Marry Me: A One-shot
Title: Marry Me
Author: mrs-spamlad
Genre: AU/AU, one-shot
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: 3900-ish
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: Brokeback Mountain and the original characters of Jack, Ennis, Lureen and Alma were created by and belong to Annie Proulx. No money is being made from this- I’m just taking them out for a spin!
A/N: Well, it’s not a WIP update, but it’s something! This is a little one-shot that has been in my head for a while, inspired by the song Marry Me by Train, and I’ve finally had the chance to sit down and put words to it. I haven’t been around much lately, but I’m hopeful that getting this one-shot done is indicative that I’ll be back to writing more regularly now that RL has settled a bit. And while I have definitely not abandoned any WIPs, I just want to be sure that I can work on them regularly before I start posting them again. But they will be back, and hopefully soon!
Thanks to my best girl Camilla for nudging me along (sometimes forcefully!) to get this written. Thanks to Jane for the midnight beta and cheers for this. I feel so out of the loop with writing, so they were much needed!
I hope you all enjoy this little piece - I’ll keep you posted about what’s coming next J
jill
Marry Me
Ever notice how the really big moments in life grab you with all five senses, like they imprint themselves onto you, becoming another brick in the foundation of who you are? And all it takes is one little trigger - a certain smell, a place, a sound - and you’re right back there, in that moment, like it’s your here-and-now. I remember my first kiss that way - well, my first kiss from a guy, anyway. Fifteen years old, on the beach, at night. I met Sam when his family rented the cottage next to my family’s place for two weeks that summer on Cape Cod. He was the same age as me; we bonded and spent our time swimming and fishing and riding our bikes everywhere, mostly trying to avoid doing anything with our parents or my younger sister or his twin younger brothers. We did a pretty good job of it, too. That night - the night before he left to go home - we snuck out late and went down to the beach to hang out, like we’d done most nights. Only that night, something happened - I don’t know what, exactly - and during a pause in our deep, fifteen-year-old conversation, we found ourselves leaning toward one another slowly - painfully slowly- until we met in a confused, hormone-driven lip-lock.
Well, in that moment, I figured out some things about myself, and I remember everything about those few seconds: the smell of salty breeze as it wafted over us, dislodging a stray hair from my head so it dragged and tickled across my forehead; the rush of heat that surged up inside me in an instant; the bursts of colors I saw on the lids of my closed eyes; the hypnotic hum of the waves as they rolled up onto the beach and back out again; the warm sand, still radiating some of the day’s heat underneath me and, most of all, Sam’s lips on mine, the faint, sweet taste leftover from his last gulp of Coke, and the knowledge that I never wanted to do anything but that ever again.
As you might have guessed, it didn’t turn out that way with Sam. We kissed for probably less than a minute, and when I brought my hand up to his head and inched closer, he freaked out and pulled away. Then he got up and rode away, mumbling some incoherent stuff about having to get back, and his parents and whatever. I stayed there on the beach for a while after he left, though, lost and amazed and terrified by what had just happened. Sam’s family left the next morning and I never saw him again, and that was okay; I wasn’t pining for him or anything. Hell, I barely even knew what had happened back then. But he was still important and that kiss… well, it was one of those moments.
I’ve got a bunch of them stored away, as I’m sure we all do, but one of the most recent ones - and maybe the most important one - was the first time I saw him. Eco Joe’s is the go-to place for overworked students here: it’s close to campus, they’re open late, they have caffeine, and the organic coffee and food at least give you the illusion that you’re doing something good for the planet. I wandered in one day, still mostly brain dead from a too-long seminar on quantitative research techniques, and ordered my usual from the girl at the register who I recognized in a vague way from my almost daily visits there, though I probably couldn’t identify her in a police line-up. I moved down to wait at the pick-up counter as she shouted my order to… nobody.
“Can I get a double hammerhead, light with soy, and a blueberry muffin, please?” She waited for the usual acknowledgement from the drink-maker person, and when nothing came, she turned around and shouted with all the delicacy of a college football coach, “Jack? Where the hell are you?”
With that prompting, a dark-haired guy I was sure I’d never seen before rushed out of the back room, stumbling a little as he pulled his apron over his head. “Sorry, Celia. I’m here. Uh, what was the order?” he asked, tying the apron strings around his waist.
She repeated it back to him and he set to work, and I just stared, stupid, junior-high thoughts running through my head like, Is someone that gorgeous really allowed to just walk around? and I bet he smells good and I wonder if he’d like me. It was lame, but I was okay- until he brought over my order. He turned and slid my drink across the counter toward me, snagging me in the beam of his bright blue gaze, flashing a smile that was sweet and sexy and just imperfect enough to let you know he was real, and said, “Here ya go. Be right back with your muffin.”
