Chapter Text
“Lighthouses,” the tour guide drawls, “Aren’t just pretty pictures on calendars. They’re a beacon in the darkness, symbols of hope, all that jazz. But they’ve also literally got a job to do, even today.”
His name is Taako, and unlike the other lighthouse keepers Kravitz has seen on this tour his moms dragged him into, he’s about Kravitz’s age, and he’s beautiful. Kravitz hangs on every word, even though a lot of them are recycled from the other tours. There’s only so much a guy can learn about lighthouses. He tried to tell his moms this, but they just laughed and kept taking windswept pictures. He’s almost ready to thank them, though, for the privilege of getting to spend the better part of an hour in Taako’s intimate radius.
There’s not a lot of personal space in a lighthouse.
“You lot seem familiar with the poetry. I’ll skip the rest. This gorgeous beastie has been around for almost two hundred years, despite the ocean’s best attempts on her life. And she’s got something special.”
Kravitz read the pamphlet, but he asks anyway.
“What’s special about it?”
“You can divine the future from all the damn bird shit on the ground,” Taako deadpans, and then laughs at his own joke. Kravitz laughs too, so incredibly, foolishly charmed. “Nah, it’s a whole thing. Every lighthouse has got a characteristic, yeah? A pattern for the light so you know who’s who and where’s where? This one’s characteristic is a flash of one, one-two-three-four, one-two-three.”
Kravitz blinks.
“Cool?”
Taako grins. Kravitz’s moms look at each other and laugh. Kravitz had almost forgotten they were there again. Taako holds up his fingers as he spells out:
“One, four, three. I l-o-v-e y-o-u.”
Kravitz’s cheeks burn about as bright as the giant night-light above their heads.His moms awwww behind them.
“They were actually going to change it, and the community got way upset, like, ahh, I took my soulmate here when we first dated, you can’t do that, so they didn’t.”
“Wow,” Kravitz says, fully aware he sounds like a big dumb idiot. “Love wins.”
Taako snickers.
“Yeah, guess so. Hey, you crew wanna see the top?”
“Oh, I don’t know if I can do the stairs on this one,” Raven says, and Istus nods as seriously as she can manage. “My knees, you know.”
Traitors. Or wingladies? The world may never know.
“I’ll go with you,” Kravitz volunteers. “It’s. Cool to see the view.” He doesn’t like heights. This is a lie to talk to a pretty boy for a little bit longer. But Taako grins and leads him up the terrifying stairs, so...he wins? Taako rattles off more facts as they spiral upwards, seemingly more excited now, and Kravitz tries not to swoon, because those stairs forgive no sins, no sins whatsoever.
“So you’ve already been on a few of these tours, you’ve probably heard all the hot deets, you know, about tallow versus lard and wicks and glass chimneys, right? Fresnel lenses and all that?”
Kravitz nods, which he realizes Taako can’t see.
“Yeah, they’re also in, um.” There’s so many fucking stairs. “Car headlights.”
“Smart boy.” Kravitz gets the firm impression Taako would be winking at him if he could. His cheeks burn even brighter. He’ll guide the ships back home with his fucking face. “So I won’t bore you with all that. But I will bore you with this--did you know magic likes significant places?” He doesn’t wait for a response, mercifully letting Kravitz just climb the stairs. “And high places, too. The grip of reality is thin. And you know, sometimes, sometimes you can see things.”
Kravitz figures if he sees anything funky, it’s probably his body warning him he’s about to pass out after climbing up God’s asshole, but he keeps that to himself. Taako seems to believe it. Kravitz will pretend it’s a real thing for Taako. Gorgeous Taako.
“You don’t have a soulmate yet, do you?” Taako finally gets to the top, and he turns and offers Kravitz a hand. It feels incredibly significant. He takes it, of course, and Taako helps him up to the very top of the lighthouse. The eye of the beast glitters brightly as it slowly turns, massive and celestial in a way that leaves Kravitz reverent.
“No,” he says, editing out what gave it away, the fact that I’m on vacation with my moms?
“Cool,” Taako says, with a gap-toothed grin. “Check out that view.”
Kravitz doesn’t want to look at the view, but obediently, he turns, and he sees the world and the ocean spread out before him, glistening and inviting, and he squeezes Taako’s hand tightly as vertigo grips him by the guts and shakes him like a doll. His life flashes before his eyes--no, not his life, another man’s life, and he’s out on the sea in a little fishing boat, and he’s made the worst and definitely last mistake of his life. The storm is rolling in like a train made of pea soup, and he knows, knows deep down in his soul, he’s going to die. There’s no way he’ll find the shore again.
And then he turns, and there’s a light in the darkness, hope against the hopeless sea, flashing once, four times, three times. His love is guiding him home, and he paddles like his sorry life depends on it. And it does. He crashes on those vulturous rocks, and he imagines he’s gone and died after all, and he wakes up in a tiny bed, a man with beautiful eyes bringing him something to eat.
“I do feel awful about your boat,” he says, in a familiar voice. “But I knew you’d come back to me.”
Kravitz hurls back to the present and almost loses his clam chowder lunch about it, but Taako steadies him. Those eyes, those familiar eyes, glittering like the sea, they guide him back to reality. A beacon of hope, and all that jazz.
“What did you see?” Taako begs, absolutely thrilled. “Did you see your soulmate?”
“Yeah,” Kravitz whispers, so lightheaded and terrified and confused and happy he could just combust. “Yeah, I did.”