til he was livin' lavish

// nothing is as simple, I worship, you're my temple //

It’s about time to leave, but the vacation had been absolutely perfect thus far. The next step is the Oerwoud for the slaying of a cockatrice, but for now the morning starts easy. Spirits helping to get their breakfast ready, a warm Longheat day that’s spent already at the poolside in the brisk mid-morning right before it gets too hot.

A plate of bacon is chewed through with relative ease, alongside hot spiced chai tea for the morning. The butcher isn’t quite dressed down like he typically was for vacation, choosing a few more layers to allocate for the next leg of their trip, dressed up in a sleek dark shirt that’s buttoned up most of the way – leaving the long fingers of scar tissue on display alongside the pale scars on his arms from where the sleeves are rolled up. Scarlet suspenders pop against the dark charcoal of his shirt, and paired with equally dark pants and a dark leather belt that matches his shoes, he’s leaning against the outer bar as he plucks a piece of bacon from the plate and smirks over at his fiancé.

“Do you think she has sniffed us out yet?” He asks in a low whisper while his tail flicks behind him contently. He imagines she has within the first day or so, because very little tended to get by Flora, not that the butcher would ever complain. She knew his darkest secrets, after all, and still chose to be close to him and in his life regardless of it. But it still didn’t hurt to playfully bet on whether she did or didn’t know.

Astaroth

// and heaven, hold your gates open, all the hell we've been through //

// but i'm weak, and what's wrong with that? //

"Gods no. I think we've been very subtle over the past couple of days," Danta drawls, though from the toothy grin he's shooting at Astaroth he's well aware of the lie in his own words. The Maverick is leaning against the counter beside the plate of bacon, enjoying the heat beginning to spike through the air and the ripples of sunlight across the pool. Like his lover he's dressed like they're going to do things, in a pair of tight pants harlequin striped in shades of black and charcoal, and a gauzy crimson shirt with a plunging neckline.

Several delicate chains lay warm against his skin, and his hands - as usual - are bedecked with jewellery, though of course there's an addition now that he can't help but brush his fingers against like a habit. "Odds are good," he continues, smirking and peering at Asta over the top of his sunglasses, "that she knew on that very first night, based on what I was moaning and how loudly." And he isn't sorry for it either, no.

Dantalion

// boy oh boy I love it when I fall for that //

flora

Sunlight spills across the terrace in a warm, buttery wash, and Flora steps straight into it like it belongs to her, loose sundress whispering around her thighs as the sea breeze catches the hem and tries to steal it away. The coral stone is cool beneath her bare feet, the house humming behind her with that familiar, fond mischief. Oversized sunglasses hide her eyes, but not the smile already curving her mouth, all lazy confidence and beach-born ease, curls pinned up just enough to look intentional rather than defeated by the heat.

"UGH. I can't believe you two are leaving already," she wails, long and dramatic, one hand lifting to her chest as if this is a personal betrayal rather than an itinerary. "It feels like you just got here!" The words stretch as she crosses the space toward them, mock-offended and gleefully unconvincing, her bracelets chiming softly with each step. She huffs as she draws closer, the sound theatrical, practiced, and utterly useless at hiding her amusement.

She slows, tilting her head just so, mouth slipping into something sharper and sly. "Also," Flora adds lightly, sweetness edged with heat, "the spirits seemed to think you were talking about me." She pauses, perfectly timed, her grin turning downright fiendish beneath the dark lenses. "Which, you know, by all means, but you both know how nosy I am."

The sunglasses dip as she reaches them, revealing aqua eyes bright with sunshine and secrets she is deliberately not touching yet. She flashes a brilliant smile, all warmth and innocence, even as she cocks a hip and lets the moment stretch, letting them have it, letting them choose it. "Soooo?" Flora says at last, voice lilting, expectant, and entirely too pleased with herself.

