Why Do You Smile the Smile You Do?

[Notes and Disclaimers]

The live band was surprisingly good, but Jesse doubted he would've noticed if they'd been playing kazoos and washboards; just across the dance floor, his baby sister was dancing with her new husband, barely even bothering to sway with the music any longer as they gazed at each other with a besottedness unique to newlyweds. His new brother-in-law, Theo, was a nice enough guy - he'd certainly been a good sport about the embarrassments of stag night - but Julie was just too young to be getting married.

Just another twenty years would've been long enough to wait. Forty-five wasn't old at all - was prime marriage age, in fact.

"You aren't thinking of bowing out of my wedding now, are you?"

Glancing down at his own dance partner, Jesse grinned crookedly and lifted a hand to tweak one of the fair curls tumbling over her bare shoulder. "I'd never think of it, Annie," he assured her, only to add a moment later, "unless you tell me I have to wear lilac again. That much pastel in the same year, people may start rumors about me."

"It's only a cummerbund, Jesse." She shook her head as she laughed, freeing a fresh waft of delicate scent from the tiny white roses woven into her hair. "Besides, I already ordered the dresses in cranberry, and there's other things to torture you with that are cheaper than replacing them."

Jesse spun them both in a tight twirl, whipping the pale purple skirt of her dress in a wide arc behind her, then dropped a kiss on her forehead and let her go, pushing her in the direction of where her own fiancé stood with some of the other groomsmen. "I look forward to it, Annie. Go play with the little kids now. The adults need to have a talk." Years of practice went into evading her smack, and then he was slipping from the dance floor to approach the tall blonde standing alone by the balcony doors.

"I'd suggest going outside for some fresh air," Aaron said without preamble as Jesse joined him, "but I saw... what's her name? Melanie's eldest? sneaking out with Zeke not too long ago. It may be a while before we don't have to worry about stumbling over an embarrassing display of teenaged hormones."

"Ah, to be fifteen and in love." A champagne flute was caught loosely in Aaron's fingers and Jesse filched it without compunction, draining its bubbling contents as Aaron's dark chocolate gaze shifted from the doorway to him.

"From what I recall," Aaron began dryly, "when you were fifteen, you were in love with my sister. You looked good together today, you know. Like you were made for each other."

A nearby table made a convenient rest for the empty flute. "Funny, the way that is, isn't it?" Jesse's gaze caught Aaron's, not flickering away even when Aaron reached for his waist, tanned hand sliding beneath the tuxedo jacket to curve over the terrible lilac cummerbund. "I saw you watching me during the ceremony. Why were you smiling?"

"Picturing you in a dress. With purple roses - God, you bitched about the roses."

It was hard to phrase a rebuttal when Aaron's lips were on his neck, hard to remember why he wanted to when they brushed over the sweet spot below his ear. "Uhn," he said the first time he opened his mouth, and it was a few moments before he could lick his lips and try again. "Julie's usually a daisy kind of girl. And what's to say you wouldn't be the one in the dress?"

Aaron's smile was dangerous now; it contained a devilish daring reminiscent of a thousand childhood escapades, of that first hectic, confused, hungry kiss so many years ago. "Because," Aaron drawled against his skin, "I'm older." A kiss found Jesse's earlobe, teasing the amethyst studding it. "Bigger." The next kiss brushed at the corner of his jaw, a hint of teeth raising the hair at the back of his neck. "Stronger." A flicker of tongue at the corner of Jesse's mouth made him gasp. "And I make more money than you."

"Bastard," Jesse rasped, and then it took only a slight turn of his head to bring their mouths together, his own an open invitation to debauchery. Aaron's tongue was slick and warm and sugar-sweet with traces of wedding cake and champagne against his own and, dammit, the reception had better be over soon because he wanted to lose the tuxedo and do all of those things that Aaron's clever mouth was promising. He wouldn't even mind keeping the cummerbund, as long as it went around his wrists and not his waist.

"Aaron! Get your hands off of him!"

Perfect marvelous consuming as the kiss was, the laughter bubbling in Jesse's throat was enough to force him out of it; Annette's scandalized tone wasn't particularly effective when she stood watching them like a doting matchmaker. "It's not his hands you need to worry about, Annie."

"Jesse!" Annette scolded, only to have her voice quaver with her own suppressed laughter. "You can pervert my brother later. Julie's looking for you; she and Theo are ready to go."

"Ah, shit." A few tugs straightened his jacket, although the small white rose tucked in his lapel was crushed beyond hope of recovery. He cast an apologetic glance at Aaron, then offered his arm to Annette. "Let's send them off, then. Julie-bug would never forgive me if she missed her own wedding night."

"The sooner they go, the sooner you come," Annette translated dryly, and it was over the groans of both Jesse and Aaron that she laughingly dragged Jesse off to the happy couple's departure.

. . .

It was some hours later, when dawn was licking across the sky and both Jesse and Aaron were lying replete in their bed, that Jesse's thoughts returned to Aaron's earlier tease. They were both comfortably sprawled, the lilac cummerbund still loosely wound around one of Jesse's wrists and Aaron's fingers curled around his lax cock, and the pale light gave the world an ethereal quality that somehow made the words easier to say.

"Would you marry me, Aaron?"

There was silence long enough that Jesse would've thought that Aaron had fallen asleep if it weren't for the slow play of Aaron's fingers; they were both too spent for the motion to be arousing, but the security in Aaron's grip was strangely soothing. "Is this in a hypothetical sort of way or a 'let's move to Canada and adopt some Chinese orphans' sort of way?"

"Either. Both. Maybe without the orphans, though. We could start with a dog."

Aaron sighed, a sound more fond than frustrated. "No dog. Remember Muffy? That little rat woke me up at four o'clock every morning for almost seven years, barking at the damned squirrels."

Jesse couldn't help the smile at the memory; for almost seven years, Muffy had woken up half the neighborhood. When a St. Bernard wanted you up, you got up, and most of the neighbors had simply learned to love early mornings in self-defense. It had taken years of college to break him of the habit of beating the sun up. "Fine, no dogs. A cat. A miniature horse. A goat. Whatever." He paused, sliding his fingers around Aaron's wrist and stroking over the tendon. "I don't mean I want to go to Canada, but it'd be okay, you know? If we can ever just pop down to the local courthouse and sign some papers."

In the faint light, Aaron's eyes seemed impossibly dark as they ran over Jesse's face. Just when he was about to kick himself for pushing the issue, Aaron smiled, an expression so painfully sweet that it made Jesse's heart trip, then thump hard in his throat. "I'd be okay with that. Get some sleep now, before I decide I'm awake enough to want some breakfast."

"Bastard," Jesse said without heat, and then he was falling away into slumber where he danced with Aaron, clad in a suit of white roses, on an endlessly twilit sky.

- fin -

Notes and Disclaimers

Why Do You Smile the Smile You Do? is an original work of fiction and is © Shana Gardner.

Why Do You Smile the Smile You Do? was written for the Sensory Overload challenge and included all the prompts but one - cumin escaped me. It was the result of procrastinating for a month, starting and trashing stories for a month, and frantically typing something out in the 24 hours before the deadline. For all that, I don't think it turned out terribly; it's not exactly great writing, but there's certain little bits of it that I like, and I'd have fun playing with the characters again.