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“Heading out, see you later,” Eliot breezed by with a kiss on the cheek for Alec, exact same as last week. Now, Alec knew he wasn’t going to his fighting gym, so that meant he was sneaking off. And, Alec had reasoned this out, there could be only two reasons for doing that: a) he was embarrassed or b) he was scheming up some surprise for him and Parker. Since it was getting pretty close to Christmas, Alec’s money was on the second option. And Alec couldn’t let himself get shown up again, rocking up to Christmas with standard-ass presents when last year Parker got them sugar sculpture representations of themselves surrounded by tiny sugar depictions of their favourite things. And he’d gotten her lockpicks. They were the best carbon fibre lockpicks available anywhere, but it didn’t have the same impact, you feel?
He can’t let this be Eliot’s year. So he follows him.
To the type of coffee shop that Eliot usually despises, full of the trappings of good coffee, but with no good brews. It all comes clear pretty quickly though: it’s a goddamn Open Mic night. Well, now he has to stay. He makes it through one very soulful song from a band who hasn’t heard that grunge is dead and then two spoken word poems about foraging for mushrooms (Two! Back to back!) before Eliot finally gets up to the mike.
And somehow, in the intervening years, Alec had forgotten that the man knows his way around a guitar.
Who’s gonna be the one to hold you tight/ When it’s exactly twelve o’clock that night
Eliot’s weaving the music around the words and for the first time an actual hush is falling over the room. And even though Alec knows that Eliot has two absolutely sure things for New Year’s he brings the longing so clearly into his voice that Alec finds himself wanting to reach out and say ‘I’m here, you’ll never be alone.’
Eliot’s voice drops into a lower register.
Maybe I’m crazy to suppose/ I’d ever be the one you chose/ Out of a thousand invitations you receive
Alec needs to marry this man.
He’s kind of caught off guard by the thought. He’s known they were a ‘for as long as you’ll have me’ kind of deal for a long time, but this longing? This is new. Eliot finishes his song to some good applause and returns to the crowd. Eliot probably has some rules around sticking around for other people’s performances but Alec has no such concerns and starts strategizing his way out.
---
He thinks he’s gotten away with it and is just chilling on the couch when Eliot gets home, but he is quickly proved wrong when Eliot drops down next to him and says, “Did you find what you were looking for?”
At Alec’s wounded look, he snorts and says, “Please, you are many things but stealth ain’t one.” Parker pops up out of nowhere and it says a lot about his life that neither of them even twitch.
“What’s Alec sneaking around for?” Eliot looks a little panicked, like maybe Alec is going to make fun of him.
“I wanted to see where Eliot was off to, babe.”
“Oh, the open mic thing?” Eliot lets out a little despairing noise and Parker snakes her arms around Eliot’s neck. “Are we talking about that now?”
“How did you - nevermind. Yeah, Eliot, are we talking about it now?” Eliot shrugs a little, uncomfortable.
“When we stole the country music, I remembered how much I like it, the performing,” Parker uses Eliot’s neck as leverage to swing around on the couch so she can perch on the arm and face him. Again, no reaction. “So sometimes I go out and - shut up Hardison it’s not that big a deal.” Alec was going to say nothing, so he kind of rolls his eyes a little and sees the gesture mirrored on Parker’s face.
“Ok so since we know now, can we go watch? Like, without disguises?”
“How many times did you - nevermind. Do you guys want to do that?” Eliot sounded suspicious.
“Yeah, man, you’re really good,” that earned him a blush, “and I don’t want to miss a chance to brag about you.” And that earns him a shove in the shoulder.
---
The next morning Parker is doing her Ladies’ Brunch with Peggy and Amy, and they’ve decided to stay at the brewpub today for a preview of the new Christmas menu. Eliot has some strong feelings about ham that immediately mark him as someone from the Midwest.
Alec ducks out into the front so he can grab himself a plate and ends up at the bar looking over at Parker’s table. He sees her make a comment, gesturing a little forcefully with her knife, and Peggy and Amy burst into laughter that carries all the way over to him.
And he gets the same feeling from last night.
He is so gone on this woman. And so in awe of how she has chosen exactly who she wants to be and has built this life and put people in it. He’s so lucky to be one of those people and he wants to show that off.
He needs to marry her.
“So.” Eliot says aggressively, startling him. “What do you think?”
“Needs to be honey-glazed.” Eliot lets out a sound of pure rage and Alec laughs and laughs.
---
Making the decision was the easy part, but now Alec is faced with a range of logistical issues. But he’s not a genius for nothing and he thinks he’s got it worked out.
---
Christmas Eve has finally arrived, and Eliot’s stuffed them both with shortbread cookies and a sticky toffee pudding that was Parker’s heart’s desire after watching the Muppet Christmas Carol three times in a row. Alec’s been getting more nervous as the evening’s gone on and he can tell they’ve noticed. So far they haven’t said anything, just given him little side-eyes that ratchet up his heartbeat a little more every time.
