Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

*~*~*~*~* 

He and Kravitz are going on twenty years when Taako realizes.

And there’s no lead up, like he thought there would be when he dared to think about it. Kravitz doesn’t even do anything to prompt it. He simply looks at Kravitz one day in the kitchen of their shared home outside of Neverwinter, and something pulls in his chest, and he thinks oh , and it’s like all of a sudden the sunlight filters through the windows in a different way. It’s like suddenly gravity acts a little differently than he’s used to. It’s like suddenly Taako is looking at Kravitz, and everything he’s ever done and said to him hasn’t ever been enough to convey even an approximation of whatever this feeling is.

This feeling isn’t a hunger; it’s not as demanding as that and yet a hundred thousand times more. It’s something like a wish to know everything about Kravitz, even though Taako’s sure he’s heard most of it. It’s a sense like he needs to hold Kravitz, and not just in a physical sense. It’s something like a feeling of wanting everything from Kravitz but being terrified to ask for it, even though he might give it. It’s like belonging somewhere for the first time and not being able to understand how a person could make you feel so at home, and yet the entire sense of it is understanding, because of course they do.

He thinks he remains remarkably composed, even if he does feel like his entire world has been inverted on the turn of a dime. Kravitz looks up, and asks him what’s wrong, and Taako answers truthfully that nothing is, and Kravitz believes him. And they go back about their business.

But every time Taako glances back at Kravitz, it’s there, a low hum in the back of his mind that tells him everything is different than it was before.

*~*~*~*~*

They’ve talked about the future, but not at length.

The closest they’ve gotten to saying what Taako’s sure they both know is one time, around their tenth anniversary, when Kravitz hinted, quite indirectly, that he’d like to know what Taako’s plan was for… them. Taako remembers a lump in his throat and his heart beating faster than he ever really cares for as he told Kravitz, almost embarrassed, that he was welcome pretty much indefinitely. Kravitz didn’t ask for clarification, but he smiled, and the smile was almost enough.

Taako’s thought about the future, but not like this.

See the thing is, he’s never felt like he had to. Kravitz was… Kravitz was just right. He fit Taako like a glove. And Taako had fallen into that fit as naturally as breathing, and when a thought crept up in the back of his mind that he should consider what that meant, he shoved it away with little ceremony.

And then all of a sudden, he can’t do that anymore .

Now, when he looks at Kravitz, it’s like reading half a sentence and aching for the conclusion to it. It’s like hearing a chord begging for resolution and not getting it. And it’s not that Taako is ungrateful , because he’s not — he’s happy with what he has, really. But at the same time, it’s like Taako can almost see, laid over his vision, a different reality. One where the conclusion to this… this almost—question that’s been hanging over them for years is decided.

And sometimes that reality is so nice that Taako can’t help but want more of it.

*~*~*~*~*

And it’s not like he didn’t love Kravitz before. He did. He knows he did. He has to have loved him, to let him this close. And Kravitz was so good and funny and kind on that first date, and then on the second, and then he kept being those things, and more things, until it had been a month, and then two, and then a year and then five. And more than just being funny and nice and handsome he was prickly and odd and hurt and exhausted and uptight and before Taako could drop him for it he realized he didn’t want to because he liked those things about Kravitz too.

And that had never happened before.

And Taako’s known , he’s known for a while that he wanted Kravitz for as long as he could have him. He’s known that if they stayed on the course they were on, Taako might not tire of him at all .

But he never thought he’d want to do anything about it.

*~*~*~*~*

Candlenights is what clinches it in the end.

It’s been two decades since the day of story and song, and Taako opens up his gift from Kravitz: a smooth, flat box, covered in beautiful burnished leather that snapped open to reveal a bed of black velvet with the most stunning sapphire necklace and earring set he’d ever seen.

“Fantasy Jesus Christ, Krav,” Lup chimes in from Barry’s lap, “just pop the question already why don’t’cha.”

Kravitz laughs. Taako does not.

The words stick in his head. Long after the gift—giving was over. After the guests go off to their many rooms and the kitchen is cleaned of all the Candlenights feast mess. After he slides into bed with Kravitz, Lup’s magic sheets keeping them warm even in the dead of winter.

Just pop the question already –

It’s not the first jewelry Kravitz has given Taako. Far from it; Kravitz knows Taako’s penchant for collecting accessories likely to take someone’s eye out with their shine. But all of a sudden the implication of expensive jewelry, something that Taako knows is sometimes an implication among the fashion—forward of this plane, is impossible to ignore.

*~*~*~*~*

Taako isn’t easy to love, he knows that. He knows he’s picky and finnicky and goes long periods without saying things he probably should. And Kravitz has stuck by him all this time anyway. Taako knows he’s learned how to read between Taako’s lines and interpret what he really means when he only half—says things. He loves Taako so well , and sometimes… sometimes Taako wants to return the favor.

