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He's up far too late for his age. Though, even tired old dogs like himself can pick up new tricks and routines if they're motivated enough. Out of concern, out of charity. Loneliness, too, if he must be honest. But he sets those thoughts aside, as it's late, and there's a particular corner of the city he must attend to.
The lone figure stands statuesque within the pedestal of light on the street corner. Bathed in dim yellow, shrouded in a haughty coat. Long legs lacking modesty and propped in heeled boots that threaten the slush puddles with their spikes.
A gust of 3 A.M. wind tears through the street. The figure tugs their coat closer while their hair whips like banners in the winter shear.
From inside a warm cabin, Kabu tips his steering wheel towards the curb. His cab rolls to a squelching stop, and he keeps his gaze deliberate and aligned with his headlights. He knows better than to gaze at what's not his. The figure isn't here for him, no, but his wheels, locked doors, and ability to mind his own business.
Three high-heeled clacks, and the rear door opens. Frigid air pours into the car, cut short by a harsh thud.
"The usual?" he asks.
Weary silence is the only confirmation he needs.
He nods, releases his brake, and turns up the heat.
There's no conversation. Only the dull roar of aircon and the rumble of asphalt beneath his tires, as he drives his passenger through the cold lonely night.
- - -
Kabu remembers, every time. Every drive.
At first, it was pity that drove him to slow down and check on the skinny figure posing against the cold hard wall on that particular run-down block. Then, surprise, when they'd slipped into his cab and slumped forward scrubbing their knuckles into mascara-heavy eyes. They'd dropped a single low apology (voice deeper than Kabu expected from such a pretty face), and asked how much the fare would be to drop him off on the opposite side of the block.
For such a short distance, Kabu had lied and said no charge. The drive was all too short, but Kabu counted every second as he kept half an eye on the figure in the rearview mirror.
Young. Tough—all in their tired eyes and haunt of their face—and beautiful in the way that invites misfortune.
Kabu held his tongue, and kept his business localized to the driver's seat where it belonged. This was just one passenger out of many. A nameless figure, a drop in the sea, a person who would forget him once they left him, just as he would forget them, once he had deposited them for free upon a similarly cracked sidewalk and drove back to corners of town more well-lit.
Their exit, curt. Eager to vanish.
Their presence had managed to linger, much to his surprise. A dark floral perfume clung to the interior after they'd ducked out like a ghost caught in the light. Jasmine, burnt caramel, leather and musk. It masked the faded smoke that Kabu had long gone nose-blind to, and lurked amidst his thoughts for the rest of the night.
That was the first ride.
He had done a very poor job of forgetting, and has learned what a lost cause it is to try.
It's not like it can hurt anything, or anyone, to keep someone in mind, and keep an eye open for them. And not charge them for his own folly of caring.
- - -
New details leap out from the backseat every time Kabu picks the stranger up. Same corner, same hour, same exhaustion that slips into his cab. Different things to notice.
Some nights it's smudged lipstick. Others, it's hair tangled beyond immediate repair.
Torn fishnets.
Shaky hands.
A bruise.
Any time he's caught looking, his reflection is scorned with a warning glare. Frigid, piercing, a cornered alley cat's glare. He knows now, to keep his eyes on the road, but that doesn't stop his mind from seating itself by his passenger's side out of pure concern.
Simple compassion, unvoiced, withheld, for a stranger. Nothing more. He can have that much if he keeps it to himself.
In his backseat, buckled in, they wipe their messy mouth clean. They fuss with the rat's nest that is their hair. They test the tenderness of the blossoming splotches on their skin. Pale fingers massage the border between purple and porcelain, and while the bearer of the bruises doesn't flinch or hiss or betray any discomfort, Kabu winces internally on their behalf. He remembers, from his younger rough-and-tumble days before moving to this country, how tiresome it was to constantly sport some form of low-level injury.
Kabu assumes, as much as he's allowed to assume of a complete stranger, that if they were still standing on that weary corner, they wouldn't be able to focus on caring for themself like this.
Here, at least, there's locked doors. Distance from that dismal street. And a cabbie who knows how to mind his business. And it really isn't that far out of Kabu's usual way. He can afford this little kindness.
Whenever he makes the final leg home, to crash inside his apartment and suffer through the necessary rituals that keep him human, he does his best to put them out of mind, only to press his cheek to the hard flat pillow and think of their perfume.
- - -
Tonight, they enter the heat of his cab missing something. The choker that adorns their neck, that Kabu never paid much mind to before, is gone. In its place is an ugly shape, still framed with irritated red, crushed into their flesh like a stain.
Kabu's chest tightens when the implication in the mirror seeps past his shock. The wrapping of the steering wheel creaks beneath his grip, and he takes longer than usual to pull away from the dirty curb.
Piers coughs in the manner of someone trying not to be found in a closet or under the bed. A stifled, wretched sound.
The nearest emergency clinic is eight blocks west and nineteen north.
