Archive of Our Own

The reflection of her face is all Shannon sees as her mother does her hair at her dressing table. The mirror is all smudged and it warps her image slightly. She watches as her hair is brushed into a neat ponytail with tears in her eyes.

She feels so young, getting ready for a wedding rehearsal. All because she and Eddie were stupid kids. It's never felt like such an apt descriptor before. Her eyes feel foggy with the tears that had filled them back when Eddie had found out she was pregnant, the scared expression on his face forever present in her mind as something she shouldn't ever forget.

They were both just stupid kids. They weren't built for marriage, let alone a child. But one stupid night had left them sitting with both in their laps and they couldn't do much to change it.

Once Janet finished with Shannon's hair, she turned her chair around so they were facing each other. One shaky hand came to cup Shannon's face as Janet took in the sight of her daughter.

"You look so beautiful." She smiles, wistfully. Shannon leans into her palm and breathes slowly. Her racing heart fills her ears as the passage of time becomes unavoidable to her. Soon the Diazes will be here and she will no longer share a last name with her mother.

"Mom, I'm nervous. I barely know Eddie. What if we don't love each other?" She asks, eyes staring up helplessly. She's never felt so young as she does now, begging for her mom to read between the lines of disagreement she has over this.

"Oh, sweetheart." Janet tuts, carefully pushing a rogue hair back from Shannon's face, behind her ear. "You don't have to love each other, you just have to love your baby. That's all that matters."

Shannon holds back the desire to sob, reaching up to hold her Mom's hand. "But surely you must have loved dad?" Janet looks to the ground and sighs, shaking her head empathetically.

"I'm sorry, Shannon." Janet presses a warm kiss to her daughter's hairline. "We loved you enough to cover the cracks in our relationship. I will never regret that."

The doorbell echoes ominously throughout the house, marking the arrival of Shannon's family-to-be. She can only imagine what they look like down there. The Diaz parents and Eddie. She hardly thinks he feels any differently to her.

She looks into her mom's eyes helplessly. She almost wants to beg, plead, for her to not have to go through with this. Insist that they aren't ready for a marriage, that they're not ready for a baby yet. She wants to scream that she doesn't know if she loves Eddie, that she may like him but they don't know each other enough to know if she wants to spend the rest of her life raising a baby with him. But the expression of equal helplessness in Janet's eyes tell Shannon that she knows all of this enough, that she has no control over what's happening here. So she swallows her screams of pleas and sits up straighter in her seat.

She nods to her mom with false confidence.

Janet coughs softly to the side. She turns back to her daughter and pats Shannon's cheek with as much comfort as she seems to be able to gather. "Let's do this." A smile forces its way onto her face.

---

Janet rushes down the stairs two at a time, pushing a smile onto her face as she reaches the doorway. Once she stops, she clears her throat, thumping against her chest gently. She works a smile onto her face before she opens the door. She feels frazzled out as she sees the put together faces of Helena and Ramon. They seem displeased to even be here, as though it isn't their belief that is causing all of this stress. Her hand not on the front door smooths her hair down as best she can. She swallows.

"Hello. Uh- Please. Come inside, welcome." She offers her hand to shake as Helena and Ramon pass through the doorway, each giving her hand a shake as they do. Eddie doesn't, but when she catches his eye as she closes the door behind them, she gives him as comforting a smile as she can manage and watches as his shoulders ease slightly.

"I'll put on the kettle for a drink. Tea? Coffee?" Janet offers. After taking their desired drinks, she gestures through to the kitchen where the backdoor is. "How about we talk in the back garden while we wait for the pastor?" She leads them through, leaving Eddie alone in the entrance of the house.

Eddie hesitates to follow, catching sight of the front room and the modest piano leaning against a far wall. Its top covered in various nick-nacks gathered over time. Small painted flowers curl up the sides of the dark wood and before he can even register his feet moving, he's stood by the stool.

He turns back, listening as the back door closes behind his parents. His fingers itch with desire and he flexes them at his sides. This is hardly something he should do now, his impending wedding looming over his head.

Putting his instinct to the side, he looks around the living room. A small television set sits in one corner of the room, though out-dated it's clearly well loved. Much like everything else in the room, he realizes. The couches are all worn comfortably, with a hand-made throw blanket draped over the back and mis-matched cushions on either side of the two-seater. The fireplace has a small framed picture of Janet and Shannon sitting in the centre, both smiling identical smiles. The picture is surrounded by candles and flowers, again.

In his viewing, Eddie takes a seat on the piano bench. He's almost overcome by the love in this room alone, and the framed pictures in the entryway hadn't escaped him. He feels a stab of guilt fill him as he looks around and takes in everything. The guilt slowly ices his veins as he processes what he's done by proposing and getting Shannon pregnant. He's going to end up removing her from this house, from the love she and her mom clearly have for one another.

He's not sure he can even be a good partner, let alone a good husband or father. Hardly a man-of-the-house as he father wants him to be.

His finger presses into ivory and he's whisked away by the soft tune of the piano. He lets it fill his body and take his guilt and sadness with him. He wishes this would end better for him, that he had taken the time to fall in love with Shannon before sleeping with her, that he'd gotten to know the girl smiling in the picture frames before falling into bed with her. Maybe then, this would be a happy song.

His fingers dance on the keys in front of him and he lets the emotion he usually boxes away escape through the melody.

He doesn't realize he's got an audience until she speaks.

"I didn't know you played piano." Shannon sounds mildly amused as Eddie startles, jumping in his seat and accidentally letting the key-cover thud down. Thankfully, his fingers were not trapped in it. Silence reverberates throughout the room as Eddie stares at Shannon like a deer in headlights. Shannon's face scrunches with poorly concealed laughter that breaks with a snort and laughter.

Eddie watches as she laughs and eases slightly. Though he feels like he's missing something as she comes and sits beside him on the piano stool.

"You play beautifully." She compliments, pulling her hair over her shoulder and smiling warmly at him. Eddie hums, looking back over to the wood of the key cover.

"Oh. Thanks." He taps it, fingers itching with inactivity. The grain in the unfinished wood dips into his skin and he curls his hands into loose fists to resist the urge to scratch it away. Shannon nudges his shoulder with her own.

"The song. What's it called?" She asks. She seems genuinely interested and Eddie feels like it should warm something in him to have it asked of him. But all he can think about is how something with his DNA is growing right beside him and he feels oddly sick.

"Oh. It was just… something I came across."

"Came across where?"

Eddie keeps his eyes focused on the painted flowers twisting up the wood grain. It oddly feels like they're constricting his throat. "Well… It was inside me, I guess." It feels like the room drops a few degrees. He shouldn't have something like this inside of him, he knows. He shouldn't feel enough for this to take it's hold of his being and let it worm it's way out through pensive notes and chords.

"I'm glad you managed to get it out." Shannon smiles and it doesn't warm the ice in his heart. "I can't play the piano. Mom used to, before she got sick, but then she couldn't play without her fingers pressing the wrong keys." She lifts the cover and gently presses two keys near to one another. They clash in their tone and they both grimace at the uncomfortable sound it produces.

Eddie watches as she puts the piano down. He takes a moment of silence before speaking. "I…" He sighs, wringing his hands together. "Tomorrow, we're going to be married."

Shannon nods. From the corner of his eye, he can see her sad smile as she also stares at the yellowed keys of the piano. A beat of silence once again passes before she breaks it in turn. "Since I was a girl, I always dreamt of my wedding day." Her fingers caress the keys without pressing down as a sad, wistful expression fills her face. Eddie becomes aware of the fact that she looks close to tears. "I always assumed that it would be to someone I was deeply in love with. Someone to have my back for the rest of our lives… Silly, isn't it?"

The guilt thrums deeply in Eddie's ribcage, pushing against his sternum and making it hard to breathe. "Silly…" He trails. He doesn't think he'd ever find the type of person Shannon's describing. Some part of him feels like he wouldn't deserve it, that type of wholly unending love. She looks at him and his eyes dart to her's. "N-no. I don't mean that-"

Shannon laughs a little at his words and Eddie laughs with her. He thinks they could be good friends, perhaps. Hopefully, that would be enough to see them through this marriage. Shannon leans against him, their shoulders touching. It burns though the fabric of Eddie's sweater. He swallows.

The front door opens and Pastor Galswells looks around the doorframe at them. He frowns and it settles deep into his face. Eddie shuffles away from Shannon, creating as much space between them as the piano bench will allow them.

"What is this?" He bellows. Eddie is almost taken aback by the spindly man. His face sags miserably as he speaks, thin fingers shaking as he raises them to point animatedly at them. "You shouldn't be alone together! You are aware that the rehearsal is taking place at five and yet here you are, one minute to five, and you are not there! You might be late!"

Eddie shrinks slightly. "We were just-"

"Come at once." Pastor Galswells interrupts. He waits for the pair to stand up and follow him out to the back yard where their parents are waiting.

A single small table has been set up in the middle of the grass, a plain tablecloth covers it. On the table sits a pair of candlesticks and an old chalice. Four seats have been set out despite the three parents. An odd feeling settles over Eddie as he recognises it's been set out in memory of Shannon's dad. He swallows it down.

He knows that Janet has had no control over this preceding despite it taking place at her home. He knows that this is all his own mother's control. Even if he hadn't heard her phone calls to Janet for the past week, he would have been able to tell from the insistence on a place to be set for Shannon's father despite his death years ago.

Pastor Galswells clears his throat as he stands on the other side of the table. In his hand, he holds a book that Eddie privately thinks looks older than the pastor himself, and in his other, he holds an ornamental sceptre. Eddie tries to not focus on the anxiety and frustration thrumming through his bones as Galswells glares at him.

They have tried to recite these vows so often that the sun has begun to set and clouds start to gather forebodingly over the skyline. They darken the garden and Eddie steels himself against the chill that wishes to push through his skin and betray his emotions.

"Let's try it again, shall we, Mister Diaz?" Pastor Galswells sounds as unimpressed as he looks, so Eddie nods and takes three steps back as he raises his left hand.

"Yes, sir. Absolutely." He nods again.

"Right." Pastor Galswells hisses through his teeth, nose shrivelling up in distaste.

"Right."

"Right!" Galswells yells. Eddie swallows a yell of surprise and lifts his right hand, dropping his left.

"Right!" Eddie bites back a curse. "With this…" The words escape him. He knows that he knows this. He's done it before, recited these vows to himself pacing around his bedroom in preparation for today. So why can't he speak them? "This…"

Pastor Galswells looks like he would rather be anywhere but here. "Hand…"

"Hand, yes. With this hand, I will…" He knows this is where he's supposed to take Shannon's elbow but he hesitates. The thought of initiating contact when he feels so nauseous sounds like tempting fate. He resists the urge to bolt. He's the one who proposed. Shannon wants to marry someone she loves, and he's what she landed with. It piles onto the guilt already swirling uncomfortably in his stomach.

Shannon places her elbow in his hovering hand. She smiles comfortingly at him, and Eddie gives her an appreciative smile back. Together they step forward, but Eddie is too focused on the fact that Shannon's elbow feels too small in his palm that he takes an extra step and his hip hits against the table in front of him. It sends a dull ache into his bones and he takes a step back in time for Pastor Galswells to yell at him.

"Three steps! Three! Can you not count?!" Eddie stares at the tablecloth and tries to ignore the rising of anger in his throat and the disappointed stares of his parents.

He knows that if he was to look back, they'd pointedly be avoiding his gaze, but that Janet would be looking like she understood. He can't help but wonder if she's had to go through this whole process before when she got married. He swallows his emotions down and forces them into a lockbox inside his chest. He looks back up and watches as the pastor shakes his head and gestures vaguely with his sceptre.

"Let's just pick it up at the candle bit."

Eddie blanks. Fuck. He knows this. "The candle bit?" He's too aware of Shannon's presence beside him, how it feels wrong to be stood next to her like this.

"The candle! The candle! Can you remember nothing?!" Pastor Galswells looks like he wants to hit Eddie over the head with his book. Eddie can't help but agree with the sentiment. Maybe it would knock some sense into him and allow him to remember his vows.

Eddie doesn't respond to that, he takes a lit candle and lets it sit in his hand. The warmth covers his skin like an uncomfortable blanket and he can't shake the feeling that he's in the wrong place again. "With this candle…" He's about to go on before a new person walks into the garden.

He simply takes the seat beside Janet and looks so comfortable that it's a shock that nobody seems to recognise him. Eddie frowns and watches as the man's eyes drag over both him and Shannon. There's something odd in his expression, as if picking prey, that hits the first time Eddie feels like he should protect Shannon.

Nobody says anything, they just stare cluelessly. The someone coughs as Eddie turns back, aiming to get back to the vows. It's shaken him more than he expected to be, though.

"With this candle… this… candle…" He can't erase the feeling of unfamiliar eyes on the back of his head as he speaks. He pushes on, regardless, and tries to light the other candle on the table. It doesn't take immediately. And he feels shame and humiliation as a disappointed - though unfamiliar - huff is let out into the evening air.