He does, internally.

And over the years he’s given Kravitz libraries and music rooms and welcomed him into his home and his bed, but there are times… there have been moments, here and there, where it doesn’t feel like enough, doesn’t feel like nearly enough. There have been moments where Taako wanted to pull him aside and tell him it’s you, it’s going to be you, it’s always going to be you, all the way until Taako’s time runs out, it’s you, there’s never going to be anybody else – because when Taako learns to love, he’s ride or die.

And the longer he thinks about it, the more he knows it’s true. Kravitz is his endgame. The thought terrifies him, but. That’s it. Plain and simple.

He’s just not sure Kravitz knows it.

They say the way that people show love is the way that they receive it as well, and there’s a crucial mismatch between Taako and his… between Taako and Kravitz. Kravitz is words. He spills adoration onto Taako, compliments and comforts and everything in between at a moment’s notice. But Taako doesn’t do that. It feels. Disingenuous. Not coming from Kravitz, but… but saying the words himself. To repeat, over and over, I love you feels… strangely futile. Unoriginal. Uninspired. So he weaves it into food and into actions and into the amount of time he is careful to allow Kravitz into his space, and he thinks Kravitz understands, but he’s not sure if it’s ever enough.

He thinks, one day, while he’s working (because sometimes he really does have to put some hours in at the school) that maybe that’s what that longing is that’s been burning in the pit of his chest for months now. That maybe what he’s been feeling is the urge to show Kravitz, really show him, how much Taako cares about him. To make it… official. That he’s not going anywhere. Because Kravitz doesn’t live off of implications like Taako does, and maybe Taako’s a little tired of making him translate.

Maybe Taako wants to do a little bit of the work for him, just once.

*~*~*~*~*

He can’t do a wedding. He figures that one out pretty quickly.

It might’ve been nice for Carey and Killian to stand up in front of everyone and get hitched… it might be Lup and Barry’s speed, but to have everyone looking at him like that, while he says things to Kravitz that — that only Kravitz should hear...

It feels… disingenuous. It feels performative. He never told the boys about his first date with Kravitz. He didn’t announce it to anyone when he asked Kravitz to move in, or when they decided to get a cat, or when Taako decided that there was no need to ever think about seeing anyone else ever again. He doesn’t invite people into their bedroom, doesn’t invite people to peep through the windows on the nights Kravitz is off work and he and Taako sit in quiet companionship on the couch and it’s perfect . 

Those things aren’t for anyone to see. Those moments are between him and Kravitz. To show off something like… like this new feeling that Taako’s realizing has made a permanent home in his chest feels so deeply wrong .

So no wedding. Whatever he decides to do about this, it has to be in private. It’s just for Kravitz anyway. Just a way to show him, once and for all, how much Taako cares about him. Kravitz is one of the only things in Taako’s life that isn’t a show. He’s not about to make a show out of him. 

It’s only a little after Candlenights that the idea comes to him.

At times, Taako forgets how old Kravitz is. Over the years with Taako, he’s slipped into a more mortal lifestyle until Taako forgets that nearly everything in modern Faerun is foreign to him. And then he’ll mention, offhand, that they never had this or that when he was living, and it will hit Taako all over again that Kravitz is so old he’s been around (or at least in existence) for most of Faerun’s recorded history.

He thinks sometimes it must be lonely, being the only relic left of a time long past. It’s something they’ve bonded over before. Taako’s one of only seven remnants of his home planet. Kravitz lived so long ago that the planet he’s on might as well be a foreign one.

And that’s how it comes to him.

*~*~*~*~*

The research takes a long time, of course. There are sources from Kravitz’s time, but they’re difficult to decipher; only the most prestigious scholars in Faerun have tried. And add to that the fact that Kravitz isn’t even really from Faerun originally, that when he was alive he was on a whole other continent and it really throws a wrench into Taako’s plan.

And besides that, it’s almost impossible to get any work done without one of his three dimension—hopping family members trying to ferry him somewhere or another. He suddenly does a lot more hands—on “work for his school.” He gets Ren to help him go between scholars from this continent and that. He gets copies of books shipped to him from faraway Universities. 

Taako forgot how much he hates research.

Especially history. When he was a scientist, back in the day, he was a baller researcher. Taako could run an experiment like nobody’s business, but experiments were easy compared to this. There he could just collect data and figure out what it meant but here? Everything is inconclusive. Everything is interpretation, and there’s six different opinions on each topic and the significance of this and that if there aren’t sixty, and it makes his head spin.

The thing that keeps him going, through it all, is imagining the look on Kravitz’s face if Taako’s able to pull this off. Kravitz’s life was important to him. He’s told Taako, in whispers during dark, still nights, that he regrets how little of it he can remember. That after he died he didn’t hold onto any of what it was like to be alive. That living now, with Taako, spending more time on the Prime Material Plane is bringing bits and pieces of it back, but not as much as he’d like, and that sometimes he regrets not living longer.

