Ranger - Jericho's Boys #4 - Epilogue (Patreon)

I have out schmooped myself. Its so over the top but once the idea for this scene came to me I couldn't let it go. A few things. I'm not a costume designer so if the costumes aren't accurate, don't at me. I did the best I could. Two: I tried to stay true to the way they talk in period game cut-scenes so...its a little cringe. Even I will admit that. But its very in line with D&D games and other period games. You'll have to wait a bit for the bonus epilogue. After the 13 Nights campaign I have to switch gears to catch up on Nolah stuff and a Learning Curve chapter then hopefully we will be back to normal.

The stage lights pooled like melted amber, cathedral colors washing silk banners and foam masonry, turning the sold-out theater into a chapel for nerds. The Paladin Live logo burned above a painted rose window and a throne no one would sit in. The air shimmered with the electric hum of anticipation, thick with popcorn butter and overheated bulbs, the thready scent of an overworked fog machine ghosting through the aisles. If faith had a sound, it was two thousand people holding their breath at once, waiting for a twenty-sided die to stop rolling.

Felix had pulled a few strings and gotten them good seats. Felix good, not normal good. Mid-center orchestra, the kind of section reserved for platinum cards and recognizable last names. Seven still couldn’t look at the ticket stub without smiling. Nico tried–and failed–to look unimpressed with their surroundings, gaze darting from item to item like he might miss something. Felix checked the stitching on Seven’s bracer as if betrayal would begin there. Shiloh traced the edge of his own pauldron, smiling that soft, secret smile he saved for Levi.

Arsen had gone full paladin, hand-tooled leather, unnecessary buckles, a cape that made him taller. Ever shimmered in sorcerer-adjacent glitter and would shed it at the first house lights. Mal endured chainmail for love, bribed by Nico’s promise of post-show pastries made with his own two hands. Lake and Cree kept it clean, quiet silhouettes and careful details. Silas managed fratty knight chic, which shouldn’t have been possible, yet there he stood, laughing with Mal about whether mead could be shotgun-able.

Legacy idiots and later recruits alike had been polished to Felix’s standard: not a thread wrong, not a seam unpressed. Felix would rather perish than be seen in bargain plastic at a landmark Paladin event, and not just vanity. He knew what this meant to all of them.

Seven settled his cloak. No one would guess Rowan Thorn Vale–a ranger of the cursed Greenwood–hid a zipper, a velcro tab, and a small interior pocket sewn for snacks and a phone. Felix didn’t do cheap, but he did do practical. “Heroes have blood sugar,” he’d said in the fitting room, pinning fabric. Couture empathy, he’d called it, smug and right. Even now, Seven could feel the faint press of a granola bar against his ribs, comfort food disguised as craftsmanship.

The dice clattered across the onstage felt with a sound that traveled down Seven’s spine. It wasn’t just a game sound, it was a memory trigger. Their childhood had sounded like this. Over ten years of logins, lag, homework unfinished because the Greenwood needed him more. Over ten years of this guild. The Knights of the Kids Table, named as a joke at twelve, kept because some names rooted under the skin and refused eviction.

The d20 settled. The lead–Ser Thalos himself, or the man who’d carried his voice for a decade–peeked down, lifted a hand, and grinned into the mic. “Natural twenty.”

The hall detonated. People stood and screamed and clapped. A guy two rows back yelled, “CRIT, MY LIEGE!” Someone near the aisle cried, clean and unabashed. The sound hit like a pulse, joy rolling through the crowd in a single living wave. Arsen shook Ever’s shoulder and glitter took to the air. Shiloh laughed helplessly, then hid his face against Levi’s sleeve like he’d been caught doing something illegal, which, with Levi, was always a statistical possibility.

Seven clapped until his palms stung. It was absurd how happy this made him. How right it felt.

On stage the table was theater, carved edges, brass inlay, leather-bound rulebooks no one pretended to read. The actors wore stage-worthy versions of their characters, accurate enough to thrill, theatrical enough to reach the balcony. The Ser Thalos actor rose for a curtain call. He was older up close, silver at his temples, lines at the eyes earned by laughter, frowns, or both. He had that gravity that made ridiculous things like honor and vows and better selves feel possible. He wasn’t quite as handsome as the character in the game, but Seven was riveted just the same.