Eventually, the candle lights. And Eddie does not sigh in relief, but a particularly large gust of wind blows through the garden and extinguishes it and he feels like crying.

He shoves that thought in the lockbox as well.

"Do you not want to be married, Mister Diaz?" Pastor Galswells asks. Eddie shoves his instinctual "no" aside.

"Of course." He avoids Shannon's gaze. He feels like she knows he doesn't want to be there. Instead, he watches as her hand comes into his frame of view and lights her own candle again while the pastor is focused on him.

"Then prove it." The pastor shakes his head in disappointment and Eddie feels like there's too much of that going around right now. "Have you at least remembered the ring?"

"Yes, of course." He says. He pulls it out of the pocket of his slightly nicer jeans.

He drops it.

Of course he does.

The urge to cry or scream in frustration grows inside his lockbox and threatens to burst through the walls.

"Dropping the ring!" Pastor Galswells yells in horror. "He does not want to get married!"

Shannon gives him a pitying look as he ducks down to get the ring from under the table where it sits in the grass. He hits his head on the way up and he's thankful for the wind this time as it blows out both candles before they can tip over and set the tablecloth ablaze.

He stands in shame as he meets the gaze of Pastor Galswells. His face wrinkles and shifts in disgust as he takes in Eddie's mildly dishevelled appearance. "This wedding cannot take place until he has properly prepared!" Relief spreads like a forbidden balm over Eddie's nerves. Galswells points to the garden entrance. "Young man, if you so badly wish to be married, then you must learn your vows."

Eddie nods, and takes his leave, humiliated. He avoids looking at Shannon as he does so. He cannot bear to watch everyone's disappointment as he turns his back and walks away.

---

Eddie finds himself by the lake, on the opposite side to his parent's house. He's surrounded by thickly grown trees and the sun is just about set over the edge of land he can see. Free from the view of people, he lets himself try his vows once again.

"With this hand, I will…" Fuck. Why can't he think? "I will…"

Frustration shoots up his spine. He could do this just yesterday. Why can't he anymore? His eyes water and he lets his foot stomp harder into the ground than it should. It causes the dirt to shift under his heel.

"With this hand, I empty your cup- no, that's not it." He swallows down more frustration at himself. He doesn’t even want to be married, why is he trying so hard?

He walks further into the forest surrounding the lake and finds a clearing he'd never seen before. He takes a seat on the ground, leaning against a fallen tree.

Moonlight streams in ribbons through the trees overhead and crows caw encouragingly around him. Eddie decides that this is it, if he gets this wrong again then it's a sign to call the whole thing off. Screw his parents, he'll take being condemned from the church. It's not like he entirely believed in it anyway.

He stands and takes a deep breath.

"With this hand," he lifts his right, "I lift your sorrows. Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine."

The crows continue. Maybe he's going crazy, but it sounds like they're goading him to continue, congratulating him for getting through the first two lines perfectly. He doesn't speak to them, but he acknowledges their presence. At least some living creature will be able to hear him say these lines perfectly.

"With this candle, I will light your way in darkness…" Perhaps, it wasn't the words that were wrong. Perhaps, he just couldn't lie and say them all to a woman he had no desire to marry. He takes the ring out of his pocket. It's his maternal grandmother's, passed to him through death with the final wish to give it to the one he would marry one day. It's a simple band, engraved in it are thorny vines. It felt wrong to propose to Shannon with it. Shannon who had flowers in her dress and around her home and in her hair the day he first met her. Eddie considers the ring for a second and kneels beside a twisted root coming from the ground that looks thin enough to slide the ring onto.

"With this ring…" He slips the band onto the root. "I ask you to be mine."

Any triumph he may have felt instantly gets replaced by dread as the goading crows fall silent around him. When he looks up to the branches, Eddie meets eyes as they all stare through him. Hundreds of beady eyes staring through moonlit tree branches. Without removing his eyes from the birds, he reaches back for his ring.

Something grabs him.

Eddie startles, tugging at his arm as the crows let out deafening calls into the air. Their wings beat heavily as they all take flight around him. His arm aches as he tries to fight the ground for it back.

This is what he gets for running from his own fucking wedding rehearsal. It's what he deserves for getting Shannon pregnant and for listening to his parents' pressure into forcing them both into this unwanted marriage. It's what he deserves for robbing Shannon of her picture perfect wedding day.

A particularly harsh tug at the ground sends him flying backwards and he dislodges the root from the dirt. It sends him sprawling into the grass and he lays back, panting harshly as he gathers his breath. The root is still wrapped tightly around his wrist and so he lifts his arm to his field of view.

A skeletal hand greets his eyes, strips of fabric barely concealing the bone of the forearm as the hand almost tightens in response to him seeing it.

He screams, prying bone fingers off of his wrist and flinging the limb away from him. He watches in abject horror as it slowly crawls away from him, back to the split in the ground. He can't tear his eyes away as he watches the ground pry open slowly. Dirt and rocks crumble and fall to the side of the gash appearing in the earth by that fallen tree as a figure slowly rises from it.

Dirt and roots and vines slowly fall and twist around the limbs of the corpse as it's bones creak into place from standing. Nausea rolls in Eddie's stomach as they pop back into joints. The tattered white suit that covers the figure does nothing to hide the bloodstains from its exposed ribs, instead soaking into the fabric and dying it permanently.

Breath is stolen from Eddie's lungs as the corpse opens its eyes and immediately find his own. Pale blue stares at him through the moonlight and he feels pinned to the spot. He's aware he has dirt covering his jeans and hands and he can almost feel the tremor in his own bones but he can't take his eyes off of the face of the corpse in front of him. The birthmark still present even in death darkening the cold flesh around its eyebrow.

The corpse smiles at Eddie, tilting its head to the side. Eddie still feels like his breath has been stolen from him. His grandmother's ring glints on the bony finger of the corpse in front of him.

"You may now kiss the Groom." It calls and takes a step forward.

Life shutters back into Eddie's heart and air rushes into his lungs. He needs to get away. He scrambles backwards and gets up to turn around. He bolts in the opposite direction from the thing that he knows is following him.

He pushes past branches and almost trips over a few roots as he runs blindly through the forest that had only a short while ago given him the courage to say vows meant for the woman he was supposed to spend his life with. Now, they had been accidentally given to a male corpse that was still following him.

Crows continue to caw loudly around him as he runs. Only now, they seem taunting. Like he's done this to himself by any will of his own.

He curses the god he's not sure he believes in, just in case.

He swallows bile as he pushes into the clearing of the forest by the lake where he had initially retreated to. He struggles to catch his breath, fingers and feet tingling unpleasantly as he crouches. His chest rattles as he turns around and faces back to the forest behind him.

It’s all still.

He takes a deep breath and almost takes a step back before the crows start crowding out of the forest. They all but billow into the air like a black cloud. He stares helplessly at it.

He waits, just a moment. But no figure emerges from the trees, ghostly or corpse-ly in nature. So he turns around, aiming to head home.

He freezes. Suspended over the water, hovers the corpse. Frozen, Eddie is taken by the figure. It almost reflects the moonlight. His chest feels tight as he watches a breeze disturb the water and the fabric of the rotting suit on the rotting figure. The white is stark in its reflection in the water. His eyes are wide and almost hopeful as he stares at Eddie. Eddie swallows as he nears, arms extending as he gets closer, stepping onto the ground as he leaves the water's edge.

The arm that wraps around Eddie's shoulders is cold and he's almost surprised by the lack of stench rolling his gut over. The other hand - the one with his ring - slowly comes and rests gently against Eddie's chest where his heart still beats out a panicked tempo in his chest. He can't tear his eyes away from pale and lifeless blue as the edges of his vision darken before shrinking in to black.

---

When Eddie finally comes back to himself, he's in a new world entirely. Everything around him is bathed in twilight dim lighting and everything looks well-worn and misshapen. Even the buildings look like crooked houses. In front of him, the dead Groom is babbling, clearly giddy as his eyes search the cobblestone streets around them.

"You were amazing. So passionate." He grins. Eddie can't believe what he's watching. "It was everything I've ever dreamed of." The Groom takes one of Eddie's hands in both of his own. As he talks, a dead woman appears from behind him. She looks at Eddie with narrowed eyes and it takes Eddie almost too long to see the bullet holes in her chest and stomach that soak the police uniform she wears. It feels like she's sneaking past his walls to inspect who he is and why he's hanging around this place.

He takes a step back, his hand falling from the Groom's. The woman's head tilts to the side, untrusting.

"Now where do you think you're going?"

The voice seems to startle the Groom into turning around, he gets almost impossibly happier as he sees who it is. Now that the Groom has turned, he can see a smaller corpse beside the cop. Every time he 'exhales', smoke seeps through his skin and out into the air. He grins, crossing his arms as he looks Eddie up and down.

"I don't like him. He's creepy." He punctuates this with a large puff of smoke from his skin. Unseen gashes open like valves as he does it, allowing Eddie perfect view of the discolored flesh that lies underneath.

The Groom turns excitedly back to Eddie, going to take his hand again. Eddie, stunned, doesn't have the peace of mind to stop it from happening.

"Eddie. I can't wait for you to meet everyone." Eddie blinks, grasping onto the most mundane of things to question, as if he wasn't surrounded by corpses and had teleported down here.

"How… how do you know my name?"

The Groom laughs, shaking his head. Eddie's brow furrows at the sound. It sounds almost melodic and free, as though whatever happened to him had released him from all struggles. "You think I'd marry a stranger? Come on." Eddie is helpless to follow as the Groom drags him through the town.

They enter the town square, and it reminds Eddie of home turned sideways. Like a smudged painting from his memories.

His hand is gripped tightly in cold, leathery digits. His ring still sits comfortably on the bone of the Groom's other hand. He looks around, hoping to find something that is close enough to home to clutch onto.

A group of people pass by in the shadows. Yes! Hope!

"Hey!" He calls out, "I've been kidnapped by-" The group turns and Eddie is faced with more rotting corpses and skeletons. His voice dies in his throat as he's dragged away.

He's suddenly aware, as they stop and a crowd gathers around them, that everyone but him is dead. They're all rotting and hobbling, hopping, sliding on broken bones, missing limbs. There are figures that oose puss and viscera. Eddie's throat clenches uncomfortably as they get closer, his heart racing in his chest.

A woman with flowers growing out of crusting red wounds in her body moves closer, brown hair tangling among the vines. She looks at him in fascination as she takes The Groom's hand. "He's a fresh one." She sounds fascinated, if mildly perturbed.

An exhale of smoke through the teeth of the corpse from earlier accompanies his laugh. "Very fresh."

Eddie feels a prod to his hip and he jumps to the side as his head snaps to look at a spindly, younger corpse with greyed skin, dressed in a hospital gown. "He's still soft!" The corpse calls out, waving the stick he holds. It almost hits him in the back of the knee.

The corpses and skeletons get closer, all clearly curious. Eddie takes a shaky step back, uncertain. Everything inside of him tells him to run, to get away from this mess. He should not be here. He should be sitting through a lecture from his mother about running away from a wedding that he caused, about learning from his mistakes. He should be getting to know Shannon better. He should not be here, in the land of the fucking dead!

"He's my husband!" The Groom calls, boastful, as he extends his hand. "He gave me this ring."

A chorus of awes erupts around him and Eddie swallows the desire to scream out in terror as a skeleton too close to him unhinges it's jaw. It grabs his free hand and shakes it vigorously. The clinking of bones rubbing against one another sets Eddie's jaw in a tight clench.

"Pleased to meet you!" It says before looking to his arm. It's head tilts to the side and then looks back up to his face. "Oh. His arm stayed on!" It calls out to the group surrounding him and the Groom. The ashen corpse pokes more at him with his stick, lifting his arm and forcing it back down.

"He's still breathing!"

The group falls silent and Eddie feels out of place as his shaky breathing echoes around the town square. Tremors feel locked inside his chest as he's observed by the group. His hand gets squeezed by the Groom and, oddly, the desire to collapse to the floor subsides slightly.

"He is!" The woman with flowers says, awe filled and wonderous. Her hand comes to cover her mouth as she looks to the man with smoke pouring from his skin, who looks at her in turn. "Living flesh! Is his heart beating too?" She directs this question to the Groom, who goes to speak but doesn’t get far before the corpse in a hospital gown grins.

"I'll take it out and have a look!" He offers, getting closer to Eddie, who shies away with wide eyes.

"Please, leave him alone. He's only just arrived." The groom requests. The corpse places up his hands defensively and backs away. Eddie turns to face him again, brows furrowing in confusion. Maybe, if he didn’t want Eddie to be overwhelmed, he shouldn't have taken him into a town square filled with a bunch of corpses and skeletons to be poked and prodded at.

Oh god, he's surrounded by a bunch of corpses. He is holding hands with a corpse. He accidentally married a corpse. Leathery skin itches against Eddie's skin and he stares down at it.