His mouth opens. Before he can finish his breath, that piercing gaze full of something finds him in the mirror, pins his compulsiveness in place, and his words die in his throat.
They're right. It isn't his place.
With guilt creeping down his silent throat, he resets the meter, and drives.
They don't say a word the whole trip, but the air inside the cabin prickles at him. There's a precipice, a teetering, and Kabu can almost smell salt.
Eyes on the road. Hands on the wheel. Concerns to himself. The boxiness of the driver's seat defines his cage. The emptiness of the passenger's mocks him.
Still, the mind wanders beyond its confines; he hopes that right now, despite the pain his stranger must feel in their throat, they feel safe. A cab should be safe. A ferry, passage guaranteed through the chaos of the city, where nothing bad can touch the passenger so long as they remain within its steel walls and a reliable cabbie's hands.
He can sense their gaze on the side of his head.
When his guest leaves, as they inevitably must, a crumpled twenty dollar bill lies in the space they used to occupy.
They don't seem the type to leave money behind on accident. He twists around and reaches across the border of the backseat to grab it.
Kabu thumbs the bill smooth, creases its creases the opposite way, rubs the wrinkled corners flat.
Because he's an old fool, he notices that it smells like jasmine and leather. Because he's an old fool, he folds the bill neatly and tucks it into the sunshade above him, next to the small stash of business cards kept in the same place.
He thinks of their eyes in the mirror that night. Cold in color, defiant, and begging for something. Begging for something from him. His silence, his ignorance—he can't decipher what in hindsight. His care? To look the other way, as dozens of others must have done and still do today?
He can't tell if he passed a test, or failed it. Old fool.
He treads along the city's roads with half his mind left behind at the previous stop.
- - -
So long as they're out there waiting for him, he pulls up to their corner. To the flickering lighthouse they anchor themselves to in the night, and welcomes them aboard to safety. He'll ferry them away from there, like he does every night, without judgment. He'll take them away.
He wants, badly enough that it stiffens his ankle over his accelerator, to take them away from there.
He doesn't even know if the stop they request is safe, or just another corner to man.
He hopes that it's close to their home. He hopes they head straight there, to home, and he hopes they have something warm to eat after staying out so late. A hot shower. A warm bed. Anything, in these dregs of bitter November.
So long as they're standing there in the night, he'll be there to pick them up, and turn the heater on so their hands stop shaking.
- - -
It's a night of light rain. His windshield wipers catch and shunt aside the accumulation of water, and all the scattered color the droplets contain. If he lets the weather fall and rest on his glass, the city blurs and fragments, trapped in a million tiny lenses that shield him from the reality they reflect—until enough clump together and cascade down in rivers and smears. Warped ripples.
His windows are transformed in the rain, into opaque walls that separate him from the rest of the world.
The light blares green. Kabu flicks his wipers back on. A mechanical whir, a black swipe, and the glossy streets and tall buildings greet him in full, temporary clarity. Distant windows on distant buildings, most dark, some pinpricks of light that speak of the life still active at this hour. And him, in his little steel cage, comforted by the dim glow of the dashboard, and a quiet radio.
He thinks of the tiny studio waiting for him. Its warm bed. The coat rack near the scuffed door where he'll hang his jacket and cap. They'll need to be dry-cleaned, soon. When he can find the time. At his age, he can't forego sleep, and his free hours have diminished as of late.
Kabu flicks his turn signal for nobody besides good habit, and cranks the steering wheel starboard. Down Bancroft, past the slick motorway exit, through an unnamed side street, and onto Blackwood.
He has somewhere to be.
Same corner, same hour, same exhaustion waiting for him.
Although... This time, when they yank his door open, he's confronted with the suspicion that they've left more of their exhaustion behind than usual, and slip into his cab with less of it burdening their shoulders.
Strangely, their eyes stay closed for the whole ride. Every glance Kabu steals from the rearview mirror is different; the shadows cast by raindrops on glass over pallid skin, the shifting hues of establishment lights cast inside their sanctuary. Blue from a shop sign, a flash of white from oncoming headlights making a turn through the intersection. Yellow, red. Red. Red.
A shadow trickles over their scarlet throat.
Green.
Their thick, lovely brows pinch, and their head shifts upon the tattered headrest, and a terse relaxation overtakes their face, cast in stoplight emerald.
Green means go.
Kabu treats the accelerator and brakes like delicate instruments, as if a rickety old cab like his might resemble a cradle if he tries hard enough to be gentle.
The way their head lolls when Kabu takes a particularly pothole-ridden turn with as much care as he can, threading the needle with his tires in a convoluted weave through pitted asphalt, tells him that his passenger isn't conscious to notice the pains he takes.
Kabu guides his cab against the street corner, the destination, that's become so familiar to him. His vehicle idles; the meter ticks.
He glances in the rearview again. Decides to shift himself into park. His foot lifts off the worn brake, and he crosses his arms comfortably over his chest. Gas is cheaper today, anyways. No harm in a moment of quiet.
