Work Text:
"I'm bloody boiled!" James exclaimed, rolling over. He wasn’t sure if the heat that was almost suffocating him was due to the weather or the anticipation of what he was about to do. His head was in Val's lap and she was meticulously applying some sort of diamante gems to the corners of his eyes.
"Take your jumper off then, idiot" Ellie rolled her eyes, popping a grape in her mouth, grinning in a way which assured James she was teasing.
"Ah, Ellsie lellsie my dear, if you wanted to see my beautiful arms, all you had to do was ask" James said with a grin, stripping off his jumper (to Val’s protest as the gems hadn’t had time to set yet) and leaving him in a vest shirt. Ellie threw a grape at him.
James had decided to organise a picnic in an area just off the side of Hogsmeade due to the weather being absolutely beautiful over the past week, a new record for the Scottish Highlands, complete with melted chocolate and crackers, marshmallows and various fruits (organised by Jo due to her better organising skills.)
"Nobody wants to see your noodles, Jamie" Ale helped himself to one of Cal's crackers. James looked scandalised.
"I'll have you know-"
"Ladies, please," Tori drawled, a huge grin on her face. "We all know I'm the buffest of them all."
Sebastian snorted. Tori rolled her eyes, then shot a glance directly at Seb. "You're barely the same height as Poppy's mooncalf, Sallow, your opinion doesn't matter to me."
Now it was Sebastian's turn to look scandalised. However, instead of making a quip back, he simply crossed his arms and leaned against Damien, who was busy trying to see how many crackers he could build a semi-stable tower with on his knee.
"Have you tried gluing them with chocolate fondue?" Ale piped up.
Damien shook his head. "I'm disappointed, Salvatori."
Ale frowned. "It's a plausible idea!"
"You're a plausible idea."
"Now that doesn't even make any- ow!" Ale was cut off as Matty prodded his shoulder.
"Behave yourself, Alejandro." She said firmly with a sigh, and Ale pouted.
"Yes Mother" he mocked, laying back in the grass and letting Val settle a dandelion crown on his head.
"You know, guys, we should do this sort of thing more often," Jo said from where she was peacefully braiding daisies into Wren's hair.
"Agreed." added Cal through a mouthful of olive breadstick, causing Mads to wrinkle up his nose and hand Cal a tissue for the crumbs he was dropping every so often.
Cal then called out, “Oi, join the party, nerds!”
Theo and Ren looked up from where they were annotating books together, Ren with a scowl on his face, Theo with a sheepish smile and a murmured apology.
“Leave them be, it’s a miracle Blondie showed up anyway,” James grinned, only to immediately hold his hands up in surrender when Ren shot him a death glare.
“Oh, crap, I almost forgot!” James stood up as if he was about to make a speech, and Ren tapped his palm to his forehead with a muttered ‘idiot’.
“I organised-” James cut off with Matty’s disappointed stare, “we organised today for a reason, guys.”
“So it wasn’t just an excuse for you to stuff your face?” Tori called out, to which everyone laughed.
“I can’t believe you guys aren’t taking this seriously.” James frowned, fighting back a smile. He huffed, then moved to where Ren was sitting on the picnic blanket. Ren raised an eyebrow warily, to which James let out a soft huff of laughter.
“Florence Janel Chateaux,” James grinned, kneeling Dramatically in front of Ren. “Uhhhh…”
Great. Perfect time for his mind to go blank. Alyn held up her thumbs in a show of support.
“Oh, right. Ren. Will you…” he held out a cute little box, “be my boyfriend?”
Ren’s mouth was slightly open in awe, his eyes shining with something that looked suspiciously like unshed tears. He immediately launched himself into James’ arms, setting his elegant fingers on James’ face and kissing him, hard. A loud cheer erupted from everyone watching, and Ale let out a wolf whistle.
“Well,” James murmured with a grin, out of breath. “That went better than I expected.”