Current music:	The Taylor Hanson Band - Hey (From Underneath Acoustic)
Entry tags:	happiness is

Chapter Thirty-Five - Tequila

Plaything

Title: Tequila (35/??)
Author: tumbling_down
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2100
Genre: Hancest



Zac

"How was your duck?" Taylor asked me, poking at the food that was left over on my plate with his fork. He had his lip curled and he looked a lot more entertaining than he probably should have.

"Good. You want to try some?"

"Ew."

"Then stop touching it," I said, swatting his fork away with my own. "How was your fish?"

"It was good. I want cake. Or pie."

"You...do?"

"Yes."

"You didn't seem like you were all that hungry."

"I'm not," he said, but he had finished all of his food. "But I want something chocolate, anyway."

"Okay..."

Our waiter brought the dessert tray and waited patiently while Taylor decided between all of the options. He finally picked Chocolate and Mango Crème Brulée after making sure that I would share it with him. "I thought you wanted cake or pie."

He shrugged, twisting his napkin between his fingers. "Changed my mind."

"Do you want to do presents tonight or wait until Saturday?" I asked after a few moments of silence and Taylor staring contentedly someplace to the left of my face.

He watched avidly while our waiter torched the crème brulée in front of us before dropping his napkin back into his lap and picking up his spoon. "Dunno, what do you want?"

"Um...I guess tonight would be easiest," I said as he cracked the top of his dessert. "Then we don't have to worry about Tabitha."

"Why?" he asked. "I thought we agreed not to get each other anything kinky."

"Shut up," I said, kicking his shin lightly. "I just mean we won't have to arrange time to do it around her."

"Okay." We were quiet again while Taylor ate his dessert, me taking a bite once in a while but he seemed pretty determined to finish it so I let him. "I kinda want to go to LuLu's for a little bit," he said once he was finished, pushing the bowl away from him. He reached across our table and squeezed my hand in his briefly.

"Really?"

"Well, everyone knows it's our anniversary and Ethan said that we had to come in on Saturday...but I told him we were doing stuff today instead because we'd have Tabs."

"Why do we have to go in there?" I asked, really wanting to just go home and spend some alone time with him rather than a bar full of people.

"He said he wanted to give us a present," he shrugged, motioning for the waiter to come over. "I promise we won't stay for long."

"You always-"

"I promise I won't play a single game of pinball," he swore, taking the bill from the waiter. "We'll be there for, like, forty five minutes tops."

"Promise?"

"Cross my heart."

* * * * * * * * * *

LuLu's was pretty dead when we got there. We liked to go on Thursdays because there weren't many customers and we could hang out without worrying about fans or being made fun of by locals. We hadn't been going as much, lately, because we'd been spending most of our time at home. The few times we'd gone in the past month or so had been on completely random nights when Ethan didn't even work, so it really was nice to go in and see him. Still, it wasn't exactly what I would had wanted to do the night we were celebrating our ten year anniversary.

"Hello Hansons," Ethan said with a smile, putting two beers in front of us as we sat down.

Taylor had met Ethan years and years ago when he'd first come out. Mom had taken him to some meeting for gay teens and their parents and he and Ethan had become friends rather quickly. They didn't really hang out outside of LuLu's anymore, and even back then they mostly just e-mailed and talked on the phone, but they had been there for each other when they didn't really have anybody else to talk to that understood them. When Taylor and I had gotten together, Ethan had known before anybody else. He had even known before I did.

"How's it going?" Taylor asked, leaning over the bar and kissing him on the cheek.

"Pretty good. And how are you two? How's your celebration going?"

"Good," we both said. Taylor added, "We just got done with dinner. We're only gonna be here for, like, half an hour or so...then we're heading back home."

"Of course you are," he laughed.

"Shut up," Taylor mumbled, taking a drink of his beer. "We have to exchange gifts and we always watch a movie."

"I don't want to know what kinds of mov-"

"Ethan, I'm going to smash my glass over your head," I warned him and he laughed, turning away from us to go serve someone that had walked into the bar.

"He's really obsessed with our sex life," Taylor observed after a moment.

"Well, duh," I said, pinching his side until he pushed me. "I don't know anybody who wouldn't want to think about you naked."

"Ugh," he groaned. "That is so gross."

"Shut up."

"Gabby entering the bar," he warned quietly, looking like he was trying to hide behind his beer.

I looked up to the door and watched her walk in with two girls trailing behind her. "Hey...aren't those the two-"

"Who were following us around yesterday? Yeah."

"Well, at least they're friends with Gabby," I said with a shrug. She was probably the only local fan who didn't drive us absolutely insane. Sometimes she ended up places that we were at - I don't know if she followed us there or just happened to go there - but she was always respectful. She worked at the Arby's we went to by our old house - once again, I don't know if she got the job there because of us or if it just worked out that way - and we chatted with her once in a while because she never freaked out or went to the internet with our stories. She was the kind of person we wished weren't a fan because she seemed like she could be a relatively cool person to be friends with. It was too dangerous to take that chance, though.

"I really hope they don't talk to us," he said.

"You're the one who wanted to come here," I reminded him. "I was perfectly fine with going home, exchanging presents, watching Tron, and then having really, really amazing sex."

