Characters involved: Bryce Lahela, Keiki Lahela, Luna Auclair (F!OC) and Maxine Moore (F!OC)
Summary: Bryce and Luna have very important questions to ask.
Author‘s note: I got inspired by the prompt opening by @choicesmonthlychallengejune2022. I hope you’ll enjoy 😊
Side note: More of the wedding preparations for Bryce & Lunas wedding are happening so stay tuned (now I sound like a tv show - but you know what I mean 😂)
Author‘s note: If you’d like to be added or removed let me know. No hard feelings 😍
@whistlemist Here is your gift for the Encanto Gift Exchange! Hopefully this fulfills your prompts for bonding, fluff, platonic hugs, & platonic cuddling! Definitely had a lot of fun with this one, considered two or three other ideas, but this one fit the prompts best ^-^
Also on ao3 in case you prefer reading there instead <3
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Story Synopsis: When the time comes for Agustin to propose to Julieta, Bruno helps him make a plan. Felix will distract the girls and Bruno will hold onto the engagement ring while Agustin gets permission. It's simple. Foolproof.
Except the part where Agustin forgets to take the ring back before proposing, leaving Bruno to make a grand entrance.
Or, Agustin probably should've gotten Felix to help him instead because Bruno may be a romantic, but when they team up, the two of them are a disaster.
Alternative Title: How Tio Bruno Saved the Proposal
Chapter Summary: Camilo and Mirabel want to hear the story of how Bruno saved Agustin’s proposal to Julieta.
Chapter 1: Oh no, the ring!
“Tio Bruno, did you really rescue Papa on a horse?”
If Mirabel's voice wasn't enough to wake him up, the unexpected weight of a four year old dropping into his lap certainly does. Blinking at her and Camilo, wondering where his sobrina had heard something like that, he could only give an inarticulate answer. “Uhhh, I- lo siento, Mirabel, I'm not...” Rubbing his hands over his face, he exhales. “I'm not sure what you mean.”
Up until the two found him, he'd been taking a nap, hiding away at the edge of the forest where the shade sheltered him from the midday sun. It hadn't been the best day for him to be in town. After the ninth unhappy visitor, a few upset townsfolk away from surpassing his record, he'd had to escape. Mama will give him an earful once she finds out, but she wasn't the one who had to deliver bad predictions.
“Mami says Tia Julieta almost said no,” Camilo chips in, joining Mirabel on his lap.
The statement sheds clarity on the topic, the rescue and the horse suddenly making a lot more sense.
“Ah, but she didn't. Would you like to hear what happened?”
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Crouching out of sight on the stairs, fingers crossed, Bruno had performed every good luck producing action he could think of. So far, the plan had progressed without a hitch. Felix had taken the girls to the prearranged meeting spot, Bruno had helped Agustin put his speech together, and the engagement ring was safely nestled in his pocket, waiting for Agustin to retrieve it after getting permission. Which he was doing now. The hardest part of their endeavor.
“Doña Madrigal.”
In the silence of Casita, not a clink of tile interupting, words carry clearly from the courtyard.
Good, he didn't hear any nerves in Agustin's voice. From his hiding spot, he couldn't see them, but he knows how stern Mama would look. The way she'd keep her head high and look down her nose. He imagined Agustin looked confident. Mostly out of hope that if he imagined it going well, then it would. There was every likelihood – the most realistic outcome really – of Agustin appearing as awkward as a newborn colt, regardless of how steady his voice sounded.
Initially, Agustin had approached Bruno...
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Knocking on his friend's door, he'd entered the tower to find the seer sulking in his hammock (things were getting tense with Alma pressuring her son to find a partner). It wasn't uncommon to find the two either mid argument, voices low and tense, never loud, or furiously silent at the other.
Looking up from his rats, arepa crumbs scattered across his ruana, Bruno had listlessly said, “Julieta's in town.”
Hands clenched at his sides, back stiff, standing as tall as he could (not considering how with his height, it might come off as intimidating to the shorter man), Agustin ignored the warmth of anxiety beginning to flush his face. “I- uh, I'm not looking for her. I'm here to see you.”
