✦✦✦ ─────── THEY WERE NOT the only couple in the cinema that evening, but after the fifteen‑minute mark, the other patrons began to filter out of the room yawning and bored of the slow pace, too used to the fast‑paced, nervous‑cut, bright colours and advertisement‑saturated content of the future to linger for long. Soon enough they were the only two left, with Howard seemingly fixated on the movie, munching on his popcorn and gawking at the screen.
After some time, he got up, just as the casts in the movie were running around in the sand singing to one another about how much they loved each other, and tugged on Clark eagerly to follow him up the small stage before the screen, laughing heartily.
There, cast by the light of the projector on their faces, Howard's laughter simmered into a nervous smile. He was speechless for a moment, then, as the characters on the screen began to speak quietly to one another, he took a deep, deep breath.
"Clark, I think it's pretty clear to us both that we're committed. We'll have our moments, we're so stubborn in our own ways, me more than you… there's always something to have a barney over with me, as I'm sure you know," he moved his gaze away shyly for a moment through an exaggerated, anxious exhale. "Still working on that, but I hope you know that I'd sooner die than let this get away from me. I meant what I said when I said this is my forever, and I would never love anyone else again if we can't be as one."
"I promise I'll do all I can to make you happy in this relationship. I promise you, I'm putting everything into this, for us both. I want us, so, so badly. I want us to be forever."
He dropped to one knee, pulling a ring box from his pocket. Inside was a plain band, somewhat amateurishly made from its slightly irregular shape, though care and effort had been put into its construction to make it as presentable as possible.
"I uh… made this myself. Not silver," he chuckled nervously. "Tungsten, don't uh… don't worry." Dallying, buying time for his nerves to rise into his throat. Then, finally, as he tasted his bravery on his tongue, he took another deep breath before asking,
"Will you… marry me?"
Clark was not a slave to nostalgia, but it was a nice treat now and again.
A poison did not have to be lethal if one only indulged in moderation.
Besides, what was the harm of it? These two old men, both relics of the past, enjoying old comforts during the festive season. Was that not the POINT of the holidays? To indulge in the joy and joy alone despite the fact the surrounding filth and turmoil remained just out of sight? It was the single point in the year when delusional optimism was aggressively encouraged.
The movie wasn't anything to write home about, but the experience of it all was comforting and familiar and he found himself leaning against Howard's shoulder even as his own interest in the film itself dwindled. The theater began to gradual empty, those that had come for a taste of of the past they had no real connection to being sorely let down. It came to be that they had the entirety of the theater to themselves and he was just as well fine with this too.
Sometime later, Howard got up suddenly and dragged a bewildered Clark with him to the front stage where the lights from the antiquated projector made it hard to look anywhere but at Howard himself. The cambion watched the dazzling smile of his lover, was captured by it until it faded into a nervous smile. His stomach sank, not in an entirely unpleasant way. It sunk in that prophetic way, that sixth sense kicking in that something was about to happen.
This all felt like a confession. It felt like either Howard was going to break up with him (unlikely) or... or-—
Clark knew what was going to happen before it actually did. It didn't stop the air from being knocked out of his lungs as the giant of a man sunk to a knee with a ring ( a fucking ring! ). Clark, the silver-tongued devil, found himself without a single intelligible word there at the tip of his tongue. He blinked down owlishly at Howard, lips parted as the film continued to play behind them.
❝ I-— I mean, yes. Of course, yes. I just... I thought you didn't... I mean, you said once that marriage wasn't really enough to bother with or... something. I can't even remember but I just kind of-— I never expected... ❞ Marriage to an immortal was more about the concept and the statement behind it. They could never be intertwined legally, not as they were. Their aliases and identities could be, sure. But Clark Thompson and Howard were both dead and dead men could not marry on paper.
He exhaled a huff at his own lack of coherency and put out his hand. ❝ Howard, if I try and make you a band you will somehow end up with a wholly not circle-shaped ring. I'm going to have to outsource the labor. ❞ It was giddy in tone, conveying that Howard was not the only nervous one here.
❝ Frankly speaking, I just... only assumed it in my head. Considered us spouses, I mean. Husband, spouse, partner. All of it. If I'd known you would indulge me, I'd have beat you to the punch... ❞