His vision fuzzes before going black.

He really needs to stop fainting…

---

When Eddie comes back into himself, he's sat down in what looks to be an equal part abandoned and bustling fire station. The bright glare of an overhead light is interrupted by the Groom's face staring down at him.

His head tilts as his eyebrows push close together in concern. "Are you alright?"

Eddie doesn't respond, instead looking around the firehouse and taking in the cobwebbed corners and the exposed structural beams against the ceiling. He's aware of eyes and eye sockets on the pair of them, clearly watching though not interfering outside of their silent watching. His breathing shakes his chest and his hands feel clammy as he's aware he's no longer holding the Groom's own anymore.

Softly dark music fills the gaps in the chatter of the dead. It doesn't sound familiar but he wouldn’t expect it to. There's milling about all around him and he can't find a place for his eyes to comfortably rest without feeling like he's being rude by staring.

The face of an older man - though still distinctly dead - pokes into his field of vision beside the Groom's own. He smiles warmly, distinctly caring in nature. He holds a mug that's steaming in his hands.

"Have a drink." The porcelain pushes its way into Eddie's palms and he finds an odd comfort in how it's still warm. "It'll calm your nerves." Eddie turns to face the man fully but finds his legs to mid-torso to be burned and charred a deep black. He can’t figure out why someone so burned would willingly spend time in a firehouse. Regardless of Eddie's thoughts, the man turns to face the groom and offers his arms for a hug that's taken without hesitation. "Hey, kid. Where've you been? It's been a while."

Eddie tunes himself out of their conversation, it's clearly not one for him to listen into or participate in. Instead, he returns to looking around the station. The engine bay is empty of the vehicles; he supposes that it would make sense, it's not like the dead need emergency services to rescue them. Rather, instead of vehicles, groups of the dead talk in small to large groupings. He thinks he can see the head of a skeleton being pitched around between bodies down there, but it has no headless body that he can see.

Up in the loft around him, he recognises most of the corpses around him. There's the woman with flowers growing from her injuries sitting with the man who exhales smoke, and they're sat with a woman in a lab coat who is covered in chemical burns and another woman who also has a few gunshot wounds, though she is wearing fire-fighter turnout pants like the man, and not a police uniform like the woman who has made her way to the older fireman with burns on half his body.

It's all a lot for Eddie, who watches these characters talking and existing like anyone he would know and recognise.

Except they're dead. They're all dead and he's very much still alive. He can feel his chest rising and falling and he can hear his pulse in his ears. He can feel the blood flowing through his body as certain as he knows his ring sits on the skeletal hand of a male corpse.

Oddly, he thinks his parents would hate the fact that it's a dead person who's wearing it less than the fact that it's on a man's hand. And isn't his own lack of concern over that something to think about? How he would rather the man be alive than be a woman? He swallows the thought before he can ruminate on it any further, locked away inside his lockbox.

He sips carefully around the mold in his coffee. It's far from the most concerning thing he's done today, and the coffee is probably better than half of the coffee he's drunk in his life. His attention is drawn back to the man with burns, who is leaning on the countertop that Eddie is sat at. He gives him the same comforting smile as before.

"You probably have many questions." He offers the opening.

Eddie nods his agreement. "Yeah, uh." An awkward laugh bubbles from his throat and he places the coffee back down on the counter. "You could say that. Why am I here? Who is he?" He points to the Groom, who's eyes widen comically, though Eddie's don't stray far from the man in front of him. "What is he?"

The burnt man laughs, tapping slightly on the table. "Well, since you're asking…"

---

Falling for Tommy had been like falling off the top of a high-rise.

Seeing him initially across the floor of the club had given him a rush of adrenaline and had stolen the air from his lungs. But then talking to him and dancing with him had sealed his fate. He'd considered himself lucky to have that attention and affection returned.

Buck knew he was attractive; he had plenty of experience from past hook-ups to prove it. But after Abby had left him with no word of when she was coming back - or even if she was coming back - he had been feeling less than for a while. So for an attractive man to look at him and see someone worth being around and being with, what else was bound to happen except for falling?

And fall he had.

Days passed to weeks passed to months and before he knew it, he and Tommy had been together for just about six months.

And this was it. This was it for him. And apparently it was it for Tommy, too. Who kneeled in front of where Buck sat on his couch and had taken his hand in one of his own and asked him to marry him. He hadn't had a ring, but that had never mattered to Buck anyway. He had just felt so wanted. He hadn't needed a ring to be married, if it was even possible, he would have married Tommy there, on the hardwood floor of his living room, in their lazy day clothes.

Of course, he'd said yes.

Telling his parents had been a suggestion from Tommy. Buck hadn't spoken to them in four years, and he wasn't exactly excited to speak to them again to tell them that he was getting married to a man in a few days.

His parents hadn't been happy.

They never seemed to be happy with him.

Maybe they just hated marriage; they hadn't been happy when Maddie got married to Doug, either.

When he told Tommy all of this, he had cut off the retelling of the phone call to say he needed to tell Maddie. So what if he hadn't heard from her in a year? Surely she'd make it to his wedding.

Tommy had told him to calm down, that his hands were shaking, and that he was overthinking this whole thing. They should just go to the courthouse and get married tomorrow. Screw what his parents think. And that Maddie hadn't picked up his phone calls since last Christmas, what would make this one any different? They had nobody to tell and maybe that was a good thing, it would just be them against the world. They'd have each other's backs through everything.

Buck had all but swooned. Tommy had always seemed to know the right thing to say.

So, they set up a place to meet: on the furthest side of the lake. It would be personal, they could have their own private moment before heading to the courts and making it official.

Dressed up in his nicest suit, he'd turned up and lingered by the edge of the lake, staring into the water as he waited. The crows in the nearby forest called loudly behind him. He waited and waited as the sun set and gave way to a clear night sky. No clouds or light pollution interfered with the stars shining brightly in the water's reflection. His reflection wavers slightly under the movement of the water.

He stares aimlessly for so long he doesn't hear the crunching of footsteps behind him. And he almost misses the shadow behind him in the water. He barely turns himself around before the blade finds itself twisted between two of his ribs.

His final breath shudders out of his mouth as he stares at the man he thought he loved.

When he next opens his eyes, he's aware of the lack of air in his lungs and how his extremities feel cold. He knows that he has no possessions left on him.

A deep sadness settles into his weary bones.

He makes up his mind, laying beneath dirt and rocks and winding tree roots. He will never give himself to anyone except his true love. Maybe he's a glutton for punishment, but he isn't willing to risk his no-longer beating heart any more.

He doesn't think he could handle another break.

---

A small crowd has gathered around them as the burned man tells Eddie the story of the corpse groom beside him. The Groom is not looking near him, leaning against the countertop with crossed arms and eyes staring at the floor.

Eddie watches the crows slowly disperse as the woman with the flowers approaches the Groom and kisses his temple, hands holding onto his arm soothingly. He doesn't know what to think. Obviously, he feels bad. He feels awful, obviously. Nobody should have to go through something like that.

But he's also stunned. He's almost in awe of the resilience and faith this man has in love and romance, enough for it to be his first wish after dying. He has never felt such a belief in love, and he could only hope to feel that one day.

But he is married to the Groom he watches now. And he feels a familiar stirring of guilt in the pit of his stomach at knowing that he's going to have to turn this man who's already been through so much down.

---

Shannon sits alone in her bedroom, the night sky peeks in through her curtains as she wipes her face free of the make-up that's been sitting there all day. She can't help the sad sigh that works its way out of her mouth as her mom walks into the room. The sad but understanding expression on her mother's face is enough to tell her that Eddie won’t be returning tonight.

"Maybe the pastor is right. Maybe Eddie doesn't want to marry me." She feels a small thrill at that. That she and Eddie both want the same thing; to just remain friends. Even if she carries the pregnancy to term, they can easily co-parent. She understands it's not considered normal, but there's nothing saying that the child can't grow up with two loving parents who just don’t love each other. Janet just tuts her tongue against the roof of her mouth. Shannon shakes her head clear of the thoughts. The Diazes would definitely disagree with those ideas she's having.

She stands up and follows Janet out of her bedroom and back down to the front room, where Helena and Ramon sit on the couch. Janet perches on the piano stool, facing the room, and Shannon lingers by the doorway, leaning against the doorframe. From this new point of view, she can see the visitor from earlier - a Tommy Kinard - is still lingering in the house. She's never seen the man before today, and she knows that her family and the Diaz parents also hadn't known him. Judging from the look of surprise on Eddie's face, he hadn't been a friend either. She didn't know why he was here, but something about it was rubbing her the wrong way. He'd disappeared shortly after Eddie had left, and had apparently returned since then.

Helena speaks, her face contorted in an odd shape of displeased confusion. "Janet, this man has told us something he wishes to make you and Shannon…" she coughs and her mouth frowns deeper, "aware of."

Ramon's hand sits firmly on her shoulder, his own face a mirror of her's, though it hold much more displeasure and even anger. Shannon prides herself on being able to read people well, and when she turns this to look at Tommy, she sees the thrill in his eyes and she suddenly realizes that he knew where Eddie had run off to.

"I'm sorry to say that I saw Eddie at the lake." Tommy begins, "I couldn't see much; it was dark and I was far away, but he was stood there with someone else. They looked to be very… close. Before they slipped away into the forest." Shannon frowns but doesn't say anything. She knows firsthand that Eddie is not a very social person, she's not entirely convinced that she isn't his closest friend and they hardly know anything about each other.

"Who?" Janet asks. Tommy shrugs, though the shine in his eye doesn't escape Shannon like it does for everyone else.

"A man."

Twin shuddered gasps come from the Diaz parents who, despite clearly having heard this before, clearly cannot accept the thought of their eldest child and only son being with another man. Shannon digs her fingernails into the meat of her upper arm.

"A man?" Janet repeats, coughing her shock into her hand.

"Our boy, running off into the night with another man." Ramon says, displeasure dripping from his tongue.

"Don't act like it's so surprising." Helena mutters despite her own shock. "We should have expected it when he befriended Shannon." She turns to face her and grimaces slightly. "Sorry-" Shannon shakes her head but remains silent.

Her eyes eventually return to Tommy, who she finds is already looking at her. She meets his eyes and a chill runs up her spine at the predatory glare in them. She narrows her own slightly and watches as realisation that she doesn't buy his act tints in them. She lifts her head slightly.

"I'm gonna go. Call me if you need anything," He offers to the parents around them, and as he makes his way into Shannon's personal space, he turns back to where the three are looking at them both. "And I mean anything." His eyes linger on Shannon as he turns back around and she doesn't back down from the look. She may be shorter than him, but she's not afraid of him.

Helena leans into Ramon as the tension in the room crashes. "What are we going to do, Ramon? Lord knows where Eddie is or what he's doing. Let's hope that Mr Kinard is the only person who saw him, otherwise I don't know what we'll do."

"What about the baby? We are still one groom short of a child born out of wedlock. If we wait too long, even more rumours will start to spread." Ramon continues with the catastrophising. They're feeding off one-another's paranoia, Shannon realizes with startling clarity. She turns to look at her mom and watches as her eyes fill with pity and understanding. Her nails dig deeper into her skin.

"I'm sure he'll turn up." Janet tries to console. "Surely this is one big misunderstanding. Maybe it was just a friend of his."

Shannon bites her tongue, never in her years of knowing Eddie Diaz has he ever had a male friend. She doesn't think this fact would help calm his parents' hysteria down.

Helena looks at Janet with misty eyes. Shannon almost laughs that a grown woman is close to tears over the thought of her son being gay. She doesn't.

"We'll give him until the sun rises to come back." Ramon says. He stands up, guiding his wife to stand with him. In the back of her mind, Shannon wonders if they had always loved each other or if they had learned to through circumstances like her own. Janet nods her agreement and also stands. "You'll call us if he shows up here first?"

"Of course."

"Thank you. Have a good night." Helena rushes before they take their leave.

Shannon is left standing alone in the doorway to the living room and she almost wishes that Eddie doesn't show up. His absence has the highest chance of them remaining unmarried. It's almost a shame. He had been so handsome, she could have learned to love him. One day. But she knew, now more than ever, that he would never be able to love her the same.

What other explanation would he have to be seen running off into the forest with another man?

---

Eddie sits on one of the bar stools against the countertop facing the kitchen of the firehouse, the Groom beside him. His hands shake subtly where they're cupping each other. Since being here, he's learned a few of the names of the corpses around him. Though those are almost as odd as the state their bodies are in. The most normal names are Bobby - the burned man - and Maddie - the flowered corpse -, then there's Athena and Hen - both had gunshot wounds, though Athena was the cop. And it's almost fitting that Chimney is called the way he is, but apparently the nickname was one he got before he'd died. When asked about how he got it, Hen had barked a laugh so loud that it had startled the corpse wearing the hospital gown into falling off the couch, which had sent everyone else around them into laughter.

