Work Text:
Nikolai watched as the machine poured his saving grace into a chipped mug. His coffee, fresh from the pod that had been sat comfortably in the cupboard for no less than two years, flooded the mug until the machine’s buzzing finally dwindled. He pulled it away, dumping a considerable amount of sugar directly from the bag into his drink before setting it down to cool.
He needed a way to focus. And what better grace was there than that readily available for the low, low price of two hundred pounds?
That sales pitch hadn’t worked on John, either. But nonetheless, the coffee machine stood proudly on the counter, ready for service.
Nikolai pulled his phone out from his pocket, tapping through to his notes app to read through his checklist for the day.
- wrap presents
- collect ring
- go to dinner
His thumb hovered over the last entry, contemplating whether it deserved its place on the list or not. He wasn’t even sure John wanted to be with him, let alone marry him. And even if he did, Nik wasn’t sure that it was a decent enough ring, or that the night would go well enough, or that John wouldn’t want to be the one proposing. It didn’t even have a fucking diamond, it was hardly proper at all. Just a lacklustre band with blue sapphire running around it also.
He swallowed down the bile that rose at the thought, and flushed it further away with a gulp of his coffee. Nik elected to ignore the burn, instead carrying the mug to their shared study. John was away for the morning, spending some time with Kate, giving Nikolai the time needed to get started on wrapping.
He unlocked the cupboard at the bottom of his desk, removing the Sainsbury’s bag that his month of deliberation had culminated in. Inside sat a bottle of Macallan, a LFC scarf, and cigars that cost his partner’s salary.
The wrapping process was a fucking nightmare for him. His hands were made to wield weaponry, and yet he sat here instead, crouched on the floor, wielding a pair of scissors that were no larger than his hand. His end result was a parcel more tape than paper, and he scowled at the creation before tearing through it.
Nik propped his phone up in front of him to find some sort of guide. This time, the thing came out as if it was done by somebody over the age of five. Not particularly pretty, but neither was he, and Nik was fairly certain John wouldn’t mind either of those facts.
After several more battles fought against tape and paper, he placed his two hours of work back into the cupboard, but not before returning them to their plastic home, courtesy of John Sainsbury. Nikolai deleted the item from his list, right as his phone buzzed in his hands.
“John! John, how is Laswell?”
“She’s good, yeah. Can you pick me up?”
Nik moved the phone from his ear to swear quietly. How was he meant to pick up the ring with John there?
“So soon? Da. I am busy right now, but I will be an hour. Is that okay?” That was a lie. He raced to the door, slipping on a pair of trainers before taking his keys and leaving. He would just pick it up before. That’s fine.
“Yeah, ‘course, mate. Cheers. Love you.”
“Da, da, you too. I see you soon!” Nikolai hung up before slamming his foot down on the acceleration.
-/-
An hour. That bought John enough time to go to the jeweller’s, he reckoned. Town was heaving, but if there was one thing he could do right, it was elbow through people to get where he needed to be.
John Price didn’t get scared. Didn’t get nervous. It was a matter of pride for him — he could deal with the intensity of firefights without a problem. But he couldn’t deal with this.
He blamed for cold for his hands shaking as he walked into the place. Ignored the greeting at the door, instead making his way directly to the counter.
“Hi,” he started, jaw set firm as he spoke. “I, uhm, your website has this ring listed. Says you have one in stock here. Can I get it?” As he spoke, John fished into his pocket to retrieve his phone, turning it around to show the teller a photo. It was a simple band, titanium with a sapphire inlay. He knew he had gotten that right, at least.
“We've had somebody reserve that one, unfortunately, sir. Could we interest you in something else instead?”
Fuck.
He wasn’t sure who this person was, but he suddenly hoped that they would never find happiness.
“Right, uhm, issue is, right, I called just this morning, and they said it was available,” he replied, trying to quell his growing irritation.
“If you’d just give us a moment, sir.” The teller stepped away, leaving John to soak in frustration.
“Hi, I have reservation for ring? Name is, uhm, it should be under Yegor? Da, Novak. Yes, thank you.”
John could have sworn he jumped into the fucking air at the man’s voice. He glanced over his shoulder, and his eyes landed on Nikolai. Here. At the jeweller’s.
-/-
“Da, I have ID, hold on.” Nikolai searched through his wallet for a driver’s license that didn’t exist, before instead dropping a wad of cash down on the counter.
“Does that work?" Nikolai smiled. The man at the counter looked more than a little flustered, but nodded after some thought and tucked the money into his pocket. He produced the ring from beneath the counter, safely in its box, and handed it over to Nikolai.
“Have a— a good day, sir. Thank you,” he spluttered, already planning what he would do with the money.