“Thank you,” he said, voice rolling across the crowd like a summer storm. “We started as a handful of friends rolling dice in a drafty soundstage, and now it’s–” He took them in, the crowd, the banners, phones pointed like constellations. “This. You grew up with us. We grew up with you. We watched guilds form, break apart, reunite. We watched communities build. We watched you fall in love.”

Laughter, cheers, the warm wave of recognition that never punched down.

“We know some of your guilds by name,” he went on. “We see your fan art. Your memes. There’s a running list in our writers’ room of ships we didn’t plan but wish we had.” A beat. “Tonight we’ve got some legends with us. Tonight, we have–” he shaded his eyes, hunting the name like it would rise from the crowd. “–the Knights of the Kids Table in the building. Where are you? Stand up.”

The theater roared.

Seven’s heart fell straight into his shoes.

Felix’s fingers found his and squeezed like a tourniquet. Nico made a noise unfit for human throats. Cree, calm as a surgeon, murmured, “What did you do?” If he’d known anything, he wouldn’t have asked. Seven hadn’t done anything.

“Me? I didn’t–” his mouth tried. Dry. “I didn’t do anything.”

“Seven,” Felix breathed, eyes bright with joy and crime. “They know about us.”

A stagehand was already hustling down the aisle, black clothes, headset, the friendly smile assigned to wranglers of nerds. “Knights of the Kids Table?” She pointed at her clipboard. “Can you come with me? We’re bringing you up for a minute.”

He leaned toward Felix. “I will strangle you.”

“You’re welcome, you ungrateful douche,” Felix whispered back, straightening Seven’s cloak like a hem might determine his fate.

Enzo hates crowds. 

No wonder he’d skipped this. Seven now wished he’d skipped it too. Enzo would tell him it was good practice for the courtroom. He pictured an immaculate kitchen, coffee cooling, a livestream on a laptop, group chat commentary that came dry and knife-clean, occasionally softened by pride he pretended he didn’t feel. 

He pictured Enzo in the corner of that kitchen, the light from the window cutting across his jaw, the quiet click of his pen as he annotated case files, content, contained, miles away from this glitter and noise.

Lights up close erased edges. The stage dissolved into heat and noise. The crowd sounded like surf. The Thalos actor pressed a mic into Seven’s hand, his smile kind and conspiratorial. The microphone was warm, oddly intimate, and the sound of the audience folded into a single, expectant hum that made Seven’s throat tighten.

“Everyone,” the actor announced, “these are some of the longest-running legacy players in Paladin history. They’ve logged in together since Beta, taken their mains through every expansion, kept a campaign alive through high school, finals, moves, breakups, and–” He glanced at them with a knowing warmth that should have been impossible. “Life. The Knights of the Kids Table.”

Pride landed low in Seven’s sternum. Ridiculous over a name, but names did that. He swallowed the lump in his throat. It felt like someone had reached into his chest and struck a match on the bone. Why did hearing his life animated in this voice make it feel holy? Sacred? This was crazy. He was standing next to the Ser Thalos.

“They’ve got a ranger,” the actor added, “who many of you will know by reputation, if not his stupidly high stealth rolls. The original Thorn Vale.”

The camera found Seven’s face and flung it twenty feet tall on the LED wall. A guy in a beautifully made ranger costume who didn’t like being looked at, watching himself be looked at. His smile pulled crooked. Accurate.

He lifted the mic. His voice came out steady enough to pass. “Uh–hi. I’m Seven. I play as Rowan Thorn Vale.” That sentence had worn grooves through his brain. 

The audience laughed, not at him, but because they recognized the shape of his nervousness, probably imagining themselves suddenly being thrown into the spotlight. The shared rhythm of inside jokes felt like being part of a heartbeat. Recognition was its own relief.

“The fans–our watchers–we-we’re streamers,” he heard himself say, heat creeping behind his ears at how sentimental that sounded, “kind of ship me with another origin character.”

“Ship?” the Thalos actor echoed, voice ticking up in question at the end, as if he had never met fans.

“Yeah.” He couldn’t stop the smile. “There’s a… romance thing that plays out in our adventures.”

“And who,” the actor asked, like it was new to anyone there, “do they ship you with?”

“Ser Thalos.” Seven tipped the mic toward him. The cheer for the name and the face was immediate. Unfair. “They, uh, like watching our interactions.”

“We like watching a lot of things,” Felix said, salaciously, alluding to the NC scenes in the game cuts. “Some of us are married to it.”