It's late, after all. And in the silence, the rain pittering and pattering upon the roof and windows, the engine rumbling warmly around them, he wishes to keep his passenger a little longer. If only to let them rest in a place he knows is safe.
Once they leave, he doesn't know what happens to them. It's better to keep them. He can disguise this selfishness as generosity if he thinks about it the right way. It's a little reprehensible of him to try and make the excuses, but here he is, stealing the time anyways.
The rain subsides into a mist, and the world goes even quieter.
In the distance, a police siren wails with the volume of a kitten, and Kabu frowns.
In the mirror, his passenger's eyes snap open like they were wide awake the whole time. They assess the cab, the purring of the engine, surrounding buildings. Kabu subtly resets the meter with a click, before their keen gaze can deduce any inconvenience or burden on him. He's got a spare twenty to cover what the engine burned to keep the heat on, after all.
"Thanks," they croak, messy bangs obscuring their face, and fumble for the door handle. Kabu curtly tips his head without watching them leave.
He must have mistaken their tired tone for gratitude. He shouldn't go looking for signs like that, after all. He's just a nameless cabbie who happened to find a new routine, and the only signs he can heed are ones bolted and hung from the streets.
- - -
3:13 A.M.
They roll past a derelict city park. Bushes overgrown, styrofoam cups with petrol station logos and empty bottles scattered amongst the weeds.
A temporary road closure caused the detour. Men at work, the signs say, in front of the ghost town of a budding construction site. His mental map of the one-ways and alleys, the calculations of distance and time, took him onto this route instead. He hopes his passenger trusts that he's bringing them to their usual intersection, even if the path there is unfamiliar.
"You're losin' money on all these free rides," a smooth voice says from the dark in the back. Always deeper than he expects. "Must be loaded if ye can afford the charity."
Kabu is suddenly conscious of his posture in the driver's seat. He tweaks the heater, and straightens his shoulders professionally.
"Your destination happens to be on my way home." It's not entirely false. The detour only adds an additional six minutes to his final commute, those six minutes possible only because of the late hour and lack of traffic. "And you're my last customer of the night."
A flicker of motion in the rearview mirror. Kabu glances at the reflection, half to check for anyone behind them.
His passenger has a compact mirror out, and wipes beneath their eyes and smooths over a brow. Their long fingers pause mid-motion, and they suddenly shake their head and snap the mirror shut. It disappears into their bag. Kabu focuses entirely on the road by the time their head lifts—the painted lines, dented traffic cones, bus stops that have seen better days.
They make a quiet, mindful sound that feels far louder than it actually is. A pin dropped in a closed cavern.
"Guess I can't say no to bein' the client for once. Keep drivin', then."
There's a pause.
"And take the long way 'round."
- - -
Their name is Piers, Kabu learns on the next ride.
They don't ask for his name, so he doesn't give it. He's just a cabbie, after all. The listener, the guide, the temporary. Made to be forgotten.
They—he, Piers—doesn't hide the obvious about himself. Sex work is rewarding yet rough work, and the man shares a bit more every time, explanations that correspond to the state of himself every time he climbs into Kabu's cab. Details that do his stress no favors at all.
He wonders why Piers shares at all. Logic says it's to feel better; a willing ear to listen to his woes. Cabbies are great for that, after all. Kabu has plenty of experience being made into an unpaid therapist by the distraught and the indignant who need to catch a ride.
The sneaky little part of him, the part that dreams of overcoming what he is, hopes that his passenger talks out of a sense of camaraderie.
Regardless of motivation, Piers talks, and Kabu listens.
There's a little sister he takes care of from afar. Sends money every week, as much as he can. Kabu doesn't ask how much he leaves for himself to get by. Those fishnets have the same hole in them as always, near the inner thigh.
Most clients, Piers shares, don't get rough. But among the ones that stay civil, plenty don't hide their sense of shame, or disdain, or embarrassment, over being in the same room with someone like me.
Kabu wants to say, I don't mind being in the same room with you. I quite like your company. Every time I pick you up, I wish the drive was longer.
He hides his feelings and keeps it professional, as the one behind the wheel. Instead, he steals his glances in the rearview mirror, and hopes that the message comes across regardless.
He gets a small, reflected smile, made brilliant in an instant by a streetlamp they pass.
The emptiness of the passenger seat yawns wider than ever. The road beneath his tires is particularly loud, the rumble and texture of it transferring through his body, occupying its emptiness.
Know your place, the road whispers to him.
"Bye," Piers says upon climbing out this time, with a wave of painted nails that Kabu tries to catch from his peripheral vision.
He doesn't turn to look. He can't. The seatbelt strapping him to his place feels tight over his chest and hips, and his hands seem bolted to the wheel.
From the edge of his sight, Piers pauses, and turns, and blows him away all over again. "See you next time?"
The air leaves his lungs, and his hands loosen from their place.
He dares to turn his head, mouth open to say something yet unknown, but it's too late. Piers is already meandering down the block, long hair tousled in the biting wind of the night.
