The apartment is dark, quiet. The only noise or light is coming from muffled dialogue from the TV across the room, Dolph barely paying it any mind as he watches Zack sleep. He looks so sweet while lost in rest, his eyelashes fluttering a little here and there, his lips parted as he breathes in and out. Their fingers are entangled and Dolph can barely believe how lucky he is to be here, after everything he's put Zack through over the years. But his luck had come to a crashing halt when he'd gotten fired, and now... now. Well.
Zack had said all of the right things, of course. That they'd be fine, that things would be tight for awhile, but that they'd make it. You deserve better, Dolph thinks, staring into his peaceful face. You deserve all of the things that I can't afford to give you... you deserve someone who doesn't flirt all of the time, you deserve someone with the means and financial comfortability to give you the wedding you deserve. His fingers rest against the cool band of the engagement ring entrapping Zack's finger and Dolph's eyes slip closed. You deserve better than me. He can't watch as he slips the ring off of Zack's knuckle, but then he hits some sort of a barricade and peeks just to find that Zack's curled his finger, stopping the ring from being pulled away.
"What the hell, bro?" Zack mumbles sleepily, turning to look at him incredulously. He pushes him away and puts the ring back where it belongs, frowning tiredly. "Are you stealing my ring, bro? Why?" He sounds teasing at first until Dolph's silence betrays him and Zack immediately sits up, his exhaustion quickly disappearing. "Bro. What the hell did you think you're doing?"
"I can't do this," Dolph sighs. "When I proposed to you, I was still a wrestler, I had prospects, I had... an income, now it's just... everything's messed up, and I refuse to put you in a situation where-" He's immediately shut up by Zack's hand, dark eyes glaring into his face with a sleepy kind of intensity that's as endearing as it is sobering. Equally as distressing is the cool metal biting into Dolph's skin, Zack's ring shaming him even further for what he had been trying to do.
"Shut up," Zack sighs. "Bro, come on. When you proposed, I hadn't been back in the ring yet and I wasn't fully sure my arm was going to be healed enough sufficiently that surgery wasn't going to be needed. We both have problems, and you never gave up on me despite that, so why would I give up on you?" He yawns and tugs Dolph closer, nuzzling into his neck. "You're stuck with me, for rich or for poor, in sickness and in health, no matter what comes."
Dolph tries to talk but Zack's hand is still there and the best he manages is a vague mumble, groaning as Zack wraps his free arm around him and presses his chest against Dolph's back, kissing his shoulder.
"I'll let you speak again," Zack promises him, breathing against his arm, "but you have to promise you're never going to try to take my ring off of my finger like that again. Ok, bro?" Dolph bites down a sob before nodding, struggling to promise through Zack's fingers, his blue eyes peering blankly at the wall across from them as Zack slowly eases his hand away. "Repeat that," Zack whispers, kissing his shoulder once more.
"I promise," Dolph exhales, closing his eyes and leaning back against Zack as he continues to work him over with kisses and soft scrapes of his teeth, soothing him with his tongue afterwards. Dolph's breathing starts to sound a little funny and Zack turns him around so they're face to face, cupping his face and kissing him carefully. "Thanks, kid," he mumbles, eyes shining suspiciously in the faint light from the TV.
Zack grins at him before easing him down against the pillows, moving to continue kissing him. "Any time, bro."
