor,” I whispered shrilly. “You did not.”

He chewed on his lip for a minute before wrinkling his nose and nodding his head. “I couldn’t leave her alone!”

“Oh my god.”

“Za-ac,” he whined, opening his bag and pulling her out of it.

“Put her back in there,” I hissed.

“No,” he said, leaning away from me and settling back into his seat.

“We’re leaving,” I informed him. “This is ridiculous.”

“She’ll be good,” he protested and gave me the most pathetic puppy dog look he was probably capable of. It kind of made my heart melt a little bit. “Look at her,” he pouted, holding her up to my face. “She’s being quiet.”

I looked from him to the kitten and back to him before sighing and pulling him back against my side. “Fine,” I muttered, shaking my head in disbelief. It never ceased to amaze me, the things that he was capable of getting me to do with just a look.

He smiled and kissed my throat before snuggling up against me and crushing the kitten to his chest. “I love you,” he whispered, just as the movie began.

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