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On the final day of Michael’s second decade of existence, he doesn’t leave his bed all morning. Calum’s ditched him to hover around Ashton at their house, who cannot seem to convince Calum that while he does have pneumonia he isn’t going to die from it.
So all Michael’s got is Luke and his lack of respect for personal space.
“So when are we gonna go out?” Luke asks, breath against the back of Michael’s neck. Michael’s laying on his stomach and Luke is right on top of him, thighs sprawled around his waist like a half-assed piggyback ride.
“Luke,” Michael mumbles, making sure he sounds as whiny as he can manage. “I wanna stay home. It’s my birthday.”
It usually works – at least for the 8 or so years Michael’s known him. Birthdays are considered sacred in his boyfriend’s mind; the celebrants wishes must be honoured. But this time, Luke sits up, taking his comforting body heat with him. Michael frowns.
“Not until tomorrow. And it’s your twenty-first, Mikey.” Luke pats Michael’s ass absentmindedly, like he does. “We should do something. Don’t you want to make memories?”
Michael sighs, and decides to blame this whole thing on Ashton. He’s so obsessed with “making memories” and “doing things” and “not spending all day in bed”. Now he’s tainted his Luke.
“No.” Michael says into the pillow.
“… We could just go out to get something to eat.” Luke offers. Michael slowly flips over to look up at Luke, wide-eyed and gentle, everything that made Michael fall for him in the first place shining through in his small, encouraging smile. It takes Michael a second to come to terms with leaving the warm bubble they’ve created together in his bedroom and facing the outside world, but then he notes that he is a little hungry and Michael will technically still be alone with Luke so why not.
“Okay,” he agrees, and Luke smiles big and reaches his hand out to pull Michael up and Michael doesn’t know whether it’s turning another year older but it reminds him of home, of band practice in Calum’s garage, of YouTube covers, of whispered conversations late at night at Michael’s about whether they’d make it or not, whether everything they’d done was for nothing or not. Even if they hadn’t made it – Michael doesn’t think it would have been for nothing. Luke wasn’t nothing.
-
Luke’s acting really fucking weird.
Michael states that fact more than once as they eat. He’s used to his usual quirks – the way he bounces his leg sometimes, for no reason, or just goes quiet sometimes, also for no reason. But he’s more distracted than Michael’s ever seen him and it’s kind of hilarious, the way he turns whenever he hears any slight noise, the way he reacts with an overly-enthusiastic “Yeah?” when Michael calls his name to try and focus him, like his senses are heightened somehow.
It’s directly in line to how he used to be before they went on stage, before they did an interview, sometimes even before live streams.
Luke’s nervous. Really nervous. And Michael’s going to give him until the end of lunch to ‘fess up about what it is that has him like this, and then he’s going to start hounding him.
“Is there a problem baby?” Michael wonders, and Luke visibly swallows, and then shakes his head, like Michael’s some sort of idiot.
“No, why would there be?” He asks, and then stuffs his mouth with a giant bite of his sandwich that could only be contained by a mouth as massive as his, before he can be asked another question. Michael rolls his eyes.
The rest of the lunch date consists of Luke checking his phone a lot, and Michael ordering desert and watching him. He’s not going to flip out about his weirdness, he knows he’ll tell him what the fuck is up eventually (or in about an hour when Michael annoys it out of him), but for now it’s very amusing.
They take an Uber back home and Luke makes conversation with Michael but it’s stilted; Luke’s obviously still very jittery. Michael’s not ruling out the possibility of drugs, but since when does Luke do anything without him? Something’s off and as soon as they’re out of the earshot of the Uber driver, Michael plans to find out what it is.
He somehow allows Luke to turn the tables when they get home, and he gets accused of being tense, somehow. Luke offers to give him a massage to relax him and Michael’s a weakling, okay. So he ends up back in bed, Luke’s hands turning him into jelly, and before he knows it he’s asleep.
-
Michael is now convinced that something may be wrong. Luke’s gone when he wakes up, which never happens. Especially not on his birthday. He doesn’t mean to sound entitled but – it’s his birthday, and he’s alone?