The rumors are terrible and cruel
But honey, most of them are true

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// nothing is as simple, I worship, you're my temple //

“You can be a terrible liar at times, darling.” The butcher replies to Danta’s very poignant toothy grin. Regardless, he can’t help the low rumble of a laugh that leaves him, exasperated a touch more so when his lover continues and Asta ensures his sunglasses remain precisely pinned at the top of his head, nestled into dark hair smoothed back and antler-horns that glitter with their fire obsidian hues when he stands just right in the light. The very same that now dazzles on Danta’s finger. “Mm, I could not hear just how loud you were beneath all the blood in my ears.” He teases, his tail twisting again to smack playfully at Danta’s calf.

Saved by Flora’s interjection, though, the butcher turns already and flashes his too sharp smile at her. “I know.” He laments, matching Flora in the same amount of dramaticism he always loved to indulge in. “Alas we must go and fight a cockatrice so I may finally finish this quest.” He sighs, not at all mentioning how long it’s taken him between the high possessiveness of Leafchange last year, followed by the absolute killer of exhaustion that had lasted much of Deepfrost, and then Danta’s birthday in Flowrbirth.

Ahem, anyway. “All good things, Flora darling, never fear.” He chimes as his grin sharpens toward something equally as brilliant as Flora’s. The bacon is dropped back into the plate in perfect time for the butcher to snatch Danta’s hand and hold it into the light so that the ring can take in the same sunlight that his horns do, making it a perfect brilliant match. “He said yes.” He answers with a wink, awaiting the reaction with every inch of his ego held on a tightrope.

Astaroth

// and heaven, hold your gates open, all the hell we've been through //

// but i'm weak, and what's wrong with that? //

"Could you not?" Danta purrs, all innocent obliviousness. "I'll have to make sure I'm loud enough for you to hear next time." Smiling indulgently across at the butcher - and yes, already starting to undress him with his eyes - they are saved(?) by Flora's appearance, the Maverick brightening nevertheless as he turns to face her. "We will be back before you know it," he trills, matching her theatrics. "And if you miss us terribly, you could always come and pay us a visit."

His own tail lashes out to try and smack the back of Asta's legs as they chit-chat, and the thought of taking down a cockatrice is an exciting one, so he's a mix of disappointed and excited to have to leave the tropical isles behind. "We only ever say good things about you Flora," he adds, beaming, and as the butcher drops his bacon to the plate Danta is half reaching for it when his hand is promptly snatched up.

Both the Maverick and his limb are tugged forward into the sunlight under Asta's grip, Danta's sunglasses a bit askew as he glares at the other man. "He is attached to that," he reminds him, though the faint flush to his cheeks and the tips of his ears suggests he's not entirely upset at having their engagement shown off to the Doubletake.

Dantalion

// boy oh boy I love it when I fall for that //

flora

Flora freezes for precisely half a heartbeat, just long enough for the performance to land, and then she erupts. "Oh—oh my gods!!!!" she trills, the sound high and bright and entirely sincere despite her theatrics as she claps her hands together and actually bounces once on the balls of her feet, sundress fluttering with the movement. She dances in place without even pretending to contain herself, a fizzing little burst of joy that spills straight out of her chest and into the sunlit terrace. "You're engaged!"

She swoops forward before either of them can blink, sunglasses pushed up into her curls as both hands reach instinctively for Danta’s, her fingers warm and careful as she lifts his hand higher into the light, turning it this way and that with reverent fascination. Her breath leaves her in a dramatic gasp, eyes going wide as she drinks it in. "Asta," she breathes, scandalised and delighted in equal measure, "it's obscene. Look at the size of that. The design. The audacity." Her mouth curls into a grin that threatens to split her face. "Gods it's so perfect!"

She glances up at Danta then, expression softening into something fond and knowing and so full of love it could ache, her thumb giving his knuckles a gentle squeeze. "Of course you said yes," Flora says warmly, as if there had never been a universe in which the answer might have been anything else. Releasing his hand at last, she claps again, quick and bright, laughter threading through the sound as the house seems to hum along with her delight, a window somewhere swinging open to invite the sea breeze closer.