Eddie hadn't yet learned the name of the Groom - his Groom? No that was way too weird to think about right now - and he was almost afraid to ask. How do you broach the topic that you married someone by accident before even learning their name? He guessed it was sometimes something that happened, but he also didn't want to deal with the seeming inevitable teasing that came from this group.

He places his head in his hands as he thinks about going home to his parents like this. "I'm dead."

Bobby laughs in front of him. "You're not dead, you're married." He leans forward conspiratorially, "And you'll find it's one of the best feelings on earth." Athena gives him an affectionate pat on the arm for it and Eddie watches them through his fingers.

"Funny." He mutters.

"No, really." The Groom says, giving him a pinch. He jumps slightly at the feeling of his cold flesh against his own warm. It feels almost like a burn, staticky and too warm and too cold all the same. To his credit, the Groom does look sheepish. "I'd have demonstrated with a candle, but…" He gestures to the firehouse as a whole. "A lot of people here have died from fire. It's sort of an unspoken rule; no fire in the station."

Eddie almost laughs at the irony. He does manage an amused sort-of-smile, which lights the Groom's face into the proudest it's been since he woke up in this cursed place. That does sort of raise a question in his mind, though. He sits up straighter. "But how can a living person marry a dead one?"

"By making a vow. Which you did." The Groom smiles at him, patient.

Eddie blinks, looking down to where his hands now rest upon the counter. It seems to be in a permanent state of dusty. "But I'm supposed to marry Shannon."

The Groom waves the hand with his ring dismissively, turning to stare at a cupboard in the kitchen. "I'm sure she'll get over it. There are lots of living people up there." He sounds… upset. It adds to the guilt swirling determinedly in Eddie's gut. He hesitates all the same. Shannon is pregnant, it's the right thing to do to marry her. He would be disappointing so many people if he didn't, letting his child be born out of wedlock seemed like such a bad thing to his parents.

The Groom notices his hesitancy and sighs, turning back to face him. Their knees knock against one another as he also turns Eddie in his seat so they're facing one another. "Shannon." He starts. "Did you love her?"

The question is unexpected. It sends his heart pounding loudly in his throat and along with it brings up a 'no' he almost wants to scream. No. No he doesn't love her. He thinks he maybe could learn how to do it, how to love Shannon. She doesn't make his parents very happy, but if she gave them their first grandchild, he thinks they could learn to love her too.

"I never found out. We were friends, sure, but I didn't really… Know anything about her."

"The thing is, Eddie, I know a lot about you." The Groom sighs. "I've seen you, walking alongside the lake and through the woods, thinking."

"You have? When?" Eddie frowned.

"Have you ever felt like you weren't alone, even when you were? Or saw something out of the corner of your eye and turned and it wasn't there?" Realization dawned upon Eddie and he resists his instinct to drop his jaw. An odd warmth worms its way through his ribcage. He nods, wordlessly. "That was me."

The Groom leans one hand on the counter, and gestures with the other. The movement of his body knocks their knees together a little and Eddie - oddly - can't find it in himself to care very much at the feeling of bone poking into his jeans. Nobody is paying very much attention to them anymore, and Eddie is glad as the moment seeps into something more intimate and between the two of them. "We live in these two different worlds, but they overlap sometimes. I think we were meant to find each other. Call it fate, or the universe or serendipity. Whatever."

The look of pure belief on the Groom's face stops Eddie from mentioning that there is no way those things exist. He finds himself wanting to keep that smile there. The wonder and hope somehow sparkling in dead eyes. Instead, Eddie returns to a thought from earlier. "I don't even know your name." The admission flies through an awkward smile and hushed tone. The Groom laughs warmly.

"In all the excitement, I can't believe I forgot to tell you. It's Buck. Well, Evan, but nobody calls me that. So it's Buck." He smiles. "I have a wedding gift for you." He moves over a box that Eddie hadn't noticed was sitting on the counter.

Eddie hesitantly takes it in his palms and lifts the lid. Inside sits a pile of bones in a curled shape. As light streams into the box, the scull lifts up to look at him and a waft of familiarity falls over him. He furrows his brow as the bones lift up and uncurl, stepping out from the box. It takes a missing leg for Eddie to realize what he's looking at.

"Smudge?" He feels almost silly, speaking aloud to the cat. But she nuzzles her face against his upper arm like she had when he was twelve and something akin to relief fills him. She'd gone missing after a year of him feeding the stray who found herself on the porch of their back yard almost every day and he'd always wondered where she'd ended up. He guesses here is probably not the worst place she could have gone.

Buck watches him with a small, knowing smile. "I knew you'd be happy to see her." Bobby's attention is drawn back over to them as Smudge climbs up Eddie's arm and drapes herself wholly over his shoulders. Her bones dig slightly into his own but he can't find it in himself to care all too much. Somehow, she purrs softly into his ear. Less like a voice and more like a comforting breeze.

"She's been wandering around the station for a few years now." Bobby says. Eddie turns to face him, curiosity evident. "I was beginning to wonder if she'd wait forever for her owner. Seems we found him." He smiles knowingly and Eddie thinks it must be where Buck has picked it up from, since they look almost identical.

Smudge pushes her scull against Eddie's jaw and he lets out a surprised laugh and scratches under her chin. Buck watches them, leaning against the counter. "What a cutie." Eddie faces him and hopes that the warmth under his cheeks isn't visible. The mischievous glint in Buck's eye tells him it is. He ignores it.

"You should have seen her with fur." He lets his hand drop to the counter again and Smudge rests comfortably where she's laid. "Mom never approved of her. Told me that we shouldn't encourage the strays to keep returning for food…" Eddie swallows around the sadness that fills him. "But then again, she never seemed to really approve of anything I did."

"Do you think she'd approve of me?" Eddie looks up at Buck and sighs sadly. He knows the answer is a no. Even forgoing the whole being dead thing, he would never have approval to marry a man. The thought gives him a wallowing sort of feeling that makes his limbs feel heavy. He's suspected that he might want to, one day, if that were possible. But not until his relationship with his parents was wholly unfixable. Something in him told him that the existing relationship was not worth sacrificing for a hypothetical. Though, that relationship might be gone after tonight, given his absence from his own wedding rehearsal and subsequent accidental marriage to a dead man.

But he can't say all of that.

So instead, he says, "You're lucky you'll never have to meet her." And Buck hums like he both understands and is disappointed. Though, actually, that's an idea. What if he could go back? Back up? He tries to ignore the sadness etched into Buck's face as he sits up in his seat. "Well… Actually… We won't know until we try, right? You should meet her, and my dad too." He feels unsettled as he waits for Buck's reaction.

Eddie watches as his words sink into Buck's head. He watches as the realisation takes over from apprehension and gives way to hope. Eddie only feels his guilt grow. He feels bad for this, yes, but he can't marry a corpse.

Or a man.

He swallows as a bright grin spreads across Buck's face. It only stirs the guilt further into the fabric of his being. "Good idea!" Buck calls. "Let's go find them. Where're they buried?" He gets up, grabbing Eddie's hand in his own. Eddie hesitates, half standing off his seat.

"Oh, there's a problem…" He bites into the corner of his cheek. Buck turns around and furrows his eyebrows, tilting his head to the side and narrowing his eyes in confusion and concern.

"What?"

Eddie inhales, not meeting Buck's eyes. "They aren't from around here. They're alive." He watches as Buck deflates and his own guilt grows. Buck nods to himself.

"That is a problem…"

---

Rain thunders down and around the house as Shannon sits alone in her bedroom. Her knees are pressed in close to her chest as she tries to steady her breathing. The whole day seems to be going terribly and she can't help but feel hopeless about it all.

Her bedsheets feel warm and soft where they touch her skin and she sighs as she rolls to lay on her side, curled in around her legs. A sense of dread starts to creep into her periphery, like something awful is on the horizon just waiting for the right moment to snap.

Her eyes drift to her window and she watches as droplets of rain race down it. She leans up on her hands, transfixed as thunder strikes loudly.

---

Helena and Ramon Diaz gather in their front room. Helena all but paces a hole into the carpet as her fingers fidget with a bangle around her wrist.

Ramon watches her with a steady but silent presence from the couch.

"Edmundo just had to go and get that girl pregnant, didn't he? And he had almost fixed the little mistake by marrying her, but then he goes and runs off!" She shakes her head, frowning tightly. "I don't know how either of those women think they'll be able to find him in time for the wedding tomorrow. Especially considering Janet's sickness."

Ramon hums, listening. "If it gets postponed, people will start to ask questions."

"Downsides to living in a small part of town." Helena agrees. A beat passes and she sighs, shaking her head. "What are we going to do…"

---

The house they're walking through is messy and dust-filled. Every surface seems to have fiction and textbooks piled high on it. Spider-webs with fat spiders and flies seem to occupy every corner as Eddie mindlessly follows Buck's lead through the winding path they need to follow through the rooms.

A particularly daring - and not yet captured - fly buzzes close to his ear and he swallows a harsh flinch away from the sudden sound.

Taking a closer look at the spines of a pile of textbooks shows them to be medical in nature. The fiction books are all children's books and Eddie sends off a silent hope that there aren't any children in this house. He doesn't think he would be able to contain his sorrow if there was.

Buck lets out an exclamation and rushes forward, spreading his arms out into a sudden empty space. Eddie is helpless to follow.

"Karen, my love!" Buck grins and hugs the person. She was one of the corpses lingering around the station earlier, Eddie realizes. She's covered in chemical burns though her blood-stained lab coat is draped across one of the chairs around a dining table. They're stood in a kitchen, with the stovetop burners removed. She grins back at Buck, matching his enthusiasm and meeting him for a hug.

Eddie tunes himself out of their conversation unintentionally. He looks around more and finds his heart aching at the kids toys that litter the floor and surfaces around them. He shoves his hands into his pockets and swallows bile. He really hopes there's no kids here.

Buck's gesticulations draw his attention again. " - please, Karen. There has to be something you can do?" He's pleading, Eddie realizes. He must have missed that part. Karen looks uncertain, arms crossed over her chest as she frowns. There's a small amount of pity in her eyes.

"Why go up when we all know you're happier down here?" Her voice drips with concern and Eddie feels that familiar guilt settling into his stomach. When Buck looks at him, clearly for help, Eddie takes a small step forward.

"I just want to introduce him to my parents. Just a quick introduction and then we'll be back."

"I'm so glad you thought of this." Buck says. Eddie swallows around his feelings. He shouldn't feel so bad for doing this. He didn't know that he was going to be marrying a corpse. He didn't ask for that weirdly shaped root to actually be the skeletal hand of a man wronged before.

Karen sighs, pushing some hair behind her ear and thinking, deeply. She clicks her fingers and grins. "I have it! A haunting spell!"

"A what?" Eddie frowns.

"Of course!" Buck also seems to be excited by the prospect.

Karen does a small jog to the other side of the kitchen, where she tugs a book out from between a stack of medical textbooks. The force of it sends all of the ones on top careening to the floor but she leaves them be. Dust flies into the air and Eddie is reminded of his own life as he's the only one sent into a coughing fit as he inhales. He hits his fist against his chest to try and ease his throat, wincing as he breathes a dry and wheezy breath.

The other two don't spare him a second glance, both crowding around one end of the dining table as the book is flipped open and Karen turns to the right page. Eddie makes his own way over.

"It's just the thing for these quick trips. None of the fuss of corporeal travel."

Holy shit.

"That's possible?"

"Yep." Karen waves him off. "Not needed for this, though. Now, let's see…"

Eddie leans over to look at the book, not noticing how his shoulder presses against Buck's as he does so. As Karen flips through more pages, she hums a small tune to herself. The pages of the book that Eddie sees are covered in symbols and text he doesn't get the time to read properly.

"Ahah!" She calls triumphantly. Her finger traces the text on the pages as she reads, eyes lit up in a manic glee. "Here we go. And we have everything we need!"

She turns around and grabs a speckled grey egg from a bowl on the countertop. Half of them look cracked anyway, but she manages to pick one up that's clear of imperfection. She smiles warmly at them. "Ready?"

Eddie hesitates - no, he's definitely not ready, he doesn't even know what's about to happen - but Karen waves him off again. "Just remember, when you want to come back, just say 'hopscotch'."

"Hopscotch?" Is this a joke?

"That's it."

Karen cracks open the egg above their heads and a purple glittery powder comes from inside. Eddie blinks at it. He barely registers it touching him before everything goes black again.

---

Eddie blinks away the fog that's covered his vision and he finds himself standing in the graveyard of his local church. It's night and clouds still cover the sky, lazily drifting. Buck is beside him, eyes wide and focused on the full moon that seems larger than usual. Eddie can't help but stare at the man as he takes in everything.

A tree shakes in a soft breeze overhead.

"I'd forgotten how beautiful the moonlight is…" Buck trails, wistful. His head tilts to the side and he reaches for a low hanging branch. One movement of his legs lifts the hem of his slacks and reveals that his left leg is bone too. Eddie frowns at it slightly.

