Chapter Text
“You know they’re not actually going to let you get married today,” Ashes says, finally, when they’ve been standing in line for about three minutes, and the chatter about that asshole they were trapped beside on the bus on the way over has died down.
“Shut up,” Jonny tells them cheerfully, still riding the high of having remembered where the registry office was from when he and Ashes filed for their business license. He’s nailing this getting married thing already.
But Tim says, “It’s true, though,” and he sounds the way he does when he’s right sometimes — a little apologetic about it, like the polite thing would have been to be wrong about this, but unfortunately, reality happens to be on his side this time, so both he and Jonny are going to have to live with that. “There’s the filing the paperwork — we’ll do that today — and then there’s a three day waiting period.”
“There’s a what?”
“I looked it up on your phone on the bus while you and Ashes were doing funny voices for the bus driver and that squirrel in the road.”
Jonny chuckles in reminiscence. “That was a pretty fucked-up squirrel. But what about, like, Vegas?”
“What?”
“Isn’t that the whole point of it? That you roll up and get hitched before you have time to know better?”
“Should have got married in Vegas, then,” Ashes says. “I could go for some roulette.”
“Think you’re going to change your mind?” Tim asks. He doesn’t look worried, though, so that’s good. Jonny beams back at him.
“If I was smart, I’d be marrying Brian instead, for the health benefits. You know he gets great fucking dental.”
“Little blackjack, little five card stud,” Ashes continues, just a little dreamily.
“Okay, no, absolutely not, you’d bet the whole bar, and I like my job,” Jonny tells them.
Ahead of them, the government employee behind the glass, bank-teller-looking window clears her throat, and Jonny notices that the line ahead of them has effectively disappeared. “What can I help you with, honey?” the woman asks.
And there’s a really easy answer to that, they’re here with a specific purpose in mind. Somehow, saying the words feels bigger than it should, though, and Jonny shoots a quick look Tim’s way before he speaks.
Tim is doing that thing where he kind of smiles with his eyes, and rocking back on his heels in that just-a-little-edgy, nervous-energy way, and Jonny is here on purpose, everything about the day feels like it’s balanced on the bright and exquisite edge of a knife, everything about it is so good and buzzing with potential, like a bottle rocket just before it takes off. Tim says, “Unless you’re rethinking that Brian option,” under his breath, and Jonny wants to laugh a little too loudly, inappropriately loudly for the decorously quiet room of this echoey government building that they’re in, so he does that.
Then he tells the woman behind the desk, “We’re here to get married.”
…
They don’t write their own vows.
The justice of the peace, who they meet for a minute that first day at the courthouse, offers them the option to, but Jonny says, “Sounds like homework,” and, to the guy in the neat, youth-pastor-looking short-sleeved shirt and tie, “Isn’t that the whole point of you?”
“The point of me is that this whole thing is legally binding and comes with some tax benefits, instead of a just a personal commitment you make surrounded by your family and friends,” the guy says, fairly good-naturedly. “I can do the standard vows for you, though, you don’t need to. Some people like to say a few words for themselves, is all.”
Jonny looks over at Tim, who he is pretty sure would rather blow up this building than give a public speech in front of a stranger about his emotions, and Jonny knows he himself wouldn’t have to write anything in order to do his own vows — he could improvise on the fly and be pretty happy, probably, but he’s pretty sure this place would, at the very least, make Tim feel a little uncomfortable, if one of them brings their own vows and the other uses the pre-written, fill-in-the-blanks ones.
“Yeah,” Jonny tells the guy, “The prefab ones are good.”
And they are — the pre-written vows are good, standard, fine, right up until they get to the part about forsaking all others.
Jonny had always thought, if he was going to interrupt a wedding, first, that it would be at that part about if any person here knows of any reason why these two people cannot be wed, and, second, that it would not be his own wedding he called to a halt. He doesn’t even mean to — he doesn’t think about it first, anyway, though he also doesn’t try too hard to stop himself. But they’re almost at the end, at the I dos, at the I now pronounce yous, and the guy — the Justice of the Peace, the — Galahad, whose voice booms out melodiously like he’s about to baptize them both in a river, but with all references to any form of religion awkwardly cut out, though Jonny can still feel the places in his speech they’d fit into — Galahad says, “Forsaking all others,” and Jonny hears himself say, “Hey, I never agreed to that.”