"We are so not watching Tron tonight," he informed me.

"What? Why not? It's my turn to pick."

"Tron though?!"

"It's only, like, the best Disney movie ever created."

"You're nuts."

"That's why you love me."

"...I'm not sure about that one," he said with a laugh, eyes on Ethan as he walked over towards us.

"The girls down there just bought you guys shots...what do you want?" he asked us, putting two shot glasses on the rail of the bar.

"Zac thinks Tron is the best Disney movie ever created," Taylor informed him. "Tell him about how wrong he is."

"You're really, really wrong," Ethan said but it was fairly obvious that he wasn't even paying attention to what Taylor had said. "What do you want to drink?"

"Tequila," I said. Taylor nodded his agreement and Ethan poured us two shots of Sauza.

"They opened a tab," he warned us. "And the two with the hair, they've got Hanson tattoos. I think they're going to buy you lots of shots."

Taylor groaned. "Maybe we'll leave sooner than we thought."

Ethan pouted at him and Taylor sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "We will stay until midnight," he told him. "So you better get as much money out of them as you can before then." Part of the reason we consistently went to LuLu's while Ethan was working was because he was having a bit of a rough spot with money. We weren't the kind of people to just give our friends money and he wasn't the kind of person who would just take it, so we made an effort to spend frivolously when he worked. He still tended to just give us beers when we didn't ask for anything else because he knew that's what we preferred.

Ethan gave us a thankful smile and then headed back to the other side of the bar. I squeezed his knee. "You're such a-"

"Shush," he muttered, picking up his shot.

"We could get totally trashed and take a taxi home," I told him. I honestly didn't know what the circumstances behind Ethan's financial situation were, but it seemed to bother Taylor enough to let me know that it was rather serious.

"I thought that you wanted to go home, watch The Legend of Bagger Vance, and then have amazing sex," he said as we held up our glasses towards the girls and drank the shot.

He made a face and took a drink of his beer. "We always have really amazing sex when you're drunk," I laughed while he blushed a little.

"I'm going to start playing pinball if you keep making fun of me," he warned.

"You promised that you wouldn't. And I'm not making fun of you! I'm stating fact, here, what do you want?"

Ethan headed back towards us and said, "Two more shots on the girls. They said to tell you that you look amazing in your matching little suits." He put the shots onto the bar. "I told them that Zac'll probably be using his tie to tie you-"

"Ethan!" Taylor screamed a little louder than necessary, his cheeks turning red again. I gave his knee a tight squeeze and eyed the girls across the bar. His shriek had gotten their attention and it looked like they were getting ready to head our way.

"I should give you your present now, huh?" he asked.

"You didn't ha-"

"I wanted to get you something," he said, cutting Taylor off. "Ten years is a long time, especially in your situation, and I've been around for all of it, you know?"

He bent over to retrieve a very carefully wrapped present and then set it down on the bar in front of us. "You probably shouldn't open it until you leave here," he warned.

"Why?" I asked, putting my beer down and lifting up the gift. "Is it-"

"Well, Tay told me you two agreed not to buy anything fun for each other, so I got something fun for you," he said with a grin. "And there's also something normal in there. But it...just, don't open it until you get home, you know?"

"Sure," we agreed and then he walked away because the three girls were right at our backs.

"Hey Gabby," Taylor said, smiling slightly over the beer he was about to take a drink of.

"Hey guys. Sorry to, like, interrupt you and everything, but um. My friends here, Jodi and Nancy, they just came to visit from Colorado and they wanted to say hi."

"Where in Colorado?" I asked.

"Boulder," the one that Gabby had pointed to when she said Nancy said. "It's really boring."

"As boring as Tulsa?" I asked with a laugh.

We talked to them for a little while - probably a good fifteen to twenty minutes total. They told us about the tattoo shop that they own in Boulder, which was pretty cool to hear about, and they even admitted to following us to the tattoo/piercing shop. Normally fans don't admit things like that, but they were curious about Taylor's belly button ring and why he'd done it, though they didn't ask to see it. Despite the fact that they had followed us around the day before, they were actually pretty down to earth and not like most of our fans at all.

By the time it was midnight and Ethan reminded us of the time - thank God - the girls had bought us a lot more shots than I could count. Taylor was incredibly drunk and I was having a difficult time putting words together. Gabby, Jodi, and Nancy had been drinking what seemed to be a mixture of apple Pucker and white soda, so they were actually pretty sober compared to us. "Alright," I said, standing up and putting Ethan's gift to us into Taylor's bag. "It was nice meeting the two of you but it's about time for us to get home."

Taylor leaned over the bar and kissed Ethan on the cheek goodbye and I groaned inwardly when I saw the expressions on the girls' faces - they were totally going to think he was Taylor's boyfriend or something, but I so didn't care right then. We headed out of the bar and to the taxi that was waiting for us, thanks to Ethan, and Taylor flopped against me in the backseat, smiling faintly. "That was actually pretty cool," he said. "It's fun when we meet fans that aren't psycho."

"Mmhmm," I agreed. "But now I can't wait to get you home and give you your present."

"And then ravish me until morning?"

"I can't think of anything else I'd rather do with my time."

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