He doesn’t regret where he ended up, he always makes that clear, but it still makes Taako’s chest ache sometimes to think about the parts of living that Kravitz missed out on, being killed before his life even really started. And now, not being able to really remember even the parts that he had.

That was something they bonded over too.

Kravitz, the hopeless romantic out of the two of them, never got the chance to be romanced in life. And Kravitz deserves romance. He deserves everything. No one else ever gave it to him.

Now he’s with Taako. So Taako supposes he’s the one who has to.

*~*~*~*~*

He finally finds his answer. 

He’s been reading everything he can get sent to him about ancient marriage traditions for months (and being the savior of all the worlds, he can get a lot ), trying to piece together something coherent, when Ren rings him up on his stone.

I’ve got something new, she says, a team at a university near the town you told me about has been working on translating some runestones from around the period you’ve been asking me to look out for. It might be something worth looking at.

Getting there is a mess .

A two—day train and then a ferry across a wide channel and then two more days on a train to get to the university in question, and sure, Taako could have asked for help from Reaper—travel, but that would mean having to tell one of them about this, and Taako… he just can’t do that. Not now. He can barely get through thinking about this with just himself and Kravitz in the equation, nevermind Lup or Barry or heaven forbid Kravitz getting wind of what he’s doing. He tells them he’s going on a tour, looking for another location for another school, anything to get them to keep from worrying as he packs up his bags for the trip.

Kravitz kisses him goodbye. A few days apart isn’t anything new for them, what with missions from the Raven Queen. But still. Kravitz is ridiculously sentimental. He portals Taako to the Neverwinter train station (to make the trip just a little shorter, he says) and kisses Taako in a corner where no one will see until he’s weak in the knees.

When he arrives at the university, the research team is waiting for him. Of course they are. He’s Taako . It’s common knowledge in the multiverse these days that if you’re lucky enough to be graced with his presence, you do not make him wait.

An older—looking elf woman approaches him, shakes his hand. She introduces herself as a Dr. Venali, tells him what an honor it is to have him there. Taako likes her, in an abstract way. She reminds him of some of the professors at the IPRE who weren’t shitty. And she makes quick work of showing him to her lab, seeming terrified of wasting his time. Taako appreciates that in a person.

It’s much like every other lab he’s seen. There are definite Miller influences, and some IPRE—looking touches too. Ever since the Story and Song the world has been updating it’s tech. It’s nice, in a way. It’s almost like a little of their home came with them.

Taako’s got a pretty good handle on the situation until Dr. Venali unveils the stones.

They take his breath away.

Taako puts gloves on and runs his hands over their surface, feels the grooves under his fingertips of the carving. It’s… it’s like the feeling when Kravitz reminds Taako how old he is but a thousand times stronger. There’s nothing on them that he recognizes even remotely from this world. If he looks very carefully, perhaps he can see the tiniest hint in some of the shapes of the characters of runes he uses for spells, but even that might be extrapolation.

It’s completely foreign. And it’s Kravitz’s. From his time, anyway. A time when he was just a person, like these people, who put their knowledge to writing in the hopes that someone might remember them after they were gone. 

Taako’s going to live a long time. He’s going to see a lot of change in that time. 

But nothing, nothing on this scale.

He takes a deep breath. He hadn’t realized his throat was getting tight.

He asks to see the translations before it gets any worse.

*~*~*~*~*

It’s all there. 

Taako’s been an academic, however briefly, and he knows how hard it is to find anything from more than a few hundred years ago left intact. Dr. Venali and her team are having an absolute field day with this stuff, now that they finally seem to have cracked the code behind the language on those stones and linked it to something modern enough to translate.

“It’s unprecedented,” Dr. Venali is telling him, as her students keep bringing in stacks and stacks of notes, “we’ve been able to translate resources we’ve had for hundreds of years but have never been able to understand. We know more about our history than ever before.”

She shows him their notes on marital traditions, and Taako thinks he’s lucky he’s looking into something that Kravitz’s contemporaries thought was worth writing about. 

“What we’ve been able to find out is this,” Dr. Venali tells him, “every record of marriage we can find includes a list of gifts presented by one party to another. Other details vary, but the gifting is consistent. They were very conscious of identifying them, their quantities and the specific items given. Even the vessels they were carried in were described in detail in every record of marriage.

“We believe that this practice of gifting was something like having a dowry and something like a proposal. There is an account or two, mostly in stories and legends, of one party being presented with a series of gifts and subsequently rejecting them, and with them, the marriage itself. Of course, in ancient times marriage was just as much of an economic contract as it was an act of love, so this does not seem an unreasonable leap. The most fascinating part is that some items remain consistent across nearly all accounts.”

