Sing Along to this Post-Apocalyptic, Postmortem Love Song
Prologue: New New Seattle
The weight of the small box in his pocket was starting to become a familiar hindrance. It reminded him everyday for the past few months that he had yet to ask Peyton to marry him. Liv was also his daily reminder. Ravi sometimes regretted telling Liv that he was going to propose before he was ready to do.
Though...to be fair, he thought he was. As soon as he saw the London blue topaz ring, he knew he had to see it on her finger. The halo of diamonds surrounding the stormy opal-shaped gemstone screamed Peyton's name, and he couldn't wait for her to proudly show it off.
Until he looked into her dark green eyes, and he imagined them turning to concern and confusion when he popped the question. They had been doing so well in their relationship for about a year. Eleven months and thirteen days to be exact. Give or take a few hours (not that he was ever keeping count). Not that he could help himself either.
New Seattle was getting worse. The murder of Mama Leone set off a chain reaction that never seemed to stop. Liv took it upon herself to become the next Renegade and, as was suspected, she got those closest to her involved (unintentionally, of course). But Peyton quickly found out that Liv was making fake zombie IDs, and, though illegal, Peyton saw more good in Liv's cause than the opposing side, so became a double agent for both Renegade and Graves.
Ravi discovered this when he caught Peyton going through some of Major's Top Secret documents. She confided in him, and he told her that he was sticking by her side no matter what. Liv and Peyton were both putting themselves in serious danger, and he'd be damned if he didn't rise (or crash and burn) with them.
Major moved out when Chase Graves gave him access to more upscale living. It gave the rest of them the uneasy notion that Chase knew they were up to something, and didn't want Major exposed to their ideals. Major was on the opposing side of the war now, and they hardly made eye contact anymore, let alone exchanged words.
Possibly even more surprising was the allegiance of Blaine and Don E (among their other hooligan servants). Blaine hated both Chase Graves and his father, Angus, who was on yet another third opposing side. Rather than try to fight on a fourth (already losing) side, Blaine agreed to become The Supervisory Smuggler..
Of course, he endured a lot of heartache, specially from Liv. Blaine was, after all, the one who handed Mama over to Chase in the first place. The act quickly backfired on him when Chase did not continue to keep up his end of the deal, and Blaine was dealing with the zombie government on one side, and the zombie church on the other.
"Vigilante is the best option I have now."
It must have been hard having his closest teammates (Liv, Ravi, Peyton) hate him, but he seemed used to the treatment and paid his dues. He was almost working as a triple agent and, as far as the rest of them could tell within those long months, Blaine's main allegiance was with them.
So other than all the secrecy and danger, life went on as usual. Which sometimes led to ricochet brain. Ravi constantly pondered how the brain could handle such stress living multiple lives like this, but he found the harder he thought about it, the harder it was to comprehend. He found it best to just take each moment as it came.
And the moment to propose to Peyton was now.
She walked down the steps to the morgue, all bright eyes and smiles. Her heels clicked on the tiled floor, and Ravi swore they were ticks pounding against his heart as she got closer to him.
"Hey, baby," she greeted him. Normal, but his heart still did a backflip into his stomach. She draped her coat over the back of his desk chair before taking a seat like she belonged there. And he knew, as soon as she crossed her legs and leaned back with her elbow over the side, that she most certainly did belong right there.
The weight of the ring screamed in his head.
He cleared his throat, "Off work early today?"
"Slow day at the office," she said, which basically meant that no news on new zombie cases arose, "Figured we could run to the store and pick up some food for dinner tonight. Liv has been working really hard lately and I wanted to do something for her."
"That sounds great, actually," Ravi snapped his fingers as he went over to the mini fridge, "I know she must be getting hungry, so I saved her a brain that I don't think will have any harrowing side-effects." He was going to go on to say that the brains were from Missy Peterson, a pretty popular wedding planner, but the idea of even bringing up the word wedding made his throat tighten.
"Perfect!" She stood up suddenly, as if renewed from his agreement. She walked over to him, snaking her hands up his chest under his lab coat. Her eyes glinted with mischief, and Ravi didn't think he'd ever get used to her looking at him like that, "So we won't be having a candlelit dinner alone tonight, but we can put on some slow jazz while preparing it."
"You're going to distract me from the food then," he leaned his forehead against hers, and he laughed at her tiny shrug.
"A little distraction never hurt anyone."
As it turned out, Peyton was not his only distraction of the evening. He tried to ignore it, but as soon as the three of them sat down to eat, the gnocchi tasted bland to him and he had to grab the bottles of hot sauce and jalapenos next to Liv and dump them in his bowl.
Peyton rolled her eyes and grabbed his bowl before he could eat from it. She went to the stove and scooped up the contents from Liv's pot to mix with his. When she sat the bowl back in front of him, his eyes nearly watered with desire.
