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The New York city skyline glimmered through the tinted windows, casting a warm golden glow on the sheer curtains that they had tucked over the glass panes while they prepared for their evening.
It wasn’t often that they got to have moments like this, intimate dates were few and far between when one partner was a well-known YouTuber and the other was an accurately touring musician. The days where they could escape their suburban home on the outskirts of London into the city for a dinner or drinks with friends as they truly were now lay far behind them. They still managed it a few times a year, when they were able to schedule a private room or exclusive location, but it still meant that they had to keep up some veneer of professional display.
Here, no one would know who they were and so they were free to experiment with their styles and be as unique as they wanted to be. They didn’t have to leave their hotel room with the pretense that they were going to be photographed or videoed by some fan that didn’t understand what personal boundaries there.
They had spent the last hour getting ready, especially given the teasing that they had done to get the other into or out of the shower. James was already finished, now laying on the bed with his phone propped up against one of the pillows so that he could scroll through it lazily with one finger.
Will could see him in the mirror, hazel eyes glancing over to the well-lit vanity periodically to check where they were in terms of reaching their reservation on time. His husband had chosen a near navy shirt with silver embroidery in the form of constellations around the collar and cuffs, as well as pearl buttons. His pants were plain black, but James had allowed Will to fuss about ironing them even though they’d had a long day of filming prior.
Will himself had chosen his outfit with meticulous precision as he so often did now that he had the opportunity to do so. He had spent so much of his life telling himself that this wasn’t the kind of thing that a real man did, stuffing down desperate hopes and wishes until they were so far buried under layers of internalized homophobic guilt that he thought they would never see the sun again.
They had, of course, because he had found and married one of the most amazing people in the entire world. James had never cared about that kind of public perception, not really. He had grown up as a fat kid and continued to be bullied by body-negative assholes on the internet for years until he began working out as part of his sobriety journey. The more confident he got in his body, the more he began to experiment with his style no matter what anyone said to his face or behind his back. He mixed women and men’s styles, shaved his facial hair and then his head, even wore makeup on stage and in photoshoots.
He had given Will the confidence to be the man that he was now.
He was sat in front of the vanity as he had been so many times before, but it was a lot less fun when his friends weren’t around to help him with it. He could almost hear Chris chastising him for picking the wrong shade of blush to go with his lipstick and Stephen making funny noises at Harry while attempting to jab an eyeliner pencil into his waterline. They would have the chance to do something like that again soon, when the other boys flew out for the concert that James was having and the video that the Sidemen would be filming on location. For now, it was Will alone with his artistic tools to make himself beautiful.
He had used the peel-away lipstain that they had once tried in a video since they would be eating and drinking on their date, which was why he’d had a little trouble with his bronzer. His eyes were light and framed by mascara alone since he knew he’d get frustrated by the pair of false-lashes that Chris had been trying to convince him were a good addition to his set. Bronzer and contour melded together to bring attention to his already sharp jawline and cheekbones. Eyeliner and dark eyeshadow framed his eyes, which made them looked hooded and sexier than he had any right to be.
He had finished putting the last touches onto his look, which allowed him to stand up from the vanity and make sure that none of his powders or liquids had gotten onto his outfit. He had chosen to go with a women’s cut white button up shirt buttoned up to just barely underneath his collarbones so that it would show off a whisp of chest hair, though nowhere near what James was sporting. He had paired it with a ankle length skirt that had silver trim around the base and a black corset over the top of it all, cinched tight enough that it made him look curvy where there was usually nothing.
“Almost done, darling?” James asked as he shifted on the bed to a standing position. He began to rifle through one of the bags that they had left up on the desk.
“You can’t rush beauty, Jim,” Will tutted as he went to the bag on the second queen that they had been provided. It was rather annoying that after several years of marriage they were still being assumed to be best mates that would require separate beds instead of a couple.
“Well then maybe beauty should have started earlier in the evening,” James pulled a bottle of his favorite cologne out of the bag and sprayed some onto his neck and wrist.
“Not too much, knobhead, or else you’re going to stink up the gaff!” Will gawked at him when he heard more spritzes than he thought were entirely necessary.
“Calm down, it’s almost near the end of the bottle. I’m putting on what I normally do in smaller doses,” James set the bottle down on the table then. He returned his hands to the bag, where he eventually pulled something out and tucked it into his pocket.
Will couldn’t really give two shits about what his husband was up to, as he had seemingly misplaced the specialized bag that he used to carry around his jewelry. He was sure that he had moved it from the counter in the bathroom once he was finished with his shower, so it should have been returned back to or near the bag he was rooting around in. “Have you seen my pearls?”
“Not since you took them off, but I did take your jewelry bag,” James was grinning sheepishly at him when Will whipped around to face him.
“What’d you do that for?”
“So that I could give you this,” James took the box back out of his pocket and held it between them. It was about as big as his palm, gray on the outside with fancy golden writing over the front.
“We’re already married, fella. You don’t have to go this far,” Will took the present from him with careful hands. He slid the top of the box off and felt his heart jump into his throat when he saw the beautiful jewelry inside.
It was a necklace, two strings of pearls tied together at the back with a golden clasp and held at the front with a gold cabochon aquamarine that had a freshwater pearl shaped like a droplet hanging from the bottom of it. It looked delicate and feminine, more so than the usual band of plastic pearls that he wore on a day to day basis.
“James… This is beautiful,” he whispered as he dipped his hand into the fluffy packaging and pulled it out so that he could get several different viewing angles of the piece.
“Almost as beautiful as you,” James delicately discarded the box and then took the necklace so that he could secure it where Will couldn’t see, so that the pearl rested in the space just underneath his collarbones. “Happy birthday, dearest.”