stankhole

dennis is relieved that the two most important women in his life are friendly with each other but that relief quickly changes to regret when he realizes oh god, now he’s going to get needled about manning up and asking the older man out from two different places now

6 months after they make that pact jack meets his wife.

jack is happily married and despite carrying a torch for the younger man for years, robby resigns himself to being alone. sure he has dated around, but none of them last, none of them exactly what he’s looking for and robby fears what he is looking for is the man that he stood next to as his best man.

robby’s 50th rolls around and neither man mention the promise they made all those years ago.

jack loses his wife a year later, when he is 46.

so by the time jack’s 50th comes around robby figures that their pact is moot, but as a joke he buys abbot a ring pop to “propose”, even putting the candy in a velvet box.

after they have a nice birthday dinner at jack’s favorite restaurant, they head back to robby’s for a few beers.

robby tosses abbot the box, joking that his back hurt too much for him to kneel, but he hoped he enjoyed the flavor. jack smiled when he looked inside the box, before going to his backpack by the door and grabbing something from one of the pockets.

robby watched him make his way back to the couch, the sound of the game droning on in the background. he felt his heart race when he saw jack brace himself against the arm of the sofa, kneeling in front of the older man.

when jack pulled out a black velvet box, robby thought his heart was going to stop.

“there’s no way we were both going to make the same joke,” he said lamely.

jack just stared into his eyes, and robby was reminded of the young man he had met so long ago, the hazel irises still the same as all those years ago, despite the crows feet that now lines the corners of his eyes.

“surprisingly no jokes from me today. you know me michael, when i make a promise i always do my damndest to follow through. now i may have been younger and dumber when we made that pact more than 20 years ago,” jack said, a fond smile on his face, “but i meant it as much then as i do now.”

jack cracks open the box, revealing a simple gold band.