“What are they?” Taako asks.

*~*~*~*~*

A loaf of bread, baked by the givers hand .

A bundle of dried flowers, plucked by the giver in the proper season.

A purse of coin.

Honey and vinegar, each in a jar.

A measure of wine.

A mantle, such as a cloak or a shawl, for the receiver of the gift to wear.

The rest is inconclusive, but there is almost always more. Either due to regional or personal tastes, Dr. Venali said, but there was no way of knowing for certain what determined the makeup of the rest of the gift. At least it’s a direction for him to follow. Far more specific than anything he had before.

The final step, she said, was the closest thing the ancient people had to a ceremony. Once the gift was accepted, the giver would take the mantle they’d brought with them and drape it around the person they wished to marry, and that was it. That was all it took. There’s no record of vows or anything. Once the receiver had accepted the gift and the mantle, the marriage was accomplished.

He’s almost numb on the train and boat rides back to Faerun and to Neverwinter. He’s not sure what he expected, but this answer is so… pragmatic. It’s such a window into Kravitz’s time, when the way to show someone that you wanted to marry them wasn’t flashy jewelry, wasn’t expensive stones that displayed your lack of availability to the world, wasn’t a claim staked to your time and identity, but rather, a simple, practical promise. 

A promise that said I can make bread. I’ve saved money for us. I have the wealth to buy luxury goods and will therefore be able to provide the necessities for us to live. I have the foresight to choose flowers for you, pick them in their season, and preserve them until the time is right. I have found you a mantle to keep you warm at night and protect you from the sun. I have planned this and prepared for this and cultivated it with my own hands. I am not entering into this lightly. 

It feels… vital somehow. A reminder that the world is a dangerous, terrifying, and deadly place, and that to be in it together is better than to be in it alone. It feels… oddly fitting, for the two of them. Kravitz has seen a hundred times over the affronts to the natural order in this world. Taako’s faced the apocalypse a hundred times over. They have no shortage of tragedy in their histories.

And Taako is going to propose to him with a loaf of bread. Such a small, simple thing. So simple it almost cuts him to the core thinking about it. A bundle of dried flowers to say I kept these for you . Fuck. And those things would have been special in Kravitz’s day. In Kravitz’s life .

Fuck .

He has to push those thoughts away with a concerted effort, for fear that he’s going to start getting weepy on the train. Taako, savior of the multiverse, doesn’t get weepy. But it’s tough to keep up the facade when thinking about Kravitz is cutting through the armor of Taako, savior of the multiverse and making him feel like just Taako. Taako, an elf in love who wants his boyfriend to know it.

Kravitz kisses him hello when he gets home. He’s on a job and can’t meet Taako at the station, but after Taako’s made it back to their house, and has greeted the cats and settled down onto the couch with a hot drink, Kravitz portals into the room, and kisses Taako so softly he thinks he might drift away.

*~*~*~*~*

It takes him a while to collect everything.

Although the components are easy enough for him to get one morning in a Neverwinter market without even having to work at it, something about this makes Taako want to go about it… differently. He spreads it out over months, takes care to select everything with the utmost specificity; he wants it to be personal and real . He makes small jars out of clay himself when Kravitz is away on missions for days at a time. He picks a date. He takes care to double and triple check the materials Dr. Venali sent home with him so that everything is perfect.

One day, when Kravitz is out of the house, Taako walks into their bedroom and stops in his tracks in the doorway.

There are two lengths of cloth lying on the bed, spread out as though they were draped over the comforter intentionally for him to find.

They do not belong to Taako.

They’re draped over the corners of the bed, the short fringe at the edges of the one on the left just grazing the floor. There’s something shiny sitting on either one. The one on the right is black, deep black, while the one on the left looks, at first glance, to be silvery, but the longer Taako stares, the less silver it looks, and the more it looks like there are colors in it that he couldn’t identify on first glance — 

Which looks an awful lot like something he’s seen before.

He creeps forward slowly — he doesn’t particularly care for surprises left in his bedroom by a mysterious intruder while he wasn’t looking — but the closer he gets, the more the pattern of the two fabrics looks like something he recognizes. And a suspicion creeps into the corner of his mind, slowly, one that he’s not entirely sure he likes. 

He makes it to the foot of his bed, heart racing, and takes a closer look.

And he was right. He does recognize those colors. He recognizes the weave. 

The length of cloth — the mantle on the left is the iridescent rainbow of colors he’d recognize anywhere. The weave is tighter, the fabric thinner, silkier to the touch, but the colors are the same. It’s just an open length of cloth, like a massive scarf, the kind you can drape over your shoulders. It even has the light fringe at the edges. The shiny thing sitting atop it was a brooch, done in simple, heavy gold, and in the shape of the sigil of Istus.

