Chapter Text
The wedding officially transpired exactly six months after the initial, bureaucratic launch of the fake relationship.
Logan had officially logged his thoughts on the matter, calling the compressed timeline “statistically concerning and highly volatile.” Patton, predictably, had wiped a tear from his cheek and declared it “the most beautiful, romantic whirlwind in human history.” Virgil maintained that it was simply a legal record of how bad decisions systematically yielded permanent consequences. Roman called it destiny.
Nobody listened to Roman.
Mostly because Roman was currently standing directly in front of the full-length dressing mirror, meticulously fixing the silk knot of his tie while humming a dramatic, sweeping Broadway showtune at a deafening volume.
Virgil stood by the coat rack, his arms tightly crossed over his chest, and privately regretted every single choice that had led him to this room. Not the actual marriage—never the marriage itself—just Roman. As an entire, exhausting structural concept.
“You’re staring, darling,” Roman murmured, his eyes locking onto Virgil's reflection in the glass without missing a single beat of his tune.
Virgil looked away immediately, fixing his gaze on a highly interesting piece of baseboard molding. “I’m not.”
Roman’s lips curled into a smug, sharp smile. “You absolutely are. It's a recorded fact.”
Virgil tightened his arms, defensive protocols deploying automatically. “It’s not staring. It’s security surveillance. I'm assessing a potential threat matrix.”
“Sounds incredibly possessive.”
“Your diagnosis is entirely incorrect.”
Roman ignored the jab, turning slightly to adjust the crisp white cuffs of his shirt. The heavy silver band caught the bright dressing room lights, gleaming sharply against his skin. Still wearing the ring. Always wearing the ring.
Virgil’s ring. Roman’s ring. Their collective, beautiful ring. Virgil still hadn't fully unraveled the philosophical semantics of that piece of metal, and at this point, he was comfortable letting it rest.
Roman turned around completely, his smile dropping its sharp, teasing edge and softening into something small, quiet, and entirely real. He stepped closer, his eyes scanning Virgil’s tense posture.
“You okay?”
The question landed with a soft, grounded weight. It wasn't the performative softness of their fake relationship era, nor was it the frantic, electric softness of the engagement chaos. It was just Roman. Unshielded and honest.
Virgil gave a single, rigid nod. “Yeah.”
Roman didn't move, waiting out the defense mechanism with practiced patience.
Virgil let out a long, defeated sigh, his shoulders slumping. “Terrified. I'm absolutely terrified.”
Roman let out a bright, melodic laugh. “Good.”
Virgil’s brow furrowed, looking profoundly offended. “How is that a positive metric?”
Roman took one final step forward, closing the space until the familiar warmth of his presence settled over Virgil like a blanket. “It means you care, Virgil. If you weren't terrified, I’d think you were planning to flee through the bathroom window.”
Virgil hated with a burning passion how consistently right the man was getting.
A sharp, enthusiastic knock rattled the dressing room door, and Patton burst inside before either of them could answer. He froze instantly on the threshold, his hands clapping over his mouth as his eyes darted between them. “Oh no.”
Virgil’s expression flattened into a defensive frown. “What? Is something wrong with the suit?”
“You look absolutely beautiful,” Patton gasped, his voice already hitching.
Virgil looked personally attacked by the compliment, shifting uncomfortably in his collar. Roman, conversely, looked utterly delighted, throwing his shoulders back. Patton was already openly crying, his eyes welling with thick, emotional tears. Naturally. It was barely two o'clock in the afternoon.
Logan appeared in the doorway directly behind him, holding a pristine clipboard. He took one long, analytical look at the two of them, reached up with his index finger to adjust the bridge of his glasses, and offered a single nod. “Acceptable. The tailoring complies with standard formal protocol.”
Silence fell over the dressing room. Virgil stared blankly. Roman stared blankly.
Patton whirled around, looking completely horrified. “LOGAN!”
Logan’s brow furrowed in genuine, analytical confusion. “What? The statement was intended as a definitive positive metric.”
Patton was already too emotional to unpack the linguistic nuances of Logan's vocabulary, waving a tissue wildly in the air. Virgil decided it was safest not to intervene in their ecosystem. Roman was laughing again beside him—the absolute traitor.
— ✦ —
The actual ceremony passed by in a strange, hyper-saturated blur.
It wasn't because the event was bad; rather, it was because Virgil found himself physically unable to register anything other than the single focal point at the end of the aisle. Roman.
Roman smiling brightly through a sheen of nervous sweat. Roman standing tall but trembling slightly around the edges. Roman carefully pretending not to be completely overwhelmed by the gravity of the room. Roman’s hand reaching out automatically, instinctively finding Virgil’s fingers the exact second they were close enough to touch.
Roman. Always Roman.
Then came the vows.
The moment the officiant cleared her throat, Virgil immediately experienced a profound, primitive urge to sprint directly out the emergency exit. Roman, conversely, looked absolutely thrilled by the impending emotional exposure. A literal monster.
The officiant offered them a warm, encouraging smile. Roman went first, of course. He was a creature designed for the spotlight, but as he turned to face Virgil fully, the theatricality drained out of his posture entirely. No jokes. No defensive performance. Just raw, terrifying honesty.
