Work Text:
Owen has forgotten how to breathe.
It should be easy. Breathe in, breathe out. Over and over until he doesn’t even have to think about it anymore.
But with Louis sitting next to him, staring up at the night sky with wonder in his eyes, Owen is having quite a difficult time even thinking.
He reaches into his pocket, running his fingers over the piece of metal. It’s cold, grounding, and he tries to calm himself. Breathe in, breathe out. He can do this. He can do this.
Louis looks over at him, the moonlight shining down across his face. He’s a marble statue come to life, crafted carefully by some divine hand in the image of all things beautiful in the world.
“Look! It’s starting!” he says happily, pointing up at a shooting star. It traces its way across the sky before disappearing back into the inky black. Another one follows, then another and another until the entire sky is racing itself to the horizon.
“Beautiful, don’t you think?” he murmurs, laying down in the damp grass and staring up at it. The tails of light shine in his eyes, more like brushstrokes than reflections.
Owen lays down next to him. “Yeah. Beautiful,” he echoes, only barely glancing up at the sky before his eyes drift back to the work of art next to him.
Before he can start thinking and worrying and backtracking again, he turns to Louis and pulls the small object out of his pocket. He keeps his fist closed around it as he begins to speak.
“Louis, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”
His love looks over at him, one eyebrow raised. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
“No, nothing like that,” Owen says, and his heart crawls up his chest and into his throat, sitting in the way of his words. He takes a deep breath and gathers himself for what he’s going to say. “I just wanted to say…” don’t overthink it just say it just say it you can do it just say it just say it- “you mean the absolute world to me, Louis.”
Once he starts speaking, the words come freely, no worry or anxious thought strong enough to hold them back. “You saw me in all my tatters and broken shards and loved me anyway. You bore witness to the very worst of me, and you didn’t turn me away. We’ve been through so much together, sickness and health, pain and joy, life and death itself, and you’ve never once left me.
“I can’t even begin to express all my love for you, how grateful I am for everything you’ve done for me. But I want to give you a promise that I will stay here with you, too. And a reminder that I love you with all my heart and all my mind and all my spirit.”
He holds out his hand and opens his fingers to show his beloved the small piece of metal he’d been shaping and crafting for months.
The shooting stars trace their way across the small gemstone at the centre of the ring, sending a kaleidoscope of light refracting across Owen’s palm.
“Louis, will you marry me?”
Louis gasps softly, eyes wide. They shine in the starlight, the tears trailing down his pale cheeks like the stars trailing across the sky above them. “Owen-” he starts, but his voice breaks. When the words won’t come back to him, he takes Owen’s hand in his own and presses his lips to his palm. “Yes,” he says. “Oh, God, yes. I’d love nothing more.”