"It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside. I'm not one of those who can easily hide..."

[warble_on_jeff]

Who? nickthewarbler, warble_on_jeff, with a special appearance by Kyra-Belle Hummel-Anderson
What? ADHD + baby + being utterly in love with your other half = A moment only Jeff and Nick could have
When? Thursday, early morning
Where? Maternity Unit, Portland Hospital, London

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[warble_on_jeff]

Every now and then in life, there had been moments that made Jeff stop and take notice. And there was something to be said for those moments, because while it took very little to distract Jeff, it took a lot to truly catch and hold his attention, and those moments were always the ones that stuck with him for the longest time. Moments like the one in Italy where Nick had fallen on top of him in a pillow fight and suddenly kissed him. Jeff's life had never been the same. Moments like the one where he and Nick had decided they were making the move over the ocean to London. All important, life-changing moments for Jeff. But this moment right here, while one of the quietest moments of all, had shaken Jeff to his very core in the best of ways.

His eyes stayed locked on Nick as the other man looked up at him, that gorgeous smile lighting his whole face, shining through his world, and serving, as those types of smiles from his boyfriend always did, to make Jeff feel that much better about life in general. Nick's admission that he wanted a baby, while half playful, tugged at something in Jeff's heart. He set the coffees aside on a small table in the room and walked over toward his boyfriend, an million thoughts racing through his head at once. He sat down in the seat next to him, patting his thighs as he settled down, until he felt a circle against his palm. Jesus, he'd left the engagement ring in the pocket of his jeans that he'd put back on this morning. How the fuck it had managed not to fall out, Jeff would never know, but thank God, because he either would've lost it, or Nick would've seen it, and the whole thing would've been ruined.

The feel of the small circle under his palm as he sat there seemed to trigger something in Jeff, though the man couldn't say just exactly what yet. And when he opened his mouth to indicate to Nick that he kind of wanted a baby, too, not right now, but one day in the not too distant future, it came out sounding an awful lot like, "Marry me, Nicky."

[nickthewarbler]

Nick had been looking down at the gorgeous little girl of Kurt and Blaine's when Jeff had spoken. It was so damn tempting to want to coo baby talk at her, but she was sleeping soundly and he settled softly patting the underside of the bundle rhythmically. He knew Kurt and Blaine were absolutely ecstatic, over the moon, and awed that this little person was not just their's but made from a part of Kurt. It didn't take a genius to see that neither of them had honestly been prepared for this. They probably tried and thought they were, but the enormity of it was so much more epic in reality. Nothing could match meeting your own child for the first time and knowing they would be part of you for as long as you both lived. She was just the epitome of a perfectly, tiny little bundle of joy too. They couldn't be happier new parents if they tried, and Nick knew how massively serious business it was for the two of them to leave their daughter with Nick and Jeff. It was bucketloads of trust right there.

When Jeff spoke, he just laughed, assuming it was a joke. "I wasn't the one who gave birth, babe. You don't need to make an honest guy of me," he joked back, looking up to shoot Jeff a grin. He was about to look back down at Kyra-Belle then, content to just enjoy the moment of babysitting their friends' new arrival until he caught something... unfamiliar in Jeff's eyes, and it caused him to do a double-take at his other half. His dark eyes searched over Jeff's face for a moment, and a hesitant furrow of a frown appeared, but only out of confusion. "You're... serious? You want... I... don't get it."

[warble_on_jeff]

In the briefest second after Jeff had spoken, he'd been absolutely stunned. Of course he wanted to propose to Nick. He'd had the ring for what seemed like an eternity, and had every intention of using it. He just hadn't pictured the whole thing going down quite like this. Of course he'd played out a million different scenarios in his head, even practiced in the mirror when Nick was at work. Every possible romantic proposal had played in his mind at some point. But in none of them were they in the hospital with Nick holding Kurt and Blaine's precious daughter close to him. In none of them did he blurt it out randomly instead of carefully setting up some beautiful, perfect scene. But then again, since the day that they'd realized their feelings for each other, nothing Jeff and Nick ever did went quite exactly as planned. And maybe? Maybe it was better this way. It was them. It wasn't a huge grand gesture of a perfect party with a perfectly practiced way of asking the question. It was just a man asking the man that he loved to marry him.

Nick's response, however, made it clear that he thought Jeff was just kidding around. And it wouldn't be the first time. There had been many times in the past when one of them would jokingly ask the other to marry them. It was all just in good fun, and usually related to things like the idea of taking a honeymoon, or telling Nick's work to bugger off, because he had a family, too. Still, when Nick looked at Jeff, there was no joking going on. "I'm more serious than I've ever been," Jeff assured him. A thought hit him, and there was a momentary panic, where he felt like maybe this was the wrong time, and he'd said something wrong. "If... I mean, if you don't want to, or you're not ready, that's fine... I won't... I won't be offended, but..." he paused, tilting his head to one side in question, a pose that had earned him many, many comparisons to a golden retriever puppy along the way. "What don't you get?" he asked gently. "I want to marry you, Nicky. I want to be your husband, and celebrate that step in our life together with all of our friends, and... Maybe start a family of our own one day. But... God, babe, please don't feel like I'm pushing you into this because I'm feeling clucky because of the baby... It's not that at all... I've... I bought you a ring..." he said, reaching into his pocket to retrieve said ring and holding it out to Nick. "I bought one for you like... ages ago. Before Christmas, even. That's why Kurt got mad at me. Because there was this big misunderstanding about Facebook and me asking him to come, but Rachel ended up going with me. But then I lost the original one... I know, I suck... And they didn't have another one like it at the jewelry store. So I ended up asking Kurt to go with me to find the second one... And we locked it in Kurt's safebox until the party... I was going to propose at the party, but those plans changed. But I mean it with all my heart, Nicky. I want you to marry me."