The actor lifted his hands, herding laughter like goats. “You’ve written a love story with us for a decade. Tonight, we thought we’d return the favor.” A pause, clean theatrics. Strings rose, soft, earnest. He turned toward their table as the actor playing Thorn Vale’s long-suffering quest-giver stood, light pooling around his boots.

The proposal scene. Arc of the Greenwood finale. The one with compilation videos Seven didn’t watch because he didn’t need a mirror of longing he already knew by heart. The ranger took a step to Thalos and lifted his chin for the line everyone could mouth.

“The Greenwood has no kings. It has guardians.”

Thalos answered on cue. “Then give me leave to guard what I cannot live without.”

Perfect. Theater. Wrong. The words landed like a glitch in his chest, familiar and disorienting, a dream he’d already had but couldn’t wake from.

The actor stopped mid-gesture and laughed, delighted. He turned back to the crowd and shook his head. “This doesn’t feel right, does it?”

Noise tangled through the room. Yeses. Nos. Democracy had nothing on a showman with a plan.

He faced Seven, voice lowering, fun giving way to gentleness. “Maybe tonight,” he said, “we ask the actual Thorn Vale to step in. Would you like to take a turn as my Thorn Vale?”

Seven wanted to sink through the stage. “I’m not–” he started, because apparently he had committed to the bit. “I don’t–”

“Do you,” the actor asked, not performing now, only asking a younger man for a truth already known, “by any chance, have your own Ser Thalos?”

The question cracked something open inside him, sudden and blinding as flash paper. Heat climbed the back of Seven’s neck. He did. His Ser Thalos was probably at home in a pair of basketball shorts, a beer beside him on his desk as he poured over case files. He could picture the faint crease between Enzo’s brows, the glow of his monitor painting half his face in courtroom blue.

His chest squeezed; his sudden ache for Enzo made no sense. He would see him in less than two hours. Had seen him just ten minutes before the curtains went up when they’d FaceTimed. Still, his desperate need for him to materialize in that moment made no sense, but it was so real, his gaze slid to the wings. The space there looked darker than it should have, the kind of dark that felt like waiting.

He wanted to see broad shoulders, a sharp jaw, that controlled temper in a three-thousand-dollar suit. The man who hated spectacle but loved him. Both things could be true.

“Yes,” he said. Small. Unfixable. True. “Yeah.”

The lights dimmed. The crowd’s roar softened into a hush with edges. It was the kind of silence that had a pulse.

“Then maybe you’d like to finish the scene with him,” the actor said.

Music swelled, noble, theatric, a song he’d heard swell through cheap speakers a million times. A spotlight cut across the wings. For a breath he let himself be pragmatic. Of course no one was there. Of course not. Enzo would buy a twenty-thousand-dollar gaming rig and have a desk altered to protect his wrists. He’d cancel depositions to watch a raid. He would not step–

Polished steel caught light.

The audience gasped as one organism. The air itself seemed to hesitate.

Enzo walked out like he owned the stage. He moved the way he did when a witness was about to crumble, slow, collected, patience weaponized. The armor wasn’t foam; the greaves articulated with a liquid grace. The Silver Creed’s crest gleamed on the breastplate. A sword hung peace-bonded at his hip. He wore it like he’d been born wearing it. Even the stage lights seemed to bow around him, haloing the edges of his armor in molten gold.

Had they dressed him, or had he had it made?

He was Ser Thalos, the fan-art version made by artists in love, not the showroom model built on deadline by an overworked game developer. A perfect, ridiculous knight.

The crowd screamed. Seven did too. But silently. Ever’s shriek cut through the top end of human hearing. Seven’s knees loosened. The stage tilted; the world narrowed to a circle of light and the sound of his own pulse.

Enzo stopped a foot away, a smirk on his face as he went down on one knee.

Rowan Thorn Vale–Seven–forgot how to breathe. “What are you doing?” he wheezed under his breath.

The helmet shadowed Enzo’s eyes, but Seven knew the minute downturn at the corner of his mouth when he fought a smile. There was a mic attached to his costume. When he spoke, it wasn’t Enzo’s closing argument voice, it was a cadence built under an oak older than kingdoms. 

It was Ser Thalos.

“Rowan Thorn Vale of the Greenwood,” he intoned, as if the name had already been carved in stone, “forged by winter, taught mercy by wolves. You hunted beside me when I was only a selfish blade, and you turned me from the worst of myself more times than the gods kept count.”

