denver kingswood ❀ gale hawthorne (huntress) wrote in dunhavenic, @ 2018-08-15 23:17:00 |
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It was mostly a normal evening. Bash had gotten home from work and changed out of his uniform, safely locking up his gun and changing into something more casually him. He’d told Denver that he would make dinner tonight rather than either of them picking up something, and promised to try to have it ready by the time she got back from the stables. While he worked, he started a playlist in the background that he’d made for a night like this one. Before he started dinner, Bash sat down at the kitchen table and sorted through an array of fresh wildflowers that he had managed to secure earlier that day. It was probably more practiced than it should be for him as he wove the flowers tightly together in a curved crown. His nimble fingers made relatively quick work of the project, and he gathered the remaining flowers to be placed in a vase on the table. The crown was placed at the center of the table, meant to be a small indulgence of spoiling her. That’s what this night was about, really. It was about celebrating the both of them and the love that they had for one another. It was for him to show her just how desperately he adored her, and bring a smile to her lips just because he could. He wanted this evening to be simple, but indulgent of little gestures that he didn’t always make. Maybe those small reminders would tip her off, or maybe they wouldn’t, but he could feel the weight of the ring inside of his pocket and he hoped that later this evening she would be properly wearing it instead of just vaguely aware of its existence. Knowing that his preparation time was slipping away, Bash tied an apron around his waist and got to work in the kitchen. It was lucky that he’d spent so much of his youth at Sal’s because he could create anything from their menu by heart if he truly wanted to. He made the pizza dough from scratch, kneeding and tossing it until it was just right. The sauce had been cooked to perfection, and he loaded the pizza with sausage and pineapple, just as she liked it. Just as she had ordered from him the very first time they ever met each other, back when they’d both been teenagers and there had been no small amount of animosity between them. That had all melted away in the following years when they’d actually gotten to know one another. Now, they kept each other steady. Now they fought for each other instead of with each other. It had been quite the transformation. There was flour smudged on his apron, but he paid no mind to it as he set about cutting up fresh peaches for a cobbler, dousing the sweet fruit in cinnamon, brown sugar, and other spices. He hummed a little along with the music that filtered softly through the kitchen, and tried to ignore any lingering nerves that he had about the dinner date that he had planned. Everything was going to be just fine. He was certain. Denver had meant what she’d told Bash a few days prior that, regardless of how outside influences made her feel, Bash was the one thing in her life that made her feel safe, unconditionally loved, and steady. Things had been steadily building up since Cassia’s rearrival in Dunhaven and, with conversations actually opening up between the three former best friends, a lot of old and ugly feelings resurfacing came with them. Bash had been so wonderful through all of it, dulling the sharp edges of her past. So it was with a lighter heart than she’d had all day that she let herself into Bash’s house (because it was still his house, she thought, even though she spent 90% of her nights there) and pulled off her boots at the door. “It smells like Sal’s in here,” she called out with a smile on her face. It both seemed like only yesterday and a lifetime ago that she had seen Bash working at the pizza place, but the smell of the pizza here as though they were standing in the middle of Sal’s (cleaner) kitchen felt a little bit like reconciling two parts of herself. Though she smelled like horses and well-earned sweat, Denver didn’t immediately head for a shower, instead walking into the kitchen with blinders on. She wanted to see Bash and so she saw nothing else. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle as she leaned up to rest her chin on his shoulder. “By which i mean it smells amazing. You must have had a good day to want to do all this. Do I have time to shower before we eat?” Her voice calling out to him made his heart flip over in his chest, though he knew that she wasn’t aware of his plans for the evening. He had been expecting her. It wasn’t as though she was here earlier than he had anticipated. There was never a time when he didn’t want to see her, so even if she had just come in from the stables, he would never turn her away. Bash grinned at his mostly put together cobbler even as she wrapped her arms around him from behind, “I strayed from the dessert pizza and went for an actual cobbler, though.” Bash turned his head so he could brush his lips in a kiss against her temple where he could reach her, cutting butter tabs to put on the cobbler topping, “I have had a pretty marvelous day, but having you here makes it all the better.” He glanced at the clock, the timers, and quickly assessed how long it would take to finish all of his preparations, “You’ve got time to clean up if you want to. I won’t complain either way, but I’d say by the time you got done the pizza would be cool enough to eat and dessert will still be in the oven.” Denver