#but thank u for the ask and also thank u for requesting lup and krav. i love writing them so much

[nillial]

ok pick your fave: "why are you whispering" or "you don't see me" with kravitz and lup and maybe also taako? :0

Kravitz’s shift is almost over.

Almost. 

Until a woman runs into the Fantasy Hot Topic, her hair out of place, her arms full of what he can only assume is stolen goods, and shouts over the towers of folded clothes, “You don’t see me!” Then she throws her merchandise into the bowl of pins, pulls up her hood, and pretends to browse the hats.

Two seconds later, security skids onto the carpeted floor. After scanning the room, he asks, “Hey, you seen a lady come in here? Elf, long undercut, bad dye job? She stole some candles from Bath and Body Works. And then makeup from Sephora. And jeans from American Eagle.”

He glances at her. She bristles as the ‘bad dye job’ comment.

Kravitz returns his attention to the mall cop at the entrance. “She didn’t come by here,” he says. “How’d she hit three different stores without anyone stopping her?”

He furrows his brow. “I’m losin’ her, gotta go,” he says, running off in order to avoid the hit to his ego.

The moment the coast is clear, she tugs her hood off her head and grabs her stuff from where she’d tossed it. “Bad dye job,” she mutters under her breath. “Fuckin’ wannabe Tom Selleck, ugly mustache, power-tripping piece of shit. Bad dye job. My hair is impeccable, thank you.” 

Kravitz leans onto the cashier counter. “Candles?”

-

She turns towards him. “They smelled good,” she tells him. “Here. Sniff.”

She shoves one of her candles in his face and Kravitz, who doesn’t know how to say no, complies and takes a sniff. It really does smell good— it’s some kind of fruity pineapple scent, but, in Kravitz’s opinion, it’s not worth running from the security guard to get. 

He holds out a hand and lowers the candle away from his face. “Uh huh.”

As she’s rummaging through the rest of her things, she asks, “Hey, can I have a bag, bud? My purse is too small for all this shit.”

He’s already covered for her and agreed to smell some candle she stole, so why the fuck not? He produces a plastic bag from behind the counter and hands it to her. She starts piling her stuff inside. “Oh, yeah,” she says, sticking a hand out for him to shake. “I’m Lup. Thanks for covering my ass.”

He takes it. “Kravitz. My shift ends in two minutes and I don’t wanna have to deal with a shoplifter.”

“I promise I don’t usually get caught. I’m good at this.”

“But not at dying your hair?”

She presses a hand to her chest, offended. “Ouch, Krav. Ouch.”

“Krav?”

“Like— like Kravitz. I mean, it says Dan on your nametag.”

“Yeah, I don’t know who Dan is.” He peers over the counter and into her bag. “What’d you need all this stuff for, anyway?”

“I didn’t need it, per se. But I do have a date with my boyfriend later, so…” She pulls a red off-shoulder crop top out of her bag. “What do you think of this? Too much?”

Kravitz is saved from having to answer by a man who looks almost identical to Lup striding into the store and yelling, “There you are, you fuckin’ backstabber!”

He is, admittedly, pretty handsome. Kravitz ignores this fact and instead focuses on how to slip out without either of them noticing. He wants to go home.

Lup swivels around to face him. “I’m not a backstabber! I was shopping, Taako! I almost got arrested!”

“Seems to me like your chattin’ it up with some guy who never left his goth phase.” The man, who, evidently, is called Taako, saunters up to the counter and leans against it. “No offense, my dude.”

He glances down at his attire. “I don’t— I— I just like dark colors.”

“Uh huh.” Taako turns back to Lup, who Kravitz assumes must be a sister of his. “Hey, you’ll be happy to know I wasn’t kidnapped and killed at the food court where you left me to die.”

She holds up her bag once again. “Shopping!”

“Stealing,” Kravitz corrects her.

Lup shoots a glare at him. “Shh.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Taako snatches the bag from her, shuffling things around inside until he finally finds one of the candles she took. “This is mine now. Penance for abandoning me. Hey, guy, who are you?”

Before Kravtiz can say anything, Lup cuts in with, “My best friend who got the mall cop off my ass. The mall cop who told me I had a bad dye job. Can you fuckin’ believe that, Taako? If you saw him and his stupid goddamn cheap toupee— God, what an asshole.”

“Best friend?” he asks. “I just now met you.”

She glances over at him. “What, you have another bestie?”

He stays silent. She’s got him there.

Lup tugs her bag over her shoulder. “Well, if you ever wanna hang, me and Taako stop by the food court for lunch, like, all the time. We’re easy to find. And, uh, I promise I won’t hide out in Hot Topic next time Paul Blart comes after me.” She digs around in her bag one last time and sets down the fruity candle she showed him earlier. “Here. For your trouble.”

Taako removes his elbows from the counter. “See you, um…” He glances down at his nametag. “Dan.”

“Kravitz,” he tells him, stepping out from behind the counter. “And my shift is officially over. See you at the food court some day, I guess.”

The two of them wave him goodbye and make their way out of the store, talking in low voices about “How did you get caught, you dingus?” and “It’s not my fault, it’s this lady who…”

Kravitz stares at the Bath and Body Works candle on the counter. It stares back at him.

What the fuck just happened?