Work Text:
February:
Nile puts the finishing touches on her makeup in the aged vanity mirror. Andy appears over her shoulder, resplendent in a navy blue suit. Quyhn is behind her in a coordinating blue dress, arms full of flowers.
"It's not too late, you know. I can knock him out, and we'll go to the Seychelles," Andy suggests.
Nile laughs.
"I'm not going to run, Andy. I'm going to marry Booker. After our honeymoon, I'm more than happy to go with you to the Seychelles."
Quyhn turns her around and tucks daffodils and hellebore into Nile's elaborate braid crown-halo.
"Perfect." Quyhn kisses her forehead, careful not to smudge. "Andromache?"
Andy hands a brooch from her inner jacket pocket, and Quyhn carefully pins it to Nile's lapel.
"Something old, borrowed, and blue, all at once," Quyhn says, seeming proud. She's been researching modern weddings for months.
Nile turns around to look in the mirror. The sapphire brooch stands out against her caped ivory suit jacket.
"I love it. Thank you. Both of you." Nile hugs them both in turn, and Quyhn pronounces her ready.
"I'll tell the boys that we're on schedule," Quyhn says with one last look in the mirror.
"I need to check on Book," Andy says. "Ten minutes?"
Nile grins. "Ten minutes."
...
"Ten minute warning, Book." Andy knocks on the study door and walks straight in. "Cold feet?"
"Never." Booker smiles. "You look handsome, Andromache."
Andy does a sarcastic twirl to show off her navy double-breasted suit. When she lands in front of Booker, she fixes his tie.
"You look pretty damn handsome yourself, Book." Andy smooths his lapels. "You ready for this?"
"Are we really about to talk emotions, Boss?" Booker asks, eyebrows raised. "Neither of us are good at it."
"Yes or no question, Sébastien. Are you?"
Booker smiles, already teary around the edges.
"I've never been more ready for anything in my life." Booker checks that his vows are in his pocket, just in case he panics and forgets. "I cannot wait to marry her."
"You won't have to wait long." Andy fondly squeezes the back of his neck. "Let's go get your girl, hm?"
Nicky is already waiting out on the rock he's claimed as an altar. He found his priest collar from a brief stint of undercover clergy work in the fifties, so he looks every bit the part.
Booker takes his place, Andy at his side. Copley hits play on Nile's ancient iPod, and music fills the tiny cove.
Quyhn walks down from the house, followed by Copley with the rings and the portable speaker. Joe makes a dramatic entrance, scattering petals over the sand.
There has never been a more beautiful being than Nile, Booker is convinced. She looks like a goddess, and he is but a mere mortal who is blessed to worship at her altar.
Nile holds out her hand the moment she's close enough, and Booker takes it.
"We good?" She asks softly.
"Never better."
"Welcome, family, to the union of Sébastien la Livre and Nile Freeman," Nicky begins. "In lives such as ours, it is rare to find a true partner with whom to spend it."
Booker can tell he's already crying. Nile smiles and squeezes his hand.
"In one of many translations of the Bible, Adam says 'This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.' Booker, my brother, I am grateful to bear witness your 'at last' moment. Genesis says marriage is becoming one flesh, cleaving to one another. Legal marriage is fleeting, as humanity is fleeting, but you are as one soul." Nicky smiles, emotion welling up in his voice. "I will not bore you with overlong homilies. Instead, I will give you the best advice I have to offer."
Nicky looks over at Joe, and Joe winks.
"There will be times that love is not easy. Times that change rushes in and shifts your dynamic. The best thing you can do is learn to grow together, to weather the storms together, and to take time apart when you need to. Bring any problems out into the air to heal. Hidden wounds fester. And always have each other's backs, no matter what."
Andy is next to speak. She refused to write her own speech, so Booker chose for her.
Andy can recite swaths of Plato's Symposium in half a dozen languages, and Booker will cry every time. By the time she reaches the end of his chosen passage on soulmates, there isn't a dry eye on the beach.
Nile's choice for Quyhn was kept intensely secret, but Booker would recognize Maya Angelou quotes anywhere.
"Love arrives / and in its train come ecstasies / old memories of pleasure / ancient histories of pain. / Yet if we are bold, / love strikes away the chains of fear / from our souls."
