Chocolate Cake and Wedding Rings

SLASH It’s his birthday today. I know he expects something from me. I think he’s going to get much more than some little present. Oneshot Fluff

Rated PG

Claimer: Alonzo and Christan are mine. You can borrow if you ask, but I don’t know why you would.

Chocolate Cake and Wedding Rings

My cereal was soggy. The dying Cheerios stared accusingly up at me as I swirled them around with a cheap plastic spoon. My hunger was a hollow weight in my stomach, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to eat. I was too lost in thought, too worried.

He was behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist, pressing his lips to my temple, my neck, resting his chin on my shoulder. “What’s bothering you?”

“I’m not bothered,” I replied, leaning back into him and smiling to myself. I reached up over my head and ran my fingers through his hair.

He sighed contentedly against me. “You usually eat like a monster, but you’ve hardly had a spoonful.” He traced the shape of my ear with his lips, making me shiver. “So what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Really.”

“Really?”

“Alonzo…”

He was planting lazy kisses all up and down my neck. “You sick, or something?”

“Nah,” I said, pulling away from his kisses to look at him. “I was just thinking.”

He grinned at me. “About what?”

I didn’t feel like lying. I kissed him once, gently, and smiled against his lips. “About you.”

He matched my smile with his own, opening his eyes to gaze into my own. “That works. As long as I’m the center of your world.”

I thumped him on the shoulder. “Go get dressed and get to work. Quit farting around in my kitchen.”

“Your kitchen?” he scoffed, but he was already halfway down the hall. “Who here cooks? I ask you!”

“I do!” I shouted after him.

He paused for a moment, and frowned. “Oh,” he said. “Right.”

I laughed after him, but he had already run off. The moment I lost sight of him, my anxiousness returned like a lead weight, and this time it didn’t go away, even when he reappeared to kiss me goodbye. I watched him pull out of the driveway, narrowly missing a poor mutated snowman on the next door neighbor’s front lawn. He waved at me with a broad grin and gunned it, lurching down the street with a sickening squeal.

God, I thought. He’s going to kill himself, and I’ll have spent weeks planning this day for nothing.

--

Beautiful.

Just beautiful.

Everything was looking good. The cake was cooling, the present was already wrapped, and Alonzo would be coming back in just an hour. I was just stepping out of the shower when the thunderstorm (which had been brewing suspiciously over the past two hours or so) peaked, and the electricity went out. I stood there dumbly for at least five minutes – naked, wet, and blind.

“Shit,” I said.

I took one tentative step, then another, and then I slipped on the floor. My hand skated over the top of the counter, knocking my glasses to the floor. There was a sickening crack, and I knew they were broken. I hit the ground, and my head snapped back, smacking squarely against the edge of the tub.

I lay there, letting the pain flare downwards from my head to my toes like a buckling cramp, moaning softly to myself, and then the lights flickered back on.

My glasses were totally shattered.

I didn’t have time to deal with it, so, with a heavy sigh, I put them on anyway. I squinted through the cracked lenses, gathering only half-shapes. I knew Alonzo was going to ask about it. I felt sure he would laugh at me when he heard the story. And then he would insist that I saw a doctor for the knock on my head, even though I felt perfectly fine.

There was a sickening crash from the kitchen.

The anxiousness, which had been heavy in my stomach all morning suddenly jumped to my throat. Without bothering to grab a towel, I streaked through the house (double meaning, yes, I know), until I came into the kitchen to see – or, rather, thanks to my glasses, half-see – our big mutt dog, Willy, with his snout buried in my carefully-crafted cake, which was splattered on the kitchen floor amongst the remains of the platter it had been sitting on.

I shouted angrily and moved to get the dog away, even though it was useless – the cake was long gone.

My dog only burped at me, licking the icing from his chops, and trotted away. He curled up a few feet away to lick his paws clean and smile at me.

It was a disgusting mess. Now I was wet, naked, blind, and his cake was ruined. There was no time to bake another one.

And then, to his horror, he could hear a car pulling up in the driveway.

Alonzo had come home early.

--

So Alonzo walked through the front door of his house, smiling to himself and jingling his keys, and he turned to hang up his coat and saw me, posed comically (and very nakedly) over a ruined, slobber-covered cake, my glasses hanging askew over my horrified face.

His eyes widened and his mouth opened but no words came out.

“Alonzo!” I gasped. “It’s not – you’re early – I mean… It’s a really, really long story.”

