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The first time Felix proposes to Dimitri, they’re three, or so his old man likes to say. Felix has no recollection of this — the only clear memories he has of being three are of the satisfying chew of Glenn’s fingers in his mouth and of that one time he cried because his babysitter didn’t know who Dimitri was. But as his father likes to tell it, three-year-old Felix proposed to Dimitri in an alpine skiing lodge.
“Very romantic,” his old man says. “You had a little ring of hot chocolate around your mouth. Oh! Wait, I just remembered— I have pictures! Felix? Felix! Get back here! Who taught you your manners? … The gall of that boy. We’ll just have to view them by ourselves, Dimitri.”
The second time Felix proposes to Dimitri is in middle school. Second semester of sixth grade. Their entire friend group is in a titter because they’d just run into an eighth grade couple macking in the stairwell. Unlike Ingrid and Ashe, who whisper excitedly through science class, Felix stews over the incident in confused, angry silence. The sight of two big kids kissing had upset him for reasons he couldn’t articulate.
Then Annette enters a marriage pact with Caspar from class 6-E. She explains it like this: sometimes you feel worried that you’ll die alone, so you agree to marry someone for companionship if you’re both single after a certain age. She shows off their signed, sticker-decorated, meticulously laminated document, and Felix feels inspired in a way that erases the discomfort of the encounter entirely. He’s never worried about dying alone — he has Dimitri, after all — but it would be nice to see the names Dimitri and Felix Fraldarddyd in print.
Dimitri, of course, agrees readily. He even offers to push the date up.
“Waiting until we’re fifty is kind of sad,” Dimitri says. “We’ll practically be dead by then. Wouldn’t you rather marry at twenty five?”
“Your dad remarried at thirty six,” Felix reminds Dimitri haughtily. “That means that even old people can find love. We have to wait until we’re sure we’ll die single without each other. Fifty is grandpa age. Grandpas don’t date.”
“I don’t think I’ll find anyone else to marry though,” Dimitri says. “I’d rather just marry you now.”
“You might not want to date around, but I do,” Felix says. He’s pretty sure that’s a lie, actually, but Glenn and Sylvain both insist he’ll understand in high school.
He doesn’t date in high school. When everything goes to shit and Felix experiences heartbreak for the first time, he shoves his copy of their laminated pre-marriage certificate in a box under his bed and pretends it never existed.
Felix throws away his pride at age eighteen, two months away from graduation. He hasn’t properly talked to the boar in years but no one’s capable of seeing what he sees. Dimitri’s spiraling into some kind of beast, and no one’s there to help. He ambushes Dimitri on the running track after school, after everyone’s gone home from practice.
“We once agreed to marry,” Felix says. “You think anyone would willingly wed an animal like you?”
At that, Felix finally catches a flash of something human in Dimitri’s eyes. It’s quick and quiet, replaced almost instantly with Dimitri’s usual dull gaze, but Felix knows he wasn’t imagining it.
“I wasn’t aware that you remembered,” Dimitri says cooly. “I release you from the pact, if it repulses you so to consider me.”
“That’s not what I—”
But Felix doesn’t know what he means to say. He throws his hands up in the air. “Fine!”
He resolves to never speak to Dimitri again. Fuck twenty five, fuck fifty — he’ll die single and happy about it.
Five years is a long time to hold a grudge against Dimitri over something that’s not his fault. The rage Felix cultivates to overshadow his pain withers as he matures, and by age twenty two they’re on speaking terms again. By twenty four Dimitri’s staked his claim over half of Felix’s closet real estate. They don’t talk about the marriage pact.
By twenty five, there’s a ring burning a hole in Felix’s pocket.
Today, as with every other day for the past two years of Felix’s life, he wakes up to the feeling of suffocation and Dimitri’s armpit hairs tickling his face. He wrinkles his nose on reflex, jerks his head out from where it’s trapped under Dimitri’s arm, and takes a moment to orient himself.