He can’t seem to stop his subsequent pout, but then there’s quiet footsteps coming up the stairs, and Michael’s heart jumps a little in his chest because yes, he does still get excited to see Luke and yes, he does still get excited about his birthday.
Luke comes through the door with a tray laden with breakfast and birthday cake and a box, within which Michael assumes will be his present. He feels warm inside and Luke’s got this massive grin on his face as he starts to sing Happy Birthday.
“You made me pancakes?” Michael gushes, as Luke kisses his forehead, staring at the array of breakfast foods being set in his lap. “And waffles?”
“Well. Those are about the only two things I can do so. Pancakes and waffles.”
“And bacon and eggs and muffins.” Michael adds, a frown on his face. Michael hates it when Luke downplays what he’s good at. Luke smiles, looking right into Michael’s eyes, and Michael looks right back.
“I love you.”
“Good.” Michael says, biting into a waffle.
Luke rolls his eyes. “Fucking Scorpios.” Michael hands Luke a waffle and Luke’s about to insist that Michael eat it all himself, but sees the look on Michael’s face and decides not to protest. He takes it and eats it slowly, almost cautiously, but Michael just waves it off as a continuation of his strange behavior from yesterday. “Happy birthday.” Luke says again.
“Th-“ Michael begins, but then winces, suddenly feeling the uncomfortable sensation of biting into something hard in what’s meant to be a soft food. “Dude I literally just complimented you, what is this?” He mumbles, pulling the solid object out of his mouth with a wince to examine it.
Michael looks from the wedding ring between his thumb and forefinger, to Luke, who is wearing the same adoring expression he had on his face when he first entered, then back to the wedding ring.
“I think someone dropped their ring in your batter.” He says, his voice barely audible, hardly daring to look at the blond.
“No, that was all me.” He says, and then, right before Michael’s eyes, Luke gets down on one knee. Michael’s heart slows. Everything slows.
“You put a ring in a waffle machine? Is that even safe.”
“I googled it.” Luke’s grinning up at Michael now, seeming to find some amusement in the expression on his face. "It's safe. And I asked Calum and he nearly pissed himself at how cliche I was being but. It's safe. Ashton said so after I got Calum to stop laughing at me. Um, that's what I was texting him about yesterday. At lunch." Every bit of nervousness and uncalm within him washed away, Luke takes Michael’s right hand in his own. “Michael Clifford,” he begins.
Michael, shell-shocked, staring wide-eyed, replies, “Uh-huh.”
“The ring?” Luke asks, holding out his other hand. Michael looks down at the ring, then back at Luke, who is… on his knees. Michael can’t wrap his head around it. He hands it to him slowly.
“That was just in my mouth. ‘S kind of gross.”
“Well I have a lot of experience with things that have been in your mouth.” Luke replies. Michael laugh sounds more like a wheeze.
“Michael,” he says again. Michael can all but nod. “I’m ridiculously, madly in love with you. You know that. You've been it for me since I was like sixteen. You've played a huge part in making me who I am - don't look at me like that, you have. You’re my best friend and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. As long as we both live. Will you marry me?”
“Luke,” Michael chokes out, his emotions finally catching up with him as he processes what’s happening, processes Luke’s weird behavior the last couple of days, the way he’s been looking at him recently, the look of finality he saw whenever he looked into his eyes. “I- Yeah. Yes. Yeah.” He lets out a long, shaky breath. “But we’re gonna need to talk to my husband about this first.”
Luke laughs quietly, kissing Michael’s ring finger before sliding the ring on. Michael gives him a second to stare at it, before pulling him up by his shirt, kissing him hard.
“Just so you know,” Luke says, mid-kiss – not that the kiss was really a kiss at all, due to the fact that they were both smiling so much - “I really want, like. A big wedding. A proper ceremony and everything.”
“Luke,” Michael says, “the answer is still yes. You could tell me you wanted to do it in space and the answer would still be yes.” Michael assures him.
“Ugh, I wanna marry you now. I hate not being your husband. It’s so annoying.”
Michael laughs, and their teeth clack so they pull away a little, but hold each-other close, giggling softly. “I love you,” he says, when they’ve both calmed down a little.
“Love you too.” Luke presses his lips to his fiancé’s cheek. “Happy Birthday Mikey.”