Dean let out a laugh, his purple eyes warm and shining with tears he did not want to let spill. "Let me go see my parents before I make yet another bad decision for my back."
Arion did not let go immediately. Instead, he lifted Dean's hand and pressed a brief, firm kiss to the knuckles just above the new weight of the platinum. The gesture was uncharacteristically tender, and Dean, already compromised by sore muscles, poor judgment, and an engagement ring that felt far too right on his hand, had the deeply inconvenient thought that perhaps the soreness was not that bad after all.
"Go," Arion said, his voice dropping to that low, resonant frequency Dean felt in his marrow. "Before I decide your parents can wait another day."
Dean stared at him for one long, incredulous second.
There it was again.
The pattern.