"Seriously, you need to stop ignoring it when it happens," Peyton chastised absently, though seeming to think nothing more of it.
Liv grinned at the two of them as she ate, "Hashtag: Married."
Ravi jumped at the word and dropped his fork on the floor. He glared across the table at his white-haired friend, but she kept her smug look as she held his gaze.
Peyton looked back and forth between the two of them, then placed another fork in front of Ravi, "More like hashtag: just eat the brains already so you don't become a stubborn five-year-old." Before Liv or Ravi could comment about the long hashtag, Peyton pointed her fork at Liv, "And you talking hashtag like that? You've been spending too much time with Blaine."
Liv nearly choked on her wine, "Did you hear about what happened?"
Now it was Ravi and Peyton's turn to stare at each other, as they tried to process what such a question could possibly mean.
"Blaine was trapped with a couple smuggled humans for the last few days," Liv took a large bite of her food before leaning forward with wide eyes, "Fillmore Graves caught wind of one of our entry points and had soldiers hanging around, but Blaine was able to get them off the trail and get the people to the safe house unharmed."
"Wow," Peyton commented simply, yet with actual surprise, "He really is improving himself."
"Please," Ravi rolled his eyes, "Blaine's only doing this for himself until it's convenient for him to go do his own thing again."
Liv narrowed her eyes, "Hey! He's out there risking himself for the cause right now. He could have easily sent someone lower on the scale to do it, but he knew the dangers of that area-."
"Then why didn't he change the route?" Ravi questioned.
"Because we couldn't set up new plans with the humans in that short of a time!" Liv countered, obviously getting a bit defensive, "Peyton relayed to me what she heard from Chase, and when I told Blaine, he took the mission. Said he had it under control."
"Okay, okay," Ravi held up his hands in defeat. Truth was, he thought what Blaine did sounded totally badass, but the last time Blaine changed for the good, Peyton had a brief fling with him and it was still a sore spot on his ego and heart.
They all looked down at their food as they ate in silence. The only other throwaway thing that was said during dinner was Liv mentioning how Levon was busy working with other smugglers on making the safe house more cozy.
After dinner, Liv offered to help clean up, but Peyton and Ravi dismissed her, telling her to wind down with some alone time since she deserved it. She didn't fight it, noticing that the two of them also wanted some alone time. She tried to make eye contact with Ravi to present the ring tonight, but he purposely avoided her gaze.
As Ravi was washing the silverware, Peyton wrapped her arms around his center from behind, "Tonight was wonderful…"
Ravi already heard the but in her sentence. And it didn't take a genius to guess what it was about. He turned off the stream of water and sighed, looking down at her hands, "I didn't mean to get jealous…"
"Hey," she turned him around so she could look up at him, "Don't apologize for how you feel, but don't be passive aggressive about it, okay?" She smiled, tiptoeing her fingers up his chest. But when she reached his face, she absently played with his beard, her expression becoming more serious, "You know I love you, right?"
He stared at her with the love of the world in his eyes.
"Even when your hair is turning white," her smile returned, and she ran her hands over the few pale streaks on top of his head.
He mimicked her smile this time, "Well at least I know you'll still love me when I'm old then."
"Of course I will. Always," Peyton pushed his head forward so she could reach him, pressing her lips to his in a chaste kiss. He wished nothing more than to swoop her up and carry her to the bedroom where he could show her how much he loved her, but it was that time of the month for him, so he had to restrain.
So instead he settled with cuddling with her on their bed, his arms wrapped protectively around her, his ticklish kisses on her neck sending them off to sleep in soft whispers.
But he couldn't have been asleep very long before his eyes popped open and he sat straight up in bed with images of a stormy grey and dark blue wedding clouding his mind. He pictured the lilac and soft pink accents in the flowers and invitations and on the men's ties and the sashes around the women's waists.
Ravi looked down at Peyton who was sound asleep, and he almost woke her to tell her all his ideas, but no!. No, he would try to make it as much of a surprise as he could. But he had to tell someone! He didn't want these ideas to leave, and he wondered if it was too late to call up some vendors to secure a good deal.
He threw the covers off himself and quietly rushed down the hall to Liv's room, thankful that he saw her light still on. He knocked a few times, peeking in to see her sitting on her bed staring at about ten open magazines.
"Liv? I had the best idea for-."
"The DJ for your wedding?" She interrupted, swooping up a clipboard and showing it to Ravi with an excited smile pulling at her lips, "I've already made a list of the best reviewed in town, now I just need to schedule an interview with each to see who would be the best fit."
Oh yeah. They had eaten the same brains of the poor wedding planner.
"Want to bounce some colors off each other?" He asked, stepping further into her room.
She patted the opposite end of her bed in invitation, "Tell me all your visions, Dr. Future Bridegroom Charles-Chakrabarti."
Ravi practically giggled as he bounced on her bed while snatching up a wedding magazine.