This is not their bed — in place of deep blue bedding, the mattress is dressed with a set of bland hotel white sheets. There’s a heap of tacky, ‘lodge-themed’ fur pillows on the floor from when Felix kicked them off the bed last night. Along with the pillows, whoever decorated this place stuck the world’s ugliest printed canvas painting of an elk on the walls in another attempt to lodgify the place; it had stared blankly down at Felix from behind Dimitri’s shoulder last night. Not that he’d let a dead-eyed herbivore stop them in the act.
Past the heavy pine furniture, wood-paneled walls, and rustic sconce lighting are a set of glass doors leading to a balcony. Beyond the balcony, dissipating morning fog and the landscape of the Itha mountains, mostly snow-white with a tumble of green pine and gray rock. They’re at the Itha Valley Ski Resort.
The sight of the chairlift line suspended over the mountain reminds him. Today is the day he finishes what he started as a child.
He turns over on his side to face Dimitri and watch his sleep-scrunched face. Dimitri’s an ugly sleeper: his whole face puffs up in sleep, his eyebrows knit into a terrible frown over his sleep mask, and he tends to mash the side of his face into the pillow, smushing his lips open and bestowing him with the world’s most rancid morning breath. Worse, he’s a fussy sleeper. Every time he senses some shift in the bed, he will, without fail—
There it is. Dimitri stirs at the disappearance of Felix’s head from under his shoulder and pats the bed in Felix’s general direction fruitlessly, searching for his missing arm support. And then, when he can’t find it, he frowns.
“Beloved?” Dimitri makes kissy lips as he rolls onto his back. He’s wearing his Sasuke eye mask, the dorky sharingan one that stares Felix down at night until he finally turns the lights off.
“Felix?” Dimitri pushes his duck lips even higher up into the air. Felix doesn’t really love the idea of kissing Sasuke, undisputed master of poison breath no jutsu, but…
Fine. Felix leans down for the kiss.
Dimitri sighs contentedly. “Thank you,” he says dreamily, rolling over and settling onto his stomach. “Have a good day at work.”
“We’re on vacation,” Felix reminds Dimitri, because he didn’t spend thousands fabricating winning tickets for a couple’s retreat in Faerghus’s fanciest ski lodge for nothing. “Wake up. We should hit the slopes before it gets too late.”
He glances at his phone. 8:30 — not too bad when they’re operating on vacation time. If they hurry, they’ll make it to the trails before all the other guests carve through the fresh powder.
“Oh,” Dimitri says, pulling Sasuke’s horrible eyes off his face and wincing at the light. He shrugs the covers off. “I forgot. Just a moment.”
While Dimitri freshens up in the bathroom, Felix checks his notes. He’s planned out the entire day, thanks to the discovery of Dimitri’s proposal Pinterest board, because of course Dimitri has a proposal Pinterest board. He’s followed everything down to a T, including the afternoon snowshoe yoga course and the pack-your-own hot chocolate mason jars.
While Dimitri whistles cheerfully (and terribly) in the shower, Felix unzips their shared duffel bag and squirrels the ring box out from where he hid it in his change of underwear. Dimitri’s too trusting — Felix handled all the preparations for them both and Dimitri didn’t even think to make sure Felix packed everything correctly. Sneaking the ring on their trip was a piece of cake.
He flips the ring box open. Nestled in the soft black velvet is a plain gold band. It’s uncanny how closely his taste aligns with Dimitri’s — this is exactly the kind of ring he’d pick out for himself. It grounds him, a little, to trust in these small similarities. He stares at it for a moment, settling his nerves as he stares at the burnished surface, then closes the box and zips it into their day pack.
Today will be the last time he proposes.
Thanks to some stroke of luck, they’re first in line at the chairlift. It’s a beautiful day — sunny and clear, billowing white clouds under a piercing blue sky. Felix loves the Itha mountains — aside from being a childhood rendezvous point for their group of family friends, the mountain range is genuinely beautiful, a jagged landscape of snow over half-buried trees.
