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Francis was not a man skilled at disassembly, even less so in the realm of romance. He had fallen, pursued, and been rebuffed more times than a heart should bear, in his opinion, and yet he had never learned how to dial down his passions. Sophia had called him a “wife guy,” laughing, and said that she wasn’t the one he was looking for. (That was the first time. The second time Francis proposed she just smiled rather sadly, and shook her head.)
This was all before James, of course.
And that was why this trip and the question that went along with it had to be perfect.
Francis anxiously toyed with the small box in his jacket pocket as he walked along the beach. James was back in their little cabin Francis had booked for the holiday - Francis had left him curled up under the blankets and pressed a kiss to his hair before slipping out the side door. He was certain James didn’t suspect a thing - he’d been so pleasantly surprised when Francis had told James to pack his bags, that they were talking a long weekend away from the city that James had somehow forgotten to bring his usual two weeks worth of clothes in three suitcases and only brought one (too large, too full) suitcase along with him.
The box in his pocket felt smooth and reassuring against his palm. Francis must have looked truly anguised when he went to pick out the ring inside the box, as the lovely young lady behind the counter had taken great pity on him.
“An engagement ring, I assume?” she asked, and was too polite to laugh at Francis’ frantic nod. She asked him about James, about their relationship, even asked to see a picture, and brought him several rings that were so perfectly attuned to his boyfriend’s style that Francis was entirely spoiled for choice. He settled on one that seemed to call to him more than the rest, paid the eye watering price and, knowing James’ penchant for disaster, extra for the insurance.
Now all that was left to do was ask.
He felt a funny lurch in his stomach that had nothing to do with the way a particularly ambitious wave had just rushed up the beach and soaked him almost to his knees. James would say yes - he knew James would say yes, he had done it right this time, they had talked about what they wanted, what they each envisioned for the future and how the other fit into it. Francis shouldn’t have the same anxiety he did the last time (the last two times) when he was reaching and desperate and hoping and had watched his dreams break up on the rocks of Sophia’s shoreline.
And yet.
What if it wasn’t the right time? Or he’d - he’d misunderstood, somehow? What if James took one look at the ring, decided it was all wrong, that Francis was all wrong, and marriage was too old fashioned anyway, just like Francis was and -
Francis took a deep breath. He smelled the salt in the air, heard the waves crashing up the beach, felt the wind ruffling his hair. He wasn’t too far from the house. James would have risen by now, but not changed out of his silk dressing gown. Perhaps he was sitting by the window, or outside by the door, sipping his tea and scanning the beach for Francis’ return.
Tonight, Francis would take James to a lovely restaurant on the water, they would go for a walk, and then - then he would ask.
James was sitting outside the cottage when Francis arrived, his hands cupped gently around a teacup, his hair fluttering in the wind. Francis wanted to have him right there against the cottage door.
“Francis?” he could hear James calling as he approached their cottage. “What on earth happened to you?”
James, for all his showy stories, his extravagant gestures, that dazzling smile, had known since his earliest days that his heart was too sensitive for the world he had been born into. As soon as he knew what the flutterings in his chest when he saw a pretty boy in the schoolyard meant, he knew well enough to hide, to bury his needs and wants deep as he could, where no one would be able to discover them and tear them apart. He knew how to silently pick up his clothes off a bedroom floor and slip away, just the right things to say when there was someone in his own bed who was talking a bit too long to leave, how to end things completely when he knew his feelings were approaching something that might resemble love.
This was before Francis, of course.
Francis, poor love, had no idea the lengths that James had gone through to get them to this little holiday, this cottage by the seaside. It had been months of little hints, of leaving certain glossy magazines with post it tabs sticking out of them, of watching films like On Golden Pond and Mamma Mia! before Francis finally “surprised” him with a long weekend away from the city by the seaside. James was certain Francis believed it was all his idea, and that was fine with James, who broke out into a cold sweat he’d had to pass off as simply wearing too many layers whenever he thought about the small little box at the bottom of his suitcase.
Francis was out on one of his walks, probably looking like a very handsome, marooned sea captain out on the beach. James had pretended to be asleep in the most fetching manner possible in order to encourage Francis to stay, but the man had merely lingered beside the bed and pressed a kiss to James’ hair before departing.
