pushbackthedarkness | (no subject)

When all was said and done, picking a ring had turned out to be a lot easier than Marcus had anticipated. For a time, he had considered asking for Neil's help, but it hadn't felt right, involving him in something like a proposal when he was in the process of leaving his own marriage. He'd thought about asking Kat, too, or Sam, and had been halfway through a text message to the both of them when he'd passed by a small jewelry store, the lighting inside dim and atmospheric.

The Latin inscriptions had drawn him first and then the beauty and the quality of the pieces. He'd found the one after looking at only a few, glancing at the inscription -- Ab Hinc -- for the barest of moments before he'd told the owner it was the one he wanted. From Here On.

It feels exactly right.

Marcus doesn't think he knows how to be properly romantic, but Dan deserves it, so he tries. It's a Sunday, so he knows the beach will be less busy that evening than on a Friday or Saturday, and so he sends Dan a text to meet him. He has nothing with him but a blanket, the ring, and some sparkling, non-alcoholic cider to celebrate, and he keeps the ring in his pocket, but hides the rest down the beach in a private nook. The place they had gone together that evening last summer, the first evening they had kissed.

He's waiting for Dan now on the boardwalk, leaning against the edge, his forearms draped over the railing. He's nervous and he isn't. He's excited and scared. He still doesn't know if he deserves this happiness, but Dan does, and so long as he focuses on Dan, he feels like he's doing exactly the right thing.

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"Oh, it was hardly your fault you simply hadn't met a man who lived up to your standards until me," Marcus says with a teasing grin, reaching over to curl his hand over Dan's knees and squeezing lightly.

He's beautiful in this light, in the golden hour. He's always beautiful and Marcus knows he'd had every intention of waiting longer, but suddenly he can't. There's no point in waiting any further, in denying himself or Dan something they want. It had taken him time to get here, time and a few sessions with his therapist to at least begin to address some of his internalized self-hate, but he's glad he'd done the work. He wants this moment to be right.

"I have something for you," he admits, reaching into his pocket for the ring box.

"I can't really claim it's my standards, but I think I have an eye for quality," he teases back, because sometimes it's completely terrifying, even now, to realize how very precious this life is, how fucking rare to travel across worlds to find the perfect person.

And then Marcus has a ring box, and just like when they'd been on this beach a year ago, surprise doesn't hold a candle to the feeling of finally grasping something so dearly wanted. It's realization, expansion, the last block of the slide puzzle clacking into place.

"Okay," he says, meaning please, meaning go on, meaning always.

He realizes a little too late that he hasn't planned anything to say. There's no speech he's prepared, nothing to communicate what he really wants to be able to say, though he doesn't think Dan will fault him for that.

He breathes in deep, then cracks open the box and smiles crookedly.

"I never thought marriage was for me," he admits. "You know that. But I'm very much looking forward to you continuing to prove me wrong. For as long as we're here, whatever that means, you know I'm yours."

Even knowing, in his marrow if not in his mind, this could happen, that they would get this, the light shooting through his veins has the color of surprise-- not only that they're here, but that he wants it so badly.

"I never thought it was something I'd want either," Dan says, "and then there was you."

He reaches out for Marcus, pulling him in, needing to press his shaky mouth to Marcus's lips.

"I'm yours," he agrees, kissing Marcus not unlike those first few kisses on the beach, feeling like he might fly apart from the goodness of it.

Marcus lifts one hand and curls it in the collar of Dan's shirt, holding onto him, pulling him in, anchoring him. Or maybe anchoring himself. Dan's mouth is warm and Marcus feels, strangely not for the first time, a sense of peace he's not sure he's ever known.

Not even in the most satisfying moments of exorcism has he known anything like this.

"I hope it fits," he says, then laughs against Dan's mouth. "I didn't even think about that, I just saw it and bought it."