They warm up on some gentle trails. Dimitri, as always, allows Felix to snowboard ahead. They carve zigzagging curves across half of the lower trails, all familiar routes, hopping from chairlift to trail and back again, stopping every once in a while to chip away at the disgusting cheese-apple-pickle-fruit leather-peanut butter sandwiches that Dimitri insists on packing each time they go skiing.
By the time the afternoon snowshoe yoga course rolls around, the monstrous sandwiches have been consumed and Dimitri is on his second granola bar. Snowshoe yoga is irritating as hell; it’s nearly impossible to ‘center himself’ and ‘feel the sun and wind on his skin’ when he’s too busy glaring at all the soccer moms and management bros shooting covert glances at Dimitri. But it’s not all bad: Dimitri’s a sucker for all that mindfulness crap and he spends the entire hour blinding everyone with his smile.
Once they’re done, Felix holds his hand out to Dimitri, and enduring an hour of his own jealous possessiveness is worth it for the disappointment on the closest yuppie’s face when Dimitri takes his hand. He smiles smugly into his jacket collar, then says, “Let’s trek along the ridge for our last run?”
‘The ridge’ is the most scenic point of the ski area: a thin rim of mountain that stretches between from one peak to the next. There’s an exciting marked course down the far end of the ridge that’s full of steep slopes and spiky treetops bursting from the snow, but excitement aside, it’s more challenging than most other trails. Which means that at this time of day, it should be deserted.
The final ascent up the mountain is the longest, most jittery ten minutes of his life. For someone who has a public Pinterest board of his dream proposal, Dimitri seems pretty oblivious to the fact that Felix plans to propose today, which is good. He wants Dimitri to be surprised.
They’re going to trek along the ridge of the basin, stop every once in a while to take pictures and admire the scenery, and then, right before they head down the slope, he’ll kneel down and pretend to strap his boots into the board. Then he’ll propose. They’ll celebrate with lukewarm hot chocolate mixed with stale thermos water. It’ll be exactly what Dimitri wants.
As he predicted, the ridge is empty. Dimitri offers to take the backpack, but Felix shakes his head. How is he supposed to get the ring if it’s on Dimitri’s back? But he quickly regrets his decision as Dimitri, with his long legs, is able to hike along the ridge much easier, leaving Felix feeling like a trailing pack animal. He’s considering covertly slipping the ring out and getting Dimitri to take the bag when Dimitri stops in his tracks.
“Oh!” Dimitri exclaims, fifteen paces ahead, before bringing a hand to his knee and crouching to the ground.
Felix’s heart rate skyrockets in terror. “Dimitri!”
He drops his snowboard and runs to Dimitri, who’s fumbling at his knees and shuffling around on the ground. By the time he’s made it to Dimitri’s side, Dimitri has managed to turn fully around, smiling oddly for someone who might have broken an ankle on top of a mountain.
“Felix, will you marry me?”
For a moment, Felix doesn’t understand. The fool needs help, not marriage, and he’s clearly suffering from something worse than just a broken ankle if he’s being this brainless.
Then, the situation catches up to him. Dimitri on one knee, smiling up at Felix, a familiar box with a familiar ring in his hand.
“Where did you get that,” Felix hisses in shock.
“From the store?” Dimitri’s smile falters slightly. “Do you not like it?”
Felix doesn’t answer. When did Dimitri take the ring? He swings the backpack off his shoulders to unzip the side pocket and nearly brains Dimitri with the bag in his haste. But then the pocket flaps open and there’s a plop as his black velvet ring box falls into the snow.
Dimitri stares at it, the smile on his face slowly glowing brighter and brighter as he puts two and two together, until his grin is nearly maniacal.
“Felix,” he says, surging up to hug Felix, picking him up off the ground and swinging him around in delight. “Did you have the same idea? Does this mean you’ll say yes?”