“Really?” Brows furrowing, Bruno studied him sharply, knowing suddenly clearing his face. “Uh, you really don't...”
“Iwannaaskforyoursister'shandinmarriage.” The redness faded from Agustin's cheeks, sighing in relief now that he'd gotten the words out.
Bruno had known this was coming. Had seen it years ago. Had made a private bet with himself on when he thought it would happen. Had every chance to prepare himself for this day, but it doesn't change how his eyes became comically wide or the way he squeaked out, “You're asking me?!” Mama would probably kill him once and for all if he gave permission.
---
Camilo spins to give him a serious look. Probably one of the most serious he'd ever seen on the small boy's face. “Abuela is scary when she's mad.”
Nodding solemnly, Bruno adjusts his hold on the two. “I know.”
Biting back a laugh, he tuckes her under his chin in a hug. “Gracias mi sobrina, I appreciate that. Now, your Papi wanted to get my permission, but I had to say 'No Senor! Only mi Madre can grant such a thing...'”
I'm fighting to get my research proposal done in time, and it got me thinking. What if Drarry is a nice new couple, few weeks in, and Draco does uni and Harry hears through others that Draco is "very nervous about his proposal". Harry, being an idiot, doesn't ask Draco anything but immediately assumes this is a pureblood tradition or something and thinks, if Draco is so nervous about proposing, I'll propose (marriage) to him. Because our boys are like that💚
(LOL nonnie I loved this, especially because I’m non native and didn’t know what uni proposal is either, so I understand Harry ahahah)
They were cuddling on the couch, drinking wine till the point Harry’s head felt fuzzy and his legs felt so heavy, but he was sober enough for this. He could do it.
Draco splayed a wet kiss on the hollow of his throat and Harry whimpered. He chucked the remaining wine in his glass. “So, about the proposal--”
“Oh, you know about it?” Draco raised his head, brushing his lips to Harry’s cheek. He didn’t seem to be bothered by Harry knowing. Maybe he was tipsier than Harry thought?
“Err, yeah, I’m sorry Draco, I heard you telling Pansy a couple of weeks ago.”
“Mh.” Draco cocked his head, letting it fall onto Harry’s chest again. “Yeah, it’s been dreadful. I had no idea what was best, you know? I asked everyone, I even wrote an e-mail to the HR recruiter of Gucci, but I’m not so sure about fashion... what do you think, then?”
Harry inspired slowly. Sure, they weren’t the most romantic couple in the world, but when he heard Draco talking about the proposal so anxiously, he’d thought maybe this one would have been different. Whatever. He had prepared in the past two weeks. “Err, sure, Gucci sounds... if that’s where you want our suits to be... Look, Draco can we do this properly, for once?”
The kisses Draco was sloppily leaving all over Harry’s jaw were distracting, but he stopped at Harry’s tone. He sat up straight. “What do you mean?”
Harry bit his bottom lip. Patted the velvet box in the pocket of his shirt. “I know we’re not... traditionally couply and all, but. I asked Pansy for help, you seemed so anxious, you know?”
Draco’s expression was deeply confused. Harry went on. “She was surprised since we’ve been properly together for only five weeks or so? But I figured, hell, we fucked for nearly two years before, right? So...”
“What are you talking about?” Now Draco’s expression was bordering on comically annoyed. He probably would have hated Harry for beating him up to the proposal, but he couldn’t resist.
He slid to the floor, kneeling down, and fished the box out of his pocket. He flicked it open-- Draco’s mouth dropped open so wide Harry worried for a second he’d dislodge his jaw. “Draco, I... Pansy suggested I’d ask Narcissa for her, er, blessing and she gave me this. It’s a Black heirloom? I liked the idea of... and...”
For a moment, panic sized Harry. Draco’s face was so pale he looked like a ghost. “Will you marry me?”
Silence stretched on. Harry saw all the worst scenarios passing through his mind at once. Draco shouting NO, Draco slapping him, Draco grabbing the ring and throwing it at Harry’s head, but he hadn’t contemplated the worst of his reactions: Draco bursting out laughing.