Galahad stumbles to a halt, nonplussed. “Well,” he says, “not yet. I’ve only just got there.”
Jonny isn’t paying attention to him, though. He’s paying attention to Tim, who’s eyebrows are raised until they blend with the dark, wire rims of his glasses. “Is that, like, important to you?” Jonny asks him, because, abruptly, it seems like the kind of conversation they should have, before they swear this in blood, or whatever sick, perverted ritual the state requires before it starts handing out tax breaks for romantic and sexual cohabitation.
“I… I don’t know,” Tim says, and he looks gloriously uncomfortable, but Jonny thinks it’s probably more to do with the social awkwardness of the situation, rather than the question itself. “Are you seeing anybody else I don’t know about?”
This, Jonny feels, is largely beside the point. Also, just sonically, dramatically, it would sound a lot better if he could say yes right now, just to keep things interesting, and Jonny feels a little embarrassed having called the whole thing to a halt when the only reply he can come up with is, “Well, no, but, I mean…”
“I mean,” Tim says, warming to the subject in that way that means he’s tuning out the fact that Galahad is listening to them, focusing in tighter on Jonny with those sharp, intense eyes that aren’t why they’re doing this right now, but certainly never hurt, “I’d hope you’d talk to me, you know, first. Before …unforsaking… someone.”
“Well, sure.” Jonny’s an asshole, but he’s not that kind of asshole.
Galahad clears his throat. “So …forsaking all others, unless you talk things through first?”
That sounds alright to Jonny. He waves his hand regally, allowing Galahad to go on.
Only, this time, it’s Tim who interrupts.
“What I do care about, you know,” he says, “Is the secondhand smoke, around the cats. I put that ashtray on the fire escape for a reason.”
“I use it!” Jonny says, because he does, most of the time.
“What about—”
“Well, sometimes it’s cold out there, Timothy.”
Tim looks back with implacable, disappointed eyes, and Jonny has this feeling this wedding won’t be going much further unless he gives, a little. “I’ll try, okay,” he says, with as much grace as he can muster, and those eyebrows are up again, high on Tim’s forehead.
“That’s all I ask,” he says airily.
“Okay, but I need you to stop getting the store-brand sponges, if we’re allowed to get this petty,” Jonny can’t help saying, and then, anticipating the objection, “I don’t care if they’re forty cents cheaper, they smell like ass after three days.”
“Is this really where you want to do this?” Tim asks, but Jonny didn’t start this — or, well, he did, in a couple of different ways, but he had been ready to start and finish it quickly and get them out the door of the goddamned courthouse without turning it into a thing. And Tim can be stubborn, but Jonny can be stubborn, too — it’s probably most of the reason they’ve made it through long enough to be standing here today, so Jonny says, “I just think these are the kinds of important conversations couples should be able to have, openly and honestly, before making a lifelong commitment,” and then he holds his face very still.
It’s Tim who breaks first, laughs and says, “Yeah, okay. I, Tim, take you, Jonny and your overpriced dish sponges, for richer or for poorer, forsaking all others unless we talk about it first, as long as you don’t ash the carpet, for as long as we both shall live. Does that about cover it?” He says the last part as much to Galahad as to Jonny, presumably in case it’s not actually legal to make stipulations of the grocery list in perpetuity a part of this legally binding contract.
And Galahad says, “I told you you could bring your own vows. Do you both swear that? Yeah?"
"I do," Tim says, which is good, because Jonny was probably just going to say yeah, back, and he's not sure that would count, but Tim's good at this stuff, the dotting the ts, crossing the eyes thing, and Jonny occasionally remembers how to follow his lead. "I do," Jonny agrees, and he doesn't know why his voice sounds a little breathless, they're just words, they don't mean anything, except that maybe they do, because then Galahad says, "You can kiss now, if you want," and then they're married.