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Leo still isn't used to living so near the beach.
However, he can’t think of San Pancho as anything except home. After their grand escape, leaving the country had seemed the safest option—the small town had received them warmly, believing them to be American tourists, and the warmth hadn’t disappeared when they tacitly made it clear enough that they were there to stay, as they’d proved they’d give back to the community.
Years have passed from that time, though. They’ve been at peace for a long time now. Leo has found a way to contact his family, and Linda had cursed, sworn that she’d go wherever he was and, after mutually deciding it was for the best for her and Alex to stay where they were and keep contact low, threatened to kick Vincent in the balls if he ever hurt him again. Which Leo should’ve found a warning sign in retrospect.
If he'd been said he'd fall in love with a cop, he'd have told whoever it was to fuck off. As it was, no one warned him about difficult, stubborn Vincent who risked everything he loved to save him at the last minute, who up to this day made his life impossibly complicated but at the same time so worth living he wouldn't ever dare to complain.
Well, lately life’s been pretty chill.
Leo looks to his right, only to find out Vincent isn’t there with him. His heart beating a mile a second, he turns around just to find him standing in the desert beach a few feet away. Vincent is silently staring straight at him; he looks caught off guard, but Leo doesn’t think it was by him—no, it looks as if an idea has assaulted his mind.
“A penny for your thoughts?”
Vincent shakes his head. He looks lost and oh-so-afraid.
“I just…realized something.” Leo decides to give him time to elaborate; the waves that have been approaching them start lapping at their feet, erasing their footsteps in their wake. “I…I love you, Leo.”
Leo looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “Vincent, buddy, uh, I think we already established that.”
Vincent stares at him in silence. Finally, he seems to give up. "Nevermind.”
“Hey, hey, hold your horses!” Hell if Leo will leave anything unsaid; he’s had enough of secrets and misunderstandings at this point. “What do you mean? I mean, really mean.” Like, it’s not even the first time they say it to each other.
Vincent seems to realize he doesn’t have a way out of this. He sighs, shakes his head again. “I mean…I never thought I’d love like this again. Not after Carol.” He pauses, thinks his next words carefully. “I…Could marry you right here and now.”
Leo’s mind is filled with static. A thousand questions fill his head in a tumultuous chaos. He’d figured marriage would be the last thing on Vincent’s mind. How did this happen? How did they get this far? When did the wound left by the absence of their loved ones heal enough for this?
But he can’t deny it any longer: he’d so marry the hell out of Vince if he could.
…Or can he?
“We can,” he blurts out. Now Vincent is the one looking at him like he’s gone mad. “No, no, hear me out—it doesn’t need to be official. Like, no kidding, I won’t go to jail again and neither will you. It’s about the two of us, anyways, right?”
Vincent shrugs. “It has always been, hasn’t it?”
Leo’s got an idea. “Be right back!” he yells and runs towards the nearby reedbed. He cracks one of the reeds once and again, fits the pieces in his ring finger till he’s satisfied with the results and runs back towards Vincent, who is watching him with curiosity and amusement. “Rings!” Leo yells, excitedly showing him his quick craft.
“It’s almost impressive they didn’t crack in half, with our luck.”
“Oh, shut up,” Leo says, thrusting one of the rings onto Vincent’s hands. Vincent grins.
“And the witnesses? The officer?”
“The sand. The sea. Us. Whoever, Vincent, let’s not get technical right now.”
“The girls are going to kill us. Alex will be disappointed we didn’t invite him.”
“That’s my only regret, not gonna lie. But he will get over it. We will give him ice cream when they come.” After all, it’s already an honored Caruso/Moretti tradition to visit San Pancho on holidays when Linda’s new job allows it. And as for Linda and Carol…He suspects they knew even before they did. Emily too.
“Leo…” Vincent searches his gaze. “Are you sure?”
Leo does what he usually avoids doing; he gives the matter some thought. Does he really want to marry old, grumpy Vincent, with his baggage and the stick up his butt and everything that comes with that?
Hell yeah.
He seems to have said it aloud, which startles a laugh out of Vincent. It looks like he found the answer he was looking for in the honesty and straightforwardness that are characteristic of Leo; his gaze is impossibly warm, the corners of his eyes crinkling with happiness.
He only looked this nervous, this happy, when he was holding his baby girl in his arms.
He lifts the ring up and says: “I, Vincent Moretti, promise to hold you in health and sickness, for better or for worse, for… heck, I don’t remember how it went…” Vincent laughs almost hysterically.
“I, Leo Caruso,” Leo interrupts him. “I promise to make you soup when you’re sick, to kick cop ass for you if they ever come back, and to bicker with you till the end of times—or till we die, whatever comes first.”
Now Vincent is laughing. Of course, Leo is a man of many talents—and one of them is being able to crack Vincent’s tough shell up and just…relax.
“I promise I will crush you at connect four.”
“You can’t promise things that won’t become true, Vincent.”
“Shut up.”
“I promise to forget to do the laundry every Saturday so that we have an argument about it and fix it with lots of, ya know.”
“So it was intentional, you son of a gun. I promise to leave the last piece of cake for you in the freezer.”
“I promise to take Julie to the arcade every holiday.”
“I promise to help Alex with his math.”
Leo’s throat threatens to close. “I promise to be there.”
Vincent rests his hand on Leo’s cheek. “Always?”
“Always,” he whispers, and they both seal the deal with a kiss.
“We didn’t…Put the rings on yet—”
“Lemme—” Leo grabs Vincent’s hand and tries to get the ring on his ring finger but… “How are your fingers so thick, you elephant?”
“Elephants don’t have—Try the pinky finger” Vincent says hurriedly, kissing Leo’s neck in the process.
“Stop, you, how do you want me to do math like this?”
“This isn’t even math, Leo.” The ring finally fits into place. “Wait, let me…” And he swiftly puts the ring on Leo’s right finger.
“Cheater. I measured them with that finger.”
“...Wanna stop talking about fingers?”
“...Make me.”
No one will ever know they are married. There will never be more closeness than there ever was between them; only their families will know of their union, and they’ll receive a couple of punches in the shoulder and lots of congratulations when the time for it to be revealed comes. The rings will be kept in pockets, in chains, and then, whenever they are at risk of being broken, inside a safe drawer in their room. And if their story is ever told, historians will say they were best friends. And they were, in a way.
However, today they still are in a haze, lying on the sand in San Pancho’s beach, a whole future together ahead of them. And Leo wouldn’t have it any other way.