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Taako was not soft.
He was a badass wizard, an incredible cook, an interstellar traveler, one of the saviours of the multiverse, natch.
He wasn’t soft .
But as Kravitz stood outside their house, his face turned towards the sky, snowflakes falling around him, catching in his hair, in his eyelashes, landing on his cheeks, getting stuck in the wool of his cloak, surrounding him in a hazy cloud of white, a halo in bright contrast against his dark skin and hair and clothes, Taako’s heart flipped in his chest.
It turns out whoever named Neverwinter was full of shit, because when Taako awoke that morning, his head tucked underneath Kravitz’s chin, pressed close to his chest, warm in a way Kravitz was still just getting used to, the snow was already falling in fat, white flakes that clung to the windows.
Taako had simply hummed, snuggled closer to Kravitz, relishing in the warmth of their blankets and the fire crackling away in the hearth on the other side of the room, content to simply lie there, together, Kravitz’s hands carding through Taako’s hair as Taako traced mindless shapes on Kravitz’s skin.
“It’s snowing,” Kravitz had murmured, his voice still thick with sleep, and Taako could feel it, the vibrations of Kravitz’s words against his skin.
“Mhmm,” Taako said, pressing a light kiss to Kravitz’s jaw.
For a moment, Kravitz paused.
“What’s up, bubbeleh?” Taako asked, propping himself up just slightly so that he could see Kravitz’s face.
“Nothing, really, I just—” Kravitz’s eyes drifted towards the window. “It’s been a while since I’ve—since I’ve seen snow.”
“Really?” Taako asked, rolling off of Kravitz entirely and sitting up against the headboard.
“Uh, yeah. It doesn’t—we don’t really get snow, in the Astral Plane.”
Taako nodded, staring out the window.
He could remember, now, the first time he’d seen snow.
It was warm, back on his purple-skyed planet. Two suns meant unusual seasonal patterns and nothing that could really be counted as winter , but once, when Taako was young, just barely 60, all the now-gone stars had aligned, and he and Lup had woke up one morning to see little drifts of snow piled against the side of their aunt’s house, and small, sparkling flakes floating through the air.
“Do you—do you wanna go out there and, I dunno, like—” Taako floundered for words. Play in the snow was—look, they were both adults, here, each with a couple of centuries under their belts, they didn’t—no. But… “I could show you how to make snow ice-cream? Or something?”
And Kravitz smiled, a small, sheepish thing, totally unfitting of the Harbinger of Death, that left Taako reeling.
“I—that sounds lovely,” he said, and Taako kissed him, warm and gentle.
Being in love was…
Throughout his life, Taako had done pretty much everything. He’d seen a hundred different worlds, heard their songs and read their stories and ate their food. He’d met kings and queens and gods and goddesses, tyrants and revolutionaries, musicians and farmers and priests and teachers and boy detectives. He’d lived a hundred lives, died far too many deaths.
And still, still, this was new .
It was new and beautiful and so, so precious.
Taako wasn’t a good person. He wasn’t a hero. He was a selfish, egotistical asshole with more issues than fantasy-Times Magazine, but damn it fucking all if Kravitz—if he hadn’t somehow found a way through all of Taako’s walls, through all the complicated, contradictory layers of narcissism and self-loathing and trust issues and neediness and all the other bullshit that cluttered up the space in the heart Taako had forgotten he had.
And it was…
Nice. It was nice.
More than nice, really, but if Taako thought about it for too long he’d melt into a puddle of feelings-y goo, which wasn’t exactly part of the Taako TM brand.
Kravitz held his hand, held him close, brushed away his fears and insecurities with every gentle look and every kind word.
And Taako loved him .
Loved the way Kravitz would snort if he was laughing too hard, and how that only made him laugh harder. Loved the way Kravitz’s hands would move in a smooth one-two-three pattern when he was deep in thought. Loved the way he cringed at scary stories, the hilarious rants he’d go on about the tiniest, most ridiculous things, the way his socks always matched his tie and his pocket square, the way he blushed when Taako ran a hand down his chest, the way his lips felt against Taako’s skin—
It was wonderful and terrifying, the fucking vastness of all the feelings Taako had.
It was a scary sort of love, big in a way he’d only ever felt for Lup (although, obviously different because, uh, yuck ).
He’d raze the world, he’d raise the world , tear the stars from the sky, pull the clouds down to their feet, level cities and write symphonies if only Kravitz asked.
So when Kravitz looked at him like that , with that stupid, bashful, adorable smile that really, really had no place on the Face of Death, how could Taako say no?
The answer was, he couldn’t, actually, which was maybe the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him, ever, period, including the time he’d been killed by a massive pink anthropomorphic butterfly during cycle 38.
And so they stood, together, out in the cold, bundled up in coats and cloaks and scarfs and cowls and mittens and gloves and hats with little pom-poms on top, and Taako watched as Kravitz marveled at the wide, grey sky.
There was an old, old Elvish saying on Taako’s two-sunned planet. “Caelum certe patet, ibimus illi,” his aunt would say as she stared up at the stars, at the heavens. Surely the sky lies open, let us go that way.
Taako had thought it was a call to adventure, a beckoning upward, beyond the clouds, past what was known. There was opportunity up there, in the sky, opportunities for lonely, orphaned elves with only each other to cling to. He and Lup had joined the IPRE to chase those words, to head into that open sky.
Now, as Taako stared at Kravitz, he thought it meant something else.
“I love you,” he said quietly, stepping closer and linking his arm through Kravitz’s.
And Kravitz smiled at him in that wide, breathtaking, beautiful, perfect way of his, and said, “I love you, too.”
And Taako leaned up against him, blinking away snowflakes.
And the world was bright.
And the sky lay open.