So loud, with tears running wildly down his cheeks, Harry felt like the biggest idiot in history. He felt his own eyes starting to prickle with tears of humiliation, when Draco choked out, “Potter, you imbecile, you thought... the proposal... I can’t...and Pansy! The bitch!” He kept choking out bits of words as he laughed and laughed until Harry snapped the box shut and stood up.
“There’s no need to make fun of me like that! I thought... you know what? I won’t take it back! I love you, Draco Malfoy, and if you can’t--”
His shouting was harshly stopped by Draco’s lips slamming against Harry’s, his hands roaming all over Harry’s back, waist, then up again to his cheeks, face.
“You moron,” he sighed against Harry’s lips. “My answer is yes. Yes, I want to marry you.”
Harry shoved him lightly on the chest, trying to pout but only half-succeeding as his lips kept widening into a stupidly happy grin against his will. “Stop laughing at least!”
“Oh, dear, I’ll explain this to you, just not now, okay?” Draco reached for him again, brushing his fingers along Harry’s lips. “Now, where’s that ring? Wow, tell me everything. I want to know in details my mother’s reaction.”
They returned to their cuddly positions on the couch as Harry started telling everything he had done, from asking for Pansy’s help, to reading books about pureblood traditions about asking the parent’s blessing.
Draco kept laughing, mirth in his eyes until he gave in and told Harry everything about uni proposals and what they are and Harry had never been more grateful for Draco’s passion for studying and where it brought them.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Holland said incredulously. The other three simply stared at him, Cora with a mocking smile directed more at the idea than at him, Kell with a very old pain in those blue eyes, and Rhy with absolute fury. “He’s not in any of the photos? ”
“They put him in the company Christmas photo,” Rhy said darkly. “So people won’t talk. They keep the articles he was in when they brought him home framed. Sometimes if magazine people come over, Mom puts up some photos she’s taken of him so it’s less obvious all the other photos are of me.” Rhy opened up the next bottle of champagne, and he and Kell both took drinks straight from the bottle.
“Because they are fucked up, ” Cora sing-songed, sitting back in her chair, kicking her feet up over one arm, as though her incredibly expensive bridesmaid dress was just sweatpants and an old T-shirt. “You want more stories? I’ve got some fucking stories for you, Holland Vosijk. The first year, they spent like three grand on Rhy’s Christmas presents, and all Kell got-”
“Stop it, Cora,” Kell snapped. “He doesn’t need to know all of it. Presents don’t matter, they’re just things. ”
“Fuck, Kell, don’t just repeat what they tell you ,” Cora grunted. “How about when you begged them to go to school with Rhy and they told you all of your problems would be bad for their reputation?”
“Wait, that’s really why?”
“I was going through a phase,” Kell said, taking another drink from the bottle, all but chugging the champagne from it. There had been times, before, when Kell would be strange and angry and refused to talk or see him, and it clicked into place for Holland all at once that it had always been after a conversation with them. “I was acting out.”
“No, you weren’t, Kell!” Rhy groaned. “You were being fourteen years old, who doesn’t act out at fourteen! I started drinking at fourteen, and they never even noticed, they were too busy being up your ass about everything and treating you like a goddamn criminal!”
Holland felt like he had walked into a soap opera, or a teen movie, and wanted badly to simply turn and walk out of it. He was nearly thirty years old, and he’d lived a lot of life in that time, but nothing had ever been like this for him.
“Stop trying to justify them, Kell,” Cora drawled. “And stop drinking all my champagne. What about when you got into all those Ivy League schools and they made you go to Arnes U because Rhy was going there?”
Holland blinked. “You got into Ivy League schools? ”
Kell laughed, a little bitterly. “I’m not as stupid as I look.”
“That’s not what I meant-”
“No, I know it’s not. I’m. I’m sorry, Holl. It was only two of them, and anyway, it was just nice to know I made it in. I didn’t mind staying here for Rhy.”
“But that’s not the point, Kell,” Rhy said, enunciating each word with great care in the way of the rapidly-getting-seriously-drunk, and Holland could tell this was a very old conversation indeed. “The point is that if you want to leave, to travel places, you should be allowed to! You shouldn’t be stuck never going anywhere just because of me!”
