Chapter Text
[Decorative wedding invitation for Peter and Elias, styled in soft blue-grey florals on cream paper. The text announces "Together with profound joy, renewed
devotion, and deep gratitude for the constancy of love through every season of life, Elias Bouchard and Peter Lukas request the pleasure of your presence as they honour the continued union of their lives and operational circles”, requests RSVP with Melanie, and lists the dress code as black tie. A taped Polaroid overlaps the lower corner, showing a woman in a green gown between two men in tuxedos, with the handwritten note “gerry’s New OT3”. All three figures are slightly blurred with a red-and-blue doubled effect, giving the image a glitchy, uncanny look. Black scribbles obscure the eyes of the two men.]
The email arrives at 9:12 on a Wednesday morning with the subject line:
An Invitation to Celebrate Our Continued Union
Jon stops scrolling.
Across the office, Sasha says, “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” with the voice of a woman who has just opened a spreadsheet and found a dead rat in cell B7.
Martin looks up from a pile of outreach leaflets. “What?”
Jon keeps staring at the screen.
Tim, who is still new enough for this place to surprise him, leans over the back of Jon’s chair. “What is it?”
Jon reads, voice flat.
“Together with profound joy, renewed devotion, and deep gratitude for the constancy of love through every season of life, Elias Bouchard and Peter Lukas request the pleasure of your presence as they honour the continued union of their lives and families.”
Tim stares at him.
Sasha drops her head into one hand.
Martin’s face does something soft and alarmingly genuine. “Well. That’s nice.”
“It is not nice,” Jon says.
Gerry appears in the doorway like the building coughed him up for dramatic timing. He has a stock sheet in one hand and a look of weary exhaustion on his pale face.
“They’re doing it again, then,” he says.
Tim turns.
“Again?”
Nobody answers him.
That is when Melanie walks in at high speed, coffee in one hand, narrating a voice note into her phone with the other, and says, “If either of them has changed the floral brief after contract signing, I’m setting something on fire.”
She clocks all their faces.
She goes still.
“You've heard the news” she says.
Sasha points at Jon’s screen. “Yes.”
Tim looks between them. “Who's continued union?”
All four of them look at him.
Martin is the one who breaks first. “Elias, the consultant the board brought in? And Peter, he's one of the donors.”
Tim laughs.
Nobody else does.
He stops laughing.
“Oh, you’re serious.”
Jon scrolls again. “Chelsea waterfront venue. Candlelit supper. Signature cocktails. Formal reception to follow the ceremony.”
“Ceremony,” Tim repeats. “As in wedding.”
“Yes,” says Sasha.
Tim waits.
Then, carefully, “I thought they were already together.”
“Oh, they are,” says Gerry.
“Then why are they getting married?”
Gerry shifts the stock sheet under one arm. “It's a vicious cycle.”
“It's psychosis,” says Melanie.
Martin winces. “Melanie.”
She points a finger at him without looking away from the email. “I am planning this wedding. I get an opinion.”
Tim turns so fast he nearly catches his hip on Jon’s desk.
Jon, without looking up, hooks his cane a little closer with one foot before Tim can knock it over.
“You’re what.”
Melanie drains the rest of her coffee like it insulted her family. “Elias trusts my taste, Peter tips incredibly well, and Georgie is doing the videography, so yes, apparently I’m now wedding planner to whatever this is.”
“Continued union,” says Sasha.
“Don’t,” says Melanie.
Tim looks back at Jon’s monitor, then at the room, then back at the monitor.
“How many times have they done this?”
Jon takes his glasses off.
Martin folds his leaflet.
Sasha looks at the ceiling.
Gerry says, “Depends how you count.”
Tim lets out one sharp laugh. “No. Absolutely not. That is not a sentence you get to say about a wedding.”
Nigel’s voice comes from the corridor before the head of security himself does.
“Fourth one I’ve attended,” he says, walking past with a clipboard under one arm. “Maybe the fifth. There was legal uncertainty around the handfasting.”
He keeps walking.
Tim stares after him.
“Nigel.”
Nigel stops, looks back into the office, and shrugs.
“The Venice one may not have stood,” he says. “Gondola incident.”