- - -
A loud honk screams at him from behind. Easily ignored.
Kabu smoothly swerves into the next lane the instant a large enough gap promises to open up, and the car behind him slams their gas and accelerates one car-length forward, only to pound the brakes so as not to rear-end the truck Kabu used to be behind.
Amateurs.
The winter sunlight is harsh, reflecting off windows and trunks and chrome bumpers, half-melted snow and road signs.
The passenger in his backseat pays no mind to the chaos of the traffic, nose buried in her phone.
Silver spikes wink and sparkle from her ears. It makes him think of Piers.
On the sidewalk yonder there, an old woman shuffles along with a minuscule dog on a leash, bundled in a bright pink coat so fluffy it's almost spherical. It makes him think of Piers.
He brakes at a sidewalk crossing and waits for the bidirectional flood of people to subside. A person in high heels despite the weather—a man with a swishing high ponytail—a punk sporting heavy eye makeup. All part of the crowd, here and gone as they rush across the street.
He shouldn't get attached. It's a tale as old as time, isn't it? Deluded old men convinced that they have a chance with a pretty prostitute who pays them the time of day. Thinking that they're special.
He isn't special. Their relationship is transactional as it gets. A service rendered, a service built for goodbyes.
But, Kabu reminds himself, he isn't a client. He doesn't pay Piers to spend time with him, nor does Piers spend anything to pay attention to him. He has no expectations of his passengers beyond basic courtesy and participation in the contract of taxi: Take me somewhere that isn't here. Yet Piers talks to him now. Smiles at him at times, and it's such a pretty smile. Just thinking about it now makes him straighten up on the vinyl.
But, Kabu reminds himself again, he's just an old cabbie. A job that's as transient as it gets in the city. There are thousands and thousands piloting cars just like his. People enter his space, they leave, they forget, they see him as interchangeable to all others driving the same shiny black numbered cars. Most don't even speak to him (from experience, he knows plenty assume he can't speak English well enough to bother).
He isn't special. His place in the city is for people to spend as little time with him as possible. The sooner they leave, the better of a job he's done.
"See you next time?"
The light changes, and Kabu is a microsecond too slow to release his brakes. Nobody notices or honks at him for it, but he chides himself for slipping.
He has a job to do.
It's only ever a job.
Even when it's "charity." Even when he misses the person who shadows his backseat like a ghost, who he wishes to protect like something dear. As laughable as that concept is for a daydreaming old fool like him.
- - -
It's 3 A.M. again, and Piers isn't at his usual corner.
Kabu parks, turns off the engine, and crosses his arms to keep his hands warm.
He does his best to think of practical, attainable things. Grocery shopping. Laundry. A small vacation sometime, to visit home. Ah, but it wouldn't sit right to leave the country without giving Piers notice, nor would it sit right at all to abandon him with the weather so abysmal. Perhaps they could work out a schedule—
And there he goes again, with these ridiculous flights of fancy. Why entertain the thought that Piers would care about his schedule, or him being gone for a time? Nonsense.
"See you next time?"
Next time should be tonight, and here he is parked at an empty corner.
He isn't allowed to be disappointed. Actively squashes the impulse of it like a roach beneath his heel. Piers didn't have to mean next time as in the very next night. Next time is just... whenever the next time happens. No commitment. No expectations.
The best he can do, at this stage of emotional conundrum, is maintain consistency. Just keep showing up. It's an honor to provide a little stability in the life of one so weary. No more ambitious fantasies. He'll satisfy himself with his current routine, and take joy in being there for them in this small, meaningless way. He'd do well to remember his humility. Too much time stuck in the same box has made his brain itch for bigger things, but no more. No more.A sharp rapping startles Kabu from his frowning meditation. Acrylic nails and the frantic slap of palms on glass.
"What on..." he twists, mouth open, and stalls anew at the raw, potent panic within arm's reach. Those eyes are begging him for something. He isn't about to waste time searching for what.
Kabu unlocks the doors right as his passenger yanks at the handle. Piers shoves himself inside and gracelessly hauls the door shut. The sound of tinny breathing fills the small space, and when one particularly shallow exhale carries a soft, cobweb-weak whimper, his concepts of humility and consistency fly out the window.
The shadow of the nearest alley shudders and splits into two, and the one with legs takes a single step towards them.
Kabu fires the engine and strikes the gas before Piers can buckle up or say a word. Tires squeal and bite into the wet asphalt, and they flatten into their seats. The pressure only releases their chests once he's accelerated past the end of the block, skimming past a yellow intersection just in time for it to hurl red at his bumper. West on Blackwood. Their usual route.
Kabu glances frantically in the mirror as he speeds down the road. Piers is twisted in place, peering through the rear window like he expects something to chase them.
"Fuck. Shit—" Piers wheezes and clutches his chest, and collapses in place along the length of the backseat.
