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Buying wedding rings was tricky enough when it was your typical “hey let’s shack up and have two-point-five kids and a dog. Maybe a cat. How do you feel about hamsters” type proposition. For someone like you, who’d had the absolutely interesting fortune to land in a fourway clusterfuck of a thing of fucking glory, it was like musical chairs with gemstones and NumaNuma on repeat.
Rose’s usual bullshittery and passive-aggressive games might have to be ignored for this—unless that wasn’t what she wanted, and she wanted to ride the rocket sky high to infinity and beyond—unless that was what she wanted, and she wanted something that would symbolize what you thought of her, and–
Rose’s name moved to the bottom of your list. You weren’t exhausted enough to cut through her overly verbose psyche without getting involved and giving as good as you got, even with the sharpest of anime swords.
John’s next on the list (that’s a lie, but you need simple after thinking Rose), and he’s pretty damn easy to handle. Your more-than-best-bud has never really been ostentatious, in love, in life, in everything but pranking, and you’re fairly sure he’d want something plain and simple. The first jewelry story you go into has something in gold set with sapphires, and it looks like a Celtic Knot fought a class four hurricane and lost.
You’re fairly flush with cash, thanks to all of those shitty movies that the public somehow ate right up, but you’ve never really looked like the sort. That makes setting a brick of hundreds down in front of the guy behind the counter all the more satisfying, really.
Turns out the ring’s in John’s size, exactly, and you chalk it up to coincidence before telling Jeeves—no, really—to box that shit up.
Jade was fairly straightforward taste-wise, but the relevant logistics presented an impressive set of issues. An adventurer at heart, a scientist, a gardener, a musician, someone who definitely liked to get down and dirty–
–cold shower thoughts, cold shower thoughts–
–in other words, someone who probably wouldn’t be able to wear a ring for long without it getting lost or dirty or caught on some strange plant or wire she’d not yet trimmed down. Your best solution was getting her a ring that would look equally pretty on her finger and on the inevitable chain she’d wear it on.
The next two shops fail you—you’d promised yourself each ring would be from a different place the moment you looked around the one where you’d gotten John’s and found nothing suitable—but the third, one that looks like a cross between fae territory and an eclectic etsy shop, yields a silver ring that looks like a root. In fact, you’d first thought it to be a root, albeit one that had grown wrapped around a stick in the exact size of Jade’s finger, just a few times.
Even though it was perfect, you were still on the fence—then you’d tapped the ring, still thinking it over, and nearly dropped it at the clear, bell-like tone. Shit. Jade’s favorite note—you weren’t sure why she had a favorite note, but shitfuck, hearing it here made you guess—and, well.
You take it, and the shopkeeper, a wispy-sheer woman in a gauzy shawl waves you on your way.
Back to Rose. You want something that suits her, but nothing does. Finding her a gift has always been the hardest part of your shopping trips, regardless of what the season. Eventually, you’d fallen back on buying her yarn, while Jade and John snickered at your misfortune over their perfectly picked presents. In all fairness, you traveled so damn much that you got the best yarn. She’d even made you a sweater out of that one fluffy angora/alpaca blend.
So it was with great trepidation that you looked over the ring. The perfect ring. The ring that said exactly everything you wanted to say about her. The first ring you'd seen in the first store you'd gone to after buying Jade's. Holy shit.
You couldn’t decide if the opal was black or purple, but it contrasted the onyx-colored tendrils wrapping around and over it fucking perfectly. Beautiful, subtle, with the slightest hint of spooky. It even matched Rose’s eyes.
“This has to be too good to be true,” you muttered under your breath, and you thought you saw the clerk grin for a second. “...okay, this is some grade A spooky bullshittery.”
The clerk approaches you, a silk-lined box in hand. “Would you like that wrapped, sir?”
You run a hand through your hair, hardly caring that it’s mussed up the casual style even more than running around town all day could have. “You know what? Fine. If I’m going to be screwed with by some eldritch gods, then I might as fucking well get the perfect engagement ring out of it.”
“Very good, sir.” You think he’s being sarcastic. He’s certainly trying to hide a grin.
About two weeks later, John, Jade, and Rose set out on a shopping trip of their own. You’ve been banned from coming. Something about beating them to the punch in the last throwdown, but they don’t sound all that mad. You’re going to give the spooky shops the credit for that one, because they’re still a little wowed. Jade keeps toying with hers (she definitely liked the chain), and John’s refused to take his off. Rose had been speechless—and damn did you ever savor that moment.
They’re back in less than an hour.
“–and then,” Jade says, one hand planted squarely on John’s face as she takes control of the narrative, “we checked around the side, and there were some people having tea! The manager insisted that she wasn’t closed, though, and that we totally ought to come in and take a look.”
“So you went in?” you say, ignoring the growing trepidation all but thrumming through your bones.
“Well of course!”
Rose raises an eyebrow. “Are you getting superstitious on us, Dave, dear?”
John snorts, and you can feel the back of your neck burning. “You should’ve heard him when he first got back after his round of shopping. Going on about eldritch ring shop owners.”
“Look, Egbert–”
“David, I think I’m uniquely qualified to tell when something—or someone—is slanting eldritch.” Amusement quirks in her voice and expression, and you bite back a groan.”
“That’s besides the point, Rose.”
“–and anyway,” says Jade, her hand over your face this time, “we got you the perfect ring.”
You’re skeptical. They’re smug.
They’re right.
It’s all gears and clockwork, and when you hold it up to your ear, you can hear a faint ticking—Jade jokes that she should’ve gotten you one in three-four time, but you manage to mutter that this is better—and you finally stop worrying about deals with demons for perfect wedding-slash-engagement rings.
“–and you know, it was kind of funny! The guests at that tea party sort of looked like your descriptions of those shopkeepers, Dave!”
And there’s the worry.