Chapter Text
Tommy woke up the same every day: too hot and to an empty bed.
He rolled out of the sheets to the cool spot on the other side, closed his eyes against the bright glow through the open blinds—consideration, really. David toed his shoes on by the door. “I’m heading out,” he said. “See you tonight?”
Tommy didn’t know if David could tell when he was awake, or he just said the same thing every morning. He grunted in response anyway. It didn’t matter, David was already walking away. Tommy breathed in the scent of the pillow on the cool side of the bed. It didn't smell like anything. He went back to sleep.
Tommy’s days were boring. It defied logic, he thought, how boring his days were. Before the day started, he could predict everything that happened. Down to David sending a text to let him know he couldn’t make ‘family dinner’ 20 mins before.
Family dinner was porous. Billy always hosted, at his—and Teddy’s—house that was less a house and more a ridiculous freaking villa that Tommy had no idea how he—and Teddy—afforded. Billy’s idea of family was more expansive than Tommy’s on his best day. They stretched Tommy’s own sociability some days, between birth families, and adopted families, and cousins Tommy hadn’t known existed and friends that couldn’t reasonably be qualified as friends anymore because of course they were more family than anything else. Some days. Others…
By the time Tommy arrived, Billy and Teddy had already sat down to eat. He sped to a chair and sat, already piling his plate with food before he bothered to glance up at his brother.
”Hey.” Tommy said, to his bald stare.
Teddy said, “Hey,” Billy looked pointedly between Tommy and the chair that had been left empty beside him.
Tommy shot him a face that was supposed to say don’t ask, and Teddy, as if a puppet on a queue faux-casually said, “Where’s David?”
“Busy.”
“He’s not coming?” Billy asked.
Tommy knew what Billy was thinking, that this would be the third in a row. The eighth in the past three months—though maybe Billy didn’t keep as meticulous track as Tommy found himself unconsciously doing.
It was a quiet dinner. Billy and Teddy and Tommy. Tommy and Teddy and Billy. They had spent too many years together to need to fill the space with noise. It’s shockingly peaceful, Tommy has found part of his mind quiets now, when it was just him and Billy. Almost as if they were real brothers.
That was until Billy, over dessert that’s less dessert and more light suburbia after dinner fair—cut fruit and simple syrup, asked, “How come you and David aren’t married yet?”
Tommy shrugged, already mentally rolling his eyes, this conversation—like every conversation—felt like one they’d already had too many times.
“Teddy and I have been married for a long time and you two are still just dating, it’s weird.”
“We’re engaged, actually.” There was a time, Tommy was sure, when he’d have pointed out that Billy and Teddy’s ‘long’ marriage was much weirder considering their ages. And that marrying your high school sweetheart was some small town, ultra-Protestant shit—Tommy would know—and Billy had never been either.
“You’ve been engaged for a long time.”
“I’m starting to question your definition of a long time.”
Billy leaned forward, and the room dwindled down to just them. It took all of Tommy’s will to not tumble into whatever hole they were at the precipice of. “I want you to get married.”
“Okay.” Tommy wanted this conversation to be over.
Billy speared a tiny piece of cantaloupe and sat back in his seat, switching tactics. “Is it David, I can talk to him.”
“No.”
“Just about setting a date, I can be subtle.”
“No.” Tommy did not, under any circumstances, want Billy talking to David.
“Tommy.” Billy glanced at Teddy who, so silent in these moments always, was easy to forget was there. “None of us move forward unless we all do.”
“That’s totally not cryptic or disconcerting or anything.” The thing was though, it wasn’t. Not cryptic in the sense that Tommy didn’t understand it, part of him knew exactly what Billy was on about. A part of him he spent quite a lot of time intentionally ignoring. Worried at what he’d discover if he looked, if he allowed himself to feel whatever was hiding there. “Whatever, I’ll talk to him.” he said to cut into Billy’s weighted silence.
Tommy couldn’t remember when he and David got engaged.
