timed to May 28th

[weary_head]

The Winchester was empty.

Dean had wandered past its silent tables before, snuck in after hours in search of pie, but it wasn't after hours. It was seven p.m. on a Friday night, a prime dinner hour on a prime dinner night, and yet Dean stood alone in the doorway, pulling fitfully at the sleeves of his suit.

He'd worn the suit before. It was his favorite, and judging by the way Angua looked at him when he was in it, he looked handsom in it, so Dean couldn't understand why the collar seemed so tight now, or why the jacket seemed so hot. The lights of the Winchester were turned down low and intimate, emitting no heat for him to blame, and the breeze through the windows was fresh and sweet. Touching his hand to the flush on his neck, Dean swore quietly, taking another cool sip of water before he returned to the door.

Any time now, he'd see Angua on the path. She'd be beautiful, because she always was, and the sight of her would stop his breath, because it always did. It was strange to think on now when Dean felt so close to gasping into a paper bag, but he knew, as soon as he saw her everything would fall into place.

He'd begun working at the clinic more than a year ago. This last week he'd gone back to school. He had a best friend and a hobby that didn't involve a gun, he had a little girl who he looked on as a daughter, he had a dog and a home and a life that could be shared someone. Maybe Dean had a long, long way to go towards perfect, but he'd worked hard to be the kind of man a woman like Angua deserved. He loved her. Compared to the life he'd known, the island was still and safe, and there was time, and there was no one to take it away from him.

Leaning his shoulder against the door, Dean watched the path for a sudden spill of long blond hair. He loved her, he could have this, and it was time.

Comments

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean gave her heels an appraising look. "Yeah, you could probably stab something to death with those things," he said, forking in another mouthful, "but you'd ruin my favorite dress."

Finishing the last of his course in three bites, Dean wondered whether he should slow down and rerehearse his speech in his head, or hurry the hell up before he ruined it. Stuck between both options, he opted for more wine.

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

"That's why I wore it," Angua said. She knew which outfits she looked best in by the way Dean looked at her in them, and sometimes by the sex they had afterward.

She gave the refill a curious look, but didn't say anything. She finished the salad, licking some stray sauce from her thumb.

"That was delicious, thank you."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean's eyes lingered on her mouth, an indiscretion he'd probably never shake, not even if she married him and they grew old together.

"Glad you liked it," he said, putting aside his own plate, too. Even if it had been meat, he couldn't have finished it right now. "You ready for round two?"

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

"Always," Angua said, setting her plate on top of Dean's. "More vegetarian?"

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"You know it," said Dean, lifting the warm plate off a dish of roasted eggplant, which George had somehow managed to arrange in such a way as to hide that it was utterly meatless. It even smelled good.

"Huh. If I like this, I don't have to join the Dark Side, right?"

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

"Gods, that smells delicious. I love eggplant," Angua said, leaning forward to get a good whiff.

"What's the Dark Side? Is that what you call vegetarianism behind my back?"

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"I call it that to your face," snorted Dean, but he sobered quickly, spooning some onto her plate with a solemnity he felt was more befitting a man about to propose.

"I...also call it 'A Waste of Eating Utensils' and 'God Gave Us Canines for a Reason.'"

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

Angua blinked at the sudden change. Dean was seriously starting to confuse her.

"But he also gave us molars!" She took her plate with a nod of thanks, and tried a bite. "Mmm. Definitely joining the Dark Side with this one."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean took a small bite of his own, smile wobbling strangely around the edges. He was lightheaded. It could've been the wine, but it was more likely a byproduct of the nervous fear trickling insistently down his spine. He gave Angua a look from the corner of his eyes and felt his heart jerk in his chest. Oh yeah, definitely nerves.

"You - " he started. "You think you'll have room for dessert?" It was a dumb question, especially when they'd only just begun the main course, but Dean's mouth and his brain seemed to be operating on different levels.

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

Angua stopped eating mid-bite, swallowing after a moment. She didn't answer right away, as though she could puzzle out Dean's erratic behavior simply by looking at him.

"Dean. I think you're sweating. You know you don't actually have to try to impress me, right?" She gave an uncertain smile. "You kind of had me no matter what a long time ago."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Some of the knot in Dean's chest untangled at that. He passed a hand over his brow. "Sorry, uh. I think sitting next to the plates is making me hot. 'Cause they're..." He waved a hand. "Hot."

Shoving a mouthful in to shut himself up, Dean began to eat by rote, suddenly determined to get to the important part before he broke into freaking hives.

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

O-kay, well, if Dean was going to be weird without reason, there wasn't much she could do. It wasn't like she was going to give him the third degree during dinner. She just hoped it wasn't more bad news. He didn't - neither of them needed it.

She continued to eat, and noted Dean was shoveling it in as usual. "You like it? I could actually make this with meat, if you'd like to have it again sometime."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean smiled faintly, pausing long enough to actually taste the stuff. "That sounds good," he said. "Maybe I'll actually do the cooking some time, too." He could do that. She'd said he had her a long time ago, and maybe she might have meant it differently, but Dean didn't think so. He thought, his eyes passing gently over the features he knew and loved so well, that they meant the exact same thing. He was the one asking permission to do it forever, was all.