The dim street lights flash into the cab like torches thrown past prison bars. Piers remains half-collapsed in the mirror, hair tangled and tumbled over his shoulders, thrown into harshness with every lamp that flickers by.
Kabu turns off Blackwood onto Archer Street. A new route, with no particular destination in mind.
He can't hold his tongue any longer. Not when his passenger is gulping down air and seems about to crumple like a paper crane in somebody's fist.
"Are you alright?" he asks, merging haphazardly into a motorway exit. More speed, more distance, away from whatever frightened his passenger so badly.
"No, I—" Piers' voice cracks and spills more desperation. "I don't know, I can't— just—"
"Hush," Kabu says, betraying more emotion than anticipated. "Breathe. I've got you."
You're safe here.
In the backseat, Piers drags himself upright, buckles in with shaky hands, and breaks down crying.
Kabu drives.
The motorway is busy, even at this ungodly hour. The needle of his speedometer climbs and climbs until he's cruising as fast as he knows he can get away with. Red tail lights statically shift ahead; behind, yellowed headlights blind.
He waits until the sniffling and gulping behind him subsides into miserable sniffles.
"Where should I take you?" he gently asks.
"Dunno," Piers says. He sounds defeated. Alone. "Anywhere."
Kabu drums his fingers along the steering wheel, and weighs the next several immediate futures. As someone who knows the city like the back of his hand, it's his duty to bring people to where they need to be, even if he has to supply it for them. So, in times like this...
"I think I know a good place."
"Y... Yeah?"
"Yeah," he says, mirroring Piers' casual speech. "No charge."
Kabu can sense the gaze probing the back of his head, and he focuses on the dashed lines of the motorway, racing, glowing bright as neon in the onslaught of his headlights. They lurch beneath him in perfect tempo with his pounding heart.
Piers' voice is gentle, and it crawls into his chest and warms him from the inside. "Thank you. Er..."
"Kabu," he shares at last, his name breaking free of confinement self-imposed. "My name is Kabu."
"Kabu," Piers says, and it's laced with relief, and a little bit of savouring. He doesn't read into it. "I didn't think you'd ever want to tell me."
He doesn't know what to say to that. So he does what he knows best: continues to drive. At the speed limit, this time, instead of over it.
Their destination is of his choosing this time. A location he's intimately familiar with, not through the requests of clients, but his own, off-the-clock desires.
Twenty silent, sniffled minutes later, Kabu pulls them to a stop at last. The keys jangle in his ignition, and Kabu tucks them into his vest pocket. His engine, silent. His seatbelt, louder than it's ever been when he clicks it loose.
He pries his hand off his gear shift, and unlocks his doors. Takes a quiet, bracing breath.
For the first time, they step out of the vehicle together.
For the first time, Kabu has an excuse to really face his special passenger head on, nothing between them—but a touch of insecurity, or habit, he can say, keeps him angled away, under the pretense of guiding the other to this impromptu finish line.
He leads them inside the cramped, well-lit box of a restaurant. It's the only place in this corner of town that stays open this late and fits his standards of quality.
It isn't until they've stood within the warmth for a few moments, eyeing the chalk-scrawled menu, that Piers speaks his first sentence of the night that sounds like his usual self, albeit with a plugged-up nose.
"You're shorter 'n I thought you'd be."
Kabu snorts despite the stress of the situation. Or perhaps because of it. It's easier to talk when he's facing straight ahead. Habit. "I'll take it as a compliment if my personality implies a more imposing stature than I have."
"Now that you say it, it kind of does. The whole strong, stoic thing works on you."
Piers is skilled at making men's hearts race. Habit must still be driving him, as well.
He leads them to a table for two, crammed against the yellowed wall pinned with old photos and newspaper cuttings, and ensures that Piers has the seat with a view of the exit.
No avoiding it now. The chairs face each other so intimately, inescapably. It would be rude to lower his gaze at this point. He has to look. Hasn't he dreamed of a moment like this? But, he's only dreamed about it because of his certainty for its impossibility. He never thought this—the restaurant, the proximity, the opportunity to offer this bruised flower real safety—would ever fall before him. It was a safe, indulgent dream.
Now that he's face to face with it—in the most literal sense—it would be cowardly to back down. Who knows when a chance like this might arise again.
He straightens his back and flicks his gaze straight forward.
Piers is as enchanting as he was in the mirror. Reddened eyes and nose, ruined makeup, tangled hair and all. The younger man sits politely. Shoulders drawn together, eyes... lowered to the table.
The pang of guilt tolls like a church bell and nearly makes his head ring.
They must look like escort and client together like this. Foolish, to put his beloved passenger in a situation like this, like work. They're here to forget about work; he'll be damned if he doesn't take charge and guide the mood towards where it needs to be.
Kabu clears his throat and catches the attention of the lone chef behind the counter. With a raised hand, he beckons for two of his usual, and the man disappears with a professional nod.
"I come here often. It's a wonderful place for a warm meal at odd hours. Please, my treat."