And the one on the right is much the same, only it doesn’t shine so much. Thicker material, like a fine wool. And the black is shot through with greens and blues and purples when it moves in Taako’s hands, like a Raven’s wing. The brooch atop it is silver, done up as the sigil of the Raven Queen.

Taako holds it carefully in his hand, feeling the weight of it, looking at the tiny Ruby that makes up the Raven’s eye, and he swallows thickly, trying to ignore his racing pulse.

“A bit on the nose, don’t you think?” he says out loud to the empty room, glancing at the ceiling.

A stiff wind blows the windows open with a clatter.

*~*~*~*~*

Candlenights arrives again with the same pomp and circumstance it does every year.

A hectic holiday season full of planning and cooking and bickering with Lup, culminating in a rowdy holiday dinner with the entire IPRE family over at Taako’s on Candlenights Eve. Taako spent twelve hours with Kravitz decking out every room of the house. There are lights on every ceiling and a fire in every fireplace and mulled wine in every mug. It’s festive and wonderful and Taako even goes so far as to nod cordially to Lucretia at the dinner table.

He tries not to be nervous all day. Lup asks him twice what’s up and he’s able to brush her off. She squints critically at him from her position at the kitchen island, but she doesn’t push. That, in it and of itself, is a Candlenights miracle.

Finally, after many drinks and laughs and a few small fires, the evening winds down. Everyone goes to bed.

Everyone except Taako.

Taako gets to work.

He’s been hiding the bundle for Kravitz in the back of the pantry for months, knowing it was one of the only places Kravitz dared not look for fear of disturbing the carefully organized chaos that is Taako’s kitchen (he keeps the sweets on the counter for a reason). He pulls it out, unwraps it, and begins to set up.

A deep purple cloth goes over the wooden table in the middle of the kitchen. Two tall silver candlesticks are set up on either side of a woven basket in the center of the table. And in it, he positions his gifts. 

A loaf of bread, baked earlier in the day and put aside. Spices: cinnamon sticks, cloves, and saffron. A tiny pot of honey and one of vinegar, the pots sculpted by his own hand and fired. A bundle of dried lavender; it’s Kravitz’s favorite scent, and he loves the bushes Taako’s planted in the garden out back. A bottle of fine, aged wine, the grapes cultivated outside of the town that roughly approximates to the one Kravitz was born in. A tiny velvet coin—purse with five silver inside.

The other gifts are tucked in as well. He puts in a small tin of deeply aromatic tea. A few of Krav’s favorite small pastries , wrapped in a cloth napkin. A leather—bound notebook of staff paper accompanied by a fine, Raven—feather quill and a pot of rich, black ink.

He should’ve gotten an instrument too, he frets, as he arranges the basket with its gifts inside. It wouldn’t be as neat a package, but he imagines having gone down and gotten a dulcimer from that craftsman Kravitz always admires at the Neverwinter market, but didn’t want to distract Kravitz from the smaller items.

It’s too late now, he thinks, as he drapes the two mantles over the edges of the table, Taako’s on the left, Kravitz’s on the right. He summons his jewelry box out of the ethereal plane and pulls the sapphire jewelry set out gingerly. He clasps the necklace behind his back and it hangs just above the neckline of the white sweater he won’t admit he picked out for the occasion.

What if Kravitz doesn’t recognize this? What if Taako went to all this work to put this together, looked into everything, all the details and tried his best to reconstruct something Kravitz would know only for him not to know it?

Taako’s not sure what he would do .

He tries not to think about it. But the longer he stands there, the candles burning down in their bright silver sticks, the more he imagines it: Kravitz pushing his way into the kitchen, and seeing everything laid out and there being no spark of recognition, him looking at Taako, beautiful and bewildered, but smiling, and saying “what’s all this?” and it’s not like it would even be that bad — Taako could play it off, of course he could, but. But.

But then everything he’s done over all these months — the careful research, and the travel, and the hours upon hours coordinating and creating this one gesture, this thing that was meant to tell Kravitz everything he couldn’t say most of the time — would be wasted. And he’d be right back where he started. Right back to loving Kravitz more than he knew how to say and having no way to tell him and be tormented, constantly, by the thought that Kravitz can’t see it — that he doesn’t understand that Taako wants him for as long as he can have him, that he would do anything for him. That Kravitz is perhaps the most wonderful person Taako’s ever met — that he values his kindness, and his intelligence, and just how goofy he is sometimes — and Taako feels lucky all the time that he gets to have him near.

He stands in the kitchen fretting for so long that he’s not sure if Kravitz is ever coming. That he thinks that maybe he didn’t think this plan through enough and everything’s going to fall through — 

And he hears footsteps in the next room. 

It’s Kravitz. He’d know those steps anywhere; he’s so used to them from the quiet hours in their house together — 

“Taako?” He can hear Kravitz from the other room. After all this time, Kravitz still doesn’t like to go to bed without him if he can help it. That, above everything, is what convinces Taako that he’s doing the right thing. That there’s no need to go back.