Nile wipes away Booker's tears with her thumb, and Booker leans into the touch without hesitation.
...
Nile has never been more grateful for setting spray and waterproof mascara. The emotions are overwhelming, and Joe hasn't even taken his turn yet.
"My beloved friends," Joe begins, taking each of their hands. "I have written and rewritten my words for you. I hope I have arrived at the best version of my little speech today."
Andy is poorly faking stoicism. Quyhn is sniffling already. Copley gave up the pretense of being the calm, collected one before Nile even made it to the beach.
"I have been blessed to see parts of your journey so far. I watched Booker mourn for decades, centuries, until Nile joined us. After..." Joe's smile is wry. Forgiven is not forgotten. "Everything that happened, I was unsure how the dynamics would change."
Nile is torn between Joe's genuine smile and Booker's overwhelmed one. She ends up willingly trapped in Booker's worshipful gaze.
"Nile, you have brought Sébastien out of the darkness, illuminating the world for him so he may see it with new eyes. Sébastien, you anchor Nile in her new life, providing support and love when everything changes so quickly and her grief is fresh." Joe brings their hands back together. "I have been lucky to watch this love grow, and I cannot wait to see how it deepens, blossoms over the centuries to come."
Copley did not want to speak when they offered, which means -
"It is now that Sébastien and Nile will pledge their vows to one another." Nicky gestures to Sébastien, and Nile holds her breath in excitement.
"Nile, I promise to love you no matter our circumstance. I promise not to go where you can't follow, and to follow you wherever you choose to go. I promise to avoid every death I can, and I swear to always wake up from those I can't." Sébastien sniffles, and Nile can't help but cry happy tears as they clasp hands even tighter. "I promise to cherish you, to grow with you, to encourage you in whatever you attempt. I promise to communicate, even though I'm terrible at expressing my feelings. Loving you and being loved in return has given me hope for my endless future for the first time. Above all things, I promise to spend my life with you, no matter how long that life may be. These things, I vow."
Nile has practiced her vows a hundred times in the mirror, on planes and trains and automobiles, in bunkers and safehouses and the shitty New York apartment.
She ends up going slightly off script in the moment anyway..
"Sébastien, I promise to love you even when you don't want me to. Especially when you don't want me to, when things are hard and the voices in your soul are loud, I promise to love you unconditionally. I promise to build you up, to protect you when I can and comfort you when I can't. I promise to always find my way back to you, even if our paths take us in different directions for a season. I promise to remind you every single day for the rest of time that you are worthy of love and you deserve good things. And, most of all, I promise to always wake up, I will fight God himself if it means coming home to you, no matter the circumstances. These things, I vow."
Nicky has to clear his throat.
"As a symbol of their unbreakable union, Nile and Sébastien will exchange rings."
Copley steps forward and hands each of them the appropriate ring.
Booker slides the gold band on Nile's finger, snug against the buttercup engagement ring.
"With this ring, I thee wed," he murmurs, a nod to tradition.
Nile does the same, pushing the ring over gun calluses to sit comfortably where it belongs.
"With this ring, I thee wed."
"With the power vested in me, in the eyes of God and Man, I pronounce you husband and wife. You may now seal your union with a kiss."
Nile surges forward, catching Booker off-guard. She can't help it. She just has to finally kiss her amazing husband, wrapping her arms around his neck.
To Booker's credit, he recovers quickly, holding her tight as the others whoop and holler.
When they finally part, Booker looks baffled and thrilled all at once.
"Friends, I present to you, Nile and Sébastien le Livre-Freeman, or whatever other combination they choose in the future, husband and wife."
The cheers echo off of the cliffs, and Nile can't help but kiss him again.
...
The wedding supper is simple, a combination of their favorite foods shared at the Airbnb Copley arranged. The beach house wouldn't fit them all if they tried, let alone a table big enough.
Booker can't stop smiling, eating one-handed so he can keep his hand in Nile's.
"Before I forget, here." Andy tosses him a Manila envelope. "Your wedding present."
It's a brand-new deed for the beach house, in Sébastien and Nile's new names, along with a spare set of keys and the code to the safe.
