Cupcake

"Jack! Jack, get in here! You gotta see these!" Alex called around a gasp, his jaw dropped and his wide eyes staring at the screen of his laptop in awe.

"What is it?" Jack inquired as he slowly slunk his way towards the room after grabbing his glasses, having only previously been napping in their bed just down the hall. Who the Hell did Alex think he was? Waking him up to show him fucking—

"You gotta see these candles!"

Candles. Jack was so very rudely woken up to be shown... candles.

"You're kidding me, right? This is just some kind of sick, twisted joke? You've actually got something really fuckin' awesome to show me, don't you? The Home Alone house better be on sale," Jack warned, but deep down he knew it was probably just candles. Alex did have something of an obsession with them. After all, no matter which room you went into, there was bound to be one burning.

It had all started when a fan had brought him a cinnamon roll scented candle to a meet and greet, and then he started getting them at all of the shows after sending a tweet saying how much he loved it, and then he'd find one that he'd like and just have to buy it... Jack had to send out a tweet requesting Alex stop being given them at shows or 'he's gonna burn the house down and we'll have to become hobos.' It had definitely slowed down the flow of the wax objects from the fans, but it didn't stop Alex.

When Jack had finally traipsed into the room with bleary eyes and an annoyed scowl, Alex was already staring up at him from the couch.

"Come on," the elder urged, gaze flicking from the half-asleep male and back to his computer, burning the tops of his thighs from having been sat there in that same position for so long.

Jack sighed but complied nonetheless. Before he could even throw himself on the seat next to his boyfriend, Alex was turning the computer to face him.

"Look at how cool these are!" he exclaimed, excited grin spreading across his face. Jack couldn't even find it in himself to be mad when the other man was giving him that look. The one with the twinkling brown eyes and the cute little dimples. Really, who could be mad at that?

Another sigh and then Jack was reaching out to pick up the computer to place it in his own lap. With a hiss from the initial heat that seared the exposed skin of his legs, Jack was studying the screen.

The homepage for something called Diamond Candles was staring up at him, but he didn't really understand what it was about. There were pictures of candles and women holding rings, but he didn't quite get how the two correlated. Then he read the description.

We are so glad you are here! If you don't know much about us yet we have real rings worth $10, $100, $1,000, or $5,000 in all our full-sized ring candles.

The combination of highly fragrant premium quality soy candles, an exciting and fun 'ring reveal' experience (what ring will you find?), and a ring to wear for months and years to come means making something as boring as burning candles in your home something to look forward to.

"Isn't that, like, the cutest idea ever?" Alex gushed, and Jack nodded tiredly whilst handing the computer back.

"Über cute, Lex," he agreed (tone sarcastic even with the amount of restraint he put into it) as he stood from the couch to stretch his still-stiff muscles out just a bit more. He figured there was really no point in going back to sleep anyway. "Just like you."

"Can I get one?" Alex asked, looking up at him curiously and more or less ignoring the compliment he'd been given.

"You earn all of your own money, cupcake. You can spend your own money however your little heart desires. If you want one, get one," Jack answered as he bent in over his boyfriend, left hand moving to cup the back of Alex's head and bring the slighter male closer to press a kiss to his hair-covered forehead.

Alex seemed on the fence about it as he bit his lip and continued to stare at the screen in deliberation. He hated making decisions—that was Jack's job, damn it.

"Well... I guess I don't need one," he finally decided, voice a tad bit glum, and Jack kind of wanted to tell him to get one anyway, but there were too many candles in the house at any given moment as it was. The last thing they could've possibly needed was more.

Instead of telling Alex to just buy a damn candle and stop pouting about it, Jack decided to distract him.

"How about we go out tonight? We haven't been to the Minato Sushi Bar in a while," he suggested, once again reaching his hand out to comb through Alex's hair.

The elder perked up right away, gaze darting to his boyfriend's. "Are you asking me out on a date, Mr. Barakat?" he inquired, quirking an eyebrow and letting his teeth press gently into his bottom lip for the second time in under two minutes. That time, however, it was to make himself seem a bit more innocent—something they both knew he wasn't; something they both knew he'd end up demonstrating if the night played out well enough.

Jack grinned and shrugged, answering, "Maybe if you dress up all sexy for me, we can call it a date."

The windows on Alex's laptop were closed before the device was shut, and then it was being shoved onto the couch cushion to its owner's left. "Shower with me first?" he pressed sweetly, stepping up to his boyfriend and ducking forward to nip at the younger's bottom lip, brown eyes so very convincing.

Jack couldn't say no (after instructing the elder to blow out every last burning candle in the house) and the thought of the ones with rings hidden inside was soon long forgotten.

------

It was only about a month later when Jack finally decided he wanted to marry Alex. He'd known he had for a while, but he just didn't know when. The only thing left, really, was the how.

Something different sounded fantastic, but he knew the elder really wouldn't want it too be too flashy or public. It couldn't be something that drew too much attention to the matter because Alex would probably become embarrassed or have an anxiety attack, and then that would do them no good. It just had to be... different.

He sat and puzzled it over for nearly two weeks before the candles with the rings inside popped up into his head. The website had said that some of the rings were priced to be worth thousands—some being the key word.

He was indecisive about it for another three days. What if the one he bought for Alex was too girly or cheap? What if Alex didn't like it? What if it didn't fit on Alex's ring finger?

Another week and a bit more research later—which told him that if there was a 14K symbol on the inside of the ring, it would be worth something, as well as the fact that they were all given out in the most popular ring sizes (which would maybe fit Alex if he was lucky enough)—and Jack took the leap of faith.