The door to the kitchen opens. 

And he’s there.

And Taako’s heart jumps into his throat.

“Taak—” he can see the moment it registers in Kravitz’s brain that something is different . The moment he takes in the basket, the candles, all of it. Taako, wearing the jewelry set. He can see Kravitz take it all in, can practically see the wheels turning in his head, and it’s a beautiful look on him, as terrifying as it is, and Taako wants nothing more than to kiss him. He doesn’t break, though, as much effort as it takes. It’s not time yet. He wants to do this right.

And then, he almost forgets to speak. 

“I would like to offer you a gift,” he says. And Kravitz doesn’t understand, he’s looking at Taako, vaguely confused but still smiling, and that’s when he sees it click, when the strangely formal phrasing of it finally enters Kravitz’s head and it dawns on him what’s happening here. Kravitz doesn’t tear up easily, being dead and all, but Taako can see his face screwing up the way it does when he’s basically crying, and he tries desperately to ignore it.

“Taako,” Kravitz says, so soft, is voice so shaky. He doesn’t go on, just stares at the table in wonder. It looks like he’s wracking his brains. Taako’s beginning to think he did it all wrong, that this wasn’t a good idea, that Kravitz doesn’t want — 

And then Kravitz steps forward, to the edge of the table, and he reaches out with gentle, frightened hands that hover, trembling, over the contents of the basket.

“You — is this —?” He doesn’t seem to be able to finish the sentence. Taako steps forward just a little, and Kravitz looks him right in the eyes. Taako nods. Kravitz looks a bit helpless.

“How did you — how did you know about this?” He says, his voice almost hollow.

Taako smiles. He feels like he might collapse at a moment’s notice. He thinks maybe he’s about to cry too, which would really just be embarrassing — 

“I was a scientist first, my man,” he jokes, “you think your boy can’t handle a little research?” Kravitz laughs and it sounds a bit like a sob. 

“I didn’t know you wanted…” he trails off. Taako’s heart about stops in his chest and he aches a bit because he knew. He knew that Kravitz didn’t know how appreciated he was. He suspected that Kravitz wasn’t fully aware that when Taako said he wanted him forever, he really meant it.

Taako knew that, but a part of him aches a bit to have it confirmed all the same.

“Of course I do,” he says, softly, and watches as Kravitz closes his eyes and bites his lip and his shoulders shake a bit, but he looks happy, at least Taako thinks he looks happy, oh god maybe it’s too much —

“Is it not… I mean do you like it?” The words spill out of him, a bit rushed and entirely too needy, before he has a chance to bite down on them and keep them in. Kravitz looks sharply in his direction, and he immediately moves towards Taako and grabs his hands, and Kravitz’s are warm , which means he must really be feeling something — 

“Taako,” he says, “I love it, I love you so much, I — I can’t believe you figured this out and you, you went to all that work for me — I didn’t know anyone knew about this, I didn’t even remember it until I walked in, and you — you — gods , that was why you were acting that way all summer, wasn’t it?”

Taako laughs wetly. “You noticed that?”

“Of course I noticed,” Kravitz says, laughing a little too. Taako’s not ever sure he’s seen him smile like this. “I thought you were going to shake apart and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what you were so nervous about. And that trip you went on and wouldn’t say why —”

“I said I was looking for another location for a school expansion!” 

“And it was the least convincing lie you ever told, Taako,” Kravitz chuckles. Taako ducks his head. The eye contact with Kravitz looking like this is a lot , and he — it means something to him that Kravitz could tell, even back then, that something was up. It’s like another sign that they’re in—sync enough for this to be a good idea.

Kravitz is still holding his hands. And the room goes quiet.

“What now?” Taako says.

“Well,” Kravitz murmurs, “technically I’m supposed to look over everything to make sure it’s satisfactory but that means I would have to let go of you.”

Taako snorts.

“Come on, Bones,” he teases, “what happened to your sense of tradition? I put some good shit in there for you.”

“Taako…” 

“You can come right back,” Taako says. “Promise.” Kravitz reluctantly begins to pull away. Taako, in a rare fit of sentimentality, kisses his hand before letting go, just to watch the stars bloom in Kravitz’s eyes. He almost comes back, but Taako steps away. 

“Come on,” he says, “I wanna do this right.” And he lets Kravitz melt a bit at that before he goes back to the table to examine the gift.

Once he starts, he seems to become absorbed in it. The motions to it look almost practiced, and it occurs to Taako that maybe they are, that maybe Kravitz spent his whole life watching people complete this ritual and waiting for his turn, only to die before it could come. It’s not the first time he’s had that thought, but it hits him harder than it ever has before, and twists something inside of him in a way that almost hurts, but in a good way. Kravitz is getting his turn now. With Taako.