I couldn’t have defined the word muffin in that moment if the world’s coffee supply depended on it; I was way too busy falling - in lust, in love, whatever. My world narrowed to only the feel of my sweaty palm as it slid across the cool granite counter toward my drink; the chatter and coffee machine noises that became like white noise, blanking out the rest of the world; the hot java fumes that wafted up from my mug; the taste of the remnants of Doritos in my mouth, which I sincerely hoped had not made my breath toxic, and the sight of the most perfect ass I’d ever seen, on full display as he bent over and reached into the bakery case. Another keeper moment.
I was still about seven kinds of stupid when he emerged with my muffin, set it on a plate and nudged it my way. “One blueberry muffin,” he said, hitting me again with the smile, and I actually grabbed the edge of the counter to anchor myself. When I didn’t respond, he asked, “Anything else I can get for you?”
After another few seconds of silence from me, I noticed that he’d started to look concerned, so I managed to croak out a hoarse, “No. Thanks,” and take my stuff and head for the safety of a corner table where I could assess exactly how much trouble I was in. I knew that quantitative seminar would come in handy for something.
Turns out that one little interaction got me pretty good. So, for the next month or so, I spent even more time than usual at Eco Joe’s, and I lurked. I didn’t cross over into stalker territory, so it’s not like I’d figured out Jack’s exact schedule or anything; but let’s just say that, more often than not, I found myself there while he was working, which was most evenings. That doesn’t mean I worked up the courage to actually talk to him beyond the occasional “Here you go” and “Thanks” exchange at the counter. Even at the one-month mark, that seemed like a distant hope. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not a freak, or horrible to look at, or unreasonably annoying. At least I don’t think so. And I’d had enough relationships so that I was positioned pretty comfortably midway between the bookends of virgin and man-whore. There was something about him, though, that made me… nervous.
You can learn a lot about someone by just observing, and that’s the approach I took in the beginning. Jack got way more attention in those weeks than the psych books that lay open on my table ever did. I noticed things, collecting bits of data about him the way I should have been doing for my thesis research: he worked hard - that was easy to see. He was friendly, smiled a lot, and knew an impressive number of customers and their usual orders without them having to say a word. He was funny. Some days, if I sat close enough to the counter, I could overhear him chatting with the customers and his co-workers, and I’d always end up biting my lip so I didn’t laugh along with them at some of the stuff he said. I’m sure I looked like a special kind of whackjob, sitting there smiling at nothing, but I’d rather live with that than give up a second of my Jack days.
Sad, right? Yeah, well, after about three weeks, things shifted a little when we had our first non-coffee-related conversation and I saw the first hint of interest from him. I was staked out at a table over by the windows in the front of the shop where, of course, I had a clear view of the counter area. It was getting close to closing time, so the place had pretty well cleared out. Jack wandered out from behind the counter and started at the back of the café, picking up empty plates and mugs and wiping down tables. He chatted with the few remaining people as he worked his way through, but it was hard to tell if he actually knew them or was just being friendly. I was alone in my section by the time he got there, and he stopped by my table.
“Psychology?” he asked, studying the cover of one of the books on my table.
“Yeah,” I said. Then, not wanting to miss the chance to end my pathetic non-verbal mooning, I added, “I’m a grad student in clinical psych over at Boston University. First year.”
“Cool,” he said as he wandered over to push in the chairs of the table across from me. “Not my thing, though.”
“What is your thing?” I asked, wincing inwardly and trying to pretend that question wasn’t laced with potential innuendo.
He paused at that and flicked a curious glance my way. “Computers,” he answered. “I’m a senior in the software engineering program.”
“At BU?” I asked incredulously.
“Yeah. Why so surprised?”
“Oh, uh, I don’t know. I guess I’ve just never seen you around,” I finished lamely.
He took a step toward my table. “Well, it’s a big school. Besides, would you have been looking?” he asked with a teasing sort of challenge in his eyes.
I knew an opening when I saw it, so I met his gaze head-on and said, “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I would.”
He studied me for a second, then nodded as a slow smile spread across his face. “Okay, then,” he said softly, picking up an empty plate from a nearby table and heading back toward the counter. “I’m Jack, by the way. Ya know, just in case you see me around.”
I nodded, smiling slightly. “Ennis,” I said, pointing stupidly at myself.
He grinned. “Ennis,” he repeated. “Nice to meet you.”
“Same to you,” I murmured to his retreating back.