“The same idea?” Felix snaps, affronted, as the scenery reels from mountain to mountain. “Put me down!”
When Dimitri finally relents and sets him down, they have to hold each other for a moment as Dimitri has swung them around so much that their sense of balance is completely ruined. For a few moments, they’re just two fools swaying on the precipice of a mountain slope. The moment the world stops churning under his feet, though, Felix holds Dimitri at arm’s length and pins him with his angriest stare. It doesn’t have the intended effect.
“Will you marry me, Felix?” Dimitri asks again, this time a bit breathlessly. He leans in for a kiss, still swaying a bit from the vertigo.
“Yes, of course,” Felix says irritably, allowing the kiss, before continuing, “but you stole my proposal!”
“Stole?” Dimitri’s tone is puzzled. “I’ve been meaning to do this for years.”
“What do you mean, you’ve been meaning to do this for years?” Felix nearly shrieks.
“You love the mountains,” Dimitri says, confused. “Where else would I propose?”
“I planned this proposal,” Felix says, jabbing a finger into Dimitri’s thick ski jacket. “I bought the tickets! I made your horrible sandwiches!”
“But… if you planned this, why is it so close to my proposal?”
“I found your goddamned Pinterest board,” Felix says, pulling out his phone and tapping to his bookmarks. “Here! See?”
“But this was clearly a proposal for you,” Dimitri says as if this is the most obvious thing in the world, as if seventy percent of Felix’s high school friends didn’t make their own ‘dream engagement/wedding/honeymoon Pinterest boards’ as part of their ten year plans. “You love hot chocolate! I saw the drinks you packed!”
“I hate hot chocolate,” Felix says, annoyed. Dimitri should know this; he’s the one who loves hot chocolate. It’s the only reason Felix agrees to drink it at all.
“But—” Dimitri pauses, shaking his head exasperatedly “—It’s the only sweet you tolerate! There was that photo of you in the lodge, with the hot chocolate mustache—”
“From when I was three!”
Dimitri has the sense to look embarrassed. “Ah, that’s… true.”
A bout of silence as they stare at each other. Dimitri’s solemn, sheepish face is so endearing that Felix’s mouth slips unwillingly from a frown into something more neutral. As the wind whistles between them far too dramatically for the occasion, Felix feels his cheeks start to heat up. Something about the atmosphere is so ill-fitting that it’s actually embarrassing.
Then, Dimitri’s mouth curves into a smile. Between fits and bursts of laughter, he manages to string together a sentence: “I’ve been pretending to like hot chocolate all this time so you could have it!”
“I’ve been pretending, too,” Felix says. He loops his arms around Dimitri’s shaking shoulders and presses his forehead against Dimitri’s. “I carried these heavy mason jars around all day because I thought you loved the sludge.”
Dimitri looks up at that, and Felix’s breath catches. He is beautiful like this, with the faint pink beginnings of a sunburn on his nose, the golden sun threading through his hair, the blue of his eyes reflected in the sky and snow around them. He reaches up to draw Felix’s lips closer.
Felix closes his eyes and falls into the kiss.
“Let’s get married,” Felix says, his lips still brushing against Dimitri’s. He doesn’t move to pull away; neither does Dimitri. Instead, they stay like that, two fools blurring the line between talking and kissing as they kneel together on a snowy mountain ridge.
“Yes,” Dimitri says, pulling Felix closer. The position is hell on his knees and ankles, but Felix can’t bring himself to care. “I don’t want to wait until we’re fifty.”
“We’ll have to return the ring,” Felix says, fumbling his left glove off and offering his hand to Dimitri. “Since I apparently bought a duplicate of my own.”
“I want a diamond,” Dimitri says, laughing as he takes the ring out and holds Felix’s hand in his. “Thirty carats!”
“Keep dreaming,” Felix says, and allows Dimitri to slide the ring home.