And gods, is Taako lucky.

Kravitz picks up the loaf of bread and holds it to his nose, inhaling deeply. He smells nearly everything: the honey, the vinegar, the wine and lavender bundle and tea. He looks very much like he wants to eat a pastry when he comes across them, but Taako gets the sense that it’s not part of the procedure, given the way he only breaks off a tiny piece to taste. He weighs the bag of silver in his palm. He opens the notebook to run gentle fingers over the staff paper and smiles softly at it.

And when he finally places the notebook down, finished with his inspection, he looks at Taako with eyes so bright Taako thinks he might die from it.

Not that that would be a problem in his current circumstances, but it’s the principle of the thing.

“So you liked it?” Taako says, unable to resist.

Kravitz comes in close again, grabs both his hands and crowds himself into Taako’s space just the way he likes.

“It’s perfect ,” he says. He tucks some of Taako’s hair behind his ear and lets his fingers linger on Taako’s jawline. “You’re perfect.” And then before Taako has the chance to say anything else he draws back a bit, stands a little taller.

“I accept the offer of your gift,” he says, his voice taking on a slightly different timbre and oh , that’s it, Taako realizes. Kravitz accepted the gift. Which means he’s accepted Taako.

He’s accepted the proposal.

Taako’s insides suddenly feel like jelly, his bones no longer solid and his head a bit fuzzy because oh. This is happening. He hadn’t realized until now that all these months, a part of him thought that something would go wrong, that Kravitz wouldn’t say yes, or Taako wouldn’t get it right, and now — now there’s only one step away from him and Kravitz being… being married .

“Cool,” he says, and the energy in the room is different now because Kravitz doesn’t laugh at him, he’s just looking at Taako, his eyes huge and beginning to get a little misty again. And Taako extracts his hands, reaches around Kravitz to pull the black mantle off the table. It’s so soft to the touch, and thick and heavy and warm . He goes to pick up the Raven brooch too, but stops at the last moment, and on a whim, he reaches into his own pocket and pulls out the golden one, done in the shape of the sigil of Istus.

“May I?” Taako says, holding out the mantle ever so slightly, and Kravitz nods. Taako steps close to him and he bends down a bit, another practiced motion, old—looking and deeply formal, and Taako swallows thickly as he holds up the long mantle.

“This is the part I read was supposed to symbolize protection,” he says, his voice coming out so soft as he drapes the mantle over Kravitz’s shoulders. He chuckles a little. “I’m not sure that applies here, honestly. Not sure there’s much I can do to protect an immortal death being.” Kravitz laughs a little too. He looks like he’s crying. Taako is ignoring it. He has to finish this first.

“But it also said,” he says, “that this part is to represent the comfort your… partner will give to you in times of hardship.” He pulls both sides of the mantle around to the front of Kravitz’s chest, positions it the way Dr. Venali’s ancient carvings showed, right over left, the overlap landing over the heart.

“I know I’m not good at saying things,” he says, his voice reduced almost to a whisper. Gods, he’s so fucking nervous . “I… you deserve to hear them more than I can say them to you.” Kravitz looks like he wants to argue, but he knows Taako enough not to. He knows when Taako needs to say his piece.

Taako holds up Istus’s brooch.

“I can’t promise to you that I’ll say them more,” he says. “I wish I could, but… I’m not sure that part of me will ever change.” He positions the brooch where it needs to go, pierces through the fabric with the pin on the back. “But I wanted to make sure you knew, that you heard at least once,” he fiddles with it for a moment, making sure it’s straight, “that I am going to stay with you. That I love you, and I — I want to… be that person for you. The one who comforts you when things are hard and stays by your side because you’re… you’re about one of the best people I’ve ever met, and I… being with you is… it makes me wanna be a… a better elf, I guess. And I guess what I’m saying is I want the chance to try to be, for the uh… for the future.”

Gods it was awful. All that preparation and work and Taako couldn’t even put together a good speech on the night itself, he just fumbled his way through nothing , and it started so well — 

No sooner does he remove his hands from the broach does Kravitz catch them and bring them to his mouth and he kisses them both, the massive fucking nerd he is, and Taako can see now the tears spilling from his eyes even though it takes so much for his construct to even produce them.

“Taako,” he says, “ thank you , you — I can’t believe you figured all this out, I’m — and you are , Taako, you — I do know, all of it I — you’re so good, you’re —” he shakes his head like he’s at a loss for words. He looks completely overwhelmed, his brain scattered in a hundred directions. He’s practically close to sobbing.

“I — I don’t have one for you ,” he says, and he means a mantle. A pin. Taako smiles.

