Chapter Text
Prompt: “I’m still in love with you, and I probably always will be, but I thought you wanted to break up,
so I broke up with you. Now, it’s a year later, and you’re telling me you were about to propose?”
Nathan stared at the ring in the box and took another big sip of his whiskey. It was stupid. Even after all this time Nathan cared about this piece of metal. And it still hurt so damn much.
“Hey Doc, mind if I join you?”
Nathan startled at the voice, shut the box in his hand and quickly put it back in his pocket.
“What was that?” Duke wanted to know as he sat down with his beer. “That looked like a ring.”
“Wasn’t,” Nathan murmured and took another sip from his glass. “What do you want?”
“It was a ring, wasn’t it?” Duke asked, completely ignoring Nathan’s question. “God, I didn’t even know you were in a relationship. Wow, that’s - that’s really great. Congratulations.”
Nathan just shrugged. He wasn’t in the mood to talk. He came here to drink. And drown himself in old memories.
Duke laughed softly. “I know you were never good at this whole emotion and feeling thing but you think drinking might make this easier? Listen, if you like that person, it should be easy to ask the question.”
“Like just ‘will you marry me’?”
Duke nodded. “Maybe tell them why you like them, why you want to spend your lives together. You don’t need booze. You’re way too awesome for that. Hell, you're a doctor, you’re good looking and you’re the most compassionate and loyal person I’ve ever met. This person is lucky to have you.”
Nathan looked up, directly in Duke’s face. “Then why did you break up with me?”
Duke sighed. “We’ve been over this, Nate.”
“No, we haven’t actually. You never gave me a good reason.”
Duke sighed again. He gave a sign to the waiter for two more whiskey and waited until they arrived. He took a sip and then drew in a deep breath. “You know us, Nathan. We’ve been on. We’ve been off. It was back and forth with us. Always. When you came back from college and started to work here … I thought - well, I actually thought it could work out between the two of us. But there were signs. I knew them all too well. So often you had dumped me. I knew them all. And they were all screaming at me. So for once, I pulled the strings. I admit that I wanted to protect myself and maybe it wasn’t fair but I couldn’t have gone through that again.”
“So you thought I wanted to break up so you did it first?”
Duke nodded. “Yeah.”
Nathan didn’t know what to say to that. He just took the box out of his pocket, opened it and slid it over the table, closer to Duke.
“It’s a really nice ring,” Duke said. “You deserve this. I’m happy for you.”
“Look at it,” Nathan said. “Take it out and look at it.”
Duke took the ring carefully out of its box. He looked at it closely and he noticed an engravement on the inside. Duke and Nathan forever .
Duke’s eyes widened and he raised his head to meet Nathan’s eyes.
“I didn’t want to break up,” Nathan said. “Not that time.”
“You were about to propose?”
“Right here. In the Second Chance. With a romantic dinner. One year ago.”
Duke just stared at him, mouth half open. “I don’t know what to say.”
Nathan smiled. “Maybe just say yes?”
“What?”
“Will you marry me, Duke Crocker?”
“What? ”
“We have wasted so much time, Duke. And I love you. I’ve always loved you. You’re brave and selfless and you care so much for other people. You’re the best damn thing that has ever happened to me and I don’t want to spend another day without you. So, will you marry me?”
“Just like that?” Duke still seemed completely speechless, it was rare that Nathan saw him like that.
“A wise man once told me that I’m a pretty good catch, good looking, a doctor, compassionate and loyal. And that anyone should be lucky to be with me.”
Duke laughed softly. “You’re insane.”
“I don’t care. I just care about your answer. So what will it be? Yes or no?”
“Yes! God, yes!” Duke leaned over the table and kissed Nathan fiercely. “Yes. A hundred times yes.”
Nathan grinned stupidly and took the ring to slide it on Duke’s finger. “Sorry for taking so long to ask,” he murmured.
“Sorry for breaking up,” Duke whispered back.
“Enough of this now. Let’s celebrate!” Nathan raised his glass. “To second chances.”
Duke smiled warmly. “To second - or third - or fourth chances.”