Reaching to drag a chair closer that the spirits are already shoving toward her, Flora turns to Asta, eyes sparkling. "Right, you are telling me everything. Start to finish. I want details. I want feelings. I want to know where you were standing and how dramatic Danta was when you asked."

The rumors are terrible and cruel
But honey, most of them are true

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// nothing is as simple, I worship, you're my temple //

He’d apologize for yanking Danta forward to show off the ring, but he can spy the faint flush to the Maverick’s cheeks and he knows deep down that he doesn’t mind that much. “He is, how lucky for me.” Asta trills playfully while their tails begin to battle a bit with the way the butcher’s ashen spaded tail tries to wrap around his fiance’s while Flora reacts.

And it’s absolutely everything he’d wanted it to be, to be honest. He hadn’t nailed down the design the last time they’d talked, but as she rushes forward and takes the Maverick’s hand from his own, Asta leans back on his elbows on the bar counter, watching like a satisfied feline at the reaction. “I know, right?” He says to all the gaudy, lovely compliments, unable to hide the bright grin from his face even if he tried to temper it.

And he does, try to temper it that is. He fails spectacularly as Flora and the spirits drag a chair over and Asta shifts enough to wrap his arm around Danta’s shoulder to tug him in and offer him the piece of bacon he’d been trying to snatch up beforehand. “I realized that perhaps waiting for the right moment was not going to happen, but I had already secured a reservation to celebrate it –” because yes, he’d also assumed Danta would say yes when making it. “– So I decided to partially ruin his vacation in making him dress up for the night.” With this, his head tilts toward the Maverick, his smile softening a touch. “I beckoned you over while you complained about how you had to wear real clothes on our otherwise lovely vacation. And I realized I needed to ask then in case you wished to change into something else or nothing.” He murmurs, his smile growing a touch softer as he focuses on Danta’s face, not sure what he thought in the moment with the silence that had spanned and made the butcher very nearly nauseous, so he hums a soft laugh and leans in to press a kiss to his temple.

“I do not think I was that nervous since.. the Sparkbird’s Nest, if I am being honest.” It felt like a dance, to prove to him that it wasn’t a golden cage he was trying to trap him into. But the butcher draws silent, quietly encouraging the Maverick to offer up what he had felt in the moment.

Astaroth

// and heaven, hold your gates open, all the hell we've been through //

// but i'm weak, and what's wrong with that? //

Flora all but detonates with excitement and Danta finds a laugh bubbling out of him despite himself. He's able to straighten up a bit at least now that he's been tugged into the light, and he surrenders his hand much more willingly to the Doubletake given that she'd not tried to dislocate his arm with the force of it. (Wouldn't be the first time, would it Asta).

"Of course I said yes," he agrees with Flora, his voice having dropped to something low and sincere and just for her; in truth, he imagines she'd known he would say yes even as far back as that fateful night in The Hanged Man, when he'd given that admission about Asta: he my... he's mine.

Exhaling a long breath and dropping back beneath the cradle of the butcher's arm while Flora and the spirits pull up a seat, he accepts the bacon as payment and munches on it thoughtfully as he listens. This is, after all, his first time as well hearing everything that had been going on in Asta's mind, his eyebrows raising in soft surprise.

"The Sparkbird's Nest is where Asta accidentally said too much too soon, once upon a time, and I was an idiot and almost jeopardised everything we had going for us," he explains for Flora's benefit, smilng apologetically to the other man.

"And I might have made him wait a bit too long for my answer, which probably didn't help the nerves. I just couldn't figure out what he was doing on one knee for an embarrassing amount of time." Laughing about it now, he shrugs sheepishly. "But I did say yes in the end, didn't I?"