Well. His loss.
Without worry that Francis might see, (and with the kettle on for his morning cuppa) James took the opportunity to take out and examine, for the thousandth time, the little ring inside the box. Oh, he’d spent days and the patience of three jewelers before he’d found just the right one, a perfect match for a man who might be gruff on the outside but possessed of a heart that burned so brilliantly it was almost overwhelming. The ring had to be perfect, everything had to be perfect, including James himself.
Because what if the ring was too much, too frivolous, and Francis realized in the moment of clarity James had been waiting for their entire relationship that it was actually James who was too much, who was too frivolous, was nothing more than a bauble with no substance, and Francis wasn’t about to spend another minute wasting his time?
The kettle screamed, and James took it off the fire.
He took his cup of tea and went to sit outside, foregoing tying his hair back in favor of how windswept he would look when Francis returned.
He would let Francis take him to a nice little restaurant along the water. Francis would suggest a walk after, as he often did, and James would agree. And perhaps, with the sun setting behind them, hand in hand, James would pull the little box from his pocket, and he would ask.
As if summoned by James’ thought alone, Francis appeared up the beach, and James watched him approach the house. Francis’ hair had been blown every which way, his nose and cheeks had grown red in the sun, and his trousers were soaked almost to the knee. James wanted to tear his clothes off and take him right there in the sand.
“Francis!” He hoped the pounding of his heart could not be heard over the wind. “What on earth happened to you?”
Dinner was strained.
Francis Crozier barely tasted a single thing the waiter brought him. James Fitzjames dropped the fork he was gesticulating with no less than four times. The fourth time Francis shot him a murderous look and James called for the check.
They fell into step together after dinner, walking perhaps more briskly than one taking an evening stroll with their date might under ordinary circumstances. They found themselves standing on the dock beside the water with the sun setting in the background, and each took a deep breath.
“Francis -” James began, at the exact same time Francis said “James-”
“No,” James said quickly. “Let me go first -”
“Now that would be a change of pace.” Francis frowned, but James was in no mood to have a verbal sparring match.
“Damn it, Francis, I’m trying to -” But Francis wasn’t listening, he was red and sweating and James might have noticed if he were not so distressed.
“If you just be quiet for one minute -”
It was at this moment that James yanked a box out of his pocket and thrust it at Francis. Francis, who, fumbling for a box in his own pocket, turned at just the wrong moment, and they both watched as Francis’ elbow knocked into James’ wrist and the little velvet box opened up and went sailing into the water.
They stared at each other, Francis’ hand clasped around a velvet box of its own halfway out of his pocket.
“Fuck me,” said James, in a very different tone than he had said it earlier that day, and leapt into the water.
Francis jumped in after him.
James dived down three times before Francis told him there was no way they would find it in the murky water beside the dock, and if they stayed in much longer they’d catch their death beside. He heaved James up the ladder after him, intending to finish what he’d started, damn it, only to find that his own ring had been lost as soon as he’d jumped in after James.
“I don’t even know why I’m surprised,” Francis said, once it was clear both rings were gone. “What did I expect?”
“I should think you know the answer to that question,” James replied, and his face was very red, and he was hiding a smile in the corner of his mouth.
“What about the answer to the other?”
“You haven’t asked that one yet, Francis.” James could feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears.
“Neither have you.”
They stared at each other for a moment or two, and then, without any reason a common passerby could find, suddenly broke into nearly identical delirious grins and clasped their arms around each other.
“I’m sorry we lost the rings, James,” Francis said, later that night, curled around his fiance and brushing a thumb down his arm.
“They’re not lost,” said James, pressing back against his fiance and certainly as happy as he had ever been. “We’ll always know exactly where they are.”
The insurance policy Francis had bought for James’ ring ended up having to cover the cost of two new rings, as James had never even dreamed of anticipating needing such a thing. Although they weren’t as nice a pair as had been lost, it still gave both of them a happy jolt when they noticed the thin band of gold on their finger.
They got a much nicer pair for their tenth anniversary, anyway.
But they would laugh and smile when they thought about mutual failed-yet-somehow-successful proposals, and the resting place of their first set of rings.
Safe and sound at the bottom of the sea.