Okay, that’s a lie. Tommy couldn’t remember why he and David got engaged. It wasn’t that he wasn’t sure that they were in love at the time, it was… it was that…
It was another of those open wounds Tommy didn’t want to touch.
David had proposed, but Tommy had been so ready for it, so on edge of his own proposal, that he’d stopped David in the middle of his speech to retrieve his own ring carefully tucked away in a cap beneath their shared mattress. The first half of the proposal had taken place on the front steps of the apartment complex they still lived in.
Tommy remembered being happy. Happy to be together, to tell their friends, to take that next step in their lives together. And the happiness hadn’t faded. Hadn’t dulled, but it did at some point still. Caught in the moment he and David both found themselves. Together, engaged, committed, busy. Tommy had lived what felt like the same day so many times it was hard to believe another day would happen. It was only in the past few weeks he’d noticed the change.
He reached the apartment before David. Didn’t bother to turn on the light, moving smoothly in the dark, knowing the contours of the home like the back of his hand. He showered and switched on a movie. By the time David got home, Tommy was just as he was when David left: in bed, alone.
David murmured a low greeting, meant to be unobtrusive. Tommy paused the movie. “Do you want to get married?”
David hummed, noncommittal, not pausing in his efforts to wipe away the day. Probably not the best response but maybe—hopefully—David simply didn’t hear him. Tommy repeated the question, louder this time.
David drifted back into their shared room, toothbrush held in his mouth, jutting forward at an angle. “We’ve already had this conversation, Tom.”
”I know, it’s just. That was so long ago, and we haven’t really revisted, so…”
”So,” David absentmindedly twisted his ring with his middle finger. A one handed tick that’d become common for him, Tommy didn’t know exactly when. Before the engagement he’d never seen David wear a ring. “Do you want to get married?”
“Yes,” Tommy said, after a breath too long. A stutter of hesitation. But maybe, maybe, it only felt that way to him. Maybe David was still too slow to notice it. Yes, he wanted to be married. To David. Soon? “Soon.”
“Soon?” David echoed, then he nodded, as if just grasping the problem. “You want to schedule a date?”
“Do you still want to marry me?” Tommy asked, rephrased, because it occurred to him David hadn’t answered the question.
David stared blankly at him. “Of course.” he said, then he turned and drifted back into the bathroom.
This time, Tommy got up and followed him. “So, then, maybe we should set a date, then it won’t be something hanging over us,”—another thing to get to, before they could reach the perfect construction of the world. Another step they had to take before they reached the illustrious happy. “We can do something small, us, Teddy & Billy, and Kate, your family.”
”Sure,” David said, but to Tommy it sounded more like whatever.
”Okay, so… when?”
He shrugged “June.”
”June?” That was… soon.
“You wanted a date, Tommy. Don’t get cold feet on me now.”
“Short turnaround for a wedding though, isn’t it?”
“I can do it.” He left the bathrrom, sidestepping past Tommy and pulling a calendar up on his phone. “14th is a Saturday.”
“What about your family?”
”What about my family?” David crawled into bed, leaving Tommy, still leaning in the open bathroom doorway. He sped forward, to beat him there, only to realize his fiance was already scrolling wedding inspo. This would turn into the thing they did every night, lying in bed neither touching nor speaking. This was the thing where Tommy had a half formed thought and David—without compulsion—made it happen. It was like they were already married.
”Would they be able to make it on such short notice?”
”It’s a weekend trip from Chicago to New York.”
”Shouldn’t you at least check,” Tommy said. “What if they have plans.”
“They only have one son—“ David paused, cutting himself off for only a moment. His reflexes were quick, he’d honed them to be quick. Working off years of exposure therapy to a boyfriend that, while terrible at reading emotions, could always see them.
Tommy blinked, and it was June the 12th.
2 days to matrimony, a smooth sail to the end of the aisle in sight. There was just…
”They’re not coming?”