After a couple days of thoroughly overanalyzing that little encounter, I started to get nervous about losing the momentum, real or imagined, that it gave me. So, after getting a pep-talk worthy of a paid life-coach from my best friend Will who I’m pretty sure was just sick of hearing about “Coffee Boy”, I charged into Eco Joe’s on a Thursday night, ready to leap off the cliff. It was close to closing time and the shop was almost empty when I entered. I was reasonably calm, if not cool or collected, as I strode up to the section of counter where Jack stood alone, emptying one of the giant silver coffee makers.
I stopped at the counter and he looked up at me, and as soon as his eyes settled on me, my little bit of calm went down the drain with the night’s unused Kona blend, and my heart started hammering in my chest. “Ennis!” Jack said, sounding genuinely happy to see me what. “What can I do for you?”
Marry me.
Thankfully, I didn’t say that out loud, though staring blankly wasn’t doing a whole lot to help me out either. He wiped his hands on his apron and took a step toward me. “Uh, you okay?” he asked, furrowing his brow.
I nodded slightly, trying to remember what Will had said, or what I’d planned to say - anything, really. And when I opened my mouth, the right words tumbled out, minus any kind of smoothness or charm.
“Have dinner with me,” I blurted out, not even making it a question.
One side of his mouth quirked up in a smile and he shoved his hands in his pockets, looking suddenly shy. “Okay,” he said. “I will.”
*****
Eleven months and one hundred seventeen dinners later…
“Oh, Jesus!” I gasped as Jack grasped my hips, drawing them up higher as he pounded into me from behind.
After a couple more thrusts, he slowed down a little and leaned over my back. “You like that?” he asked, his voice rough and raspy with lust only an inch from my ear.
“You know I do,” I said as craned my neck around to kiss him and then thrust my ass back against his hips.
He sucked in a sharp breath and groaned. “Show’s almost over, baby,” he whispered and resumed his previous position, fucking like a man on a mission as he snaked one hand around to grab my dick. He jerked me off hard and fast and that, combined with him hitting just the right spot with every snap of his hips, had me coming in a matter of seconds.
“Shit!” I cried, pumping my release over his fist. He followed right behind me with a moan that started somewhere in the soles of his feet, and then collapsed on top of me. My power supply was pretty well depleted by that point, so I slowly let my knees and elbows slide out under his weight until I was spread flat on the bed with him on top of me. We stayed like that for a bit, drifting in and out of our dozy post-sex haze until he eventually peeled himself off me and rolled to the side and onto his back. I turned onto my side and scooted close to him, propping my head up on my hand.
“Fuck,” he whispered, rubbing his hand over his face.
“Yeah. Seems like it gets better every time,” I said, tilting my head down to kiss his shoulder. “Though I guess we’ve had enough practice after all these months.”
He dropped his hand onto his stomach and turned to look at me with a soft smile on his face. “Eleven,” he said.
“What? You mean, like, on a scale of one to ten?” I asked.
“No, dumbass!” he said with a laugh and a kick to my foot. “Eleven months.”
“Eleven? Really?”
“Yeah. In fact….” He paused and reached over to grab his phone on the nightstand. He pushed a button and the exterior screen lit up. “Yep. It’s after midnight now, so it’s eleven months to the day.”
“Eleven months to the day since I first asked you out?” I asked, unable to hide my smile.
“Right,” he answered, then reached up to cover his eyes with his hand. “Jesus, it’s really lame that I know that, isn’t it?”
I laughed a little, then tugged his hand away from his face. He turned to look at me, his shining gaze still enough to stop me in my tracks, even in the darkened room. “No. Not lame,” I said, then cupped the side of his face as I leaned in for a gentle kiss. I pulled back and let my hand trail down his neck and over his collar bone, finally resting it on his chest above the steady thump of his heart.
“It’s good, though, isn’t it? Me and you?” he asked as he covered my hand with his.
“Yeah,” I said. “It is.”
And it was. The best ever, actually. Eleven months felt more like eleven minutes. We never seemed to get tired of being around each other, and although he still had his studio apartment on campus, truthfully, we were pretty much living together at my place by then. We never ran out of things to talk about, but there were lots of times where we didn’t say anything at all - studying, driving, reading - and that was okay too. We liked the same foods, most of the same music, and we both had an unhealthy love for comic book movies. Now, don’t get me wrong: we weren’t a couple of Stepford wives with dicks or anything. There were plenty of things we did differently, disagreed about, maybe even drove each other a little crazy sometimes. But - and I’m not quite sure how this works - that stuff seemed to make us even better, too. Maybe it’s not so much that disagreeing made us better for each other, but just the fact that it was okay to do it. We could get annoyed or pissed off or whatever, but we always seemed to find our way around it without too much trouble.
