Chapter 85

73 4 3
                                    

When you turn the corner of the Manor and look up at Alex's window, you halt in your steps. With an eyebrow raised, you duck down below the line of sight from the windows and keep steadily making your way to the tree right in front of Alex's window.

Alex is sitting on his window ledge, dangling his feet and looking down at you. He releases his hand from the edge of the windowsill to grant you a tiny wave, a small smile playing on his lips. He quickly grabs the ledge again, watching you as you look into the first-floor window. Positive that nobody can see you, you haul yourself onto the nearest branch and keep making your way up.

"Hello, you," You mumble, keeping your voice down when you're on a branch a little way down from his window. His smile grows and he bites down on his lip to try and hide it, which only makes you grin as you lift onto the last branch and sit on it.

"I have an idea," Alex says hesitantly, and you raise an eyebrow and lean forward.

"Oh, do tell."

"It's breaking a lot of rules. We'll probably get in trouble."

"That makes it all the better, dear." He raises a suspicious eyebrow but rolls his eyes and swings around to stand on his floor. He helps you into his window and you bounce on the heels of your feet as he walks to one of his dressers. He opens a small drawer and removes several quills and inkwells, then lifts a piece of wood from the bottom of the drawer.

"Oh, I forgot we had the fake bottom in there!" He nods to let you know he heard you, carefully lifting something in a white silk bag out of the drawer and heading over to his bed.

"Nobody will come here for at least 4 hours, so we have time. I..." He clears his throat.

"I may or may not have gone into town a few nights ago." You raise an eyebrow because the town is several miles away and usually he has you bribe Rick to use a horse or something instead of walking. You nod and gesture for him to keep going.

"I found something really cool. You know how your sister got that tattoo the other month?" Your mouth falls open. "Alicia is 22, Alex."

"I know. Which is why I said we would probably get in trouble. But I have some things we can do it with, and I know that you said you didn't like rings a lot. And the whole thing about being serious to propose when I turn 18, so," He clears his throat again and dumps the contents of the silk bag out on the carpet. Some ink and several needles, as well as some type of disinfectant. You pick up the ink.

"This must have been expensive," You murmur.

"It would have been. I stole it."

You gape at him.

"By yourself. You stole this by yourself."

"Yes." He confirms.

You grin, leaning forward to tackle him in a hug.

You squish his face with your hands and pepper kisses all over it. "Oh, wow, I'm so proud of you. You're growing up." He swats you away and then shoves you off of him, and you try and keep your laughter down as you dramatically wipe a fake tear from your eye. "You're learning, my love, learning. I'm so proud."

He stares at you blankly.

"So what does this have to do with proposing?"

His eyes light up. "Oh, right. Well, I was thinking that instead of matching wedding bands, we could do a tattoo instead. But on our pinky." He looks off to the side, not meeting your eye. You grin anyway. "A pinky promise." You murmur, looking down at his pale hands. His fingers fidget with one another and he finally looks at you, cheeks dusted pink in the moonlight.

"Yes." He confirms.

"Let's do it then! Give me your hand."

He complies. "If I die of infection, I will haunt you forever." You grin and use the disinfectant on the silk bag, rubbing his pinky. You grab one of the needles and open the ink, dipping the needle in and positioning it over his pinky.

"What should I put?" You look up to see him frowning.

"Whatever you want."

"It's gonna hurt, you know."

"You'll be doing it too. We can suffer together."

"Good point. Alright," You look down again and start working on writing the word you want around his pinky, in the space just above his knuckle. His hand only jerks a couple of times as you poke each letter carefully in silence, and you can feel him watching you.

"This is a much better idea than rings. Don't look!" You move forward and slap your hand over his eyes so he can't see his hand. "Do me first, then we can look at the same time." He sighs, but obliges, putting his pinky underneath your hand as he works so he can't see it.

You grin the entire time, and when he's finished your face hurts from doing it so much, despite how badly it's throbbing or how many times you've jerked away when he hit a certain spot.

"Finished. Can I look now?" Alex asks as soon as he puts the items down. You nod, lifting your own pinky to look at the words. You let out an unattractive snort, face flushing.

"PROMISE" is written around your pinky, as well as his.

"I feel like this is way too similar to be a coincidence," Alex says from in front of you. You look up at him to see him still looking down at his pinky.

You sit in silence for a moment, before looking down at your supplies. "We have to get rid of the evidence. I'll bury it when I leave." You decide, dumping them all in the bag after closing the ink. Alex nods and helps you.

When the bag is tied and in your lap, you hold his pinky in yours to see how it looks. The word on his pinky is in messy and uneven capital letters, while yours is in much neater and tighter capital letters. It looks nice and makes you feel fuzzy inside.

You both jolt when you hear footsteps up the stairs, and without speaking you both scramble to your feet as you stuff the bag in your pocket and head toward the window.

Alex kisses your forehead before he closes the window, per routine, and you watch as he gets into bed and faces away from the door to make it look like he's asleep. You manage to get on the branch below his window just in time to see the handle of the door click open, but you manage to duck down unseen.

You stare at your sore pinky, completely aware how much everyone is probably going to either lose their shit or not care at all, but grin as you keep climbing down nonetheless.

Brook X GN Reader || I'm The Grim ReaperWhere stories live. Discover now