"What do you think of marriage?" John asked, mug of coffee between his hands as they watched the sun set under another lavender dusk. The spray of clouds were like baby's breath in a bouquet of autumn flowers tied in the golden ribbon of a burnt horizon. Everything looked to be on fire in the sun's final cast of color. Summer was extraordinarily beautiful at Fair Hill Cottage but even more so with the ebb and flow of days. John liked their long summer evenings, the way the sun seemed to wait for them both to finish with their daily tasks before rolling down in a gentle arch that drew the curtain of night down around them in a wondrous spectacle of chromatic resplendence made all the better with company.

Sherlock stirred in more sugar to his coffee, spoon ringing against the ceramic in a reoccurring tink. He shrugged his square shoulders, lips pursed after another sip to test the sweetness of his concoction. It seemed to pass the test. He put the spoon bowl-side down, an errant curl bouncing against his cheek despite the ring around his head where the hat brim had kept it all in check. They'd been happy hermits far too long. He needed a trim.

John tucked it back for him, rolling it into a less wayward strand with his finger. "Never thought about it?"

"Not exactly." Sherlock sat back in his seat, pressing his hair back with both palms despite John's efforts to aid. Residual sweat kept it in place for only a moment before it sprung back towards his face in an oddly shaped disturbance. "Not in the sense you're probably inquiring anyway," he said. "Marriage is practical, not romantic. It's a legal partnership, a universally recognized institution of financial and social merger. It is a requirement for certain government regulated services but as a means of symbolic union between lovers it is nothing but sentimental nonsense. Weddings themselves are a display of poor fiscal sense and copious consumption and if a couple needs a legal merger to feel committed then-well, never-mind, the divorce rate speaks well enough of that."

John nodded, rotating his old wedding ring around his finger as had become habit, thumb tucked in against his palm. "People got married before governments got involved."

"Back in the time when men bought their wives or families sold off their daughters with dowries?" Sherlock rolled his eyes. "Oh, yes, the sanctity of that glorious construct that is marriage. You know why it's only in recent history that it's been an issue that men might fancy men and women other women? Because it used to be you only had to worry about owning the thing you intended to breed with. A year is a long time to wait to sow one's own seed. Marriage has never been about love, it's simply a sign of ownership into which some lovers find themselves cast alongside other breeders in a jealous campaign of sole rights and privileges."

John pursed his lips, caught somewhere between a scowl and a frown with a hint of grudging agreement. "This isn't really how I thought this conversation would go," he admitted, setting his mug down with the rhythmic patter of his fingers against the warm surface.

Sherlock arched his left brow curiously. "You're not asking, are you?" He sounded almost insulted by the idea though his face was strict and inexpressive save for the quirked brow.

"If you have to ask, I can promise you I'm not. When I do ask-"

"'When'?"

John raised a finger in warning, urging him to listen first and speak after. "When I do ask," he repeated, his voice somewhat softer with its weight, "I assure you there will be no doubt as to my intention."

Sherlock's nearly affronted expression melted back into a blank canvas, his posture rigid and awkwardly stressed to further betray his uncomfortable nature. His eyes remained locked on John. "You intend to marry me."

"I intend to ask. That's about as far ahead as I can reasonably plan." John smiled with good humor, giving Sherlock's knee a gentle pat under the table before seizing his own mug again and sighing into the streaming brew. "I don't want to own you and god help the man or woman who tries. I don't need legal documents to prove that we're an 'us' or feel like that means more somehow because there's paperwork and fees that's gone into it. Even if you say 'no' it wouldn't mean an end to anything. I'm not thinking that there's somehow more we're missing because you're my boyfriend and not my husband. It's just that those government regulated things are sort of necessary sometimes. And I don't want someone telling me you're not included when they say 'family'."

Sherlock nodded slowly, having melted into his own skin once more so his bones no longer stacked neatly but allowed him to slouch just slightly in his seat with far more comfort granted. He was surprisingly sensitive to the subject despite his rather strong opinions. Marriage and Sherlock weren't really compatible in a lot of ways, history and tradition among them, but there was a time when John would have said the same about Sherlock and any relationship. The younger man sipped his coffee, eyes cast to the horizon with his pale face reflecting the warmth of the amber light. "Adopting Analise would be nice. Requires a lot less bullying of people hiding behind the excuse of just doing their jobs," he said, underlying sentiment with passing grievance.

"Yeah, definitely." John smiled. Of course, it couldn't be a cool smile that made his face look distantly appreciative. No, it was the goof-ball smile that never failed to betray every bit of joy little things sometimes brought him. It was the smile that made his eyes much more wrinkly and added ten years to his face as every laugh-line deepened and crinkled in towards his nose. He'd rather hoped Sherlock would want to. All of it. Everything. He considered it social instruction which made it matter even when daily they lived without any feelings of without. He cleared his throat to clear his lips of the ridiculous expression, the taut pull of pleasure easing from his cheeks. Not that Sherlock hadn't seen, his own mature grin pulled into place with smugness. He was ageless with a frown but perfection with a smile. John sank his mouth into his warm brew to hide the embarrassed vestiges of mirth, in no small way pleased the dusk could be blamed for any hint of rosiness on his face.