gave Bash a quick squeeze and tilted her head up to press a quick kiss against his jawline. “All right, then. I’m just going to hop in real quick and I’ll be back in a jiffy. I’m highly motivated by that cobbler-not-a-dessert-pizza.” She grinned, kissed him, again, before heading off toward the bathroom, only pausing for a moment to say, “And when I get out, I want to hear all about your marvelous day.” The emphasis was an attempt of some sort of fancy accent but Denver had never been that great at accents. She wasn’t gone long, as promised, and returned shortly wearing a spare pair of shorts she’d left there and one of Bash’s old shirts. She thought maybe something a little nicer would have been appropriate for the effort he’d clearly put into dinner but she hadn’t thought far enough ahead to swing by her own place and pick up a change of clean clothes and she hadn’t done laundry yet that week at Bash’s. Denver made a mental note to run home later and pick up something to wear to work the next day. As promised, the pizza was ready and all Denver had to do was slide into her seat at the dining room table. “You must be feeling pretty great today,” she mused. “I don’t remember the last time we actually ate at the table instead of out on the deck or on the couch.” It was a nice change to the routine, but she couldn’t help but feel like she was missing something. A birthday, or an anniversary, if she didn’t know better. “Want to tell me all about it now?” While Denver was gone, Bash had taken care of the rest of his preparations. He had ditched the apron and thoroughly washed his hands even if they would be eating without silverware and he was likely to dirty them again. Part of why his day had been so spectacular had been the planning and preparation for tonight, though he couldn’t exactly tell her that without giving something away that he would rather keep close to the chest for a little while longer. Though he had worn some of his nicer jeans and a plain t-shirt, Bash didn’t bat an eye when Denver emerged from her shower. He wasn’t disappointed in her choice of attire. If anything, she looked relaxed and comfortable and that was how he liked her best. It didn’t matter what she was wearing to him. He just wanted her to be happy, so her smile was her most important accessory and he’d gotten a few glimpses of that already. Having cut the pizza, he put a couple of slices on two different plates and brought them to the table. He paused to steal a kiss as he put down her plate, but happily pulled up the seat next to her and gave a mild shrug of his shoulders, “It’s a good day. Someone brought in giant muffins for breakfast at the station, and it’s continued to go uphill from there. It got me thinking about things that make me happy and things that make you happy, so I figured I would treat us both a little in a celebration of little moments. I had some kind of epiphany that it’s all the little things that add up to a whole lot of happiness, and it’s kind of astounding how these seemingly minor things boosted my mood all day.” He took a thoughtful bite of pizza, wiped his fingers on his napkin, and then reached next to the vase where he picked up the intricately woven crown, “One of those things was making you this. The last one I made for you was on your birthday, and that was a hell of a good day. Plus, you’re the reigning queen of my life, so it seems fitting.” Denver couldn’t help the delighted chuckle that came out as Bash placed the flower crown on her head. “When did you even have time to make this today between work and this impressive spread?” she asked, not at all complaining about the turn of events. “You’re even more of my favorite sort of dork than usual,” she continued, affection obvious in both her tone and the way her eyes lingered on him, as though it was physically impossible to look anywhere but at him. He was right, though, that it was the little moments that added up to something bigger. She could just look at them to see that. For so many years, they had shared so many little moments that had woven themselves into their shared lives and into her heart until, one night at his best friend’s wedding, all of those moments had turned irreversibly into something big. Taking a bite of her own pizza, Denver adjusted her crown and then reached for his hand. “Tell me more about your day. You already know how my days go. I spend all my time with horses and it’s completely and blissfully uneventful.” “I didn’t just make it today. I also hand picked the flowers myself. It might have been while I was on patrol with Lyra, so it’s at least partially a byproduct of town resources,” he remarked with a slightly crooked smile, the sight of her wearing the crown turning his heart over yet again. Thankfully, in a town like Dunhaven the crime rate was relatively low. They dealt with traffic violations and the occasional theft and sometimes things got a little more interesting than that, but it was usually low-key. The most exciting thing that had happened at the police station in years was the arrest of Harrison Steele, and while that case was still ongoing through the court system, much of their work had already been completed. He squeezed her hand gently, thoughtfully chewing a bite of pizza - savoring the delicate balance of sweet and spicy - as he considered what he could tell her about his day, “You know, those horses can be hilarious so even if it was uneventful, I’m certain that their personalities keep you entertained enough.” He started with the most linear