The house they’d rented somehow reminded Tommy of Billy’s. It was somewhere upstate, though Tommy was really much more a city guy, with too much space to make any real sense. Downstairs, their guests—a longer list than Tommy had anticipated milled about doing God knows what. It wasn’t a rehearsal dinner, because they were having a casual wedding and casual weddings didn’t have rehearsal dinners. They were also having a wedding planned by David, who didn’t miss steps, and was nothing if not meticulous.
”No, they aren’t coming.”
Tommy wasn’t the type of guy to hold up a party to confront his boyfriend in the back room. Yet, here he was. Here they both were. “Did you even tell them?”
David was tense. Had been tense, Tommy knew because he knew David better than he knew himself. He’d been paying more attention than his fiance could be bothered to give him credit for. ”Tommy.”
Tommy leaned backward. “Wow. You really didn’t.”
”No. I didn’t.”
Despite his previous accusation, it wasn’t what Tommy expected to hear. And it didn’t make any sense to him. David was close to his family. He was the only adult Tommy knew—except for Billy who didn’t count as he was more anomaly than person—who spoke to his parents once a week. So there was only one explantion, one unifying, outlying factor that might explain why David didn’t want his family here, now, on the biggest day of the start of their new lives.
David sighed, exhausted and exasperated. “Why does this matter so much to you?”
”They’re your family.”
”You’re my family.”
”They’re important to you. I know they are.” And how could this—this wedding, this marriage—be important to David at the same time his family was, and yet they weren’t here. They hadn’t even been called, like maybe this wasn’t real at all.
“I don’t get it.” David said.
Tommy loathed how it frustrated him. Loathed how he had somehow pigeonholed himself into living the sort of life where he cared how things were supposed to be. Where he thought about the optics of the moment and considered what relative wedding attendance may mean for his marriage. How could it mean something for his marriage?
”They couldn’t make it.” David shrugged, slumping into a plush velvet loveseat. Campy and corny, ne-seat of Tommy’s interest. The same room they’d spend their wedding night—in only a few nights. “I don’t know. They just couldn’t.”
Tommy nodded, feigning understanding despite not wanting to because who was he to tell anyone, his fiance, no less, that their family life should look more perfect than it actually was. Who was he to argue with the defeated haunch of David’s shoulders.
“Maybe we can go to Chicago in a few weeks,” he said, settling on the sofa beside his fiance. “Do something to celebrate?”
”What is it you want from me, Tommy?”
He opened his mouth to respond, then closed it at a knock on the door. Tommy was jolted suddenly back to the present moment. To the non-rehersal pre-wedding party the guests of honor had yet to make an appearance at. He took one, small, slow step towards the door.
”Don’t.” David said.
”It’s Billy.”
”I know. I just—a second, Tommy. I need a second.”
Fine. They fell into silence. Tommy giving David his second. Until the knocking continued.
”He’s not going to stop.”
“I know.”
”Tom.” Billy’s voice was both echoing in his head, and calling lightly from behind heavy wood.
If only Tommy could figure this thing out, just this one small thing. He could work out the kink and then everything would be perfect. He took another step towards the door.
David was speaking again, and he turned quick enough to see him reaching a hand out in slow motion. His words match it, “Waiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.” It’ll ring in his ears for days drawn out forever and ever, that waiiiit. If only he had slowed down enough to hear it.
Tommy was laying in a bed. His own bed, and David shrugged as he stepped out of the bathroom.
“June.”
“June?” Tommy is vaguely nauseous and blindingly confused.
“You wanted a date, Tommy. Don’t get cold feet on me now.”
“Short turnaround for a wedding though, isn’t it?”
“I can do it.” David joined Tommy in bed—his bed, their bed—, he’s pulling up a calendar on his phone. “14th,” he said. “‘S a Saturday.”
It crystallized for him. He was not on a set, speaking the dialogue of the moment as it had always been. A redo. That’s what this was. A redo, and Tommy wouldn’t fuck it up again, couldn’t afford to fuck it up again. He pressed a quick kiss to David’s shoulder. A rare shot of intimacy they both try not to react to. “If you think we can do it,” he said.
David nodded, not looking at Tommy. The screen of his phone flashed colors as he scrolled past florists, “We can do it.”