Dantalion

// boy oh boy I love it when I fall for that //

flora

Flora exhales a long, dreamy sigh, nodding eagerly as if her whole body has agreed before her mouth ever could, hands clasped beneath her chin in a way that is absolutely theatrical and completely sincere. "So perfect," she a agrees, the words tumbling out in delighted affirmation rather, because of course this is how one is meant to respond to an engagement; full heart, no restraint, joy worn openly like jewellery.

A laugh slips out of her as Asta mentions the enforced wardrobe change, and she cuts a glance toward the Maverick, rolling her eyes with affectionate exaggeration. "Honestly," Flora says, voice pitched fond and teasing, "the suffering you endured. Real clothes. On vacation. Boohoo." Her smile curves sideways, before the mention of the Sparkbird’s Nest, has her brows lifting, curiosity sparking bright and unguarded before she turns her attention back to Danta as he fills in the missing pieces. "Ahhhh," Flora murmurs once it clicks, the sound long and pleased, followed swiftly by a laugh as she swings her gaze back to Asta, shaking her head. "Well," she adds lightly, eyes dancing, "Glad to see you two have finally worked out how to communicate your feelings to one another." There is nothing sharp in it, only fond ribbing, the kind reserved for people you trust not to bruise.

Flora visibly fights the urge to squeal again, pressing her lips together as if sheer willpower might hold it back, only for a delighted huff to escape her anyway as Danta explains being befuddled by Asta being down on one knee. "That," she declares, hand lifting to her chest as though she has been personally undone by the image, "is the most romantic thing I have ever heard." She sighs, openly, luxuriating in it, eyes soft and shining.

She straightens just slightly then, still glowing, still basking in their happiness, her voice tipping into something gentler and curious as she looks between them. "Soooooo, have you started thinking about wedding plans at all? Or are you still just..soaking in being freshly engaged?" Gods knew she and Kai were.

The rumors are terrible and cruel
But honey, most of them are true

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// nothing is as simple, I worship, you're my temple //

If Asta weren’t among friends and lovers, he might have hid the slight wince that creases in the crows feet at the corners of his eyes to hear Danta explain what had happened in the Sparkbird’s Nest. But he doesn’t have to, the wince paired with a slightly softer smile. “No, no, it was a combination of both of us.” He confirms, letting his smile twist toward that apologetic one as he catches the Maverick’s smile and gaze. Hearing Flora’s ribbing, he can’t help the laugh of agreement that leaves him – a lovely rumble of a thing that feels and sounds so carefree for once. “It is a never ending practice, no?” He comments, glancing over toward Flora with that smile that twists toward a smirk.

But he’s happy to shut up while Danta explains his side of the story – about how he hadn’t quite realized what he was doing and it suddenly makes so much sense to the butcher. Especially as he recalls the way Danta hadn’t initially said yes but told him to stand up. And he can’t help but to feel the sheepishness that builds within the Maverick, turning back to Flora and her happiness for them that only magnifies the fact he feels so warm and content and happy that he could very well be a solar flare at this point.

“Oh, gods no. Not yet, at least.” Glancing toward Danta as if he’s been caught out for not planning this part yet, it breaks in a warm chuckle and a shake of his head, his arm shifting from Danta’s shoulders to instead squeeze around his waist. “We are enjoying this part for now. There is no rush, is there darling?” That he knows of, at least, unaware of Kaisel and Flora’s current relationship status but knowing that Kai intended to ask Flora to marry him.

He’s a gentleman enough to not say anything close to alluding to the fact that he knows.

Astaroth

// and heaven, hold your gates open, all the hell we've been through //

// but i'm weak, and what's wrong with that? //

"Mm, I am glad someone appreciates my plight," Danta purrs. Never mind that a change of clothes doesn't make a difference to comfort in this sort of weather, not for Ancients - it had been the principle of the thing. But then the conversation turns back to proposals and faux pas, and he lets out an indulgent laugh as Asta insists on taking some of the blame for what had happened out in the Levinsward. "Luckily I quite enjoy practicing these days. It has gotten a lot easier," he agrees; case in point, they're able to discuss it right now with barely a shrug, not to mention the engagement ring glittering on his finger.