Seven’s throat tightened, eyes stinging, swallowing audibly. His pulse tripped over itself, drumming against the underside of his jaw. The words weren’t new. He’d heard them a million times but never filtered through Enzo’s voice, never directed at him, Seven, not him, Rowan Thorn Vale.

Nico breathed somewhere beside him, “Oh my God,” a prayer and a laugh.

“I have stood upon walls the moon once claimed,” Enzo went on, shamelessly over the top and perfect, “and sworn a hundred oaths that meant nothing because I did not know the shape of the one I needed. Here it is: your hand in mine; your shadow beside mine at dawn; your name in my mouth when the dark is loud.”

A sob rose from the mezzanine. Not a stranger.

Seven blinked hard, vision blurring, the stage lights smearing gold across the edge of his lashes.

“I was not a good man when I first took a blade for a creed,” Enzo said. “I was a weapon others pointed. You–” his head tipped, the knight looking up, the man beneath him looking out “–made a man out of me.”

The Thalos actor stood near, smiling out at a crowd like he’d stolen fire for them. He leaned in and pitched to both cheap seats and Seven’s pulse. “I think,” he said, “we’re missing something.”

He lifted a hand toward the mezzanine, and the lights chased his gesture. The camera followed. The audience turned as one, like the room had a spine, and watched as two processions started down the side stairs, one left, one right. People stood, let them pass. Hands brushed shoulders. A way opened.

Faces resolved out of numbers. Details hit like recognition: the tilt of a chin he’d seen in a mirror when too tired to feel self-conscious; the way a mouth fought a smile and lost; a woman he adored with one palm tucked against her ribs when she was nervous. Their families were here. All of them. His mom, Enzo’s Uncle Rocco. No, all of the Contis. Everyone. Jericho and Atticus. The entire Mulvaney clan. All there. All for them. The air thickened with perfume, cologne, the faint sweetness of popcorn and disbelief. His chest felt too small for his heart. 

What is happening right now?

They came to the front row and didn’t try to climb the stage; they stood there, mouths pressed together, their mothers clinging to each other, both fighting tears. The sound that rolled through the hall was the purest, dumbest, most merciless ‘awww’ Seven had ever endured.

Enzo’s gauntlet creaked as he reached under the cuisses and drew out a ring. Understated. Silver, engraved inside with two crossed arrows and a tiny knight’s helm only visible if you knew to look.The lights caught on it, a clean gleam against the dark armor, humble and impossible at once.

He lifted it for the camera. His hand shook. Enzo–the man who rarely blinked–trembled. The sight gutted Seven. Enzo never shook. Not in court, not in bed, not even when the world seemed to come apart.

“In this world and any other,” he said, still fully in character, a knight not asking for forgiveness so much as permission, “I lay down my blade and my breath at your feet. If you will have me, I vow my strength, my counsel, my name, my home–such as it is and will be–to you and to the Greenwood we carry between us. What I have I will share. What I lack I will learn. I will be your shield where there are arrows and your calm where there is storm. I would be your husband, if you will have me.”

Felix started sobbing again, drowning in snot and triumph, a handkerchief wadded in his hand. “Real chainmail was the right choice,” he announced to Avi who stood in the front row with the others.

“I’m not–” Seven lifted the mic because apparently he was committed, fool that he was. He pointed at the actor behind him. “I’m not your Thorn Vale. He is.”

The crowd laughed in the precise bend he’d hoped for, easing the quake in his hands. The laughter washed over him like surf, breaking the moment’s tension without stealing its power.

Enzo’s smile went small and private, the one that had ruined Seven’s life in the best way. “He’s the voice,” he said, still in costume, sounding exactly like himself for a single breath. “You’re the soul. And you’ve always been mine.”

The world tilted; air stung the back of Seven’s throat, sharp with ozone and tears. Something unlocked in him. Not a door, he’d lived in this house awhile. A window? A skylight, maybe. Light fell where it hadn’t. He burst into tears, grateful when someone thrust a handkerchief–clean, thank God–into his hand to wipe his face.

“Yes,” he managed. The mic carried it to the rafters. “Yes.”

Noise broke sharp like a cracked tree branch. Ever screamed into Arsen’s shoulder. Shiloh made a strangled, delighted sound and clapped both hands over his mouth. Someone in the balcony threw dice, glitter rained along the stage lip. Security glared, Thomas whispered something to them that had their shoulders going lax, probably an offer to write a check.