------

"Cupcake, come see what I got for you!" Jack called through the house after returning from getting the mail—being sure to open the box, take out the candle, peel off the label, and then dispose of the evidence to his best abilities—one Thursday afternoon.

Alex made his way into the room quickly, brown eyes wide and curious, and he grinned when he saw the tall, thin, pale, sand-colored candle his boyfriend was holding out to him.

"You got me a candle?" he inquired as he stepped closer, reaching out to take it with faux suspicion. "What's the occasion?"

"I saw it when I was out earlier, and it reminded me of you," Jack explained, having to think up a decent-enough lie on-the-spot.

"I remind you of extreme paleness?"

"Yes. Well, no, that's not what I meant. You have to actually smell it to understand why it made me think of you. I took the label off—I want you to guess what it is," the taller declared with a smile, and Alex gave him a quick once over before uncapping the jar and holding it up to smell.

"It's kinda sweet," he noted after a moment. "Kinda like dough... or maybe batter, and there's something else. Like..." Alex tapered out slowly, his small smile splitting into a full grin. His dimples made deep indents in his cheeks, and Jack knew that even if Alex didn't actually care for the ring buried deep in the cool wax, he'd still made a damn good decision. "You bought me a cupcake candle?"

"It's just, I don't know. I figured since I've, like, always called you that, and you've never had one... that I can remember, at least... that it'd be a cute idea, a—"

"It is," Alex assured, stepping forward to wrap his arms tightly around Jack's neck in the younger's favorite kind of hug. He didn't even care that the glass jar knocked against his left shoulder blade because all of Alex's body was pressed up against him in such an innocent way that it made his heart flutter. "Thank you so much. Really, I love it. I'm gonna go light it right now."

With a quick kiss, Alex was turning to practically skip into the kitchen to grab a lighter. Jack followed behind and watched from where he leaned himself against the doorway as the wick was lit. Alex, once again, held it up to his face to smell the sweet fragrance, and then he set it on the counter. Moving back to Jack, Alex resumed their previous hug.

"Thank you," he mumbled, tilting his head to kiss Jack's neck softly. "I love you."

"I love you, too, cupcake."

------

Days passed with Alex burning the candle. He'd even stopped burning the others, instead taking it upon himself to move the cupcake scented one to whichever room he was in at any particular moment.

Jack was getting pretty damn impatient. The website had said it would take anywhere between ten to fifteen hours for the ring to appear, and it'd been going on, like, a hundred. Or maybe it'd only actually been about seventeen, but God damn it, that was his proposal and having to wait to possibly get rejected was pretty fucking overwhelming.

It was finally on the eighteenth hour that Alex was calling his name.

"What's up, cupcake?" he asked as he walked into the kitchen, heart hammering in his chest so hard he could hear it in his ears.

"There's something in my candle," Alex said with a frown, gaze moving between a little ball made of gold foil and his younger boyfriend's surprised expression.

"What is it?" Jack asked, stepping closer to get his own look.

"I don't know," Alex answered solemnly, leaning into the taller male. "Get it out for me?"

Jack mock sighed before moving to grab a spoon from their silverware drawer. After scooping out the shiny object, he waved it around and blew on it to let the wax cool. "Do you wanna open it?" he asked, pushing the spoon in his (hopefully) soon-to-be fiancé's direction.

Alex seemed hesitant, but his curiosity got the best of him as he reached out to pick it up from the curved silver. Nimble fingers pulled apart the wax-covered foil to reveal a bag with a diamond ring inside.

"What's this?" he asked, not truly being able to piece together what was happening, and Jack plucked it from where it had come to rest in the center of his boyfriend's palm.

Without saying a word, Jack peeled the bag open and dumped the ring out, glancing at the inside band to see if there was a '14K' symbol hidden inside. There wasn't, and his heart sank.

"I was, uh..." he started, momentarily looking up at Alex through the hair covering his face before he continued to gaze down at the ring. "I was gonna propose with this," he explained. "I wanted to do something different, and I figured you'd appreciate it, but, um... it's not, uh... it's worth, like, ten bucks."

He felt a little embarrassed about the ordeal, and he really just wanted to melt through the ground. If he were made of wax, the blush covering his cheeks would've at least melted holes right through his face.

"You're proposing?" Alex inquired after a few silent moments, voice sounding fairly weak. "Like... like, you're asking me to marry you? With, like... a wedding and vows and shit?"

"Yeah."

More silence resumed among the couple, and then Alex's hand was in Jack's line of sight, shakily lifting up the cheap ring once more. "You bought me a candle with a ring in it to propose to me?"

Jack couldn't even give a verbal answer that time, and instead nodded, only once and barely at all.

He was just waiting. Waiting to be told how stupid that was; how ridiculous; how cheap.

Then, Alex was wrapping his strong arms around Jack's neck, pulling their bodies together tightly. "Of course I'll marry you, idiot."

"But it's only a cheap ring that's probably too sm—"

"I don't care," Alex said around a laugh, ducking in to press his forehead against his fiancé's so that they were properly looking in each other's eyes. "That's, like, the sweetest thing you've ever done for me. I love it, and I love you. Besides, if it's too small, I'll wear it on a necklace or something. Don't worry about it." Just as Jack was about to return the sentiment, kiss his fiancé like it'd be the last time they'd be able to, Alex was continuing on to say, "And maybe as a wedding gift, you could just buy me a few more."

A laugh was all the younger could give in response, but he decided that'd be a pretty good idea. If higher odds of their house burning to the ground in exchange for some cheap rings made Alex happy, then God damn it, he'd buy a thousand candles.