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Chapter Fourteen - Chicken Polka Will Make You Potato and Tomato

Plaything

Title: Chicken Polka Will Make You Potato and Tomato (14/??)
Author: tumbling_down
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2100
Genre: Hancest
Notes: This title was conceived on some sort of bizarre drug binge. -- J



Zac

Isaac handed me a beer as soon as I walked into the kitchen and sat at the island across from him. "You look kind of depressed," he said.

I didn't say anything, just listened to Taylor and Tabby chat away in the other room before they started plunking at the keys. "What's up?" he asked after a few minutes.

"Just. You know, the kid thing," I sighed, picking at the label of the beer. "It kills me."

He went back to cooking while he talked, mixing butter and milk into the potatoes he was mashing. "Is it really that big of a deal?"

"Yeah," I sighed. "I mean. Not...like, he doesn't, you know, bring it up all the time or anything. But it's obvious that he just...hates that we can't..."

"Isn't there some way that, like, one of you could adopt?"

"Well, yeah," I said, fiddling with the beer bottle. "But that would look kind of ridiculous, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know." He shrugged and got a serving bowl down from the cabinets. "I mean, if it's that important to him I'm sure we could figure out a way to work it...you know, say you moved to a different apartment or something?"

"Do you really think that would work?" I knew I sounded insanely skeptical, but how could I not be? Our entire lives often rode on mine and Taylor's relationship and how well we could keep it hidden and having a child calling both of us 'daddy' probably wouldn't help so much.

"Maybe. I don't know, Zac. I just mean if it's, you know, that important. You know, we'd figure it out?"

"You really think so?"

"Sure."

"Like, you'd be willing to deal with that even if it totally blew up in our faces?"

"The only thing that would really bother me," he started, turning to face me and leaning against the counter. "Is that if it blew up in our faces that would mean that, you know, it was public knowledge that you and Taylor were together and raising the kid. And that could cause you to get the kid taken away or something."

I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face, frowning at my beer bottle. "Yeah, I know."

We didn't talk anymore after that. I just sat there listening to Tay and Tabby playing piano in the other room while I tapped idly on the counter of the island. When the music stopped I heard Tabitha running into the kitchen before she was standing next to me, grinning ear to ear. I lifted her up onto my lap while she ranted about the new pool toy Isaac had just gotten for her and about how Taylor had promised that we'd take her to a movie on Friday night. Isaac went into the parlor to yell at Taylor about something after he'd said that dinner was ready so I got me and Tabitha situated at the table.

Tabs didn't really have much of an understanding of what mine and Taylor's relationship was. At almost five, I'm assuming that Isaac and/or Lindsey hadn't yet had a sex talk with her, let alone a homosexual sex talk. I'm not sure if she thought Taylor and I were just really close or if she had an understanding that we had a relationship like her mom and dad's had been. Generally speaking, it didn't really make much difference. That night, however, she was feeling particularly inquisitive.

"Uncle Zac?" she asked after she'd chewed a bite of her food. "Why're you and Tay holding hands?"

Isaac gave me a stern look and I smiled at Tabitha, squeezing Taylor's hand gently when I felt his body shaking from hidden giggles. "Um...because we love each other," I told her.

"Like you love Daddy?" she asked.

"Uh..." I glanced at Isaac and curled my lip. "Not...quite."

"Oh. Then how?" she asked, poking at her mashed potatoes.

"Your uncle Zac and I love each other like your grandma and grandpa love each other," Taylor explained to her once he'd stopped his silent laughter.

"Well," Isaac said with a clear of his throat and a pointed look in our direction. "I think that's enough of that conversation."

Once we'd finished eating, the conversation awkward after Isaac's abrupt end to our discussion, Taylor took Tabitha outside to play on her swing set for a while. "So, that was kind of weird," I said, piling up plates from the table to help him clean up.

"What?" He sounded a little defensive and I narrowed my eyes at him as I handed the plates over.

"The way you just changed the subject at dinner," I said. "Like you didn't want her to know about it."

"She's not even five yet, Zac," he said. I watched him open the dish washer and begin filling it with plates. "She's not going to understand."

"Don't you think you should tell her about it now so that she grows up with it rather than one day wondering why her uncles are making out in the hallway?" I knew my tone was a bit harsher than it should have been, but Isaac had never, not ever shown any sign that he was ashamed or disturbed or unhappy with mine and Taylor's relationship. He had always been the most supportive person towards us and I didn't like that maybe he wanted to hide it from his daughter.

"I just think it's going to confuse her," he said.

"It didn't confuse Zoe, Ike," I reminded him. "Tabs has been around us her whole life. You saw just now that she knows there's something different between me and Tay than there is with us and you, obviously she's already catching on. Don't you think it would be better to explain it to her than have her just wondering until she figures it out?"

