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Berenger had never imagined that marrying Ancel would even be possible. He didn’t want to take part in what Veretian marriages were like, didn’t want to ask Ancel to endure that. But then things had changed - Damen had refused to go through a Veretian consummation, and that meant that the fashionable thing now was to spend your wedding night in privacy. And Ancel was - what Berenger had initially found frightening had remained terrifying, that simple desire for the other man. But it was more than that. Every day Berenger liked being near Ancel more. Ancel was beautiful and funny and incredible, and Berenger wanted to wake up beside him every day for the rest of his life.
He knew Ancel didn’t see it that way. That for Ancel, this was temporary - not, now, because Ancel was bored, but because Ancel assumed Berenger would not be willing to stay. Berenger had tried to explain, and Ancel had never quite seemed sure in it. Berenger wanted nothing more than to stay with Ancel forever, but Ancel was aware that at twenty three he was already painfully old for a pet.
And Berenger refused to allow the best thing to happen to him to slip out of his hands, not if he could avoid it. He wanted them to be happy, and they were happy, but he liked - he liked the idea of Ancel as his husband. Ancel had become invaluable to him in all matters of his life. Not just keeping him company. Last year, when flooding and a mudslide had devastated a nearby village, Ancel had been there by his side, talking to the children, distracting them from the devastation that they had suffered as Berenger had organised supplies. It was Ancel who had found out a child was missing, worked out where they were hidden. Ancel might not have pulled them from the mud, but he was the reason they were found. And Ancel acted as though that was nothing, simply a part of his life with Berenger, when it was so much more than that.
Every evening, Ancel would juggle or sing or listen as Berenger read, and while Ancel showed no real skill for writing or reading, he would talk and let Berenger write down his words, and he was good at stories. And in the morning, Berenger would slip from bed and work on the desk where he could watch Ancel sleeping, or else he would stay in bed, and read one of the stories he wasn’t reading aloud to Ancel, swapping when Ancel woke to a story Ancel wanted.
It was more than Berenger could ever have hoped for in his life, and it was something that he got to enjoy every single day, that was what was almost unbelievable about it all. Ancel was there, and real.
So they had to marry, Berenger thought. So that Ancel had the certainty Berenger wanted him, and on a more practical note Berenger could be sure that Ancel would be cared for if anything happened to him. He needed to know that. And he thought Ancel liked the idea - he’d comment on what people wore, when they did get married, liked dressing up, being the center of attention. Berenger just wanted to make sure that everything was perfect for him - both when they married, and when he proposed.
And that was where the problem started.
Whatever he thought of, it simply wasn’t enough for Ancel - not that Ancel complained, but because Berenger wasn’t happy with his ideas. Berenger wanted to give him the best, and his plans were not the best, not truly, not to the extent that Ancel deserved. He tried. He just wanted to make sure it was something worthy of Ancel.
His first attempt had been at home in Varenne, after a day of festivities that he had put on to entertain the local people, because Ancel enjoyed it, because it was dull and cold and dreary and people needed brightness. There had been music, and dancing, and Ancel had been laughing, the center of it all, sparkling, and then curling up on Berenger’s lap, kissing his cheek and settling down to nap before Berenger found the words to ask.
The second was at Arles, and it had been a day that was almost perfect. Ancel had been smiling at him, standing on their balcony as the sun set, and Berenger knew he needed to ask, and the band he had hired was playing, and he had no words. Anything he wanted to say wasn’t enough, couldn’t convey how much Ancel meant to him. He wasn’t a poet. Ancel deserved poetry.
The third had just failed. Berenger and Ancel had spent the day on the beach near Fortaine, Ancel paddling in the water, in awe of the blueness of the sea, the brightness of it. Berenger watched him, watched the light glinting off his jewels, and watched him dance with the lady of the Fort before he returned to Berenger’s side.
They excused themselves from the party and walked along the shore, Ancel’s sandalled feet scuffing at the sand. It was silence between them, although not an unpleasant silence. Just the quiet that fell between two people who loved each other, and were happy.
Berenger swallowed. He knew he should ask. But it wasn’t - it wasn’t right. He could feel the weight of an emerald ring in his pocket, but his mouth felt dry.
Ancel turned, and looked at him, eyes full of quiet understanding. “You know,” Ancel said softly. “I thought you were going to ask me to marry you today.”
“I planned to,” Berenger said quietly. “I wanted to.”
“You didn’t,” Ancel murmured, and it wasn’t an accusation, just a soft admittance of fact. “Did you change your mind?”
“Of course not!” Berenger was shocked that Ancel could ever think that he wanted anything any more than this.
“Then why-” Ancel began, and then darted forwards, kissed Berenger’s cheek. “Talk me through it.”
“I’m never…” Berenger began, and sighed, and shook his head. “Ancel, you mean the world to me. I’d want… I’d want any proposal to be worthy of you, and everything I think of, it-” He shook his head again. Words were hard to arrange. He didn’t know how to explain how much Ancel meant to him. “You deserve the world, and I can’t give you that.”
“You give me enough,” Ancel answered, laughing as he fidgeted with a bracelet on his wrist, interwoven golden wires studded with emerald and peridot. “You’re Berenger. I mean. I like that you’re rich, course I do. And I like… I like the jewels, and the silks, and the nice stuff. I like our house, and Ruby, and… all of it. But I like you too. You ain’t gotta make it all perfect.”
Berenger smiled faintly. When Ancel was sincere, really sincere about something, his real accent slipped out, and Berenger loved that about him. He loved a lot about Ancel. “I just want to give you a perfect moment.
Ancel stared at him, and snorted, and shook his head. “You do, Berenger. You’re a fucking idiot, sometimes, but you do.” He turned his attention to the bracelet again, and Berenger saw him snap off one thin piece of golden wire, decorated with a peridot. He watched as Ancel wrapped it around his own finger - not the ring finger, but the middle one. It was gold, malleable beneath Ancel’s skilled hands, and Berenger didn’t mind him fidgeting with it. He could always pay for it to be repaired if that was needed. Ancel twisted the wire into a circle. “So many of my moments with you are perfect. If I were gonna ask, it wouldn’t be hard because I didn’t have enough. It’d be because I had too many moments like that.”
“Ancel, I-”
Ancel shrugged, then got down on his knees, staring at Berenger. “I guess I’d..no. I ain’t doing it that way.” He took a deep breath. “I could give you an example. Let you try again to do it right, but I don’t… I don’t wanna wait. I don’t gotta wait.” He took another deep breath, and held out the looped wire towards Berenger.
“Berenger? You gonna marry me?” He didn’t say anything more, none of the eloquent speeches Berenger had planned. But that didn’t matter.
Berenger licked his lips, his mouth painfully dry. “You want me to?”
“Yeah.” Ancel answered, sincerity clear in his voice. “More than anything.”
“Yes,” Berenger answered, and leaned in to kiss him. He wanted that too. And Ancel was right. It wasn’t the weather or the music that made this moment perfect. It was that Ancel was here.
Ancel slipped the ring onto his finger, and threw his arms around Berenger’s shoulders, and Berenger kissed him more deeply.