I stared down into his face as these thoughts passed through my head, probably looking at him a little googly-eyed. And while I thought my thoughts and studied his face - still the most handsome face I’ve ever seen - one of those moments snuck up on me: I felt the heat from his skin and the scratch of his wiry chest hair against my palm; the scent of sweat and sex hung heavy in the air; the whirr of the ceiling fan and the whoosh of our breathing filling the silence; the taste of his kiss and the salt from his skin lingering on my lips, and those eyes looking back at me - soft, searching, smiling. And I just knew: now or never.
He must’ve sensed something was going on, or else I’d been silently staring just a little too long, because he reached up and ran his fingers through my hair. “You okay?” he asked.
I nodded faintly and opened my mouth. “Jack….” I whispered.
He smiled and rolled onto his side, copying my position with his head propped on his hand. “What?” he whispered back.
I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times, not sure exactly how it was going to happen, but then, just like the night we began, the right words found their way from my head to my mouth without a whole lot of help from me.
“Marry me,” I said, again not bothering to make it a question.
His eyes got a little bigger then, and a faint smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Ennis, I… it’s soon, isn’t it? I mean, how do you…? I just started grad school, so shouldn’t we wait -”
His words trailed off as I shook my head and locked eyes with him, hoping he could see in mine everything that was behind my question. After a few silent seconds, I turned my hand under his to lace our fingers together.
“Marry me,” I said again, my voice shaky with emotion.
He smiled a real smile and squeezed my hand. “Okay,” he said. “I will.”
*****
Eight months later….
I studied my reflection in the mirror with a critical eye, adjusting the knot in my tie until, with a frustrated yank, I pulled it free and started over. The tie was probably fine, but I was so damn nervous that I just needed something to do with my hands. I started to tie the tie again, pausing to roll my eyes at myself; it was ridiculous to feel like that, palms sweating and my heart thumping like I’d run a marathon. It was just Jack. True, I was about to walk out the door and pledge to spend my life with him in front of our closest friends and family, but that was what I wanted, right?
Of course it was. The past almost-two years had been awesome. The best ever, actually. There was no doubt in my mind that his face was the first and last thing I wanted to see every day until I didn’t have any more days left. He’d wanted us to get ready separately, which I wasn’t crazy about since, more often than not, he was the glue that held my stressed-out ass together, but I said okay anyway. He wanted it, and I’m pretty useless when it comes to saying no to Jack Twist.
I turned away from the mirror and closed my eyes, hoping that it was just the reversed reflection that was making the tie impossible and I’d be able to get the job done just by the feel of it. I was halfway through when there was a knock on the door to my little changing room, and I breathed a sigh of relief that Will had heard my mental distress call and come to rescue me before I hanged myself with the damn tie.
“Come in,” I said, my back to the door.
The door opened and shut, and within seconds, a pair of strong arms that were definitely not Will’s looped around my midsection.
“Need a hand?” Jack asked, brushing his lips against my ear.
I let go of the tie and leaned back against him. “What makes you think I need help, huh?” I asked with a smile.
“Umm… because I know you. And I know you’re about two seconds from tying it like a shoelace just to call it done,” he answered.
I turned in his embrace and pulled him closer. “Guilty,” I said, and then brushed a kiss over his lips. “Hey, I thought we were doing all this separately.”
He shrugged and smiled. “Sounded like a better idea when I wasn’t sitting in a room by myself. Here, let me.”
He reached up, undid my failed attempt and started over, and for those few seconds, it felt like the clocks stopped. Another monumental moment, and I was acutely aware of the feel of his warm breath breezing over my chin as he tilted his head downward; the scent of flowers and burning candles wafting in from the alcove where the ceremony would take place; the muted murmur of voices - our friends and family - on the other side of the door; the minty taste of my most recent breath mint dissolving on my tongue; and those eyes - the ones that could still leave me speechless, even after all this time - inches from mine, focused on his task, but flicking up to meet my gaze every so often, electric and elated and everything I ever wanted.
“What?” he asked, pausing and eyeing me with a furrowed brow.
“Huh? What ‘what’?” I said as I brought myself back to the present.
“I don’t know. You were kinda zoned out and smiling,” he said.
I shrugged lamely. “I’m just… happy,” I said.
“Me, too,” he said with a grin and a final tug on my tie. He grasped my shoulders and turned me back to face the mirror. “There. Whaddaya think?”
I glanced at the perfectly tied tie around my neck, then met his eyes in the mirror. “Perfect,” I said.
“Good,” he replied with a nod. He took a few steps toward the door, and when I didn’t follow right away he turned back around and extended his hand. “C’mon,” he said. “Marry me.”
I smiled and took his hand, lacing our fingers together. “I will,” I said. “Every day.”
End
today
yesterday