“I used to think that loving you was something that happened gradually, Virgil,” Roman said, his voice steady but incredibly soft.
Virgil forgot how the basic mechanics of respiration worked.
Roman smiled, a faint, vulnerable curve of his lips. “I was entirely wrong. It didn't happen along a linear timeline. It happened in distinct, chaotic pieces.”
Silence held the chapel.
“The specific way you brew coffee when you think I'm asleep. The movie nights where you pretend to hate my commentary. The layout of our apartment. The ring,” Roman listed, his eyes fixed dead-on. “Every single terrible, spontaneous decision we made together. And through all of it... you stayed.”
His smile wavered.
“And eventually, I realized that wasn't the remarkable part.”
Virgil's breath caught.
“The remarkable part was that I stayed too. For years, I thought love was supposed to feel dramatic. Grand declarations. Sweeping gestures. The sort of thing they write musicals about. But loving you never felt like standing at the edge of a cliff. It felt like coming home. You became my favorite habit before I realized you were the love of my life."
Roman squeezed Virgil's hands.
“So I can't promise that every day will be perfect.”
A few knowing laughs echoed through the chapel.
“But I can promise this.”
His voice steadied.
“No matter how chaotic, ridiculous, or unexpected our story becomes next, I will keep choosing it.”
Roman smiled then, small and impossibly fond.
“And more importantly—I will keep choosing you.”
Virgil felt a sudden, violent burn behind his eyelids. The crowded room behind them seemed to vanish entirely, leaving nothing but the two of them on the altar.
Silence. Virgil felt himself breaking down completely, the last of his carefully constructed walls crumbling into dust. Virgil looked down at his own shoes immediately. A total coward until the bitter end. But Roman still saw the reaction; he always did.
Then came Virgil’s turn. It was terrible. Awful. Formally illegal in several states, in his personal opinion.
He lifted his head, making the catastrophic mistake of looking directly into Roman’s bright, waiting eyes. Once he locked on, there was no pulling away.
“You were supposed to say no, Roman,” Virgil said, his voice raspy.
An instant, heavy silence descended over the pews. Roman blinked, utterly caught off guard. Out of the corner of his eye, Virgil could see Patton completely stop breathing.
“At the restaurant,” Virgil clarified. His voice grew steadier as he forced himself to drive forward, straight into the vulnerability of it. “When I shoved that ridiculous silver ring at you to prove a point. You were supposed to call my bluff and say no.”
A small, knowing smile tugged at the corner of Roman’s mouth.
“But you didn't,” Virgil whispered. “You put it on your finger and said yes.”
His throat tightened, the words crowding in his chest. “And then everything got complicated.”
A few soft laughs rippled through the chapel, breaking the tension.
“The logistics got out of hand," Virgil continued. "We spent an alarming amount of time making terrible decisions and calling them plans, and somewhere along the way, I started believing that if things ever got hard enough, that would be it."
Virgil swallowed hard, fighting past the lump in his throat. "That we'd finally reach the point where one of us would decide this wasn't worth it anymore."
Roman was already crying, tears glistening in the chapel light.
"But that's not what happened. Things got hard. We got scared. We got things wrong." Virgil's voice softened, losing its defensive edge. "And somehow, we still found our way back here."
A breathless, self-deprecating laugh escaped him. “I think the truth is I loved you long before my brain figured out how to perfect your ridiculously complicated coffee order. I just didn't know what to call the panic.”
This time, the room laughed gently with him, the warmth in the air palpable.
Virgil squeezed Roman's hands, anchoring himself. “So... thanks.”
Roman blinked, a single tear finally escaping his lashes and tracking down his cheek. “For what?”
Virgil's smile widened, just a fraction, fond and relieved. “For being too stubborn to give the ring back.”
Roman broke completely, a breathless laugh escaping him. In the front row, Patton absolutely disintegrated into loud, uncharacteristic sobbing, while Logan looked suspiciously focused on the structural integrity of his hymnal, his eyes blinking at a rapid, defensive frequency. He would firmly deny the emotional response during the reception.
The kiss happened exactly on cue. Virgil internally blamed Roman’s theatrical timing for the intensity of it. Roman blamed destiny. The correct, permanent answer remained Roman.
— ✦ —
The reception arrived in a flurry of clinking glasses and terrible dance music. Patton managed to cry through approximately eighty-four percent of the dinner service, a feat Logan had seemingly accepted as an immutable natural law of the universe.
Then came the speeches.
Roman stood up from the head table, tapping a silver spoon against his champagne flute.
“Before we wrap up the formal remarks,” Roman announced, his voice carrying effortlessly across the banquet hall, “Virgil and I would like to extend a very specific, personal thank you to Logan and Patton.”
Virgil immediately distrusted the specific, dangerous tilt of his husband’s smile.
Patton instantly clasped his hands together against his chin, his face glowing with pure delight. Roman continued, his grin widening. “None of this would have transpired without their tireless, unrelenting efforts over the last year.”