Nik left. Another twenty minutes until he was meant to collect John, he took his phone out to remove ‘collect ring’ as well. Dinner, and then his day was done. Perfect. Whilst his phone was out, he rang John.
“John! Traffic was not so bad. I am here early. Where do you need to meet?”
“…Tesco. Give me five.”
Nikolai nodded, and began the walk back to his car to drive around there. He didn’t feel John’s eyes on his back as he hung up, only the heavy weight of the velvet box in his pocket.
He had the rest of the evening to make his mind up. It wouldn’t be a problem, really. Nik opened the box again as he settled into the driver’s seat, staring down at the band.
It looked like John’s eyes, had been his reasoning. With this weird certainty always present within them. But alive, desperately so. Certain, but ever-processing. As paradoxical as that was, Nik supposed, it made sense at the time.
Certainly didn’t make any now, and maybe that was the reason he remained, breathing heavily over the thing even as the very man it was destined for climbed in next to him.
“What’s that, Nik?” John asked, placing a gentle hand onto Nikolai’s shoulder to get better vantage on the object.
“No! Is nothing. Just, uhm, keys, for car.” Nikolai stumbled over his words, fishing his keys out of his pocket to hold them up. “See? Keys.”
“..Right, okay. How’s your day been?” John knew damn well what was actually in Nik’s hands; that same bloody ring he was after. He tilted Nikolai’s jaw slightly up to his own to offer a gentle peck, before relaxing as he waited for an answer.
“Fine, I have just been waiting for you, John. Mostly cleaning. Are we still doing dinner tonight?”
John nodded as Nikolai began to drive, “Yeah, yeah, ‘course. Just gimme a couple hours before we go back out.”
“Da.”
Aside from Nik occasionally swearing at somebody else with phrases that would probably kill both their elders, the drive was silent.
-/-
John stood by the door, chinos over combat boots as he shrugged his coat on. He wasn’t a short man; far from it, in fact, but the trenchcoat fell down beneath his knees, dwarfing him. His boots felt too tight, and his shirt's collar suddenly felt like it was choking him. He was too busy considering his appearance, and whether his half-arsed shaving would be acceptable to his partner, to notice said partner walking towards him until an arm draped over his shoulder.
“John. You look.. so perfect. Shall we?” Nikolai let his arm fall around his waist instead, leading him towards the car. It wasn’t either of their own, instead someone who John recognised from Nik’s forces rolled down the window, and smiled. “Syd. I’ll drive you two there, Nik, call me when you need me.”
Nikolai shook her hand and nodded, before sitting in the back alongside John.
“Bloody class, this,” John gestured to the car as a whole, “whole thing is. Any reason?”
Nikolai ignored the velvet box pressing into his thigh as he answered. “Nyet, just the best for my favourite Captain,” he smirked.
-/-
They arrived, and Nikolai quickly took John’s hand to lead him inside. They both feigned ignorance to the gift bags clutched in one another’s hands. No surprise there.
The restaurant. John realised, was empty. No guests, save for themselves, and no employees save for the quiet chattering in the kitchen.
“Nik, what the—“
Nikolai cut him off. “I know you do not like the noise. So just us, for quiet, da? You want music?”
“Sure, but none of your crap.”
“Silence it is,” Nik grumbled, before pulling out a chair and gesturing to John. “Sit, sit.”
He couldn’t help the laugh that came out as they settled into their seats. John took the menu that was slid across the table to him, before pursing his lips as he pored through it.
“Fuck me, Nik, I’d kill for a burger.”
Maybe it was just because of the lack of other conversations filling his mind, but John couldn’t help the feeling that Nikolai was being much quieter than usual.
“Nik? What’re you having?” He prompted, lowering his menu to watch Nikolai as he realised he was being spoken to.
“Oh. I will have, ah, minestrone soup, and then the gyoza."
John hadn’t expected either of those to be on the same menu as one another, but as he read through it properly (instead of just scanning for the two foods he usually stuck to) he found that it contained most of their favourites.
One of his hands dropped beneath the table, in order to play with the hem of the blue table cloth. “Can I split your soup?”
“Da,” Nikolai smiled. “I will order.”
Before John could question how he was going to do such a thing, given they were entirely alone, Nikolai stood and walked to the back, rapping his fist on the kitchen door twice.
“He will have burger, exactly how I told you, and I will have gyoza and minestrone. Can you do more minestrone than just one normal bowl, but not two?“ Nikolai rattled off the order quickly, before shaking the chef’s hand as he left. Before he returned to John, he stopped at one of the speakers, plugging his phone into it as he swiped quickly to a downloaded playlist of some of John’s own favourites.
The music’s volume was low as Nik settled back down. He lifted John’s hand to his mouth and kissed his knuckles, before returning it down to the table. “It will just be a few minutes."
