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Sam wakes up with a pounding headache and a stranger in his bed.
Fuck, he thinks, reaching over to the nightstand in his hotel room and hoping to God his drunk self was smart enough to leave a pain reliever and a glass of water nearby last night.
He feels a few loose pills that he can make out as ibuprofen in the little bit of light streaming through the cracked curtain, but doesn’t find anything to wash them down with. His throat’s drier than sandpaper, but his head feels like it’s twice its normal size, so he forces the pills down dry, his body too sore and his balance still too off to try and attempt getting a glass of water right now.
Once the pills are down, he looks back over at his bed partner, still knocked out, mouth open in what looks like deep sleep. He’s attractive enough, with a strong jawline and his long dark hair pulled into a messy bun. He’s shirtless and seemingly nicely built, the sheets covering most of his body but exposing all of his shoulders, and he’s got a host of scarring on his left shoulder leading to a metal prosthetic.
Sam remembers finding the man—a fellow vet—the night before at the third bar he’d been at, both of them already most of the way to plastered by the time they’d met. He can’t quite remember his name, but he’d remembered it was a little odd. Binky? Bonky? Bunko?
Definitely not Bunko, he thinks, picturing the dice game the ladies at church would always play when he was a kid. Maybe Binky. That sounds right.
He doesn’t have to wonder long, as Binky starts to stir, breaths coming a little faster as he stretches out, cracking his back.
“Morning, sweetheart,” Binky says when he’s fully awake, rolling over to face Sam. “You feeling okay?”
“What’s your name?” he asks instead of answering. He doesn’t need a stranger worrying about his headache, he figures. It’s not like this was anything more than a night for either of them. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Binky sort of half-chuckles. “I was kind of afraid you were going to ask me that this morning. My name’s Bucky Bar—well, Bucky Wilson now, actually, I guess. I think that’s what we agreed on last night, anyway. Me taking yours.”
Oh no. Absolutely not. There is no fucking way I got drunk off my ass and married a fairly attractive stranger last night in Vegas. Sam immediately turns over and flips on the bedside lamp, ignoring Bucky’s groan in protest and his own blinding headache. He looks down at his left hand in the light, and sure enough, there’s a ring there that most definitely hadn’t been there before: a simple gold band, no engraving, and Sam’s so fucked.
Bucky must pick up on the fact that Sam’s more than a little tense over this revelation: he tries to lighten the mood. “It’s kind of a miracle we ended up actually getting married last night, sweetheart. We went to seven different instant chapels because you refused to get married by an Elvis impersonator.”
Thank God for small mercies. At least Sam still had some amount of sense about him while drunk.
He’s still trying to figure out exactly what he’s going to say in response to his newlywed husband when he hears a knock at his door, quiet by normal standards, but loud as fuck by hungover ones.
“Sam, you in there? I know you were out late last night, but we were gonna take the boys to that chocolate world place and they’re itchin’ to go,” Sarah calls through the door, and Sam’s suddenly feeling even worse about this turn of events.
He didn’t just get drunk-married to a stranger in Vegas. He got drunk-married to a stranger on a family vacation.
He looks over at Bucky, who now looks considerably more nervous, and mouths my sister before calling out a little louder to Sarah. “Can you handle Cass and AJ today? Not sure I’m gonna be great company on this particular trip.”
“Fun night, huh?” Sarah asks, obviously amused and with absolutely no idea exactly how much of a “fun night” Sam’s had. “Get some sleep, party animal, but you absolutely owe me for taking on both of them with a sugar rush alone when I was told I’d have help.”
“Whatever they want to do next that you don’t want to do, I’ll take ‘em tomorrow. Promise.”
“Want me to bring back some Advil later?”
Sam shakes his head, thinking of the bottle currently full except for two tablets in his backpack, before he remembers Sarah can’t see inside the room. “I’m good. Thanks though. Y’all have fun!”
Sarah bids him goodbye and presumably walks off, and Sam groans and rakes his hands across the top of his head. “So do you remember all that happened last night?” he asks Bucky, a little afraid of the answer. “Did we…?”
Bucky shakes his head quickly, which is a fucking relief. “I was only slightly less wasted than you, but I remember most everything. We came back here with intention, I think, but you fell asleep halfway through undressing, and I was only about a minute behind you.”
“And how exactly did we get to the point of getting married with enough conviction that we went to seven different places to do it?”
Bucky smiles, eyes fond despite the fact that he’s known Sam literally less than twenty-four hours. “In fairness, I think by the end of it the conviction was mostly in finding a place without an Elvis, rather than conviction to actually marry me. It was kind of inspiring how passionate you were about it, and I have a laundry list of old soul albums to look up on Spotify once I think I can listen to music without my head exploding.”
Sam’s still mad at his drunk self, but he gets a few brownie points there. “Still didn’t really answer my question, Buck.”
Bucky beams at the nickname, fingering his own ring on a chain around his neck. “I can tell you the whole story over breakfast? There’s a great little place off the beaten path I found last time I was here, all the good, greasy, hangover cure food you could want. And it’s less than a mile from a place where we can get an annulment; as pretty as you are, sweetheart—and you’re drop dead gorgeous—getting married last night wasn’t our best idea now that I’m sober enough to think about it.”
Oh, what the hell. Why not? Sam thinks, figuring he might as well get to know his impromptu husband before he gets divorced. “Let me take a shower real quick.”
Once they’re both showered and dressed, they purchase overpriced sunglasses from the hotel’s gift shop and head out, Bucky taking them through various backroads until they end up at a diner that looks like it hasn’t been updated since Liberace headlined.