Buck's hand passes through the branch. Eddie blinks up at the movement and his own hand reaches for the trunk of the same tree. His fingers also pass through it, sending staticky pins and needles up his arm and settling into his ribcage.

"Is this a dream?" He feels slightly stupid for asking it, but watching his own hand pass through a tree like he was nothing more than smoke leaves it to be the only believable solution.

"No. It's real. Everything is real except for us." Buck turns to face Eddie with a smile on his face. It's subdued. Something about the moonlight's stark difference to the twilight of the underworld has changed him. It sends Eddie through a bit of a loop. "We're just phantoms."

With that, Buck takes a step forward, through the rows of irregular headstones. His fingers brush the tops of them, unsettling dust like a small gust of wind. It sparkles in the moonlight and Eddie is helpless to follow as they weave aimlessly through the graves of men and women that Eddie has never known. He's transfixed by the vision Buck creates, eyes half-closed and head tilted up slightly in the moonlight. Cobwebs that he'd never noticed glitter alongside the dust mites as they return to the tree they started at.

Buck turns to the shadows of all the houses in the town. "Which house is yours?" The sentence is muttered into the wind and it settles across Eddie's chest like a ghost. He swallows, looking out as he takes his place next to the corpse. From their vantage point, he can see his own house, sitting by the shining water of the lake, and he can see the orange lights in the windows of Shannon's house, her patterned curtains nothing more than a pink tint to the light in her bedroom.

He points to Shannon's house without thinking about it. He really doesn't want to face his parents, and he really needs to apologise to Shannon about this whole thing. "It's over there." Unease swirls as he comes up with a way to get there alone first. "How about I go on ahead? I should really apologise for leaving as I did, and I should really prepare them." He nods to himself then looks to Buck. What a mistake that was. Moonlight reflects in his hair and from his eyes. Despite how lifeless they should be, they're somehow filled with an unbearable sense of hope and belief. Eddie tears his eyes away, forcing a smile onto his face. "You wait here."

"You got it."

Buck takes a seat atop a nearby headstone that's name has long been covered by moss. Eddie nods to himself and hastily walks to Shannon's house. Guilt stirs low in his gut.

Buck's finger brushes over the top of the headstone, clearing some moss and vines off the top of it. He lets his mind wander to Eddie and how long he would be. The house didn't look too far away, but distance could be deceiving, he guessed. He couldn't help but feel a small shift of déjà vu settle into his cold bones.

No.

No, that was stupid.

Eddie wouldn't do that to him. Eddie isn't like Tommy. Eddie asked him to marry him. But so had Tommy. But. No. Eddie wouldn't leave him. Or kill him.

If his heart still beat, it would be like he was running a marathon. Instead, he's left with the familiar icy calm he's felt since the day he died. Recently, though, he's felt so hopeful. He was married, really, truly, married. To a nice man who wanted him to meet his parents. Tommy had never wanted Buck to meet his parents.

So he will sit, and he will wait. At least he's good at that.

---

When Eddie approaches Shannon's house, he spots Janet in the living room window. Her form is obscured by the curtains, letting her shadow move alone as he watches and listens in, eyebrows furrowing.

"What are we going to do?" She mutters to herself. Her shadow is holding a small rectangle. "I don't think either of them want to be married, I just don't know what to do. I don't want her to be alone when I…" Her voice trails off, soft and sad.

Eddie steps back, slightly. Sadness grows around his guilt alongside a relief he doesn't recognise. At least he wasn't letting Shannon down, if her mother's words were to be believed. That's one less person he's made feel bad tonight.

His eyes drift up to Shannon's window, where the soft pink floral curtains cover the view into her bedroom. A trellis with winding yellow flowers leads its way up to the window. He reaches out, experimentally, only for his hand to fall through the white wood.

Of course.

He'd forgotten about that little issue. There must be some other way he can get up. As he thinks, he barely registers the wind pushing through his hair and the light from the window getting slightly brighter. Karen had called it a haunting spell, and Buck had said they were phantoms. That meant that he was a ghost-

Only now does he realize that he's hovering in front of those pink curtains. Warm light covering his face. It's familiar, with an odd comfort he'd found in Shannon back when they were 14 years old and playing with a soccer ball in the field. Back before all of this happened. He can see into the window through a gap in the material he hadn't noticed before.

She's sat on her bed, fingers curled around pages of a book that he's never seen before.

He whistles, drawing her attention. He dreads to think what he looks like when she looks up from the pages and her eyes widen in surprise. She pushes open the curtains and window, staring at him like she cannot believe what she's seeing. He doesn't blame her.

"Shannon-"

"Eddie! What the fuck happened to you?" The profanity doesn't shock him. It actually eases some tension in him that she's acting like this. It's about as close to normal as he's felt all day. And he's currently stood in his ex-fiancé's bedroom as a ghost because he accidentally got married to a corpse.

"Shan, you need to help me." If anyone was going to believe him, it would be her. She had always believed in the afterlife in this capacity.

"You have no idea what they've been saying-" She cuts herself off as her eyes focus on the window again. Eddie turns to look. Helplessness fills him as his eyes meet Buck's.

The expression on the corpse's face is unreadable. Lost somewhere between the lines of sadness and meeting expectations. Guilt brings a tear to Eddie's eye. He didn't even know why he needed to do this. Maybe to get proof that he wasn't going mad? That he was actually married to a groom long lost to the world?

His feet feel glued to the spot in Shannon's old carpet as he and Buck stare at one another. He feels guilty that he even thinks the moonlight shining around him makes him look beautiful. He shouldn't feel like this. Not about a man. And he shouldn't be allowed to think such things anyway, not when he's betrayed this trust.

Shannon's hand lands on his shoulder. "Eddie. What's wrong?" She sounds like she knows something. And with a startling clarity, he knows what this looks like. His ring is right there, on the skeletal hand of the man in front of them. And she doesn't even sound surprised.

"I… am married. And you should know it was very unexpected." Tearing his eyes from Buck to Shannon feels like a betrayal bigger than leaving him sitting in the graveyard. Buck laughs a sob and it sounds so broken. Shannon looks like she pities him for all she seems to understand.

"And to think I wanted to make a good impression." Buck sounds broken. Like Eddie tore out his still heart and ripped what's left of it to shreds to leave at his feet. Pale blue eyes dart up to the ceiling of Shannon's bedroom and he shakes his head, teeth digging into the skin of his lip. He looks back to Eddie and smiles a watery smile. It stretches his skin uncomfortably and Eddie looks back. "Who's this?"

Eddie's mouth opens, uselessly. Shannon takes a step away from Eddie, her hand falling from his shoulder. "Yeah, Eddie, who's this?" Where Buck's sounded broken and unsurely possessive, Shannon sounds interested. Though fright does fuzz around her words, bleeding into the stillness of her frame as much as grief bleeds into Buck's.

"I…" He looks between the two of them. One representing what he should want, and the other… He swallows around the thought. He doesn't want to confront what the other option is. "It's not-"

Words don't often escape Eddie. For all he doesn't speak, he usually finds the words to say what he means when he does say them.

This is not one of those instances.

"Who is she?" Buck repeats. Pleading fills his eyes and Eddie is helpless yet again.

"Shannon Kelley. She's the girl I'm supposed to be marrying." Understanding cloaks over Buck's face.

A soft knock accompanied by a muffled cough interrupts them.

"Shannon, sweetheart, are you alright in there?" Janet's voice flows through the wood of Shannon's bedroom door.

Buck looks at Eddie, heartbroken. Eddie feels his lockbox stir inside his chest, guilt and sadness and everything else he's been trying to push down threatening to shatter the wood and leave his insides covered in splinters. "You tricked me."

His hand weaves around Eddie's palm before he realises what's happening. And even when he does, he can't find it in himself to try and pull away. He deserves this.

"Hopscotch." The word tears itself out of Buck's throat like a gunshot and Eddie feels his body start to fade. It covers him in pins and needles.

He stares at Shannon and hopes she realises how sorry he is for getting her involved in all of this. The sad smile she gives him tells him that she knows.

It’s the last thing he sees before he's back in Karen's kitchen. He's on his knees on the paper covered tile and trying to fight against every instinct inside him that tells him to cry. Buck stands up as soon as he can, ignoring the fact that Karen is sipping from a mug as she's perched on the table, watching them.

Buck points at Eddie. "You lied to me." His hand falls to his side and he looks at the ceiling like it will give him all the answers. Eddie stands up. "Just to get back to that woman."

He just stands there, guilty as charged. He gets a handle on his lockbox and breathes half-steadily as it simmers down.

"You don't understand. She's the one I'm supposed to marry-"

"I'm the one you're married to!" Buck's voice cracks with hurt, gesturing to his ring. He starts flexing his hands, curling them into fists and then extending his fingers as wide as they'll go before repeating the motion.

Eddie turns to Karen, hoping maybe she could give some support. She just shrugs. "He's got a point." She returns to sipping at her mug.

Buck sighs. "I thought this was all going so well…" He extends his fingers so suddenly out that the skeletal pinkie finger disconnects from where his palm would be, landing itself at Eddie's feet. Eddie frowns, sadly. He bends and picks it up, handing it back to him.

"I'm sorry, but… It just can't work." Eddie forces his eyes away from the man in front of him. The words feel like ash on his tongue.

"Why not?" Buck questions as he puts his finger back into place. "It's not my bones, is it?"

"No… your bones are fine."

"Really?" Buck questions. Eddie nods, still unable to look at him.

"Yes. Listen, under different circumstances, well, who knows?" An odd feeling fills him at the thought of meeting Buck under different - better - circumstances. Ones where they're both alive, where Buck hadn't been killed by someone he'd truly loved, where Eddie had learned who he really is as a person. Maybe in a life where he doesn't have the strain of having to marry Shannon over his back. He can't help but wonder who Buck was when he was alive, would he be the same? He feels oddly sorrowful at the realization that he'll never know that Buck. That the only one he'll ever know is the one who's heart he's breaking right now. "But, we're just too different. I mean, you're dead."

"You should have thought of that before you asked me to marry you." Buck says, crossing his arms.

"I didn't mean to ask to marry you. It was a mistake." He makes another mistake looking at Buck as he says this, arms gesturing imploringly before falling to his sides as the weight of his words come over him. They clearly sting for Buck.

Buck lowers his head as he nods, understanding but dejected. He turns and walks out of the kitchen, leaving Eddie stood there feeling like the stupidest man alive or dead.

---

Buck walks out to an alleyway and down it. His footsteps echo off the uneven bricks and rattle back into his skull, shaking his bones from the inside out. The force of it pushes tears to his eyes. He shakes his head to himself. Was he really so stupid to fall for another man who didn't love him? Another one who would leave him alone amongst the dead? He just feels so dumb.

He finds Hen and Chimney, sat chatting on opposite ends of a bench halfway down the alley. He plops into the space between them, wiping his eyes furiously. They can tell what it is about immediately, he realizes. He's thankful that they're his friends.

Hen grabs his hand comfortingly. "Forget him. He's not worth your tears, Buckaroo." Her blood drips onto his hand and falls right off again, not even leaving a stain in its wake. A plume of smoke escapes from Chim's skin.

"Yeah. He doesn't even know what he's missing."

Buck feels his pout take over his face. "I can't compete with that woman." Hen's hand tightens in his own. He pushes on. "She has everything he wants, including a pulse."

Chimney scoffs. "Idiot."

"I mean. She's just alive. It's overrated as is." Hen smiles and runs a hand through his hair as Chimney knocks his shoulder encouragingly.

"What does she have that you don't? Can she sing? Play the piano?" Chimney takes Buck's wrist and lifts it, the ring on his finger glinting in the light of a streetlamp situated overhead. "She's not the one who's wearing his ring."

Buck sighs sadly, taking his hand back and clutching it tight to his chest. "But if I touch a burning candle, I don't feel any pain." His hand clenches in the fabric of his shirt, begging for his friends to just listen to him. "If you cut me I won't feel anything either. She's the one with the beating heart and yet I feel mine breaking all over again. Just try and tell me that it was never worth it to feel like this." Tears well in his eyes and he sobs, staring up at the sky to avoid looking at Hen and Chim. He laughs bitterly. "And yet I've still got tears to cry."

Hen and Chimney look at each other. A puff of smoke covers Buck's vision momentarily as he drapes an arm over Buck's shoulders. "Her only redeeming feature is that she's breathing, Buck." Another cloud fills his eyes. "Take it from me, that's not all it's chalked up to be. Be glad you can't anymore."

Buck stands up and shakes their reassuring hands off of him. On second thought, he doesn't want their comfort. "He thinks I'm a monster."

Hen gives him a warm but pitying smile. "You are a monster, a handsome monster."

"So start acting like one." Chimney grins, cheekily.

