Commitment
by elfin


Alan lifted Billy’s hand and slowly raised his head, blue eyes sparkling in the sunlight pouring in through the high windows.

Shyly, Billy glanced at him, long lashes drooping over big brown eyes.

“I want to share myself with you,” Alan told him quietly, as if no one else were listening.  “I want to be yours and yours alone.  No one… has ever made me feel as special, as needed and desired, as you do.  I love you, William Brennan.  And I commit myself to you.”

Carefully, he eased the narrow, white-gold band onto Billy’s finger.  Bending his head, he touched his lips to the intricate design engraved into the precious metal.

Turning Alan’s hand in his, Billy took the second ring from Ian’s palm, where he stood to the side of them. 

Billy placed the band – one identical, only slightly wider and larger than his own - onto Alan’s finger, and held it there.

“I freely give myself to you.  My heart, my soul, my dreams are yours.  I want to be at your side for the rest of my life.”  He blinked a tear from the corner of his eye and it dropped onto his cheek.  “I love you, Alan Grant.  I commit myself to you.”

He slid the ring the rest of the way onto the callused finger and looked up into his lover’s – his betrothed’s – face.

Alan had tears in his eyes too.

‘I love you,’ Billy mouthed, for Alan only.

Alan nodded, and reaching out, his hand trembling slightly, he cupped Billy’s cheek in his palm. 

Billy loved that smile of Alan’s, that one that lit up his eyes with adoration.

“Always,” the older man mouthed in reply.

And then he leaned down slowly and touched his lips to Billy’s.

The ceremony had been terribly romantic, held in a small chapel on a quiet Hawaiian island with a few of their friends around them.

Their words had been written together, their rings designed by a close friend to depict a delicate, curled ‘raptor skeleton. 

The kiss they shared now was deep, passionate and almost desperate.

A lover of tradition, Ian – their best man – had tried to keep them apart the night before.  He’d failed, and they’d crawled into one another’s arms, in the early hours of the morning, to make long, slow love.

Clearing his throat, Ian reached out and drew the back of his finger down Alan’s arm. 

They ended the kiss in their own time, and hand in hand, they turned to walk back down the short isle out into the sunshine.


fin
elfin

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