"Angua," he said and stopped. "I'm gonna get the dessert out."

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

Angua was about to say that'd be fun, and maybe check Dean for a fever at the same time, when he continued. She was in the middle of her meal, and glanced down at it to confirm.

"Well. Okay, sure." She smiled, pushing her plate aside. It wasn't like she was very hungry anymore, the salad and what eggplant she had eaten had hit the spot. "What is it?"

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"Not sure, actually," said Dean. Something with chocolate and raspberries, brown at the very least, he remembered pushing something rich and brown over the ring to cover it before George topped it off with the berries.

He stood up, making himself walk slowly towards the kitchen. "Good though, I might've sampled it."

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

"I look forward to the mystery desert, then," Angua said, grinning a little at how slow Dean was being. "I guess it isn't pie, or you'd have cut right to the chase."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean rescued the dessert plates from inside the fridge, and even though he knew the ring was in the one on the right, had made up a rhyme to remember it and everything, he couldn't help sticking a spoon in it until he heard a clink. Satisfied, Dean stuck a berry over the spot and reemerged, carrying the dessert as carefully he might have a newborn child.

"Here you go," he said, sticking it in front of her with an almost overwhelming roll of nerves through his insides. Eyes wide, he looked down at the dessert, then her.

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

Angua met Dean's look with her own slack, open-mouthed expression. She finally tore her eyes away, and smiled, delighted, at the little cake. "How adorable," she said.

She waited, spoon poised, for Dean to sit.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

Dean blinked and shook himself, hastily moving to the other side of the table. Honestly, this part...he wasn't sure how it was supposed to work. What if she ate the ring? What if she chewed on it and hurt herself? But everyone did this in the movies. It must turn out okay, so Dean sat back, pulling his napkin back over his waist, and picked up his own spoon. His tongue made a nervous pass over his lips.

"Dig in."

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

Angua broke a piece of cake off and used every memory from etiquette class to daintily eat it. She licked the remaining chocolate syrup from her spoon. "MMmm...wow, this is really good!"

At her second pass her spoon caught on something, clinking hard against the plate when it wouldn't go through the cake. Angua blinked. "Um." She dragged the object out of the cake with her spoon. She picked it up and her mouth opened in surprise as she realized what it was.

There was a ring in her cake.

"Dean?" she said, searching his eyes.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

He thought he'd probably stumble. He thought his napkin would catch, or his foot would kick the table, or something else clumsy and unromantic, but the truth was, getting from his side of the table to Angua's was as easy as taking a breath.

He plucked the ring from her fingers, dropping onto a knee and taking her hands in his, the diamond circlet curled around his pinkie. "So here's the thing. I lived my whole life never expecting anything good to happen to me. I had good things, sure, I had Sam and I had Bobby and my dad, but I figured that was it, and that nothing else would ever come.

"There wasn't time for it. And I told myself there wasn't need for it, almost until I believed it. And then I came here."

Dean would've have been horrified at the way his eyes stung in that moment if he'd noticed, but he only swallowed and continued.

"Everything was different. I slowed down. I stayed in one place, and I got...I got to start picking things for me. Because I wanted them, and they made me happy. I got to start dreaming again, of what kind of life I'd like to have if I could choose it, and I started reaching for it, and I got it. I know my family's safe, I have a job where I get to stop things bleeding rather than makin'em start. I have friends, I have kids I love to look after. And I've got you." Dean squeezed her hand.

"And I want to keep you for as long as you'll have me. So, Angua, I've got a question to ask you."

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

Angua wasn't exactly familiar with proposals, in fact, she wouldn't have guessed how one would go about it at all, so this was unexpected. It was so full of emotion it made her heart race and her eyes tear up. She could only stare down at Dean. There was probably a stupid expression on her face, her hand loose in his.

"A question," she repeated.

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," said Dean, pulling the ring off of his pinkie and holding it out to her, diamond up. "I think the only thing that could make my life any more perfect than it already is would be if I could find a smart, sexy, funny, tough, gorgeous woman crazy enough to be my wife." Dean's voice cracked around the word, fear and hope and honest yearning clogging up his throat. "So my question is, Angua von Uberwald, will you marry me?"

[loaded-wolf.livejournal.com]

Angua nodded, and burst into tears. She was so moved she didn't even try to stop them, not even wipe them away.

"Of course," she said, and, "yes."

She slid out of her chair to wrap her arms around Dean, pulling him into a fierce hug. Five years with Carrot, and she hadn't thought-- no matter how she'd tried she never could imagine herself as his wife. She never thought what they had had a chance of surviving. But with Dean she couldn't see how there was anything else, or anyone, for her.

Dean had helped her in so many ways, she'd never been as happy as she was here, with him and the life they'd made on this strange little island. "I don't ever want to leave you, Dean. I won't."

[weary-head.livejournal.com]

The embrace knocked more than a few tears from Dean's eyes, but he paid them no mind, stroking his fingers through Angua's hair again and again as she held him. After a while he pulled her up onto his knee, lifting one of her hands to slide the ring home. "Won't ever leave you either," he said in a rough voice. "I promise. And I'm gonna be good for you, Angua."