five (two) golden rings?

[pylades_drunk]

It's Christmas Eve and they're still decorating. Re-decorating, inasmuch as there were very many decorations before, because the cats have done their very best to topple the tree, late-purchased as it was, twice now (once Trick actually got stuck in the damn thing) and have brought down a good number of the baubles.

There's some bizarre holiday movie on the TV, though, and everyone's laughing. It'd be easy to snipe at each other if any or all were in a mood, over something as stupid as decorations and the cats, the stress of oncoming snow for Edgar or holidays in general for both Grantaire and Neil. Instead, it feels warmer than it has in months, and he turns from where he's choosing an aesthetically pleasing spot on the slightly disheveled tree for one of the ornaments to watch Edgar and Neil getting more fucking around accomplished than actually decorating.

It feels right, this moment, relaxed and unloaded, and it sort of just slips from his mouth.

"We should get married."

This is not how he planned it.

There are actual rings supposed to be involved, for one thing, hidden away in the room he rarely uses anymore. Several different length speeches that never sound right in his head, one version where they're all gathered together and another individually and private. Some where it's fairly romantic and spectacular (a few of these at Julie's suggestion, for she's crafty and he'd confessed his thinking to her back in July), and some more like this.

This isn't spectacular, it's not even something he was quite prepared to hear himself say, but it carries, and he bites his lip, suddenly anxious all over in a way he's not familiar with.

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[humanresource]

"And if you start then I'm going to sit here like an idiot until I have to join in," Edgar added, though his voice was even less stern than Grantaire. He let out a calm, easy breath and relaxed, making a faint noise of protest when Grantaire moved away and then suggested they stand up.

The joke was too easy and he needed some lightness after all of their serious talk, so Edgar put on an exaggerated leer. "Yeah, we know what's in the room," he said, though he found he actually didn't. Edgar knew that rings were a thing with engagement but for some reason, it hadn't connected that it would feature with them now.

[myfavoritedream]

Rolling my eyes at Edgar, I snorted out a wet laugh, scrubbing a hand across my face and trying to hide how fucking embarrassed I was.

"Yeah, but he could show us that in any room," I pointed out, reaching for Edgar's hand and shuffling towards the steps leading into the loft. It was an ungainly trip, three of us trying to walk up the stairs while keeping hold of each other and staring into each other's eyes like a couple of dicks.

On the landing, I brushed past them both, moving to sit on the edge of the bed, because I really fucking needed to sit down.

"Okay, man. Get on with it," I said, going to flippancy, but there was a crooked smile on my face that I just couldn't shake.

[pylades_drunk]

Grantaire snorts a laugh and turns around on the stairs to pull Edgar into a kiss by the front of his shirt. "It's always a possibility."

He grins, unable to keep himself deadpan right now, though he finds himself glad that Neil sits. It makes this feel less expectant. "This was all supposed to happen together," he says, half apologetic, finding himself a little nervous as though he hadn't just done the asking part, or more practically, as though the ring choices are going to be all wrong.

Grantaire opens the wardrobe. Deeming the sock drawer too obvious a hiding place, the two little ring boxes -- a soft bluish grey for Neil, and a dark red for Edgar -- are hidden away in the back of the drawer where Grantaire's trousers are folded (and sometimes messily not-quite-refolded).

He turns, drawing each out in the hand nearest that lover, and flips them both open. "I hadn't quite worked out this part."

Grantaire sits down on his knees in front of them. It's not dropping to one knee, exactly: that part's cheesy, and done with, too. But it puts him in front of where they sit on the bed, so he's not hovering. Besides, it feels right to be looking up at them right now, and he does, assessing, soft. "They're fossil, old Darrow hardwoods, metal that rode here from space on a comet. Things that shouldn't be but only exist here anyway."

Trust him to get sentimental about the materials.

"And I thought they suited you both," he adds, with a little self-conscious smile.

[humanresource]

Edgar started to sit and then paused, like he wasn't sure he ought to, leaving him in an awkward crouch until he decided to just follow Neil's example. So much of this was beyond what he'd ever been supposed to have. The Tail hadn't had rings and marriages. Hell, the Tail had been too fucking poor to even have traditions, really, of any kind. Now here he was, enjoying Christmas, getting proposed to, feeling cherished and so fucking alive.

The rings were beautiful and Edgar leaned forward but couldn't quite reach out for them, like they'd vanish if he touched them. Stupid, when one of them had been purchased exactly for him, but Edgar was hard pressed to imagine that he'd ever own something so beautiful.

"You would get something poetic and fucking impossible," he said, finally daring to run a finger along the curve of his ring.

He leaned forward and gave Grantaire a proper return for that kiss on the stairs and then sat back up, turning to look at Neil, watching for his reaction.

[myfavoritedream]

"Jesus fuckin'--" I cut myself off, scrubbing a hand across my eyes, my mouth drawn into a pained wince. He'd really been planning this, for a while. It was ridiculous, the thought of me wearing a goddamn engagement ring. I had jewelry-- a few pieces here or there, things given to me by men, things I'd bought myself, but a ring was different.

The one meant for me was a dark wood, nearly black, with a single stripe of silvery grey. Edgar's was more golden, with a copper and silver stripe. They did, somehow, suit us perfectly.

"You gonna, um--" I put my hand out awkwardly, knowing that if I'd been the type to blush, now might've been the time for it. Luckily, I wasn't.

[pylades_drunk]

Grantaire can't tell, exactly, if that wince is about the rings, his studious assigning metaphors to objects, or Neil's own exclamation. He isn't expecting either of them to be some gasping, showing-off debutante about it, especially after the living room, but it does make him hold his breath for a moment.

Then Edgar speaks, and it's his turn to flush, leaning into the kiss with feeling, gentle and lingering. Poetic is something Grantaire likes to think of himself as, but usually doesn't. Impossible, well, that's usually been applied to him in negative ways. But they are, aren't they, the three of them? Impossible.

His smile turns into something just simply pleased, boyish almost, when Neil puts his hand out, and he nods, setting down Edgar's for just a moment to pluck Neil's ring off and put it on his finger, chewing on the inside of his lip as he does.

He does the same in turn to Edgar with a little private smile just his. It's strange, the ways that he loves them both, the things that they bring to his life: so similar and so very different.

Right now, though, he's feeling happy and ridiculous about all of it, and wishing very much that all the amis were here to mock him later for all of this sentiment.

[humanresource]

They could only have happened in Darrow, the three of them. It's about as impossible as fossils from a place without history , mixed with metal from the sky, elements that should never have met and yet were there. Edgar wasn't much for words unless he was about to insult someone or incite violence. When it came to trying to express how beautiful he thought they were and how much he loved them? He was lost.

Edgar let Grantaire slide the ring onto his finger and then took a moment to contemplate it. The ring was still new, foreign on his person, but he could imagine it being there every day, getting used to it, until the ring was an ingrained part of his being. Just like they were.

"I love them," he said, finally tearing his eyes away from the ring to look up at Neil and Grantaire. "Fuck, I love you both."