Disclaimer: Six Feet Under belongs to HBO and its creators, not me.

A/N: This happens to be my very first Six Feet Under fanfic, as I am an unfortunate newb to the show. It’ll be slightly longer than anything I’ve seen in the SFU section here on fanficiton, too. I’m almost finished and, as a whole, it’s over 10 thousand words. I’d really appreciate any and all feedback!
Also, this story is set between the 3rd and 4th seasons.

Taking Tolls
1/?
by The Taepodonger.

He tried not to think about it, really, he desperately made the effort to excuse that part of David from the whole picture, but some things are simply unavoidable.

“Welcome home,” Keith said, holding his breath as David fell into the place beside him on the couch. He was much later in returning home than he’d estimated when the two had spoken earlier that day.

He’s sitting right here and he doesn’t even know.

David, obviously exhausted, slowly turned his head to face his boyfriend. A tired smile graced his pink lips until he took in the very pinched, unfortunately telling, and utterly unbelievable expression on his boyfriend’s clean-shaven face.

“Oh my God,” David shot of from the couch, his mouth agape. “I smell like ass and you weren’t going to tell me!”

“You smell like formaldehyde and Windex,” Keith corrected. “And I was just going to see how long you’d last before you noticed.”

“You did that last time! Half an hour, okay! Jesus.”

“I didn’t want to-”

“Keith, please,” David started, his voice anxious and dangerously close to what Keith would categorize as the same tone used in any of David’s “high pitched bitch fits.”

“Don’t even finish. I’m five seconds from the shower, I swear.” David, red-faced and embarrassed, disappeared down the hall. Mere seconds later, Keith heard the insufferably squeaky faucet knobs being turned- first the hot, then the cold, and then the hot just a little more, just as David liked it.

Departing from the couch, Keith made his way into the bathroom. Knowing this wasn’t about to become one of the showers he and David enjoyed sharing, Keith took a seat closest to the shower.

“You never smell this bad,” he commented from his perch on the toilet.

“And never again if I can get Rico to show up on time,” David replied. A bottle of body soap was squeezed to its very limits as David continued. “This guy was pretty ripe to begin with and Rico was completely obsessed in putting the skull back together on this car-crash woman. And she wore a wig for Christ’s sake! He should have just scooped it all under the cap, but no. So I was stuck with two viewings before I could get to this guy. Embalming him was hell and now he looks like a fucking banana! So I was late coming home and I can’t stay for breakfast tomorrow, either.”

“Why not?” Keith asked, leaning from the toilet to reach the cabinets under the sink. He retrieved a can of air freshener and waited.

“I need to pick up some different bulbs so that I can put a lighter glow on this guy. And then I’ve got to spring for some yellow arrangements for opposite corners of the viewing room. Even it out, you know? And I’ve got a pick up from a nursing home.”

“I can get the bulbs and flowers,” Keith offered, leaving his seat on the toilet and moving to stand near the shower.

“I thought you were job hunting?” He worriedly rubbed soap in his hands as he contemplated Keith’s suggestion.

“It’ll just be one morning,” Keith reminded him.

Concluding that, if he planned and timed things to a tee, Keith’s visiting wouldn’t impede on any of the arrangements, David offered a promising “Yeah?”

“Yeah. A few hours out of my day won’t matter. Besides, I hardly get to see you.”

Keith would just come in, drop off the flowers and bulbs, and leave. He wouldn’t stay for the funeral like some of Claire’s friends tended to. After realizing his skin was now red and raw and devoid of any suds, he sighed.

David slid the textured shower door open slightly and leaned out, his face the very (wet) picture of appreciation.

“That would be a huge help, thank you.”

Attempting a smile, Keith quickly fell pray to a fit of laughter and, in a vain attempt to cover his nose, covered his grin. “Jesus, get back in there!”

Cheeks growing red with color, David dramatically pulled the sliding door back into place. “You are a huge bitch,” he said to the tune of Keith spraying the room with air freshener.

-

Keith never thought he’d be cruising through a hardware store alone, gripping a list scribbled on a pink post-it note as though his life depended on it. The whole ordeal felt so domestic and, for the longest time, Keith worried his life would be riddled with audacious love affairs as opposed to shared errands and dutifully written lists.

He enjoyed the sensation of accomplishment he felt in finding the last set of the bulbs needed for the pink pinspots David had specified. When David’s father had died, Keith found himself desperately wanting to be a huge part in his recovery. Confused after one short stint of tears, sobbing, and despair, Keith felt as though that wound would remain open for a very, very long time. Keith surprised himself in wanting to be there until the job was finished, and to see the genuine happiness David could experience in due time.

Even still, he wanted more hardships after that, as well as successes, celebrations, and the day-to-day exhaustions doing idle errands would eventually become.

Realizing that he’d been watching way too many of David’s favorite kinds of movies to be thinking about a Life with his boyfriend while shopping for light bulbs, Keith made the effort to purchase his item pokerfaced, but couldn’t refrain from smiling as he headed off to the next location on his list.

-

Keith waited at what he assumed to be the front desk, although it was unoccupied, for a number of minutes. He began to rap his hands to the universally impatient beat against the table top before a man appeared from around a corner, a large bouquet of lilies obscuring his face from Keith’s view.

“Excuse me?” Keith spoke up, intent on not waiting another ten minutes for someone else to pass by.

The man lowered the flowers onto the table and made a mark on a chart with a pen he retrieved from behind his ear. He was writing his signature as he asked, “Can I help you?” in a perpetually annoyed tone.

“Yeah,” Keith answered clearly, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I’m here to pick up four arrangements for Fisher & Diaz Funeral Home?”

“Can you confirm that, please?” The man replied, now completely engaged in flipping through a stapled stack of papers attached to a clipboard.

“Uh…?” Keith dumbly retrieved David’s list from his pocket, though he knew showing the man a note his boyfriend had written wasn’t about to get him four expensive floral arrangements.

“Normally we’d deliver but we’re a little backed up. Usually it’s a Mr. Diaz or one of the Fishers.” The man, ‘Robbie’ as Keith read from a crooked name tag, gave Keith a questionable look, as if to ask, “so who the fuck are you?”

“David Fisher asked me to pick them up for the, uh,” Keith tried to decipher David’s rushed handwriting. “Montell- Monfall… funeral? Look, I would call him but I don’t have my cell with me.”

The man looked up, and give Keith a once over. “You wouldn’t happen to be Keith, would you?” Robbie asked, a strange smile growing on his expressive face. “The Keith?”

Keith crossed his arms. “My name is Keith, yeah. Do I know you?”

Robbie leaned forward as if Keith was sharing some choice gossip with him. “The Keith of ‘The cop. The black man, Keith.’”

Keith nodded slowly, completely lost in confusion.

“You’re David’s boyfriend.” It wasn’t a question, but more of an accusation. Keith couldn’t imagine David spending enough time with some guy who works at a flower shop to gush about his boyfriend with him. Unless David knew Robbie intimately? Keith shook the idea from his mind. No way would David send him to pick up flowers from a man he’d fucked around with without the most explicit of warnings and embarrassed apologies.

Keith settled on answering with, “If that’s who I gotta be to pick up these arrangements, yes.”

Robbie howled with laughter and said, “Oh honey, I’ve been dying to meet you.”

“Are you a friend of David’s?” Keith asked. The skepticism he’d been clinging to was quickly disappearing.

“No,” Robbie answered with a sly grin. “His mother’s.”