While Patton looked ecstatic, Logan looked increasingly concerned.
Roman turned fully toward their table. “You were both spectacularly committed to finding us romantic partners.”
“We were!” Patton beamed.
“You were,” Virgil agreed, leaning into the microphone. “Constantly.”
“Relentlessly,” Roman added.
“There were spreadsheets.”
“There were calendars.”
“There were follow-up surveys.” Roman leveled a finger at them. “But the absolute truth of the matter is... you guys were completely, systematically terrible at matchmaking.”
Silence slammed into the banquet hall. Patton blinked, his hands freezing mid-air.
Virgil let out a sudden, loud laugh, unable to contain it any longer. It was entirely too late to stop this train now, so he might as well enjoy the ride.
Roman pressed on, entirely unfazed. “Eventually, after a particularly disastrous week of blind dates, Virgil and I reached a mutual conclusion.”
Virgil nodded solemnly. “We were tired.”
“Exhausted.”
“At risk of being introduced to even more strangers.”
Patton gasped, clutching his chest. “You liked some of the strangers!”
“That is not the point, Patton,” Virgil shot back mildly.
Roman pointed dramatically. “The point is that we devised a solution.”
“A temporary solution.”
“A very simple solution.”
Patton narrowed his eyes, finally sensing the trap. “Oh no.”
Roman smiled. “Oh yes.”
Virgil sighed, taking over the mic. “The plan was to fake date each other.”
The room went dead silent.
“Just for a few weeks,” Roman clarified.
“A couple of months, maybe,” Virgil added. “Long enough for Logan and Patton to stop setting us up.”
“And then we'd break up.” Roman nodded, mapping out the old logic. “Amicably.”
“Remain friends.”
“Never tell anyone.”
“Problem solved.”
Logan blinked. Patton blinked. The entire head table sat frozen.
Roman spread his hands wide. “In retrospect, there may have been a few flaws in the plan.”
Virgil laughed, shaking his head. “One or two.”
“Several hundred,” Roman corrected thoughtfully. “The proposal was probably a turning point.”
Virgil immediately pointed an accusing finger at him. “You said yes!”
“You gave me your ring."
“And you wore it.”
Roman paused. Virgil paused. They stared at each other for a second, the ridiculousness of their own history hitting them all over again.
“The point is,” Roman continued, turning his attention back to a shell-shocked Logan and Patton, “what started as an elaborate attempt to avoid being set up on dates eventually escalated into...” He glanced at Virgil, his theatrical bravado softening into something incredibly genuine.
Virgil glanced back, his own smile breaking through.
“This,” Roman finished softly.
Logan stared, his brain seemingly short-circuiting. Patton looked seconds away from actual combustion.
Virgil shrugged, looking out at their guests. “To be fair, we genuinely thought it was a good idea at the time.”
“It was not,” Roman agreed.
“No.”
“Not even slightly.”
“And yet,” Roman said, his voice dropping into that familiar, fond warmth as he intertwined his fingers with Virgil's, “here we are.”
Patton was crying openly again within thirty seconds. Naturally.
— ✦ —
Later—much, much later into the evening—the wedding finally came to a close.
The guests had dispersed into the night, the noise had faded, and the familiar, heavy silence of the city returned to wrap around them. Home.
Their actual apartment. The same worn gray couch. The same narrow kitchen counter. The exact same bad movie nights waiting for them on the television shelf.
Roman sat down heavily beside him on the cushions, his formal jacket already discarded over the armrest. He moved close, his shoulder pressing against Virgil’s with that easy, real familiarity that had long since stopped causing a panic response.
Virgil looked down at his own hand. The silver ring caught the ambient light from the streetlamp outside the window.
Roman noticed the movement immediately. “You’re staring again, husband.”
“I’m not,” Virgil muttered automatically.
“Liar.”
Virgil didn't argue the point. Instead, he reached out and took Roman’s right hand, his fingers slotting perfectly into the spaces between Roman's. Roman went entirely quiet, his teasing posture softening instantly as he watched Virgil’s face.
Virgil looked at the silver bands. Their disaster. Their accidental beginning. Their permanent everything.
“We’re surprisingly good at this,” Virgil murmured into the quiet room.
Roman smiled softly, his thumb tracing a slow circle against Virgil’s wrist. “Yeah?”
Virgil turned his head, looking directly into the depth of Roman’s eyes. No fear left in the corners. No performative armor. No fake timelines. Just the truth. “Yeah.”
Roman kissed him, slow and deep in the quiet of their living room. Virgil internally blamed Roman for the structural breakdown of his defenses, which was entirely correct.
Across the room, sitting squarely on the edge of the kitchen counter—exactly where it had remained through every single breakup negotiation and confession—sat the old leather notebook. Worn, slightly stained with coffee rings, and utterly ridiculous.
The very first page still held that aggressive, handwritten heading from six months ago:
PROJECT: STOP THE BLIND DATES
The final page of the notebook contained only a single, messy line of text, scribbled down sometime during the chaotic blur of the final weeks. Neither of them could ever quite remember who had picked up the pen to write it. Perhaps both of them had held it together.
Mission failed successfully.