[nickthewarbler]

Nick could feel the shocked surprised filtering through him and that was when Kyra-Belle gave a snuffly whimper of protest like she could sense that Nick's attention had shifted from her. He began to rock her gently and kept up the soothing rhythm of soft pats to her little butt. She scrunched her little face and hands up, and it was probably about 50/50 that she was going to start wailing, but she didn't. After a moment, she settled back down thankfully. Nick knew that the meal Kurt and Blaine were having would probably be their quickest ever because they wouldn't want to leave her for very long. Learning to have her all the time would be just as important as learning to be able to leave her for even the most basic of things like eating and sleeping. The latter of which would have to come soon too because both of them were just running on adrenaline by this point and were pushing almost two full days without sleep.

"Jeff, I..." he began, but stopped again before continuing. What didn't he get? Probably that they had been together so long and this was sort of out of the blue all of a sudden. What they had worked and even though Nick had always assumed they would get married one day, think about a family of their own, just like Kurt and Blaine had, that day had never really sort of dawned on them. They went through life content and their little existence worked for them. All of their friends had little happy bubbles of lives that crossed over together. Some days, it was amusing they found all this in an entire new country to their own, but that was just the way the cookie crumbled, and it worked for them. Which begged the question, should they shake things up? If it worked, why change it? The age old question...

But then, right there in his arms, was the epitome of change. Kurt and Blaine had gotten married really young, literally right out of school and they made it work. Now, nearly six years down the track, they welcomed their first child and even though there had been hurdles, both of them would shout from the rooftops how happy and content they were. They overcame all the hardships, the homophobia, the difficulties to probably be one of the most successful couples Nick had ever seen. He had always classified him and Jeff in the same boat too. They rarely even argued, and sure, Nick's schedule had them both wishing for more time together in general, but it still worked. They were happy and comfortable. Nick knew he would never be with anyone else. That had never been called into question, not since they hooked up when they were sixteen after Nick's infamous soul-searching that discovered he was bisexual. His eyes had widened a little and looked from Jeff to the ring and then back again. When he finally spoke, it maybe wasn't exactly what Jeff wanted to hear, but Nick had to ask... "Why did you wait so long?" he asked quietly. "We can't do something like this if there are any doubts."

[warble_on_jeff]

While Jeff was a bit disappointed that Nick wasn't immediately on the, "Hell, yeah, let's do this," train, he wasn't surprised either. Nick was an artist, and as such, a very deep thinker and a beautiful soul. Those were the things Jeff had fallen in love with about him, but they were also the things that were the biggest difference between the pair. Jeff did a whole lot of leaping and not all that much looking, where Nick internalized things, and pondered them over carefully and thoughtfully. Nick was also the oldest child in a big family, where Jeff was the youngest of two, so Nick had grown up being careful to set a good example for his sisters and brother along the way. But in a way, it was what had made them such a good fit to each other. They tempered each other, and complimented each other, and they'd come to have an absolutely beautiful relationship. The fact was, when Jeff had finally decided that it was time to ask Nick to marry him, he had asked himself the very same question Nick was asking him now. Why had he waited so long?

Now it was Jeff's turn to let his own deeper side show, and he swallowed to give himself a moment to collect his thoughts. "Nicky," he said softly. "There is no doubt in my mind that you are the person I love... The one I want to be with for the rest of my life. And there are a few reasons that I waited. If you're asking why I waited this long before buying a ring and deciding I was ready to marry you, it's because I know myself. I know that I tend to jump into ideas because they're exciting and fun, and I never wanted you to think that this was some knee jerk thing. I wanted to think it out and plan it out and be sure, so that when the time came there wouldn't be questions. But I wanted to wait to ask until we could have the party, and I didn't want to do that until Dani was home, and until Kurt wasn't mad at me anymore... He was so mad about the ring thing, and I wanted him to be there, too... But the whole party idea changed when Quinn went into labor, so I wanted to wait again until I could set it up really special..."

With a soft shake of his head, he looked down at the face of Kyra-Belle, then back up at Nick. "But now? With Kyra-Belle here and everything... Nicky, this is special. And I don't want to wait anymore. I want you to marry me, and sooner rather than later. You're my soulmate, Nicky... And when I was a kid and people said that in movies and stuff I always thought it sounded stupid and cheesy, but that was before I knew what it meant. You're... You're my best friend, and my lover, and the only person I ever want to wake up next to... You're the person in this world who gets me like nobody else ever has, and you love me when it's easy, and you love me when it's hard, and when you're not there, a piece of me isn't there either... If I'm with you, time flies, and I don't want it to end, and when I'm not with you, the minutes seem like days, and I can't wait until you're there again. Nicky, sweetheart, I love you. I love you more than life itself, and I'm ready. I want to be your husband, and I want you to be mine. For the rest of our lives."