"We haven't even had the sex talk, Zac," he told me. "She's practically still a baby. I don't think she needs to be exposed to-"

"Exposed?" I asked, incredulous. "To what? Our lifestyle?"

"That's...that's not what I meant," he stuttered, wide eyed.

"That's sure as hell what it fucking sounded like."

"Zac..."

"Whatever, Ike," I muttered, standing up and heading out of the kitchen. "Give us a call when you decide that your daughter can be exposed to your faggot brothers."

Maybe I was overreacting. Okay, I'm sure that I was overreacting and that he did not mean what he had said in that way, but it just kind of felt like he'd punched me in the gut when he'd said exposed. I felt kind of betrayed and let down, especially after the whole conversation about adoption that we'd had.

I stormed out into the back yard and said, "C'mon, Tay, we're leaving."

He opened his mouth to say something, but took a good look at me and closed his lips. "We'll see you soon, okay Tabby?" he knelt down in front of her and gave her a big hug and then we left. I didn't even really say goodbye to her.

* * * * * * * * * *

"So, are you going to tell me what that was about?" he asked me once we'd gotten home and I had stormed around the kitchen for a few minutes, throwing old leftovers away and organizing the condiments in the refrigerator. He had been quiet the whole ride home, which I was thankful for, but thinking about what Isaac said was just making me more and more angry every time I replayed his words.

"Isaac said he doesn't want to tell Tabitha that you and I are together because he doesn't want her to be exposed to it."

He looked about as shocked as I'd felt when Isaac had said it. "What?"

I sighed and sat next to him on the couch. "I just thought it was weird, you know, the way he didn't want that conversation to continue at the dinner table? And we got to talking and he said that. Exposed like. Like it's bad, like it's not something she should have to have as part of her life."

"Are you sure that's what he meant?" he asked, wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me against him.

I sighed and rested my head on his shoulder. "It sure sounded like it."

"And what'd you do?"

"Got totally out of control and told him to call us when he feels that Tabitha can be exposed to her faggot uncles."

"Za-ac," he whined. He dug his fingers into my side, making me squirm next to him because it kind of tickled and hurt and he knew that I hated it. "Why'd you have to do that? Now I'm going to end up being on the phone for an hour with mom tomorrow before dinner and I'm already mortified to talk to her."

"I'm sorry. It just really kind of hurt, you know? Especially after he'd spent a good fifteen minutes talking about our ability to adopt a kid."

"Really?"

"Yeah. He was saying, like...how if we really wanted to adopt a kid we'd figure it out and shit."

"He...said that?"

"Mmhmm. But then, you know, you get to the part where if anybody found out that we were raising it together, that we were in a relationship, the kid'd probably get taken away."

"Yeah," he sighed, slouching a bit more and making me sink with him because I was resting most of my upper body on his side by that point. "You should call him and apologize."

"He has to apologize first. I'm not the one that suggested that Tabitha was going to be exposed to something."

"But you didn't even let him...I know you and you probably totally overreacted before he could explain what he meant."

"I'll talk to him at dinner tomorrow, okay? You know if I call him now we'll just fight."

"Fine but you have to let me take pictures of you and Princess," he told me, scooping the cat up from her place on the couch and plopping her into my lap. "It is important for the scrap book to have pictures of her and her daddy."

* * * * * * * * * *

After Taylor spent a good hour forcing me to pose with the kitten and then made me take pictures of him and the kitten, I set him up in front of the television with Robin Hood playing and his scrap books. I retreated to the extra bedroom so that I could finish working on the DVDs I was supposed to have ready for Mom the next day. I'm not sure how I always got stuck in charge of putting together videos from trips and tours and family events, but it was nice to have something to do when Taylor got into one of his arts and crafts moods and I didn't feel like playing video games.

The video I had to finish was from the Fourth of July picnic, party, and fireworks display that we had had at our lake house. I had taken most of the footage with my camera but I had some files that Isaac and Dad sent me, too. I was almost done with the DVD, I just had to look through Isaac's videos from the fireworks and add those in and then I could burn it.

His first video was one of Tabitha running around between the blankets covered in people, screaming at the top of her lungs that she had lost her favorite doll. At the end of it, Taylor ended up chasing her down, scooping her up in his arms, and marching off with her to find the toy. It was really cute and I think I watched it at least five times before I shook my head and re-focused on the task of finishing the project. The next video was really quick and it was of Mom and Tabby pointing up at a firework that Dad had just set off into the sky. I didn't bother adding that one onto the DVD because I had a video almost identical to it that was already there. Mine was better because you could actually make out the purple and white lights that had just ignited in the sky and it was from the front so Tabitha's grin was lit up.

Then I opened the last file that he had sent me from the fireworks and I nearly choked on the tea I had been drinking. "Tay!" I shouted, starting the video over once I'd finished it. "Get in here!"

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