Flora's joy is contagious, the Maverick leaning more comfortably against the butcher's side as arm slips lower to curl around his waist, and he smirks sidelong at him. "I didn't appreciate it at the time, but it was very romantic of you," he admits.

But as for the wedding itself, he can only let out a low whistle and nod along with Asta's assumptions, feeling heat threatening in his cheeks to even consider the wedding itself. "No rush," he agrees. "Especially not right now. But rest assured when we know there's a celebration to be had, yours will be the first invitation that goes out."

Dantalion

// boy oh boy I love it when I fall for that //

flora

Flora’s eyes slide between the Ancients as they speak, bright and soft all at once, catching the way their memories overlap and settle together without effort, one recollection folding neatly into the next. There is something intoxicating about it, that seamlessness, and it makes her giddy in a way that lifts right up behind her ribs, the kind of feeling that almost—almost—tips her toward spilling a secret of her own. And she might have, if not for the fact that the moment felt so carefully lit, so perfectly theirs. So she keeps it tucked away, smiling instead, letting their joy stay untouched and unshadowed.

"Ugh," Flora sighs, tilting her head back in exaggerated surrender, the sound pure affection wrapped in dramatic misery. "You’re disgusting. Both of you." The grin that follows is immediate and unrepentant, her gaze snapping back to Danta at the mention of invitations. "And I should hope so," she adds, mock-stern and gleefully pleased.

Her smile sharpens then, turning playful and dangerous as she leans just a fraction closer, eyes glinting with mischief. "Now," Flora says lightly, already laughing as the thought strikes her, "important question." An intentional pause, perfectly timed. "Will there be karaoke at the wedding?"

The rumors are terrible and cruel
But honey, most of them are true

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

// nothing is as simple, I worship, you're my temple //

Slipping closer to Danta, Asta’s arm is warm where it settles around his lover’s waist, his tail curling around his leg now with the flat, ashen spaded tip pressed against his fiance’s calf. “Thank you.” He hums toward the Maverick with a softer, shark-tooth grin. As for the wedding itself and the mere shift in emotion that has him almost worried Danta would find it surprising he hadn’t planned further out, there’s relief as he poses the question back at him and finds agreement in the rich warm tones of his lover’s voice.

Letting his honeyed gaze flit back to Flora with the faux confidence that he now has that he and Danta are on the same page, he snorts. “Ah, but you love us, darling.” Asta trills, pushing forward that ego with a playful wink aimed her way even as she chastises Danta for the possible thought of not sending her an invitation first and foremost.

She leans closer, minutely but enough that Asta tracks it with ease, and his fingers tap light little movements against Danta’s hip as she asks a question that he hasn’t thought of at all, and he can’t help the bark of a warm laugh that leaves him as he sighs. “Well, I should hope so.” Grinning and turning his attention toward Danta, he waits for his input. That night with the karaoke machine was essentially the snowball that got all of this rolling into an avalanche. It only seemed fair to have it and the woman across from them be a part of it.

Astaroth

// and heaven, hold your gates open, all the hell we've been through //

// but i'm weak, and what's wrong with that? //

"Yeah, we are," Danta agrees with a ready grin and a laugh rumbling in his chest; he's more than willing to be disgusting alongside Asta, clearly. And as the butcher's fingers drum gently against him like a rhythm worked into his bones, the Maverick finds himself able to relax even into talk about weddings and celebrations, his smile tilting towards something more wicked as Flora continues.

"Hope doesn't come into it," he agrees with a scoff of laughter. "Obviously there will be. And I expect you to serenade us, Flora. You and Kai both - I don't think we've heard him sing, have we?" It's easy to mention the other man now with no bad blood (on Danta's part at least, he can't speak for the butcher at his side). Flora had said she'd speak to him and now he's too busy riding a high he doesn't want to come down from to care much either way.

Dantalion

// boy oh boy I love it when I fall for that //