The Thalos actor clapped Enzo’s shoulder. “That,” he told the room, “is a natural twenty on persuasion.”

They gave Seven the song and the stage and the moment, then let him go before magic curdled into spectacle. Professionals. They knew.

Backstage turned the roar into a hum. Doors shut. Cables coiled. Someone cried near the prop table while someone else laughed like they needed an exorcism. Paint and old coffee salted the air. It smelled like everything he’d ever loved about creation, messy, human, alive.

Enzo led Seven into a narrow corridor and around a stack of road cases that made a shadow-chapel. They stood in it, breathing, looking. Enzo removed his helmet, setting it beside them. He lifted both hands to Seven’s face. His thumbs slid to Seven’s jaw, mapping familiar routes. “Hi,” he said.

The word cracked the spell and sealed it at the same time. A hello and a promise in one syllable.

“Hi.” The word felt small and insufficient.

“I thought for sure you’d bolt the moment I appeared,” Enzo admitted in a voice barely above a whisper.

“I was being filmed,” Seven said. “Evidence.”

“Was this enough of a spectacle for you?” Enzo asked.

Seven blinked rapidly, trying to stave off another wave of tears. His chest ached with the effort of holding too much joy in too small a space. “Yes. Five stars. I can’t believe you did all this…how?”

“Where there’s a will…” Enzo said softly.

Seven smirked. “So…you wrote a check?”

“Actually, no. Thomas helped me get the name of the right person. Once I told them who you were, they were fully on board. They know this is the kind of PR that money can’t buy.”

Seven nodded, burying his face against the bit of skin available at Enzo’s neck, inhaling deeply, letting his scent smooth all his jagged edges. The world shrank to pulse and breath and the faint rasp of Enzo’s stubble against his temple.

Enzo huffed, a small sound that said his heart was pounding too. Up close he smelled like tobacco and vanilla, mixed with something boozy, the expensive cologne that had soaked into Seven’s DNA. The scent that Seven sought when he was on the edge. The one that meant safety even when the world went sideways.

“Felix lied to me,” Seven said into the warm place where neck met shoulder. “For days. He said he’d sold his soul for these seats.”

“It’s not like he could tell the truth,” Enzo said.

Seven pulled back, still trying to process. “So you did this.”

“I did.” No apology. Only the settled look of a man who had decided a thing and changed the world to accommodate it. “I asked our families to come. I asked Felix to handle the wardrobe because you would forgive him for lying faster than you’d forgive me for making you receive my proposal wearing cheap plastic armor.”

“Accurate,” Seven admitted. “He sewed snack pockets.”

Enzo’s surprised laugh echoed throughout the space. “We spared no expense.”

“Did you buy the whole show?”

“No.” Enzo’s mouth tilted. “But I would have.”

The laugh that bubbled out of Seven was beyond his control, wet and ridiculous. Reality started to crash in on him on all sides. “That was really… public.”

“Yes.” Enzo lowered his hands to Seven’s hips, fingers hooking in leather laces like this was a normal hallway and they were normal men. The gesture was easy, practiced. “You like your romance quiet. Not really much in the way of spectacle. But I’m hoping you forgive me this once since you did ask for it.”

He wasn’t wrong. But only because attention had always come with consequences. “Small was self-defense.”

Enzo went still, the way he did when a witness accidentally told him the truth. “I made you feel small back then, didn’t I,” he said. Not a question, more a confirmation of his own stupidity.

“That feels like a lifetime ago,” Seven said, having a hard time even reckoning the Enzo before him now with the one that had offered to make him his sugar baby.

“I hurt you.” There it was. The scale Enzo measured himself on when he got too deep into his own head. “I was cruel because I was scared.” His swallow clicked. Armor creaked. Seven could feel the tremor in it, the cost of the confession.

“Was I really that scary to you?” Seven asked, trying to lighten the mood.

“I had never wanted anything the way I wanted you. I was terrified. I couldn’t have you but I couldn’t bring myself to push you away.” He pressed a kiss to Seven’s lips. It was soft, reverent. “Somehow, despite being the world’s biggest creep, you wanted me anyway. I don’t know what to do with that except spend the rest of my life trying to deserve it.”