Buck sighs. "It doesn't change the fact that my only living part is the one that's breaking at the thought of someone else leaving me again." He shakes his head and crosses his arms over himself. "Thanks for trying, guys…"

Buck walks off and Hen and Chimney look to each other, twin expressions of sadness filling their undead faces.

From behind a divot in the alley, hidden from view, a dark guilt grows and eats Eddie's organs from the inside out. It claws its way into his throat and settles into a lump he can't swallow. He chews on his lip, leaning against the wall as he falls into a seated position.

---

Shannon paces around her bedroom, hands slightly shaky from what she'd just witnessed. Of course, she wasn't too surprised by the fact that another man was claiming to be Eddie's husband. She was more, surprised by the undead aspect. Was this the man that Tommy had seen Eddie with by the lake?

Probably.

Hopefully.

For Eddie's sake, she hoped it was. His husband seemed rather… upset at the idea of Eddie being with anyone else. And she dreaded being on the bad side of someone undead.

As she paced, she spoke aloud to her mom. Janet sat on the bed, watching Shannon with worried eyes.

"It's true, mom! Eddie's married to a dead man! I saw him! Standing right there, with Eddie." She pointed to the spot in front of her window.

"Eddie was in your room?" Janet asks, clearly trying to wrap her head around the situation. "I hadn't heard him come in…" She shakes her head, dismissing the thought. "Shannon, please, sit down. I'll make you a cup of hot chocolate."

A frantic half-laugh-half-cry escaped Shannon's throat. "I can't sit down. I have to help him. He came here asking for my help!" Her eyes grew foggy as she stilled, hands coming half up. Whether to hide her face or wipe her eyes, she's not sure. Janet stands up, placing an arm around her daughter and guiding her to sit on the bed.

"Sit down, sweetheart. You're shaking like a leaf. Where's your blanket?" She goes and has a look around Shannon's room. Shannon feels like she would probably do better in a straightjacket. She sounds crazy with all of this talk of dead husbands and Eddie appearing in her bedroom in the middle of the night without anyone else knowing.

"A corpse in a tux, with that ring on his finger…" She frowns. Something isn't adding up here.

"How awful." Janet sympathises, sitting next to Shannon on the bed and wrapping an arm around her. Shannon leans her head on her mom's shoulder. "A corpse in wedding attire. I've not heard that one before. Don't worry, we'll help Eddie as soon as you've stopped shaking."

Shannon decides not to mention her mom's own quiet trembling, as though the idea scares her as much as it scares Shannon.

Neither Shannon or Janet considered themselves particularly religious, but desperate times called for desperate measures. And living corpses seemed just close enough to the supernatural of God and deities that requesting aid from the church felt like the right thing to do.

The church stands tall and ominous in the thundering rain around them. Water seemed to seep through her coat she's wearing, sending cold shivers into her bones that rattle around as she tries to contain them. Her mom looked worse for wear, she wasn't stupid, she knew something was going on with Janet that she wasn't being told out of presumably the maternal instinct to protect her daughter. Shannon just wished she knew so she could use it as a reason as to why her mom shouldn't be stood here in the cold pouring rain with her.

Pastor Galswells answers the door in a pyjama set that would have made Shannon laugh had the situation been any lighter.

"Miss Kelley! What are you doing here? You should be at home, mourning the absence of your fiancé." He exclaims, clearly appalled by her presence. She holds back the urge to scoff. Surely she can't be the only one to see that neither her or Eddie wanted to be married to one another.

"We seek the advice of a man of the cloth." Janet answers for her. Their hands are linked between them and she squeezes her mom's hand.

"Pastor Galswells, I have to ask you something." Shannon continues. Galswells looks uncertain, eyes drifting demonstratively to the pitch dark of night and the rain around them.

"This is very irregular…"

"Please, I need to know." She pleads. "Can the living marry the dead?" Eddie had seemed quite freaked out by the corpse groom that had interrupted their conversation. Maybe, if their union wasn't possible, then he could get out of it?

"What on earth are you talking about?" Pastor Galswells asked. He seemed irritated by the suggestion and Shannon resisted the urge to shrink back from his judgemental glare.

"Please, Pastor Galswells." She insisted. She understands that she may seem desperate, but these were desperate times. "It's Eddie. He needs our help. He's somehow gotten himself married to a corpse." She figures, maybe she shouldn't add on the fact that he's married to a man. That would send an immediate door in her face.

He looks at her, his judgement growing with every word she says. She barrels on regardless. She may not be very close with Eddie, but he had come to her in search of help. So she would do all that she could to help him. "There must be some way to undo what happened. You're the only one who would know how!"

Seeing the judgement and distrust growing in the pastor's eyes, Janet steps forward again, squeezing Shannon's hand in support. "Please, what good would it do her to lie? This is what's probably caused the poor boy to flee the wedding in the first place."

This does not appease Pastor Galswells. He turns his unwavering gaze to Janet. "Mrs Kelley. Your daughter is speaking in tongues and I fear you may fall down the same path she does. Her mind has come undone. I fear, as a cause of the catastrophe of the wedding rehearsal earlier." His nose upturns and he sneers. "I suggest you both gather yourselves and get some sleep, for concerns of you saying the dead are rising from their graves next."

He slams the doors to the church closed in their faces.

Shannon turns to her mom, taking her other hand. "Mom, please. Listen…" Janet sighs and frowns, a furrow deep in her brow. Concern fills her eyes as she squeezes her daughter's hands.

"Maybe he's right, sweetheart. Maybe we do just need some sleep." Shannon whines pitifully, tears filling her eyes.

---

The next morning greets them with a knock at the door and the Diaz parents entering their house. Shannon had barely the time to get dressed before she was being pulled into another meeting in the living room.

Helena and Ramon once again sit on the couch, seeming just as out of place as they had when they'd first done it. Though this time, Janet hovers in front of them, finger worrying her lip between her teeth as the silence stretches on. Shannon watches her through the haze of exhaustion she feels. She hadn't got much sleep last night, mind too caught up with potentially missing Eddie finding his way into her room again, or maybe being greeted by his corpse groom.

Helena inhales, putting her mug down on a coaster on the coffee table. "I'm afraid to say, that our relatives will be arriving in town as we speak. They've all already R.S.V.P.'d and it's too late to ask for them to turn around since they're flying in." She shakes her head. "Not to mention the rumours we'd create by doing so."

Shannon bit her tongue. She didn't understand why the Diazes had so many fears of rumours, but maybe that was a consequence of growing up in the town she did with a single mother.

Ramon clears his throat.

"The wedding will be going on without Eddie." He looks to Helena, who nods. Janet looks to Shannon before looking away, having at least the decency to look slightly guilty. It's here that Shannon realises that she's lost. By going to the church last night, she'd scared her mother enough that she was going to be tied to someone she probably knew even less than Eddie, and she had no more say in it than she had the first time.

"Given the… rumours that have been going around last night about Eddie going off and marrying a… corpse." Helena nods around the words, looking like they're being ripped from her against her will. "It's best someone else will be found."

Janet suddenly walks hastily out of the living room, a coughing fit echoing in her wake. Worry courses through Shannon's body as strongly as the trepidation at being let alone with Helena and Ramon. Janet's bedroom door closing feels like something more than it is. She feels the eyes of the Diaz parents on the side of her face where she leans in the doorway.

---

Eddie enters the firehouse. It feels colder like this, with most of its inhabitants gone from its walls. A soft plinking noise of an out of tune piano echoes through the empty building.

Eddie walks into the room to find the captain's desk against a wall. Instead of where it's expected to be, sits a standing piano. Buck's back greets him, hunched sadly from where his arm shifts to poke the keys down. Eddie chews on his lip, hesitantly approaching.

"I'm sorry." The hand on the piano stills. "I'm sorry I lied to you about wanting to see my parents. Truth is, I would prefer to not see them."

Buck doesn't lift his eyes from the piano. A frown seems to draw his face down, eye's half-lidded and tear filled. It makes Eddie's heart ache.

"I don't even…" Eddie trails, cutting himself off. He doesn't move from his spot standing to the side of the other man. His eyes stay stuck on his profile, tracing the lines and birthmark that adorn it. His lockbox shakes, feelings he tried so hard to keep away threatening to make their escape.

"Don't bother. You can't force yourself to like me." Eddie's heart aches so badly yet he can't imagine what he's done to Buck.

"But I do like you." He insists. "Really, I do. It's just… This whole day hasn't gone according to plan."

Buck doesn't appear moved by this, instead his head turns away from Eddie. A moment of hesitation fills him, and then he decides that if he's already in the land of the dead, he may as well throw all of his usual fears to the side for a moment. This isn't about him. This is about making sure Buck knows how much Eddie-

Likes him.

He likes him.

He likes him because if he feels anything else then it would ruin everything he's built up. His lockbox would be useless. So he likes Buck and he needs to make sure that the other man knows that he likes him.

Eddie's hands rest against the ivory keys, testing them out. Though out of tune, they still seem to flow together, as though their mere presence in the land of the dead validates their notes. He plays along to the small tune Buck had been pressing before his arrival. Buck turns to him in surprise, but Eddie pointedly keeps his vision on the piano in front of them.

Their shoulders press together as Buck turns to properly face forward as well.

It's a playful tune, something light and something Eddie had hardly taken the time to practice before now. He doesn't know why it comes to him as easy as breathing, something that flows down his arms from where his shoulder touches Buck's. It's warm and fuzzy, like waking up in the morning and being at the perfect temperature to just lay in bed for a while.

The tempo picks up as they play, smiles working their way onto both of their faces. Eddie feels elation fill his head. He's never quite felt so free sitting at a piano before, shoved tightly beside someone so they can both fit on the same stool. His knee bumps against Buck's and the feeling that shoots up his thigh isn't fear at the bone he can feel. He doesn't let himself know what that feeling is, half-heartedly placing it within that lockbox as his fingers dance across keys.

Buck laughs as it becomes a duel, each taking it in turns to play their tune and the other to respond in kind. Eddie looks at him out of the corner of his eye and is taken aback by just how beautiful he looks. His shock causes him to falter enough for Buck to play a solo, left arm removing itself from the elbow to enthusiastically walk up the keys, twinkling like stars as it reaches the highest notes.

Buck grins, laughing, as he grabs his arm and reattaches it. He smiles sheepishly at Eddie. "Sorry, got too enthusiastic."

"I like your enthusiasm." The words fall out of his mouth before he can shove them in his chest to lock away. The pair look at each other in shock as a beat of silence falls over them. Eddie in shock over saying it at all, Buck seemingly having not expected the compliment.

A crash interrupts them. From the open doorway, Eddie watches as Smudge bolts across the space like a cartoon. They watch as Bobby walks past next, muttering about cats not being allowed in the storage cupboard. Though the words seem annoyed, there's no denying the resigned affection in his tone.

Buck squints. "That's how he speaks about me."

Eddie snorts. Buck looks back at him with a smile and look in his eyes that Eddie can't read. The groom stands up and offers his hand, a flicker of hesitance on his face. "C'mon. I think they're setting up on the roof."

Eddie doesn't know what exactly they're setting up for, but he takes Buck's hand regardless. He locks away the question of why he didn't hesitate for later.

The roof is bustling as the dead seem to prepare for a party.

There's a band composed of skeletons setting up by the furthest edge of the roof, and a few bodies seem to dance with their warm-up tunes. Tables set up in lines with old tablecloths lining them. They look like they'd smell like old dust if inside, but here on the roof gives a perfect uninterrupted view of the open twilight sky.

Eddie watches as food imitations slowly start to fill the tables, all seemingly instructed by Bobby, who has Smudge sat across his shoulders. She seems to be inspecting everything with as much effort as she had in her life; which is to say not much at all.

Dead and wilting flowers are also being set up in bouquets and garlands. It's here that Eddie realizes that what they're setting up looks an awful lot like a wedding dinner. He's suddenly aware of his hand still in Buck's but can't bring himself to pull away. He doesn't really want to.

Buck looks at Eddie and lifts his arm from where they're connected, inspecting what he's wearing. Eddie's clothes are torn, in all the excitement he'd forgotten that he'd ripped them running through the forest. Buck shakes his head, tutting. He shoves him off to a small overhang, where spiders descend upon him and slowly start to stitch his clothes back to their rightful places. If he looks closely at where the spiders had been, the spiderwebs glitter in the dim light.

He looks down at himself and gapes.

When he looks back up to Buck, he's grinning brightly. Even amidst the party preparation, he seems the brightest thing around. Eddie swallows his feelings, the threat of them escaping feeling like a ticking time bomb that would take everyone out in his path.

A large wedding cake is somehow carried up the stairs to the roof. It shakes from where it's precociously balanced atop the group of skeletons that are carrying it. It tilts threateningly and Eddie can see the shining details of spiderwebs. As it gets closer, he begins to the twisting vines and roots that decorate it, curling around decorative skulls. If there was any doubt before now, it is gone. This is definitely his wedding meal.

His and Buck's.