They settle into a booth in the back corner, the waitress bringing them coffee before she even brings out water, and order something off the giant menu without really looking through it. Sam’s not sure how much he trusts grits made outside of the South, but he’s hungry enough that he’s willing to try, adding them onto his giant omelet with a side of sausage and hashbrown casserole.
Bucky orders enough for about two days’ worth of meals, and Sam’s gonna be impressed as hell if he manages to eat it all without getting sick.
“So. Last night,” Bucky starts, taking a sip of black coffee while Sam doctors his up with cream and sugar. “Do you remember anything at all?”
Sam nurses his coffee the way he probably should’ve nursed his alcohol the night before. “I remember meeting you later in the night, hitting it off and talking a little about our former service, and doing a few shots together. Everything after that is pretty much missing until I woke up this morning.”
“Well I think that fifth shot of tequila was about both of our limits, after everything else I’d been drinking before we met up, and what I assume you’d been drinking as well. There’s honestly less to say after that than you might think, considering the kind of drastic situation we ended up in after. We drank a little more, spent most of the rest of our time at that bar getting real close on the dance floor, during which you serenaded me with a very lovely drunken rendition of Sexual Healing by Marvin Gaye—I am still impressed you managed to get all the words right despite your extreme intoxication, by the way—and then I was like, ‘Sweetheart, let’s get married!’ and you were like, ‘That might be the best idea I’ve heard all night, baby,’ which really speaks to the mindset we were in.
“We went to the chapel next door to the bar, because Vegas is just like that apparently, but we moved on due to Elvis. There were a bunch of chapels in pretty quick succession, and you got progressively more irritated the more Elvises we found, and I think I fell half in love with you with each progressively more impassioned rant about soul and the blues and all the greats. We found a little pawn shop that was still open that late for God knows what reason—probably drunk people looking for rings to get married like we were—and had a very emotional twenty-five minutes picking out rings, after which we were asked to leave due to apparently “overly excessive public displays of affection” which was a really nice way to say we were getting a bit too hot and heavy. We went next door, found neither hide nor hair of the false king of rock and roll, and got married in a very lovely five-minute ceremony in which we were pronounced Mr. and Mr. Wilson.”
“And then we went back to the hotel to consummate our great union, but we both fell asleep instead?” Sam asks, already knowing the answer.
“Well, not before I had an absolutely fantastic time while you gave me this lovely hickey,” Bucky replies, tucking his hair behind his ear and pulling down his collar so Sam can see the bright bruise on his collarbone. “You’ve got a talented tongue, sweetheart.”
Sam blushes a bit despite himself. “What a night to not remember,” he says, but flashes of some of their antics come back to him in conjunction with Bucky’s storytelling.
Bucky’s tongue hadn’t been too shabby either, for what it’s worth.
“Definitely something special,” Bucky teases, eyes twinkling, just as the waitress comes by with their mountains of food.
Sam’s grits are admittedly delicious, even if they’re not quite as good as they’d be back home. The food tastes kind of like heaven after that long night of drinking, and the grease and the coffee are rapidly working together to clear his headache.
He and Bucky chat back and forth about anything other than their nuptials as they eat: sports, family, their jobs, hobbies, home. Sam finds out Bucky’s from Brooklyn but is looking to move elsewhere, preferably far away and quieter, in the not-so-distant future, as his job is mostly online and he’s looking to write a novel. Sam tells Bucky about living in DC and working at the VA while getting his master’s degree, but missing home in Delacroix like an ache he’d never really had before he’d left it, telling him stories from his childhood and about Cass and AJ now.
Sam shouldn’t be surprised at how easily conversation flows back and forth given how quickly they’d hit it off the night before, but he can’t say he’s not a little shocked at how much he enjoys spending time with Bucky this quickly even while sober, at how obvious it is that Bucky’s already a little gone over him.
Maybe it’s just a honeymoon phase, but Sam’s starting to wonder if there might be something worth pursuing there once Bucky officially becomes his ex-husband.
“I remember enjoying talking to you in the beginning at least,” Sam says a little quietly in between bites of his hashbrowns, the last thing left on his plate. “I’m really enjoying talking to you now. Of all the people to marry in Vegas on a whim, I feel like I picked a pretty good one.”
Bucky’s got about two pieces of toast in his mouth at once, somehow, so it takes a bit for him to answer. “Granted I don’t know all that much about you, Sam, but from what I’ve seen thus far, I’m pretty sure I picked the best.”
Fuck it, he’s going for it.
“You got plans tonight, Buck?” Sam asks, grinning when Bucky almost drops his coffee to gape at him. “I’ve got a show with Sarah and the kids, but there’s a nice little lounge in my hotel I could meet you at after? Maybe we should stick to mocktails this time, though. Make sure we’re sober enough to actually follow through on last night’s plans.”
Bucky’s eyes widen, searching Sam’s face for any sign he doesn’t mean it, apparently satisfied when he finds Sam’s sincerity. “I’ve got all the time in the world for you, sweetheart. Anything you want.”
They exchange numbers while they sign off on their annulment, and, after they’ve gone their separate ways, Bucky sends him a text.
You single, sweetheart? he asks a little cheekily.
As a matter of fact, I am, as of about ten minutes ago, Sam replies. Why? You interested?
More than you know.
The next morning, Sam wakes up with a deliciously sore ass and his ex-husband in his bed.
Maybe what happens in Vegas doesn’t have to stay here, he thinks, curling further into Bucky’s side as Bucky books flights from Brooklyn later in the month.
He keeps the ring for later. Just in case.