Seven slid his fingers under the breastplate and found warm cotton, the heat of him. Enzo shivered like a lit match had traced his spine. Metal met skin, heat met cold, and the line between them blurred. “You don’t have to keep making it up to me,” Seven said, tone teasing. “But if you insist on spoiling me, I accept tribute.”

“I will buy you a second gaming rig so the first doesn’t get lonely.” Enzo lowered his forehead to Seven’s.

Seven laughed. “Enzo.”

“I will rename a building in your honor.”

“Enzo,” Seven said, slapping him softly.

“I will commit crimes,” he purred against his lips.

“We already commit crimes,” Seven reminded him gently.

Enzo kissed him again. Not a staged kiss, not for an audience. This one was messy with breath, teeth, and the sound of armor shifting loudly. Seven made a sound he would deny in any court of law. Voices skated down the hall, Felix demanding entry to the costume shop to fix a hook-and-eye that had offended him. The sound flattened out here. The stage noise dulled to a heartbeat as they spent the next few minutes making out like horny teens at a costume party in their backstage bubble. 

Enzo drew back. “I proposed in-game,” he said. “I did the old-world thing. ‘My heart, my blade, my vow.’” A near-smile, near-wince. “I am aware it’s cringe.”

“It’s not cringe,” Seven said, eyes bleeding with love. “It’s dramatic.”

“Luckily, the stage isn’t much different than the courtroom.”

“You were absurdly great.” Seven let himself have pride. “I’ll be insufferable about it for the rest of our lives.”

“Good.” Enzo’s eyes darkened. “But that isn’t why I did it.”

“Then why?”

“Because it feels like you’ve waited a long time for someone to choose you out loud,” Enzo said, carefully. “You make a habit of making yourself small so people don’t resent you for existing. I’m good with quiet. I will spend my life giving you quiet. But I wanted–just once–to say it so loud that you had no choice but to believe.”

Seven couldn’t answer right away. His throat closed, his pulse stupid under Enzo’s fingers. The air felt thick enough to drink. His lungs didn’t know what to do with it. Enzo didn’t look away. He never had, not since they’d stopped lying.

“Believe what?” he managed.

Enzo cupped his face. “That I’ll always choose you. No matter what. It’s you and me.”

“Stop,” Seven whispered, tears threatening for the thousandth time. His laugh broke halfway to a sob. “Jesus, your romance game is lethal. I’m gonna need you to wield this power carefully. Turns out, I’m kind of a marshmallow.”

Enzo laughed softly. “You just bring it out in me. I like spoiling you. You’re shockingly easy to love.”

“You’re the only person who thinks so,” Seven promised him.

“You know that’s not true,” Enzo said. “My mom hand-picked you for me five minutes after you met. There’s three dozen people out there who showed up more for you than me. I was coached, coaxed, and outright threatened over this proposal. No less than three people gave me the shovel talk just tonight alone. Both of our moms said they would end my life if I fucked this up.”

“You’re lying.”

“You know I’m not,” Enzo said. “Your father isn’t everybody. He’s just the loudest voice in your head. That’s all. But you have a literal army of people who love you louder than his hate.”

Seven couldn’t fight the tears streaming down his face. They came hot and quiet, the kind that made his throat ache. “You’re going to break me with this. I’m a mess. I know they’re waiting to celebrate with us. If you keep romancing me like this, I’m going to melt into a puddle and then what will you do?”

Enzo eased down to Seven’s left hand, thumbing over the ring. He turned Seven’s wrist and kissed the inside, stupid, intimate, unnecessary in the best way. The scrape of stubble and metal sent a shiver racing up Seven’s arm. “Just let me be sappy and cringe and over-the-top tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow, I’ll go back to being the boring, unglamorous person you can live next to.”

“You consider buying a gaming system that costs more than a car boring?” Seven teased, fishing the crumpled-up handkerchief Felix had handed him earlier from his pocket to swipe at his runny nose.

“You needed it. It was practical.”

Seven gave him a flat look. “And the whole new wardrobe?”

“I was being selfish,” he said, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “You can’t be my law partner and wear someone else’s designer clothes. What will people think?”

“Demanding the chefs at Mama’s make me food that’s not on the menu?”

“A good chef must always be ready. It’s simply a skill check to make sure they’re doing their jobs properly.”

“Cooking for me every night?”

Enzo gently bit the tip of his nose. The laugh that escaped Seven trembled against Enzo’s mouth, half-gasp, half-grin. “I cook for me, I just share with you.”