events in his mind, and shared a little as he went along, “There was a giant muffin eating contest, since the city of Dunhaven is so riddled with crime. Lyra will say that she won, but it was totally me. I’m pretty sure I saw her stash half a muffin in her filing cabinet. We busted three people for rolling stops downtown, and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be on their Christmas card mailing lists this year. We stopped to play a short round of basketball with some kids at the park, and one of them recognized me from the Faire so I had to strut around talking in accent in my uniform, which I’m pretty sure is going to go town-wide viral on Facebook. I also got to have lunch with Alex, which I don’t seem to do often enough. By far the best part of my day is happening at this very moment, though, so things just keep getting better.” “Three people,” Denver laughed, her voice lilting upward inquisitively. “There goes the neighborhood, am I right?” Though Dunhaven was hands down much larger than her hometown of Stanton, it was actually one of the things she loved about the place that it was relatively quiet in the grand scheme of things. “You’ll have to thank Lyra for me, since she obviously had to put up with you stopping every 100 yards to pick flowers, didn’t she?” She took another bite, shifting in her chair to turn more toward him. She loved watching him talk about all of the things that brought him joy. The way his face lit up when talking about the kids he’d entertained with his silliness, or the time spent with his best friend brought Denver just as much joy as it brought him. It struck her how impossibly in love she was with the man sitting next to her that it didn’t matter what brought that sideways smile to his face, she loved it. “Maybe after cobbler, I’ll tell you a few of the jokes the horses told me today,” she laughed, then added, “always horsin’ around, those guys.” It was a corny, terrible joke, but she knew Bash would laugh at it. After all, he was the corniest person she knew already, yet another thing about him that she loved. Speaking of corny, she thought. “You’re such a sap,” Denver said, though she clearly didn’t mind at all the way his words and the way he looked at her made her feel. “They were very brave souls. Luckily, what tends to happen is they spread the word and people drive a little more carefully for a while,” Bash had seen it happen time and time again, so at least those violations would likely drop for the next several weeks. The mention of Lyra had him grinning again, and he pointed out, “That was definitely how it started until she started driving the car very slowly beside me and used the megaphone system to tell me where I missed one or berate me into going faster. It was highly motivating.” His relationship with his partner was a solid one. They had a good, trusting friendship that he wouldn’t trade for anyone else in the department, and he was grateful that Denver trusted him enough to know that it was just that. Her pun hit just the right mark, and Bash laughed with a burst of sound. It was an awful joke, but he loved it and hoped that she would deliver on the promise of those stories. If not tonight, then sometime soon. He had no guarantee that tonight would be without its distractions, and though he had been intending to wait until they’d finished their dinner rather than stopping somewhere halfway through, her calling him a sap somehow struck a chord with him as being right. Maybe it was the glitter in her eyes or the way that her smile pinched her cheeks or the fact that she looked so incredibly happy just to be sharing this silly moment. “You might be onto something with that,” he agreed, smiling still even if the nerves had sobered him slightly, “I’m definitely a sap for you. If only because I love you so goddamn much that sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe. I know we completely hit it off on the wrong foot that first time we met at Sal’s, but even then, I was captivated by you. Not the way that you acted with your friends, but the little pieces I could see of you when I was looking and they weren’t. After all of that, finally becoming your friend just made me even more certain that you were singular. You got my humor and called me on my bullshit, and even then I would have done anything you asked me to.” Even though his mouth felt dry, and the words were more than what he’d originally planned, he just let himself talk, “I can’t even place the first time I knew that I loved you, you know? Because it happened in between all that little stuff that made me certain that my life was less without you in it. I was so damn afraid of taking that leap because I didn’t want to lose you or change a great thing. But I’m so glad that we wisened up and found our way to this because it’s as easy as breathing, Envy. Loving you is never difficult. Being with you is my greatest privilege. I admire your strength and your passion. You draw me in with everything that you say and everything that you do. You inspire me to be the best, sappiest version of myself. You’re my reason and my balance. I want thousands of days just like this one. I want a lifetime of sharing our days with each other and watching bad tv and enjoying the most mundane things just because we’re together. I want you. For the rest of our lives. You’re all I can see.” His heart was in his throat, or maybe actually somewhere near his toes. He couldn’t tell anymore, but he slipped from the chair and onto his knee, fingers dipping into