Sherlock's smugness only grew. He let his foot rest against John's under the table, his brown loafer cousin to John's bare foot. "Alright," he said, managing a somber tone even with his lips gently curled.

John shook his head, hand to Sherlock's forearm for reassurance. "No, not 'alright'. I'm not asking yet," he corrected.

"Then I'm asking you."

"Don't do that. I'm going to have to say no on principle."

Sherlock's nose scrunched in irritation. "On what principle? Why does it have to be you who asks?"

"Because you deserve me on my knees before your feet, begging you to marry me with no less than three month's wages invested in the plea."

Sherlock had no immediate reply to that. John gave his arm a squeeze, letting his thumb stroke gently over the fine hair along his forearm. There was no small pleasure in making Sherlock's brain grind to a halt and stall his spitfire lips short of a snappy retort. John had every intention of being as traditional as possible in this ritual if in no other. He'd gotten down on one knee to Mary at a Christmas party in front of her friends and several of his own. It hadn't been a big diamond but it had been a real one. It wasn't just a matter of living up to a woman's childhood fantasies of proposal and marriage, doing what she expected just to make her happy. It was part of it, he wouldn't lie about that, but she was worth it. She was worth him prostrating himself at her feet, putting it off and saving for what felt like forever just to show in one instant what she meant to him in a tactile expression of emotional connection. If it was worth doing for the love of his life, if was worth repeating for the completion of his existence. Sherlock deserved no less-deserved much more, in fact. They could shun traditions and pointless spectacle all the other days of the year. Much as time made his knees ache, John would fall to at least one before Sherlock in testament.

Sherlock let out a short breath through his nose, tongue sliding along his lips as he licked them in nervous admission. "No rings," he said at last, the rest of his consent implied. "I haven't the tolerance for something pointlessly ornamental."

"I'll buy you a wedding ring but you don't have to wear it. It can stay in the box in the back of the sock drawer for all I care. But seeing as I am a sentimental idiot, it wouldn't feel right not to have bought you one." He felt his thumb toy with his own ring again, spinning it comfortably in its special grove seemingly permanently indented into his hand. It hadn't taken long to adjust to. He couldn't imagine his finger without it. Even though it was his dominant hand, the absence of the metal band made it feel weak. He sometimes wondered what Sherlock could deduce about his relationship with the ring going only on the comforting habits he'd picked up along the years. He never bothered asking.

"And if I were to buy you one?" Sherlock questioned, nodding towards the rotating band of gold.

John stopped, looking at it for only a moment before offering up with not the least hesitation a shrug and dismissive quirk of his lips. "Then I'll have the perfect box to store my old one in for the back of my own sock drawer," he said.

Sherlock's mild surprise was far from hidden, eyes drawing back wider under raised brows with a brilliance akin to the creeping starlight. He folded his features into a more stoic display and nodded acutely. "Platinum," he said and then drank in the quiet of awkward pre-silence.

"Only the best." John agreed, and drank deeply of the last of his own mug. He hummed on the swallow as another thought occurred to him, putting himself in queue to speak as he waited for the coffee to settle in his gut. He pursed his lips to swallow a cough as well as compulsion got the better of his basic drinking technique. "Also? Public signing and reception. I know what you're thinking but just imagine it: Mycroft and my mother in the same room; two well-intentioned busy bodies going head-to-head while trying to keep to all social norms and formalities."

Sherlock chuckled warmly, his smile splitting his face as he shook his head. "You'll have me agreeing to an orchestral accompaniment and full secular service before you've even deemed it appropriate to propose."

"I'll fight only for an announcement in the major papers. The rest can be as simple or as garish as you like."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, his smile not in the least diminished even as he managed to close his lips over his teeth. "Why the sudden interest in marriage? You've never mentioned it before."

John frowned solemnly, propping his chin on his fist. "Actually, I had been thinking about how Analise married that boy from the park. But now that you've equated marriage to reproductive slavery I'm having a hard time finding it as cute as I did before." He looked over at Sherlock, lips pursed into a pout to try and keep them pinned closed.

One look. One look and he was sputtering with laughter, Sherlock adding to the sound with his head rolled back towards the moon with the last of the sunlight burning bright like a candle at the end of its wick. John leaned hard against the arm of his chair, Sherlock meeting him halfway for a kiss that buzzed with jovial humming.

"I'm sure it's different for four year olds," Sherlock offered in comfort as John followed up with a second kiss.

"It's different for a lot of people," and he took his hand, giving it a squeeze under the table with the last burst of twilight.

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