“Yeah, sure,” Seven said. “They’re gonna want to celebrate with us, huh?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“There’s no way that we can just go home?”

“What do you want to do at home?” Enzo asked. “Gonna propose to me now?”

“I was planning to get on my knees. What I do after depends entirely on you, Daddy.”

Enzo gave a pained groan of regret. “Ma’s throwing an engagement party for us at the restaurant, but luckily for you, there’s no place in that restaurant I don’t know.”

“Gonna fuck me against the vintage wines?” Seven teased.

“If that’s what you want. This night is all about you,” Enzo said.

Seven shook his head. “No, it’s about us. Just us. And three hundred of our closest friends and family members.”

Enzo laughed. “We do have a village…”

Seven leaned in, brushing his nose against Enzo’s, their laughter tangling, soft and stupid. “Yeah,” he said, voice gone small and sure. “And somehow it still feels like it’s just us.”

As if on cue, the sound of heels growing closer had them looking up. Each click was a countdown to chaos. Felix appeared, no longer in his cosplay, but a FNM original suit that fit him like a glove, looking regal as a queen. He held two garment bags.

“I thought for sure I’d catch you fucking back here,” he said.

Enzo snorted. “You sound disappointed.”

“Oh, I am,” he said, giving Enzo a hard once-over that had Seven play-kicking him. “What? He’s hot. We’re all curious.”

“What do you need?” Seven asked, drawing his attention away from Enzo.

“If you don’t go out there and let your mothers hug you right now, one of them is gonna rupture something. They’re absolutely feral waiting on you to arrive. Party now, fuck later. Here. I made you these so you look good in your pics tonight. And, yes, before you ask, I got pictures and video of the proposal. You’re welcome.”

With that, he turned on his heel and sashayed away.

“Did he say he made us clothing?” Enzo asked.

“Are you surprised?”

Enzo frowned. “He doesn’t even have my measurements.”

“I’ll bet you a thousand dollars whatever he made will fit like a second skin. He has a creepy sixth sense about these things.”

“Huh. No bet. Should we get dressed now so we don’t have to make the drive back home in body armor?” Enzo asked.

“Is it weird I kind of don’t want to take it off?”

“I mean, we do own the costumes,” Enzo said, giving him a heated look. The air between them went thick, metal, sweat, and static.

“Meaning…” Seven murmured.

Enzo reached down, gently biting his lower lip. “Meaning I have seen the mod scenes of Ser Thalos and Rowan Thorn Vale celebrating their… vows. We started the night roleplaying. No reason we can’t end it the same way.”

“I like the way you think,” Seven whispered, drawing him in for a deep kiss. It was hungry, ridiculous, and sweet, their armor clinking like punctuation.

“Think Rowan ever called Ser Thalos Daddy?” Enzo asked, mouth moving over his.

“This one does,” Seven said softly, ready to risk it all.

Felix’s voice cut through the quiet even from a distance. “Let’s go. Now. Or the next voice you hear will be your mothers’. Plural.”

“Oof, that’s a mood killer,” Enzo said.

“Yeah, it is,” Seven muttered, then stepped back. “Care to join me in the changing room?”

“Lead the way, brat.”

“Yes, Daddy.”

They’d only made it two steps when Enzo stopped him, pushing him up against the wall, the impact soft but decisive, knocking the breath out of both of them. He stared deep into Seven’s eyes.

“What?” Seven asked, breathlessly.

“I forgot to tell you I love you.”

Seven blinked at him. “I’m pretty sure it was implied in the proposal.”

“I just don’t want you to look back and wonder if it was all theater. I love you so much.”

Something in the way he said it–quiet, unguarded–hit harder than the roar of a thousand fans.

Seven was sure his skin had to be in literal flames. “I love you, too. Now, stop saying stuff like that or we’re never getting out of here.”

Seven pushed away from the wall, gasping when Enzo’s hand connected with his ass with a loud crack.

“Brat.”

“Your brat,” he shot back.

“That’s right. All mine. Don’t you ever forget it.”

And just like that, the lights, the crowd, the world outside the curtain, all of it fell away. It was only them, the knight and the ranger, still writing their vows one moment at a time.

Seven’s smile had Enzo’s brow going up. “What?” 

Seven heaved happy sigh. “Guess Ever wasn’t the only one to get his fairy tale ending.”