his pocket where he retrieved the ring that he had picked out for her months ago, “Denver Rose Meadows, will you marry me?” As with all of their conversations, listening to Bash was easy, and so was replying to him. Denver laughed with him as she pictured exactly what the scene must have looked like while he tried to gather flowers for her crown. Being with him really was the easiest thing she had ever done. Even when she doubted herself, she never doubted who she was with him, never doubted that they were a good thing, never doubted how much love was shared between them. She thought, perhaps, that was why they were so good together because, even when either or both of them was feeling particularly flawed and imperfect, they were still so utterly perfect for each other. Her smile widened as he continued, loving the assurance his words provided her, especially because they were only ever presented to her as though they were as much an inherent truth as the fact that the sun was a star or that they needed oxygen to breathe. It was never given to her for the purpose of assuring her but because the sentiments were so real and so woven into the fabric of their being that they had to be said. Somewhere in the spaces between the words and the sounds of Bash's voice delivering them, though, Denver felt the shift between the things he said to her every day and the fact that these words were headed for a specific destination. Suddenly, her heart was pounding inexplicably fast because, for as much as she knew he was heading somewhere, she couldn't understand or fathom where they would land. Nothing else existed outside of Bash and his words and Envy and this moment. Everything else in her world, all of her worries and her darkness and her distractions were muted in dull in the shadow of this thing that she knew was coming. And when Bash kneeled before her, waiting for her response, Denver at once knew that this could have been the only way his words could have ended, and that there could have been no way she could have anticipated it. Her breath caught in her throat and, as seamlessly as he had drawn the ring from his pocket, the sight of the love of her life presented before her seamlessly drew the tears from her eyes. It was almost comical the way her reaction played out like some cheesy movie they watched on the weekends with her unable to stop it from happening. Her hand pressed to her mouth as though everything that made up her inside was now too much to contain and her hand was the only thing that could keep her heart from jumping out through her mouth to lay itself at his feet. Denver shook her head, entirely from disbelief--both because this was happening, and because she somehow hadn't seen it coming. As soon as she realized she was doing it, though, she stopped and slowly lowered her trembling hand. "I can't believe you let me dress like a hobo for this," she said, the unglamorous South catching on every stunned word she said. Too late did she realize that those weren't the words she'd thought her lips were forming. A nervous laugh bubbled up and out of her as she pushed herself away from the chair, sliding down onto her knees so that she was level with him again. It felt right starting this new thing on even ground, as equals, neither of them lifted higher than the other. For as much as she was his Queen, Denver thought, he was her perpetually uncontested King. "I think," she started, her hands coming to rest against his face, "that the universe specifically chose every single piece of me to form a person who fits every single piece of you. Who am I, this insignificant girl from Nowhere, Kentucky made significantly someone in your orbit, to defy the laws of the universe? I'd marry you every single day, Sebastian Kingswood, if it means I get to spend the rest of my life in our little pocket of the universe with you." Despite the fact that he had anticipated the answer, he had almost faltered for a moment when she started shaking her head as though she were going to say no. His heart seized, but then she was complaining about how he let her dress however she had wanted or the occasion, and that tension popped like a bubble that had grown too fast and was gone almost as soon as it had begun. Her outfit was the least of his concern, though a small laugh did escape past his lips because her concern rested there. Maybe he should have had someone photograph the occasion, but he figured they could take a picture themselves if they wanted one. After she gave him her answer. She joined him on the kitchen floor, and his heartbeat seemed to double in pace. He leaned a little into her touch, having felt like he’d gone too long without it already. As she spoke, tears began to prick his eyes in earnest, and by the time that she gave her answer, those tears were making trails down his cheeks. He might not have been great at words, but she had spelled it out perfectly, “I’ll tell you how much I love you every day for the rest of our lives, Envy. I promise you that.” He lifted her hand from his cheek and pressed a kiss to the center of her palm before he slid that ring onto her finger where it belonged. He clasped his hand with hers and closed that minimal distance, his other hand falling to her waist as he claimed a kiss. He had never been happier than at that moment, some mixture of relief and euphoria blanketing him. They would have to get up sooner rather than later, but he’d been too impatient to move from that spot where everything was saturated in the bliss of that moment. |