But now Parker’s bounding over to the tree and Eliot’s calling after her ‘only one tonight, leave the rest for tomorrow.’
So he makes his move.
“Actually, Parker, can I pick the presents out this year?” Parker pouts, but she’s too curious to stop him.
He grabs something at random for himself, then two identically wrapped boxes for Eliot and Parker.
“Go ahead,” he swallows.
Parker opens hers first and stares at it blankly. Eliot leans over, “is that - “ he trails off.
“Open yours, Eliot,” she says and her voice is terrible. Alec’s pretty sure his heartbeat is louder than a car stereo bass right now.
“Eliot rips the paper off of his, savage as usual, but then opens the box daintily, like it might explode, to reveal the second ring.
Parker stares at Eliot’s ring. Then they both turn, as one, and direct that stare straight into Alec’s face. Creepy.
“This better not be you just trying to win Christmas,” Eliot growls. Manfully, he ignores Eliot and starts on his speech.
“So I know we’re already as tangled together as we can be, and we’ve already had the big talks about scary stuff like the future and family. But I’ve been thinking a lot and I wanted to do something to show that off. I want to build something between us so that anytime you look down you can see these rings and know that we’ve made promises, and that you are so loved. And you are. I love you both so much.
So: will you marry me?” He hears a sniffle and realises Eliot is crying and holy shit what did he do. Parker’s looking at Eliot like someone just resurfaced the lost Imperial Fabergé Egg but it’s broken - half awed, half horrified.
“You better not be joking about this.”
“No, man, I swear, I thought this through, I’ve got a plan for all of the mmph,” and Eliot is kissing him and kissing him.
“So, that’s a yes?”
“That’s a yes,” Eliot’s wiping his eyes and Alec remembers that his favourite Christmas movie is Love Actually even though he pretends it’s Die Hard. Maybe he should have expected this reaction. Now it’s his and Eliot’s turn to stare at Parker, who is frowning down at her ring.
“You know,” she begins slowly, “I don’t really understand marriage. Married people get divorced. And I’ve already promised all the important things: I go where you two go, I take care of your people like they were mine, and I will stay with you, no matter what, until we are old and faded and kind of gross. So no ceremony can give me anything I don’t have.
But I hate it when people don’t see us as we are and shove us into couples, and this will help, I think. So I’m in.” Maybe that wasn’t the romantic declaration he could have hoped for, but it’s Parker. It sets off Eliot again, so maybe there was more going on underneath that than he saw.
“Where’s yours?” Parker asks.
“Well, I wasn’t sure what you were going to say so I - geez fine, it’s here in my pocket,” and he pulls out his ring.
They each pull their rings out of their boxes.
“Mine’s squishy!”
“Yeah, so I know you have to climb stuff all the time and it would be bad if your finger got caught,” so bad, those google searches have scarred him for life, “so I got you this ring. It’ll move with you and snap if it gets caught. But I also put three diamonds in it, so if you need to score any glass or whatever, you’ve got the tools.” Parker looks floored and launches herself at him, peppering his face with kisses. I love it, I love it, she chants. And maybe that’s more the reaction he wanted. When she backs off, he glances over at Eliot and sees his expression mirrored there.
Parker goes over to Eliot, “Put it on me?” and Eliot wiggles the black ring down her finger.
“Anything special on mine?” Eliot’s rotating the ring back and forth in his hands. Alec wants to make a smart remark, but Eliot’s eyes are still a little red and his mouth is a little wobbly, so he just picks up the ring and says,
“Well, not really. But I - “ and he taps the charm on his necklace against the ring “- coated it with a rubber derivative so if you can’t wear it to fight or whatever, you can still wear it and it won't give your position away.” Eliot just smiles softly back at him. And he reaches for Eliot’s hand. The ring itself is pretty plain, trying to match Eliot’s style, just three woven strands in different colours, one of them black to match Parker’s.
“Gimme,” Parker reaches out her hand for the final ring and Alec hands it over. She and Eliot peer at it a little bit. He did go a little extra on his and went full fidget toy. If he spins the edges, the gears in the middle rotate, which is cool as hell, and he picked the same colour scheme so they all complement.
She slides it onto his finger.
“One final thing,” they look at him expectantly. “I put a tracker in mine that goes to your phones. I know you both need to do your disappearing into the night thing, but no matter what, you can always find me. It’s no pressure on you, ok, I just liked the idea.”
“I like that too,” Eliot said a little hoarse, and Parker just nodded. The moment grew between them, getting a little awkward before Parker’s eye got a gleam.
“Wait, does this mean people have to give us more presents?”
“You know what, Parker, I think it does.”