"No- no, you've treated me too much." Piers tries to fix some of his hair. It snags on his earrings, and he gives up with an apologetic grimace. "Can't let ya buy me dinner, too."
"I certainly think you can." He tries a little playfulness, and gestures to where the chef already disappeared. "It's already happening."
He watches a protest spark and die in Piers' throat in real time.
"I'll pay ya back," the younger man mumbles.
"Nonsense."
"No, I really should. Can't let ya do that fer me on top of everythin' else. Please." Piers shifts in place, shoulders like rigid shields, and the implications that Kabu should have known already rattle him.
Transactions. Nothing is for free in either of their worlds. Piers must hate a debt.
"You've already indulged me with your company," Kabu is quick to assert, desperate to spin this in a soothing way. "Your presence the only payment I could ask for. Truly, I expect nothing."
Piers' pale hands find a napkin to wring. One of his black acrylic nails is missing, Kabu notices. The poor thing is in a sorry state, indeed. If only he had a damp cloth to help with. Black streaks of makeup draw bedraggled lines over the man's cheekbones; that, coupled with the reddened eyes and damp nose, makes for a sight that Kabu reluctantly admits would frighten a small child.
Food arrives, steaming bowls of noodles with an extra egg each. And, it seems, a pair of buns he didn't explicitly order.
Kabu sends an unspoken blessing towards the chef, quietly expresses his intent to enjoy under his breath, and grabs his chopsticks.
"Oh, my apologies. Do you know how to use...?"
"Yeah." Piers snaps out of some daze and breaks apart the wooden sticks. "Yeah, I... 'M not that clueless."
"I wouldn't have implied so."
Piers chews his lips, mute again.
Clearly, the change in scenery is yet to do the man any favors, and the recent past still shadows his frame as well. Whatever it is that happened, Kabu has no intention of forcing him to return to it. Curiosity can wait until their stomachs are no longer empty.
Now, he thinks, it's his turn to talk.
"Being here again," he wistfully begins as if the awkward silence never bloomed, lifting a steaming column of curled noodles from the bowl, "actually reminds me of a story. When I was a younger cabbie..."
He tells stories of past customers. Humorous ones, interesting ones, people who brightened his day and enriched his life, or gave him new perspectives on humanity as a whole, whether they spoke directly to him or not. Back when he was younger, with a more incendiary personality, his passengers were more likely to grant him company beyond just a warm body in his backseat. Nostalgia colors his voice more kind.
Mostly, he tries to pick the stories that will make Piers laugh. It's a rather desperate mission, despite his outward calm. He's never been the type to seek laughter in others, always too serious (intimidating, he's been called) to think it possible. But with every anecdote he can scrape from the recesses of his memory, the tense lines in Piers' hands fade away, and the spark in the other man's eyes begins to flicker to the forefront once again.
By the time Kabu has nearly reminisced himself hoarse, a smile appears. It's dazzling and tired, a gleam akin to a tarnished locket on some forgotten antique shop shelf.
True to his promise, Kabu covers the bill, and to his immense satisfaction, Piers doesn't provide any last-minute attempts to keep his wallet from leaving his pocket, too busy avoiding the attention of the host, who graciously treats them like any other customer.
The night air tastes cleaner than it has in a while.
"Thanks," Piers says, muffled in the collar of his own fluffy coat.
Kabu waves off the implication that he did any favor. "I was also hungry. It was of no trouble to me, and I enjoyed your company."
The silence that follows is swollen with some obscured meaning, a thought on the tip of the other's tongue. Piers reveals nothing, and Kabu doesn't pry.
"Here." He holds the cab's rear door open with a clean gesture inside, chauffeur style.
A skeptical hum. A skeptical narrowing of eyes. Kabu doesn't budge, but the seconds drag as slow as they do when he's witness to an accident on the road.
His heart falls when Piers turns on a spiked heel and walks in another direction entirely. Is he leaving? No, he's—thank goodness, choosing the other side of the cab. Still, to have his offer rejected so clearly...
"This one."
"Pardon?"
An elegant nail points at the passenger seat door. Kabu jolts, and rushes (as professionally as possible) to open it for him, with as much polite decorum as before.
Piers slides into the passenger seat with the grace of a golden age celebrity.
"Shall we?"
It takes everything in him to not leap over the hood in his haste to get behind the wheel. The engine flares to life, and the gear shift fits securely in his grasp. The cab thrums with fiery new energy, and so does he. For once his backseat is empty and a warm presence accompanies his side. Piers lounges like he's sat there a hundred times before, nails undergoing a leisurely inspection in the dark.
"Where to?" he asks, loftily just to be cheeky, like he drives a limousine, with the privilege of escorting the most prized face in this country, streaky makeup and all.
Piers sinks deeper onto the old vinyl, lips pursed tiredly, thoughtful. He chews on some words, rolls them in his elegant mouth before finally choosing a morsel to speak aloud, tossing his bangs nonchalantly like he isn't about to throw Kabu's perspective askew.