“Right, okay, Nik, what the fuck is this?” John asked, gesturing vaguely at the empty room, and the speakers, before at Nikolai himself.
He just smiled, reaching to pick up the gift bag he had previously put down under the table. “Is dinner, da? Like we discussed. And presents.”
“Right.” John took the bag that was thrust into his hand, before offering up a neatly wrapped box out of the bag at his own side.
“And this is a present? And not scrap paper?” John gestured at the, frankly, reprehensible wrapping, already half-open with paper bunched at one end.
“Da! I worked hard. Yours is not much—“ but Nik couldn’t honestly say that the box in his hands wasn’t better. For starters, it was actually sealed, and the edges were straight, and it was half-presentable, and—
“ой вей..”
“I know, it’s perfect, yours is shit, move on, love. Open it.”
Nikolai ripped through the tape with as much care as he could afford, carefully retrieving the gift from inside the paper.
He stared down at the stack of DVDs in silence.
John’s confidence gradually dwindled the longer Nikolai remained silent. “..I’ll return it, I’m sorry, it’s,” he reached out to take the package—
“Nyet! I like it. Thank you, John.” He snatched the boxes away, holding them just over his shoulder to keep them out of the other man’s reach. Once the other man had recoiled slightly, he lowered the DVDs and looked through them. “I remember when we watched this, you fell asleep. Good film,” he shifted Rocky to the bottom of the stack, revealing the stern face of Tom Cruise. “Oh, and this, you were.. very awake during this one,” he flicked his eyes up to give John a suggestive look, wriggling his eyebrows until a foot in his shin told him it was time to stop.
As Nikolai continued looking through the pile, John spoke up.
“It’s, uh, fucking stupid, really, but, these, uh, whenever we watch stuff together, these are.. some of the ones you liked most. Just so you can have them with you. It’s stupid, I’m sorry—”
“Nyet, John, it is perfect. Thank you.”
Nikolai suddenly felt a little guilty that his own gift lacked the sentimentality that John had offered him.
Their soup arrived before he could dwell on it much longer, however.
“Fucking hell, Nik, I could break up with you for this,” John said as he swallowed another spoonful. He tore off some of the accompanying bread to drown it in the minestrone also before scarfing it down.
“..I hope you will not. In fact, I hope it will be the.. the opposite,” Nik started, fishing the box out of his pocket. It felt foreign in his hands. Too gentle, too domestic, for a man like himself.
“Hang on, Nik, lemme— the fuck is that?” John asked. He looked up from his bowl only to see Nikolai extend a box out to him, hands shaking. Well.
“I, um, you can say no, I will not mind, I swear to you, but… дерьмо, I.. I would like to spend my life with you, John. If you would let me.”
John’s mouth opened and closed again. He had planned to be on the other end of this. He’d known it was coming, sure, but he had expected something other than shaking hands.
He laughed. “Nik. Why the fuck wouldn’t I?”
John’s eyes crinkled as he took the box carefully, inspecting the ring. Same bloody one he had wanted to buy.
“I am… well, you know. I am older, and not as… desirable, and maybe you would not like to marry at all, and—“
John walked around the table and shut him up, pressing his lips against Nikolai’s. He held Nikolai there, gently rubbing the base of his neck with a hand until Nik tilted his jaw out of the other man’s grip.
“You are sure? Certain?”
“Certain, Nik.” John let Nikolai take his hand and carefully slide the ring on.
“…looks like your eyes,” Nikolai murmured.
“Sappy fuck,” and John kissed him again.
Maybe he was insane, but his fiancé’s lips seemed to taste better than his boyfriend’s ever did. Almost as good as the soup that sat abandoned on the table.
John pulled away once more after a few more moments, and returned to his seat.
“I’d love to keep kissing you, but I imagine this food was bloody extortionate, and I’m not having you waste that money.”
“You are a cruel man, John,” but Nikolai returned to their soup without another word.
-/-
The true highlight of the evening in John’s mind, however, came at the end of their meal, when he was taken into Nikolai’s arms and swayed side to side roughly to the tune of whatever song crackled out of the speakers. John’s head was a bit too muted by the whiskey he’d unwrapped earlier (and split with Nik only shortly after his proposal), so their dance was more of a stumble.
Nik seemed not to care, holding John close enough to himself that he could press kisses to his jaw every few steps.
As one song melted into another, John looked up at Nikolai. “My husband… so.. beautiful…”
“Da, John. But my husband is more so,” he replied, kissing him once more.
This song, fucking Elton John’s Your Song, would be the same one they danced to a year and a half later in front of the few friends deemed deserving of invites. John would still stumble over the same steps, and they’d probably still both end up at the floor, Nikolai speaking up only to tell John that his are the sweetest eyes he’s ever seen.