Pleasant Surprises

“Markimoo?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s this?”

Hearing his long term boyfriend calling him from his bedroom, Mark could only hope that this wasn’t yet another prank. The pair had been at war recently, with the last prank having Jack screeching as blood red water poured out of the shower nozzle.

Mark had wanted to pull a full on Carrie, but he didn’t have enough fake blood to fill a bucket, so he settled for the red dye in the shower head instead.

Smiling to himself at the thought, Mark cautiously made his way over to their bedroom, where Jack had called from. With a suspicious look on his face, he crept into the room and held his hands out in front of him in case the Irishman threw something at him.

What he didn’t expect, was for Jack to be holding a ring box. The exact one that held the engagement ring he was planning to give to Jack on his birthday.

That was in two weeks.

He’d managed to waste an entire day just picking it out, not to mention having to battle Jack into assuming he was definitely somewhere else.

“I’m just getting some more t-shirts,”

“I’m just buying you that mug I smashed last week,”

“I’m buying cake ingredients?”

In the end, he’d chosen a simple silver band with a small diagonal stripe of diamonds across the top of it.

And Jack was holding the very thing that he wasn’t supposed to know existed yet.

Upon seeing it in his lover’s hands, all he could do was gawk. He had been planning this for weeks, with a small birthday party at Felix and Marzia’s, and then right at the very end, he was going to get down on one knee.

Too late for that now.

In staring at the green velvet box, he knew he had been caught red handed.

“...Uhm.... I don’t know, I’ve never seen it before,” Mark answered, putting on a doubtful face in the hope that maybe he could get away with it.

“Mark Fischbach you know better than to fucking lie to me. You know exactly what this is,” Jack replied, his face unbelieving and slightly awed. He could tell from the quality of the box and Mark’s slightly comical face that this was definitely an engagement ring.

“Were you going to propose to me?” Jack asked, his voice toned down into an almost whisper. At that moment, Mark could barely read Jack’s reaction. Was he happy? Was he...sad? Did he not want this yet?

Unsure of what to do, Mark nodded his head slowly, whilst fumbling with his fingers as a distraction. Sighing, he started “You see, I uh really really love you, you know. We’ve just been so happy and comfortable recently and I can’t see the rest of my life without you and you really weren’t supposed to find that yet and I completely understand if you don’t want this yet and I’msosorryifI’vemessedeverythingupand-”.

Shaking his head with a grin on his face, Jack stepped forward and dropping the box to the bed, took Mark’s anxious face in both hands and kissed him. In the comfort of the action, Mark sighed in relief. He was pretty sure that this meant he hadn’t screwed everything up.

Pulling back, Jack put his hand on Mark’s chest and looked up to him.

“You’re such a goober. You’re acting as if I would be mad that the one love of my life would want to marry me,” he laughed, shaking his head slightly.

“Look, knowing you, you’ve probably got some big do plan and everything that I’ve totally screwed over. Honestly, I just wanted to see if it was what I thought it was without opening it because I haven’t yet, just so you know,” Jack said, pushing the small box into Mark’s hand.

“This means everything to me, Mark. I know you’re not proposing now, but just know that on whatever day you choose, you don’t have to worry about me saying no,” he smiled and gave him a small peck on the cheek.

“Now, who’s up for cake, because I’m fucking starving!” Jack said, rushing out of the room.

Chuckling to himself, Mark stared at the box in his hand and opened it just to check that the ring was still in there. With a sparkle of light hitting him from the inside, he closed the box. Heading towards their bedside, he replaced it back into it’s hiding spot, even if it didn’t really need to be hidden anymore.

Besides, the underwear drawer probably wasn’t the best hiding place anyway.