“Yeah, well, it’s in the goddamn contract , isn’t it?”
“Jesus Christ.” There was something he’d been thinking about for weeks now, and it rang louder and louder in the back of his mind. He looked over at Kell, whose face was a mask of hurt and anger. “Kell, you’ve never told me-”
“It didn’t come up,” Kell mumbled, pulling away from him again, stalking across the little room, leaning over with his hand on a wooden side table that had a spray of fresh pink-and-yellow roses in a vase. “You went through so much, I just - I didn’t feel like being the poor little rich boy-”
“Kell.”
Kell didn’t look at him, didn’t even turn in his direction. He kept his eyes on the roses, and Holland tried to think of the right thing to do. He’d never been good at this; it’d been just him and his brother and his dad for so long, and then once his brother had gone crazy it was just he and Dad, then alone on couches and halfway houses, and then the Danes - who were never upset about anything - and he had no idea what you said in a moment like this.
There was one thing he’d been thinking about, and he worried if he asked, Kell would say no.
(Click here to read the rest)
Author’s Note: This is a preview scene for a fic I wanted to write for my Altean!Sheith AU (which is a part of the Multi-verse Sheith Wedding series I drew a couple of weeks ago). I don’t know when I’ll be able to finish it (and if I’ll continue to write for the other AUs as well) but for now I hope you would all enjoy this snippet. I haven’t written in so long, I’m kinda nervous…
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He proposed under a galaxy full of stars, with his heart beating a thousand lightyears per minute.
They were in a meadow full of Altea’s finest flowers. Red, blues, purples, and greens scattered around, surounding them with its natural beauty. Everything was quiet with anticipation as a gentle breeze passed through and left the flowers aflutter. Soon, a delicate smell permeated the air and danced just under their noses.
And truly, everything was perfect at this moment. Just as perfect as the man who stood before the kneeling general, Shirogane Takashi.
Prince Keith was just as beautiful as the day he met him.
It didn’t matter that they were both younger back then or that Keith’s hair was black once upon a time. It didn’t even bother Shiro how the man was currently a bit frail or that his cheeks lacked a bit of a healthy flush. Caught in time, the knight didn’t even feel the phantom pain of his missing limb or the ache of the fresh scar across his face.
All that mattered was the blinding smile and joyfull but teary eyes his prince gave him as soon as he uttered the words.
“Will you marry me?”
The prince was speechless.
After a pause, Keith’s tears finally fell freely from his jeweled eyes. He sobbed into his hands, stiffled his cries and tried to quell the emotions overwhelming him.
Shiro stood up, gathered his love in his arms and gently pressed a kiss on his forehead. The box –with the ring adorned by a balmeran crystal, one the general personally collected– was still nestled on his prosthetic hand while his other wiped the tears under Keith’s thick lashes. With a careful nudge, he tippped the prince’s face to look up at him
“I love you to our moons and back,” he murmured softly, lovingly. “I love you from our galaxy to the next. I loved you since the first time I laid my eyes on you and I loved you even more the first time you said you love me back,” Shiro grinned, his eyes watered but the corners still crinkled in mirth and fondness for the love of his life.
“Shiro…” Keith choked back another sob.
Large fingers brushed off pale locks and tucked it under pointy ears. Shiro’s sterling eyes locked down on Keith with such intensity, it felt as if the prince was the center of the universe itself… and to Shiro he was. Keith truly was.
“I’ll love you even in our next life but in this life, will you let me have you now as my husband? Will you marry me, my prince? My beloved Keith?” Shiro asked once more, pouring his heart out with ever word that left his lips and made him breathless.
Keith didn’t have to think, his heart already made his decision for him.
“Yes! Yes! Our gods yes, Shiro,” the prince cried as he cradled his knight’s head, pulling their foreheads together in a tender gesture. “I love you. I love you so much… I would love nothing more than to be your husband.”
Shiro smiled once more as he felt how his stars finally aligned. He pressed his lips onto Keith’s for one sweet instance, and then another, before he settled back and savored the moment that he will forever cherish.
All was well and that night, –even if it was just one night– their nightmares did not come to haunt them.