“Istus already thought of that, babe,” Taako says, pulling the second mantle from where it lay on the table, reaching for the Raven brooch in his pocket and Kravitz’s eyes go wide upon the sight of it and the shining, rainbow—colored shawl with long fringe that Taako holds out. 

He takes them both in his hands almost reverently.

And oh, Kravitz’s hand are so gentle as he wraps the shawl around Taako’s shoulders with the same single—minded focus he uses in all things that matter to him. He takes the brooch, pins it on Taako’s chest, right over his heart. Taako’s not sure if it’s part of the procedure or if he’s just being sentimental when he runs his hands down Taako’s arms to smooth the garment, when he straightens it as is hangs. But there’s such a gentleness in his hands, such a softness in his eyes, that it takes Taako’s breath away.

And then. 

There’s a moment, just then. The candles flicker and flare on the table, dim and bright — unnaturally so.  And then there’s something in the air, for just a moment, a pressure — like the whole world gains more gravity for a second, like Taako can feel every cell in his body. Something steals the air from his lungs and the candles glow brighter and the shadows in the corner of the room get darker and there’s a pressing, and Taako feels a presence not like magic and not like bonds but somehow like both of them at once, and Kravitz’s hands squeeze tightly over his as Taako feels, really feels someone — 

And then it’s over. The room goes silent. The air goes still. And Taako knows what it was, but he doesn’t want to think it right now. Instead, he runs his mouth, like he always does.

“So, I guess that’s it —”

Kravitz kisses him.

It’s like he can’t hold back any longer. Kravitz’s arm goes around his back and a hand goes to the back of his head and he pulls Taako close and kisses him like he’ll die if he waits a second longer. He crushes Taako in his grip and Taako can feel his hiccupping breaths from suppressed sobs, but he kisses Taako like he hardly ever kisses Taako, kisses him with a passion Taako has hardly seen since The Day, and well — 

Taako’s not going to waste that opportunity.

*~*~*~*~*

Chapter Text

*~*~*~*~*

Taako’s been in the kitchen nearly all day with Lup, and he’s exhausted . He’s hardly had a chance to stop since he got up, because this year they’re inviting everyone from the old BOB days because Magnus missed them and it’s not like Taako’s not happy to see Killian and Carey and Avi and the crew and also three family members from each of them at least , and it’s not like they don’t have the room —

But he’s also been cooking since six in the morning and it’s solidly four in the afternoon and his feet are killing him.

Lup ducks out for just a minute and Taako leans on the counter, fanning himself with his hand. He loves cooking, he really does. For Candlenights especially. But right about now he’d rather be back in bed with Kravitz, taking a well—deserved nap or maybe just not getting up at all, and spending all of Candlenights Eve wrapped in warm sheets instead of standing here, covered in flour and at least three different sauces. 

The door to the kitchen opens. Taako groans.

“Five more minutes, Lup, please ,” he begs, but the laugh from over his shoulder isn’t Lup’s.

It’s Kravitz’s.

Taako turns around and he looks so handsome standing inside the doorway with a glass of wine in each hand.

“Oh gods, you’re a saint,” Taako says, moving across the kitchen and taking the glass from his hand. He takes a long sip. The wine is sweet on his tongue and cool in his throat and he instantly feels better. Kravitz laughs.

“Maybe take it easy. We’ve got a long night ahead of us,” he says.

“If that was innuendo I’m ignoring it,” Taako says. Kravitz snorts. “I’m serious. Whoever told Killian she could invite her cousins is going to die tonight.”

“I believe that was Lup, darling.”

Taako sighs.

“Well it was a nice thought while it lasted.” He looks up at Kravitz, about to make another witty remark — and that’s when he sees what Kravitz is wearing.

He’s forgone the suit this time in favor of a black dress shirt and slacks (some things never change), but draped over top of it is a massive scarf. Not just any scarf. That scarf. Wool black as night, shot through with colors like a Raven’s wing.

“You fucking hopeless romantic,” Taako says, but he’s smiling. Kravitz takes one of his hands and kisses it.

“I think we both know I’m not the only romantic in this marriage.”

“Shut up,” Taako says, shoving him away a little, but not far enough to let go of his hand, “I have a brand to maintain.” But he pulls Kravitz back in, close enough to kiss him. And just like he has since their first kiss on the Sapphire mirror, Kravitz melts into it within moments. He pulls away for just a second, leans his forehead against Taako’s.

“Happy anniversary, love,” he says, and Taako smiles, and leans back in — 

“HEY TAAKO?”

Taako freezes. The kitchen door is open.

Lup is standing in the doorway. Her eyes are ablaze, her face set in a stiff smile.

Kravitz has frozen against him.

“Are we running?” he whispers.

“HEY TAAKO, ” Lup says, her diction impeccable . “ WHAT THE FUCK??”

Taako balls his fists up tight in Kravitz’s mantle.

“Oh, we’re definitely running.”

*~*~*~*~*