"It's all yours. It's about time you had a place other than the townhouse to call your own, Book. It's only been two hundred and twenty years."
Booker tugs her into a hug, and she grumbles good-naturedly.
"Don't get food on my suit, Jesus."
"Thank you, boss. It means a lot."
Joe and Nicky made the cake, an elaborate old French recipe with absurd amounts of dried fruit and enough butter to stop a heart. Booker loves it with every fiber of his being.
Their other dessert is more to Nile's tastes, a lemon tart made from fruit Quyhn brought from warmer climes.
"I think it is interesting that you favor the sweeter dessert, Booker, and Nile the more sour." Copley grins. "Your taste in dessert matches your taste in partner."
"How long have you been working on that one, James?" Nile asks, tossing a dried date at his head. "You seem proud of yourself."
"Is he wrong?" Joe asks. "You are opposite in so many ways, yet you fit together so well."
"I like tart, sour, a little bitter, with enough sweet to make it worth it." Nile leans over to kiss Booker. "What about you?"
"I like classic, substantial, full of sweet surprises," Booker says. "I do not think my example is as apt, ma sirène."
"I may not be filled with dates, but I am definitely sweet and surprising," Nile says. "I'll take it."
"I take it you two are only going to get worse with your public displays of affection?" Andy teases. "I can't wait."
"You bet your ass, boss," Nile says, and Booker can hear her smile even more than he can see it. "Prepare for the most obnoxious show of love known to man. Worse even than Joe and Nicky making out in a hostage situation or while being kidnapped or that one time we found them in a shipping container full of exotic animals."
"We live very exciting lives," Nicky says with a shrug. "You are getting a break, however."
A full month at the beach house, just the two of them. Copley and Andy promised them at least that much.
"I intend to enjoy every minute of it," Booker says, nosing at Nile's temple and sneezing when a daffodil gets him in the face. "Every moment I spend with my wife is heaven, but a break will make it even better."
"Say it again," Nile says, breath hitching.
"My wife." Booker would say it a million times if she asked, shout it from the rooftop, alert the media. "My wife."
"God, I love the sound of that."
"We can entertain ourselves, you know," Quyhn announces. "We've finished dessert. There's no reason to stay on our account."
Booker takes the less-than-subtle out for what it is, standing and gently pulling Nile up with him.
"Hug quickly. You won't see us for at least a month."
"Longer, if I have anything to say about it," Nile adds, laughing.
After much jostling and hugging and vague threats and direct threats and happy Joe grumbling and soft sentimental comments, Booker and Nile finally make it out.
...
"You really don't have to do this," Nile says, laughing so hard she loses flowers from her hair.
Booker gets a solid hold of her, bound and determined to carry her over the threshold of the cottage.
Nile tucks her feet in and leans into his chest as he carries her through the tiny door. When the cottage was built, people didn't come in heights like Booker's.
"There, you made it. You carried me over the threshold." Nile kisses him. "Now help me dismantle my hair so we can properly enjoy our wedding night."
Booker's hands in her hair is one of Nile's favorite sensations. He's meticulous as he unwraps the structure holding her biggest loop of hair aloft. Nile zones out, happier than ever that she taught Booker to braid almost two years ago.
"You are complete, my love." Booker kisses the top of her head. "Come back to me."
"Always." Nile looks in the ancient mirror, Booker's sky blue eyes stormy-dark with anticipation.
"I have a question."
"Ask it."
Booker's fingertips glide over her collarbone and down past her sternum until they hit the suit jacket. Nile shivers, goosebumps rising behind his touch.
The low heat that has been simmering for hours now is starting to flare up.
"Is it not cold to wear a jacket so open? Is it even possible to wear a blouse under this?"
Spark-catch.
"Unbutton it and find out."
Inferno.
...
Nile wakes to find Sébastien's head on her chest, his arms fully around her bare waist. She plays with his hair, trying to sooth herself back to sleep.
Booker nuzzles her, sleep-warm and content.
Her husband, one of the lightest sleepers on the planet, trusts her enough to sleep through her hand on the nape of his neck.
"I promise never to forget what a gift your trust is," she whispers. One last vow for their very first wedding.