"Take me home."
Before Kabu can have a heart attack over any double meaning, Piers gives him an address that calms his heart. He commits it to the map in his brain with a pin of enormous importance without meaning to, and his mind's eye supplies a view of the destination. An old street half-buried beneath an busy overpass, potholes patched half-heartedly or not at all, sidewalks crumbling, no trees. It'll be a building near the end. The one with the row of boarded windows along the bottom floor, perhaps; but for Piers' sake, he hopes not.
Piers saw fit to call it home. Kabu will pull up to the address with the same respect as he would if it were that of a five star hotel.
"Right away, sir."
"Not that nonsense. You know my name."
"Right away, Piers."
"Too formal."
Kabu polices his mouth into a neutral line when all it wants to do is leap like a gleeful schoolboy's.
In a fit of rebellious indulgence, he revs the engine and drags the gear shift into drive with a satisfying rush of thunks.
"Let's hit the road."
Piers grins wickedly. "That's more like it."
He pulls away from the curb like there's fire beneath his wheels. They squeal for the second time tonight, and it's a joyful sound. It's rude, unbelievably and unthinkably rude to make such a racket at this hour in the city, but the laughter of the man by his side stirs his long-dormant delinquency like a fan to a flame.
He does, of course, cool it with the gas after he's made enough of a point. Safety first, and what's the rush this time? For the first time in a long, long time, his head and heart are clear as the windows surrounding them.
Five blocks of pre-dawn cruising, and a cool touch finds his knuckles over the wheel. His breath jostles, and a sidelong glance makes his heart pound. Piers tugs, and Kabu goes willingly.
Their hands fold together over the center console. Bony, silken fingers held securely in his weathered palm. By the time they reach the next light, Piers' fingers are no longer cold.
Driving like this, with only one hand gripping the noon of the wheel, body relaxed, caution the last thing on his mind, brings back memories. He almost feels the weight of age leave him. It certainly helps that he's got a pretty young thing in the passenger seat. The only piece missing is for some cocky sports car to rev its engine next to him, growling a challenge he would never think to lose.
"I used to want to be a singer," Piers reveals as if commenting on the weather. "Didn' work out for me, as ya can guess. If I ever managed to strike it big, I bet I coulda had a personal driver haulin' me around just like this."
"I've thought about becoming a chauffeur," Kabu reveals in turn. "But I hear most celebrities actually have terrible personalities."
Piers chuckles, a low, wistful thing. "Maybe it's a good thing I never made it, then. When you're a sex worker, everybody expects you to have a terrible personality deep down. Suits me just fine."
"On the contrary," he quickly says, "I think you're rather sweet."
"Me?" Piers says, incredulous. "I was suspicious a' you from day one, hardly wanted to give ya the time of day. Right mean to ya. 'M sorry for that. Can't really blame me for not bein' in a mood to entertain, though, can ya."
Kabu nods, and strokes his thumb along swan-soft skin. "No, I cannot."
"God." Piers' head thuds softly against the headrest. "Never thought a life of suckin' cock for money might lead me to this," he theatrically sighs. "Takin' free rides from charitable strangers. I'm practically extortin' you."
"Nonsense. As I've said before, it's no inconvenience to me."
"Like pickin' me up from that corner so often is easy? I know every cabbie that haunts that miserable corner of town. You ain't one of 'em. ...'Least, ya weren't back then."
"I can do whatever I like with my own routine," Kabu smoothly counters, and turns the corner with a solo-handed round sweep of the wheel. "Something told me I should switch it up."
"By pickin' up a street whore every other day?"
"...Shall I repeat the first part?"
Piers' laugh is as sharp as his humor.
"Touché. Oh, and I shouldn't really call you a stranger anymore. Not when I finally know your name." Piers fingers roll in his grasp, prominent knuckles scraping the sandpaper of his palm. "Why'd you never tell me 'til now?"
"You never asked for it. I didn't wish to assume that you would want to know."
"Oh, so it's my bad, then? I ain't in the habit of askin' people for their names. Most don't want it known by someone like me. The more anonymous they can stay, the better. I'm bad for reputations."
Kabu's ears turn a modest shade of red. "Most would never bother to remember the name of a driver. I never thought to offer it first. My apologies."
"Hey, I'll remember," Piers says, tickling his palm again. The feathery heat crawls all the way up his arm into the rest of him. "After all those days of wonderin', no way in hell am I lettin' that go. Kabu."
Blast it. He hasn't felt the hair on the back of his neck rise like this since he was a younger man with more ambitious dreams. A fresh arrival to the big city, eager to earn money and become the best around at something, anything.
He's more level-headed now. More realistic. Yet apparently, he hasn't lost his ability to blush.
It sounds like they'll keep seeing each other. Dare he think, with their hands clasped over the console, and the warmth in the cab that has little to do with the rattling heater, that Piers might be a little fond of him. The realist in him balks at the thought of assuming such a thing, but his inner optimist—weakened over the years, yet persisting like a flame, stubborn as he's always been—rouses and manages to beat that realist portion back.