The cake sways as it's placed down on a table towards the middle of the others. Bobby is putting final touches on the cake as the music ends. Smudge finds her way to sit across his shoulders again and he raises his free hand - he's somehow still holding Buck's - to scratch at her chin.

Excited chatter erupts from the crowd of corpses and skeletons that fill the roof. Eddie finds himself smiling despite his situation.

The alarm goes off from below them. Bobby pushes through the crowd, hastily.

Hushed chatter from the group tells Eddie that this means there's a new arrival.

A heartbroken looking woman walks up the stairs, Bobby guiding her with a comforting smile. Eddie's heart drops through his chest. Janet stands at the entrance to the roof and he drops Buck's hand to walk over to her.

"Janet." He manages to say. Janet's hands shakily rise to hover near his face, a sad smile on her face.

"Oh, Eddie…"

"I'd say it's nice to see you, but…" He trails off and Janet nods in understanding.

"It's okay." She says, motherly smile on her face as she cups his cheek. "It's certainly peaceful here, isn't it?" Eddie laughs, their surroundings contradicting the statement.

"Just wait until you meet some of these people." Eddie smiles, rubbing his hands against his thighs. "How is everyone?"

"Alright, I guess. They're all still wondering where you ran off to…" She looks behind him, presumably at Buck, and understanding fills her face. A supportive smile stretches her lips when she looks back at him. It shifts into something sad and guilty, though, when she speaks again. "Oh, and Shannon… She's getting married this evening."

Janet doesn't meet Eddie's eyes as he frowns in confusion. "What? To who?"

"That young man who interrupted your rehearsal. Tommy Kinard, his name was." Janet nods, though she still can't look at him. "Your parents are organizing the whole thing." She shrugs, sadly. "Didn't want to waste the cake."

Eddie is left speechless. Concern fills his mind. None of them had known who Tommy was when he'd shown up originally. But apparently a day was all his family needed to fill the space he had left by Shannon. He hadn't gotten the impression that she was very eager to be married, but since his parents were apparently still at the helm, she seemed to have little to no choice.

Buck watches Eddie from across the roof, unease growing within him. Eddie's thoughts were already taken again by Shannon, and he couldn't do anything but sit and watch.

---

Shannon stands in her bedroom with her arms held around herself.

"Really now, Shannon. This wedding is already all paid for. Everyone is going to be here to attend in just a few hours!" Helena says. She doesn't raise her voice, though Shannon wished she would. It would give her a good excuse to yell back at her.

"But, Helena-"

"Tommy will make a fine husband. You can have your child, and nobody will suspect anything." Helena barrels on, looking to her husband and clucking her tongue once. "We helped since Eddie and Shannon are friends." She nods to herself and turns back to Shannon, who's shaking her head.

"But I don't love Tommy."

"You don't love Eddie, either. Would you prefer him? Even though he's…" The unspoken words sit in the silence of Shannon's bedroom. She wonders what they'd say if they continued, if they held no hesitation over expressing these words over their own son. He's gay? He's run off with someone else? Run off with a man? With a corpse? With a dead man? Already married to a dead man?

Shannon doesn't argue. Selfishly, she does sort of wish she was marrying Eddie instead. She knows their marriage would be loveless, built from necessity rather than any desire to be together. But once their child entered the world, she at least knows Eddie well enough that she knew he wouldn't leave them unless he had to. She doesn't know the first thing about Tommy, and if anything she felt like he was looking at her like she was nothing more than a target.

It sends a shiver up her spine.

"The wedding is going forward." Ramon nods. And the Diaz parents shut the door to Shannon's room with a final thud.

---

The party looks about ready to begin. Buck is holding a bouquet of white roses over a vase, their crumpled petals brushing against his skin. They look beautiful as he pulls away, letting them fall into place neatly. Karen appears at his side, a warm smile on her face.

"It looks beautiful, Buck." She compliments. "You know, Hen and I had a celebration like this when we got married. We focused more on that than the ceremony." Buck smiles at her, he liked hearing stories from the two about when they were alive and then finding each other again after they'd died. He knew they had a son and daughter up there somewhere, ones they only hoped to see again when they were old and wrinkly.

"Well my ceremony was very quick." He smiles to himself as he turns back to the roses, absently moving one to fall better with the others. Deciding it was ruining the rest of the bunch, he plucks it out, tucking it over Karen's ear and moving some of her hair to hold it in place. She smiles at him.

"So was ours. We didn't bother with the whole cups and candles thing." She waves her hand dismissively. "Hen and I couldn't keep a straight face when we tried."

Buck grins, taking the lead he knows she's left. "Well, neither of our weddings required that." He winks at her. "I didn't even speak at mine." He leans against the table, absently. Karen blinks.

"What?"

Hesitantly, Buck repeats himself, "I didn't even speak at mine? I am dead, Karen."

Karen thumps herself on the forehead, eyebrows furrowing together. "Of course, that's what I came to talk to you about." She gives Buck a slightly pitying glance. "There's an issue with your marriage."

"I don't understand." Nerves race through his veins.

"Well… Your vows are binding only until death do you part." Karen says. Realization draws upon him as slow as the rising moon.

"What are you saying?" Hopelessness is all he feels.

Karen takes both of his hands in her own. "Death has already parted you."

Buck looks around, the decorations on the roof so bright and colourful and plentiful. Crows have started to gather along the raised edges of the roof and he can see Chimney blowing smoke at them bitterly, causing them to caw loudly at him and Maddie to giggle at his side. There are more people arriving as they speak, excitement pulsing through the roof. The only pulse that's possible here.

Except for…

Eddie is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he's already overheard, taken his leave into the night and left Buck here. Not even saying a parting goodbye.

"The moment he realises we're not married, he's going to leave." He whispers to himself. Some foolish part of himself still hoping that he's around here. Karen squeezes his hands, clearly having heard his words. "There has to be something that can fix this. Please."

"Well…" She sounds uncertain, eyes avoiding looking at him. "There is one way. It's… The biggest sacrifice anyone can make."

"What is it?" Buck asks. He knows the catch is what Karen isn't saying. That there's something he's being kept from because she knows it'll hurt him to hear.

"He needs to die, Buck." She says. Her lip catches in her teeth and she looks up at him.

"What?" Buck feels like if he could break, he would shatter right in half at the revelation. Hopelessness fills his chest. There's no way that's going to happen. He wouldn't… Eddie wouldn't do that. Not for him.

"Eddie would need to give up the life he has forever." Karen rubs her thumbs against his hands, rotating the ring he's still wearing; the ring he has no right to. "He would need to repeat his vows in the land of the living and drink from the wine of ages."

"Poison." Buck looks up, helpless. He can't help but feel like he's going to be alone forever. This was all so wrong, everything was going wrong.

"It'll stop his heart forever… Only then could he swear to give it to you." Karen reaches up with her hand to wipe a tear that's somehow made its way down his cheek.

Buck trembles slightly, shaking his head as it bows. "I could never ask him to do that."

"You don't have to." The voice comes around the corner. Eddie walking out as he says it, one hand raised uncertainly. He's not looking at them, but Buck is still trying to process that he's still here. That he heard all of that and decided that he's staying here, that he's willing to die for this. For him. For Buck. "I'll do it." He says as he stands with Buck and Karen. His hands rub his forearms absently, like he's not even realising he's doing it.

"You know that if you do this, you can never return to the world above." Karen asks, hand coming up and holding Eddie's shoulder as she speaks. "Do you understand?"

Eddie chews the inside of his mouth, but nods. He finally looks at Buck and Buck can see little hesitation in his brown eyes. He'd say he felt breathless, but that was taken from him too long ago. It feels almost like breathing again. "I do."

---

Together, they stand on the edge of the roof, Eddie's hand holding Buck's tighter than the other because he didn't particularly feel like falling off the roof of the firehouse. Mainly because he doubted that anyone knew what would happen if he died in the land of the dead. Karen had seemed pretty dead-set on him drinking the poison upstairs, and that was a good enough reason for him to not try and die down here.

"Everyone!" Buck called. The crowd slowly turned to face them and Eddie was almost surprised to see how little he reacted to seeing the faces of those who died. He'd grown used to the permanent puss and blood and bone on these people. It was an odd feeling. "We've decided to have a change of location, and to do this thing right. So grab what you can, and follow us!"

"We're moving this wedding party upstairs." Eddie finished. He was smiling. He was about to get married to a man, and he was smiling. There was none of the trepidation he'd felt beforehand. None of that sense of wrongness that marrying Shannon had given him. This felt right. The only thing he felt was a buzz of nerves in his ribcage.

"Upstairs? I didn't know we had an upstairs…" Janet says, just close enough to hear.

Together, the group move out, grabbing things and making their way to where they needed to go. Buck stepped off the edge of the roof and reached out his hand, helping Eddie jump down after him.

As the group moved, chatter about having a wedding fills the air. It's electric, almost. Anticipation fills Eddie as he and Buck walk, hand in hand, to follow the group. Hen and Chim come up at some point, walking with their respective partners, to clap Buck on the back and crack a joke about how it's finally happening. They seem happy for him.

---

The dining room of Shannon's house was filled with people she didn't know. It was the only thing she could think about as she sat there in total silence. Married off to a man she'd only met yesterday and who didn't make the best impression either. All the Diazes seemed to care about was that rumours of her pregnancy didn't grow from her connection to Eddie. Who still hadn't shown up. Shannon was getting worried, now. Though she hoped - for his sake - that everything was fine. Maybe he was content with his husband. She hoped so.

At least one of them deserved a happy marriage if they were to both be forced into it.

A cake sat in the centre of the table. It was a small thing, pristine and white. Shannon wanted to throw it across the room. But the wedding dress she wears is… was… her mother's. And she wasn't going to ruin it by getting cake on it.

The room was silent. Funny that; how a table of people who shouldn't be there in the first place will render a room silent. She could hear a pin drop if it fell on the other side of town. Tommy stands up from his place beside her and she holds back her instinct to recoil from him. The other heads at the table turn to him.

"As many of you know, it was a quick relationship for Shannon and me. But love is like that. Spontaneous and unexpected." Shannon bites down on the bitter words she wants to yell. That he interrupted a wedding rehearsal he had no place to be at and made himself the only option in the parent's eyes for her to be married to. There was no love between them. If she hadn't seen Eddie and his groom for herself, she would have suspected he had lied about Eddie as well to take him out of the picture. "Serendipity may have brought us together, but no force could ever tear us apart."

Shannon just stares at the cake, willing it to explode with her mind. Maybe she could die too, join Eddie in the afterlife and finally meet his husband properly. Be the friends they never had the chance to be.

A smash draws her attention away to the window, now with a broken glass pane in its frame. She watches as figures appear from the darkness and crawl their way through. She's stunned. Her home is being invaded and she can't do anything because she's still not certain this isn't just a nightmare. It's only once they're approaching the table does she realize what exactly they are.

The undead.

A small flicker of hope lights itself in her chest.

Beside her, Tommy starts to freak out. His eyes wide and unfocused as he watches the - strangely polite - corpses and skeletons invade her dining room. They accidentally bump into a few of the Diaz family, but she and Tommy are far enough away that whatever they seem to be doing here doesn't require them getting too close.

Shannon crosses her arms over her chest as she watches fear overtake Tommy. He's crawling under the table to hide and she feels a strike of satisfaction that she's not even phased by this. She probably owes a thanks to Eddie's partner.

The dead and living alike swarm their neighbourhood and town. Terrified screams seem to echo and arise from every street and house Shannon walks to the front porch of her now abandoned house and watches the living run from the dead.

It takes a moment but she sees a familiar face amongst the chaos. Standing there, in the middle of the road, bodies running around her.

"Mom?" Shannon's voice breaks and shakes as her mother walks as fast as she can to the door of her house. Janet takes Shannon's face in her palms and seems to melt at the sight of her.

"Oh, sweetheart. You look beautiful." She says. Shannon pushes forward and wraps her arms around her mom in a tight hug.

"I missed you so much." She whispers into the night.

All around her, other people seem to be having a similar realization. The little boy who lost both of his mothers seems to be reuniting with them across the road, and a small family of four is enveloping a dead policewoman into a group hug.

"I've got to go." Janet says as she pulls away. "There's a wedding we're all attending happening very soon." Her hand cups Shannon's cheek again. "Please come. As a guest, this time."

Shannon nods, wordless. Janet smiles and tilts her head down to kiss her hairline.

She starts to walk off before turning back, smiling sadly. "I'm glad I got to see you in a wedding dress." And then she leaves. Shannon resists the urge to run after her mother, instead turning back into her house and going upstairs to get changed into something more casual. She doesn't think there's a dress code for this wedding. It's not like she runs a risk of standing out if she wears jeans while there are skeletons and corpses in attendance.

When she comes back downstairs, she's met with a slightly manic Tommy. He whirls to look at her, eyes wide.

"Right. We're going to get out of here. Get all the money we can. And then leave." He starts pacing around her trashed dining room. She frowns, putting on her best clueless voice. She knew something was up with him.