“Christan,” he said, his voice just as breathless. “What the hell?”

“I was taking a shower and the power went out and I fell and my glasses broke and I was making a cake but stupid friggin’ Willy got into it and I heard the crash so I ran in here without thinking and so I wasn’t dressed and I royally screwed up. I did. I just wanted – I mean… It’s your birthday. You went to work on your birthday!”

Alonzo was shaking his head in disbelief. “Jesus, Christan,” he breathed, and sank to his knees beside me. “You mean you went through all of that for me?”

“Sort of. Look, I need to go get dressed. And dried. And I need to clean up this mess. You… I don’t know. You should go watch TV or something.”

“No, let me help…” Even while he said it, I could see his nose wrinkling in disgust.

I couldn’t help but smile. I pressed a hand to his shoulder. “I’m fine, really. Go relax. I’ve still got a present for you. I somehow didn’t manage to ruin that.”

His eyes brightened at the very mention of a present. He was still a sucker for them, after all these years. “Alright,” he said, but he still hesitated. After a moment he made up his mind, pecked me on the lips, and dashed out of the room. A few seconds later the TV roared to life, still too loud, but I’d stopped caring.

I decided to get dressed first, and then clean up the mess. His present sat on the table, glaring at me hatefully across the room as I went about my business. I wanted to give it all up. I’d messed everything up. But Alonzo would never forgive me if I didn’t do it.

So, after I was all done, I trekked into the living room, where he lay sprawled on the couch, his dress shirt unbuttoned all the way down and his shoes flung across the room. When he saw me, an enormous grin spread over his features, but I think he was smiling more at the big box in my hands than at me.

I handed it to him, and he began tearing away at the wrapping, simply alight with excitement. He opened the box and peered inside.

His face fell.

Slowly, uncertainly, he reached inside and pulled out another box, only slightly smaller than the first. He glanced at me warily and opened this box. Inside this box was another box, and another box.

“What the hell is this, Christan?” he asked me, torn between amusement and disappointment. “I can’t believe you’re playing tricks on me on my birthday.”

“You have to work for it, love,” I told him, biting back laughter. It really wasn’t all that funny. “I promise it will be the best present you’ve ever gotten.”

“It’d better be, you ass,” he said, but he was grinning, too, now.

“You keep calling me names and I might just take it back.”

He unconsciously pulled the box closer to him. “You wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t. But for God’s sake, open it!”

His love for presents outweighed his desire to torture me. He ripped apart the boxes until he was at the last one, and, while I had been relatively relaxed up to this point, I was breathless.

He held it up and shook it. “What is it?” he pondered aloud. “A pet mouse? It’s certainly small enough.”

I said nothing.

He took the hint and opened it. Inside, I knew, was a little velvet case. He was expressionless, his lips slightly parted as he had been prepared to say something beforehand, and he slowly reached in and pulled it out. He held it in his open palm, turning it around, and then he opened it.

A ring. A note.

He looked for a moment like he was going to take it just fine, maybe even laugh, but then he burst into tears. Between the blubbering and the shaking, he looked at me, begging me to tell him if this was real or not, but my mouth was glued shut. I knew if I opened it I’d cry, too.

He pressed his face to my chest, so hard I leaned back a little and braced myself with the armrest. It took me a moment to realize aside the wetness of his tears that he was kissing me, and that between shuddering gasps and sobs he was mumbling half-thoughts and words that were beautiful and simple.

“Yes, yes, God Christan yes…”

The tears came then, and we were kissing, pure, wet, and sporadic kisses, fumbling with the velvet case, and I blindly slipped the ring onto his finger, pressing my forehead to his, trying to breathe, and then I was laughing. We were both laughing, driving each other up the back of the couch, our kisses becoming sweeter, softer.

After a few minutes the euphoria died down, and we lay, curled up and panting, in each other’s arms.

Now slightly sobered, but not much, Alonzo’s eyes began to darken. “Oh…” he said, holding my face in his hands. “Christan… it’s… it’s illegal…”

I pressed my fingertips to his lips. “Here, it is. I don’t care about that. We’ll go somewhere. We’ll go somewhere where it isn’t.”

His eyes were shining with tears, but the smile was returning. “You promise?”

I kissed him again, deeply, this time, and he didn’t need any words. It was answer enough.

--

Author’s Notes: Very cliché, and not the best fluff I’ve ever written, but I like it just the same. Reviews are your friends.

Love,

Chemist