"You know..." Piers starts, thoughtfully tearing him from his own thoughts, "Not to get all philosophical on you, but..."
"Please. I welcome it. There's nothing you could say that would bore me." Anything to keep that lovely voice talking to him.
Piers gazes out his window, and Kabu catches the ghost of it in the reflection.
"I was just thinkin'... There ain't much in my line a' work that's consistent. That's pleasant, that is, plenty of unpleasant consistencies. The clients, the testin', swallowin' me own pride and god knows what else... I don't get a lot of time to be me. Too busy bein' a whore and nobody cares to see me otherwise. But... it's been different lately. Thanks to you."
"Oh, I, I can hardly claim credit for—"
"Shut it," Piers kindly scolds. What's shocking is that Kabu hardly minds. "Fact is, 'm grateful. And not too proud to say it."
Kabu weighs those words as they deserve to be weighed.
An echo of his own feelings. A reflection, even. The late nights. The clients who don't care. The transience of it all, servicing people who don't care to know his name. Living life as a city fixture akin to a bus stop or stop sign. Always be available, always be ready, always be reliable, no matter what. A servant to the population. Faceless.
He is his job.
"I'm glad," he says, "that I can do this for you. I think I've always been glad."
Piers' hand withdraws from underneath his own, and before Kabu can return it to his wheel, his duty, the hand settles atop his, nails glossy, cuticles rough. The gravity of it presses his hand where it rests, almost like a warning, almost like a plea.
With the nature of their careers, how fortunate. That the two of them might cross paths, and make each other human again.
He—the cab—rolls to a reluctant stop in front of the address given. Just as imagined, the place is... well. It has seen better days, to be magnanimous about it.
"If I can be honest," he murmurs, breaking their touch to shift into park, "I'm not very keen on letting you leave."
The doors click unlocked.
"If I'm bein' honest myself, I ain't too keen on leavin'. But to be doubly honest, I need a hot fuckin' shower and every last makeup wipe I've got."
Noted. Right onto his shopping list. It couldn't hurt to keep something like that in his cab from now on.
Frigid air whisks into the car, and heeled boots clack onto cracked sidewalk. The thud of the door closing startles him despite knowing it was coming. The ride is over... They all have to end, but he was wishing this one would last just a little more.
Piers bends at the waist and stares at him through the window. Kabu hastens to roll it down. Not over yet—Piers left, but is still here.
"Hey. Thanks for takin' me home." Pleather-clad arms fold over the door frame. "Don't do anythin' evil with the information, mind you. A whore hates a stalker."
"I wouldn't dream of it," he solemnly says. "I see no need to stalk when you do an excellent job waiting for me all in one place."
"Hah! I knew you were hidin' a sharp tongue all this time. I like it."
"A true warrior knows precisely when to unsheathe his weapon," he intones, quoting from an old film favorite of his, when movies were all in black and white. "I doubt I could make you laugh so, had I been snarky before tonight."
"You're right about that." Piers' face gentles. "I can be a stubborn bastard. But you managed to wait me out."
"I hope you're not thinking of doing any waiting of your own," he says, nodding at where Piers leans in the haze of coming dawn, lit by old orange lights. "It's simultaneously late and early, and I'd hate for you to catch a cold. You should get inside."
Piers nibbles his painted lips.
"Is something the matter?" Kabu asks.
"I mean... You know. What about you?"
"Me?" He blinks.
"Yeah... 'S cold. Late. You need your beauty sleep too, I imagine, but if it's too long a drive, then... I ain't really got cozy digs, but- but it's cold and I'd hate to send you off like anyone else would. I've got tea," Piers babbles, and fidgets, and it takes immense self-control for Kabu to not exit the vehicle and crash down on one knee.
"Thank you," he says, and he means it with the full force of what those two common words can convey. "Truly. But you've had a long night. You need to rest."
Piers glances down at his state. "Suppose so. Right, what was I thinkin'..."
The urge seizes him, and he asks the unthinkable for what he is.
"Will I see you tomorrow, Piers? I can pick you up right here. At an earlier hour, too. I think I'd like to see you in the sunshine as well."
The effect is instant. That smile, exhausted. Radiant with gratitude and something like hope. It lights up the whole world, and the glow of it chases away every last bit of the November morning chill seeping into Kabu's old bones.
"Yeah. Yeah. You know where to find me. Call it noon?"
"On the dot," Kabu seals with a nod.
"I'll be waitin' here, just for you." Piers adjusts his coat, and blows him a kiss that sticks straight to his cheeks and lights them like a furnace. "No other cabbie will do but the one named Kabu. See you, love."
"See you..." His tongue hesitates on the third word he could say, and Piers only grins at the way his lips almost form a confession. "Later," he finishes with an embarrassed cough, and shifts the cab into drive. "I'll see you later."
With flowers, perhaps, and no expectations beyond the comfort of his company.