"Money?" That draws his attention. "What money?"

He's eerily still as he looks at her. "What do you mean 'what money'?"

"My mom doesn't have any money. We used what we have on doctors visits." Her eyes are wide and innocent as she stares at the man, his true intentions being bared to her. His hands clench tightly into fists. She can't even hold back the smirk at what she sees. "Did things not go according to your plan, Tommy?" She looks him up and down and grimaces. "Well at least we are perfectly matched in disappointment." It was just about the only thing they matched in.

Shannon turns around and leaves. She has a wedding to get to.

---

Eddie stands beside Buck at the altar of the church. He can't stop looking at him out of the corner of his eye, his lockbox in his chest shaking with each time he does.

Bobby stands on the other side of the table in place of a pastor. As the officiant, when he clears his throat, the dull chatter in the church hall silences completely.

"In the aim of making this quick, let's skip the preamble and get straight to the vows." He gestures demonstratively to Eddie. "Living first."

Buck removes the ring from his finger and shakily hands it to Eddie, like if he does, then Eddie will bolt out of here. It's too late for that, he saw his parents walking in amongst the crowd of the dead and he knows that if he talks to them again before this, he'll have to answer so many more questions. He also doesn't want to run away. Oddly, he finds himself wanting this. He wants to know Buck.

"With this hand, I will lift your sorrows." He doesn't feel the same uncertainty he'd once felt over saying these words. Here, staring into the pale blue eyes of the man opposite him, he has never felt more certain. "Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine." The metal chalice is heavy, even empty.

Bobby gestures to Buck. "Now you."

Buck and Eddie stare at each other for a moment. Eddie smiles and nods minutely.

"With this hand, I will lift your sorrows." Buck is smiling as he says the words and Eddie realises that this must be the first time he's saying them to anyone. "Your cup will never empty, for I…" He trails off as he pours the poison into the chalice between them. His eyes drift to the side and land on something behind Eddie, face falling and eyes watering. Eddie frowns slightly. "I will be…"

Bobby smiles encouragingly. "Go on, kid."

"Your cup will never empty." Buck's eyes keep darting between Eddie and something behind him. He ignores the want to turn around. "For I will be…"

Eddie smiles, lifting the poison to his face. "I will be your wine." He finishes, going to take a sip.

Buck carefully guides the chalice down, chewing on the inside of his lip. Eddie turns to him, confusion and rejection pulsing as hard as his heart. Hushed chatter fills the hall as he does so. Buck inhales and shakes his head.

"I can't."

"What's wrong?" Eddie's lockbox pushes against the inside of his ribs, begging to just be opened. He doesn't, just focuses on Buck in front of him. He goes to turn around, to see what Buck keeps looking over to, but he's stopped by a skeletal hand on his cheek, turning him to face Buck again.

"This is wrong." Buck says, tone damp. He sounds like he's about to break. Eddie hates that he put that feeling there somehow. His hand stays on Eddie's cheek. "I was a groom. My dreams were taken from me. But now… now I've stolen them from someone else." A tear runs down Buck's cheek and Eddie can't bring himself to wipe it away. "I love you, Eddie. But you're not mine."

Buck's hand finally leaves Eddie's cheek and he holds his hands in loose fists to stop himself reaching out to regain a point of contact. He doesn't know what Buck is talking about, taking this dream from someone else. And then Buck gestures to behind Eddie and he turns and he understands.

Except Shannon is stood there in a pair of blue jeans and a floral shirt and smiling knowingly at him. He understands that she understands what has just happened. And he realizes that she knows how he feels about it. She's always been good at reading people like this, at reading him like this.

She approaches the pair, her smile remaining on her face. She goes to talk but-

"Oh, how touching." She is interrupted by someone walking through the door to the church. "I always cry at weddings." Shannon takes a step back and Eddie watches as her face turns into disgust. "Our young lovers, together at last." Tommy looks at Eddie as he speaks, mockingly. He walks towards the three of them. "Now they can live happily ever after with their baby. Perfect nuclear family." He stops, a few steps away. "But you forget. She's still married to me." He yanks Shannon to his side and she sneers at him, trying to pull her arm away.

"You…" Buck speaks, voice quiet and trembling. All attention draws to him. Tommy stares in what could only be considered abject horror as he takes in the man in front of him.

"Evan."

"You." Buck's tone turns to anger.

"But- but- I left you." Tommy stutters over his words, eyes searching for any proof that he could be proven wrong at what he's seeing.

"For dead." Buck finishes, turning up his nose.

Realisation washes over the church as living and dead alike gasp their surprise. Eddie thinks he notices Maddie being held back by Chimney and Hen from where they're sat.

Tommy tightens his grip on Shannon, backing away enough to grab a sword from a nearby skeleton's chest. He holds it threateningly over Shannon's neck. She stills. Her eyes bore into Eddie's from across the room.

"Sorry to cut things short, but we should be on our way." Tommy quips. For all the posturing, he's fearful. Being surrounded by this much death must be terrifying him.

"Take your hands off her." Eddie says, approaching the two. He knew, walking into this church, that he was not walking out alive, so he wasn't worried about changing the method at all. The poison was just the most painless way they could manage.

"Do I have to kill you, too?" Tommy asks, removing the blade from Shannon's neck and tightening his grip on her arm. The point of the sword levels at Eddie's stomach.

Before anything else can happen, Tommy is screaming in pain. They all look down to see Smudge, biting down on Tommy's ankle. In the ensuing struggle, Shannon's arm is let go and she makes a run for it. She's thankful she's not in the wedding gown, her jeans easier to run in than the floor length skirt.

"Eddie!" Chimney calls. "Catch!" He flings something that's glinting metal at him. When he catches is - he actually catches it - Eddie looks down to see a large fork. He blinks at Chimney. The puff of smoke that bursts from his skin is somehow amused and apologetic in the cringe of his face.

Tommy bursts forward, swinging his sword. Eddie just makes do with what he has, blocking the blade with the fork.

The metal gives off tiny sparks as it collides, the connections echoing in the tall ceiling of the church.

Eddie dodges as Tommy swings wide, sending him careening into the table at the head of the room. He falls back against it, but recovers quickly. More swipes of the knife and dodges follow. At one point, Eddie is backed against a pillar to the side of the room but he dodges again as Tommy swings, ducking his head under the man's arm and making a break for it. He manages to stab Tommy in the side with the fork, unable to take any delight in the man's yelp before he's being swung at again.

Eddie backs away more with every dodge, working their way up the hall to the entrance. Every hit that doesn't land on him manages to land on one of the undead that surround them, knocking skulls loose and arms off. Eddie knows they'll be okay, but he still wants to apologise to them somehow.

When he manages to land another hit on Tommy's side, causing blood to come out and soak the fabric of the tux he's wearing from his wedding earlier, his face twists and turns into something ugly and angry. He lunges forward, swiping his sword down only for the blade to get caught between two prongs of Eddie's fork.

Eddie manages to twist away and down, hiding beneath one of the rows of pews. But then the blade comes between the wooden boards. Again and again and again, Tommy stabs the pews, aiming to hit Eddie somewhere. He shoves the fork up through them, hearing the yelp of a man who's just been stabbed in the foot by an almost comically large fork.

Tommy manages to fall off the pew, sending the few rows in front collapsing like dominos.

When Eddie gets out, Tommy is ready for him. He swings the sword at the fork, knocking it free from Eddie's hand before kicking him down to the floor. His blade hovering threateningly in front of Eddie's chest.

Eddie steels himself, ready for the puncture.

It never comes.

Instead, the thunk of it hitting bone fills his ears as his vision is filled by Buck's back. An echo of gasps fills the church. The sword is left hanging from its place in Buck's ribs.

He stands there, a wall between Eddie and Tommy, and smoothly removes it from his body. When he swings it out, he levels it at Tommy's face, eyes narrowing.

Tommy is taken aback for only a moment longer before snapping back into the overly confident persona he'd displayed before. "Touché, Evan."

"Get. Out." Buck hisses through clenched teeth.

Eddie gets up and rushes to stand by Shannon's side as Tommy walks around the group, heading towards the table.

"Oh, I'm leaving." Buck doesn't take his eyes off of Tommy for a single moment, never lowering the sword either. Tommy laughs, walking up to the table and taking the chalice from the top. He swings it out demonstratively. "But first, a toast. To Evan. Always the groomsmen, never the groom." Eddie watches as Buck's face drops, tears rising to the corners of his eyes. "Tell me, can a heart still break once it's stopped beating?"

Tommy laughs as Buck deflates. All of the fight seems to leave his body as he stares helplessly at the man he once loved.

"That's it, let me at him." Maddie says. She's closer to the front of the crowd now, eyes burning with anger. Bobby places a single hand on her shoulder.

"Wait. We must follow their rules. We are amongst the living." Bobby says, stopping the crowd from descending upon Tommy.

Nobody speaks as Tommy sniffs and lifts the chalice to his lips, draining the cup of everything it contains. He throws it to the side once he's done and Eddie watches and waits as the man begins to walk off. Buck's eyes follow him as he does, heartbroken.

Suddenly, Tommy gasps, clutching his chest and bowing forward. He chokes, doubling over and scratching at the skin of his throat.

"Not anymore." Chimney sing-songs from beside his partner.

When Tommy turns back around his skin is lifeless, blue tint covering everything that should have red blood flowing through him. Eddie watches as horror contorts his face.

"You're right, he's all yours." Bobby concedes, letting the dead swarm past him.

The hoard takes the man into a room with a door, the slamming shut of it echoing ominously throughout the church hall. Silence echoes around them as Bobby moves back around to the other side of the table. He puts the top back on the bottle of poison and rights the chalice again.

Shannon debates with herself before looking to Eddie, who's looking at - Evan? She bites her lip and takes a step forward towards the corpse groom. She offers her hand.

"I don't think we've formally met. I'm Shannon." She smiles, honestly. Buck, seemingly taken aback, takes her hand and shakes it. She doesn't flinch at the cold of his flesh.

"Buck." He greets. Shannon smiles knowingly, he hadn't seemed to like being called Evan all that much when Tommy had done so. She nods.

"Listen, you said earlier that you were taking my dream from me." She laughs softly. "But to tell you the truth, I can't think of anything I want less than to be married right now. And definitely not to Eddie." She pulls Buck to Eddie, before grabbing his hand too, and taking them both up to stand in front of the table. She deposits them where they were before, before joining their hands together. They both stare at her in awe.

She turns to Bobby. "Tradition states that all that's needed for a marriage is an officiant, both parties, and a witness. Correct?" The man in front of her gives her a knowing, and grateful, smile before he nods. She gestures to herself. "And would you look at that, we have everything we need."

"Shan. If I do this, I'll die." Eddie says, his hand tightening around Buck's. She smiles and gives his arm a gentle pat.

"Then you'll just have to haunt me every few weeks to see how far along I'm getting." She gives a soft pat to her stomach.

"You're keeping it?" Eddie's eyes are wide and filled with awe.

She shrugs, smiling sadly. "The house will be quiet without mom there. Maybe I'll move out to LA. That's about as loud as it can get. Raise this kid with as many people around as possible." She shakes her head and nods at the two of them. "Now get hitched as quickly as possible, please. I need to start planning to move out before your mother has the chance to bite my head off for not stopping you from doing…" She gestures widely. "Everything here."

Eddie laughs wetly before turning to Buck and Bobby. At Bobby's questioning smile, he nods and turns to Buck. Shannon moves to sit on the front upright pew in his periphery.

He raises his hand. "With this hand, I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine." He raises the chalice to the space between them.

Buck's eyes are filled with tears but he smiles as he nods. "With this hand, I will lift your sorrows. Your cup will never empty, for I will be your wine." He pours the poison into the cup. Eddie smiles and inhales as he lifts the chalice to his lips.

The poison tastes bitter on his tongue, but he swallows it down. He places the empty chalice on the table when he's done and lifts the ring from his pocket. With his last breath, he manages to speak.

"With this ring, I ask you to be mine." Buck offers his hand and nods. Eddie slips the ring on his finger as he feels his heart slowing down and the air escaping his lungs. His shoulders hunch and he leans forward slightly, forehead brushing against Buck's shoulder.

"I do." He smiles.

Eddie feels the life leaving his body and when he looks at his hands, they're pale and cold. He stands straighter and doesn't feel the need to take a breath. His body feels still. And yet when he looks at the man in front of him, he considers that he's never once been living before this moment.

His lockbox opens.

Tears spring to his eyes and he searches in Buck's face for any traces of regret. He only finds plain adoration. He sobs, hand covering the smile that's found it's place there.

"Hi." Buck says, uneasy smile on his face. Eddie swallows and bites his own smile, removing his hand from his face, grabbing both of Buck's hands with his own.

"Hey."

Bobby laughs at them warmly, throwing his hands up a little. "You may now kiss the groom."

And they do.