Then he carries on down the corridor like he has just mentioned rain.
Tim turns back very slowly.
“Gondola incident.”
Martin lifts one shoulder. “It sounds worse than it was.” he says generously.
Jon looks at him. “No, it doesn’t.”
Sasha taps the screen. “The invitation is still going.”
Jon scrolls lower, one hand still on the mouse, the other resting on the curved handle of his cane.
His face tightens.
“Oh, God,” he says.
“What now?” says Tim.
Jon reads aloud with visible resentment. “‘Your witness to the enduring miracle of chosen devotion has meant more to us than words can express.’”
Gerry covers his eyes.
Martin, traitorously, says, “That’s sort of lovely.”
Melanie makes a sound like a kettle entering its final stage of life.
Tim looks around the room at a group of otherwise intelligent adults reacting to this email like veterans hearing distant shelling.
“Why has nobody told me any of this?”
“Because,” says Sasha, “until today it was not your problem.”
“How is it now my problem?”
Rosie Zampano appears in the doorway, composed as ever, with a slim folder tucked under one arm and the expression of someone who has arrived to deliver policy in the middle of a hostage situation.
“Yes,” she says.
They all look at her.
Rosie smiles in that front-desk way that means the contents will be worse than the tone.
“Mr Lukas remains one of the museum’s largest donors,” she says. “Attendance from senior and visible staff would be very much appreciated.”
There is a tiny pause while everyone absorbs the phrase very much appreciated for what it is.
Tim looks at Sasha. “That... was a threat.”
Rosie’s smile does not move. “That was information.”
“Rosie,” says Melanie, with the strained dignity of a woman already six disasters deep, “please tell me I can legally kill both grooms if they add another hanging installation after noon.”
“No,” says Rosie. “I have checked.”
“Helpful.”
Rosie opens the folder. “There is transport information, dress code clarification, dietary notes, and a revised vendor access list.”
“When was it revised.”
“This morning.”
Melanie closes her eyes.
Gerry looks at the ceiling and says, “I’m suddenly very glad I bought the tux for the last one.”
Martin nods. “Same, actually. Mine counted as a business expense.”
Tim turns to him. “You cannot possibly have claimed wedding attire on expenses.”
Martin meets his eyes with the calm honesty of a man who absolutely did.
“It was for donor relations.”
Jon says, “I told him not to word it like that.”
Rosie continues, because somebody in this building has to.
“There will be a string quartet for the ceremony. Black tie is compulsory. Please note that the venue has separate photography restrictions for private family areas, riverside access, and the heritage rooms.”
“Heritage rooms,” says Gerry.
Melanie gives a short, joyless laugh. “Peter’s side.”
Tim looks between them. “Peter has a side?”
“Pale stone, candles, old silver, white flowers, classical restraint,” says Sasha.
“Roman villa with money,” says Gerry.
“Right...” says Tim slowly. “And Elias?”
Melanie closes her eyes as if in mute appeal to any power still listening.
“Blush and gold,” she says. “Mercury glass. Script signs. Floral hoops. Possibly a dessert table with labels.”
Martin tries. “It might be tasteful.”
Everyone looks at him.
Martin folds a leaflet. “All right. Some of it might be tasteful.”
Jon says, “The last one had a sign that said Love Never Fails.”
Tim blinks. “That seems normal.”
Jon puts his glasses back on. “It was in front of the divorce solicitor.”
Tim makes a choking sound.
Rosie closes the folder. “So. Attendance?”
There is a low, miserable murmur of assent.
Melanie rubs at her forehead. “I hate that this is financially one of my better freelance gigs.”
Rosie nods. “I know.”
Then she looks at Tim.
Tim straightens instinctively.
Rosie says, “This will be your first.”
He points at himself. “It will.”
“You may wish to prepare.”
“For what.”
Nobody answers immediately.
Gerry lowers his hand from his face. “Honestly, love, that’s part of the experience.”
Tim looks at every one of them in turn.
Then he looks back at the email still open on Jon’s screen.
continued union
with profound joy
black tie
witness to the enduring miracle
He lets out a breath.
“This place,” he says, “is deeply unwell.”
Gerry gives him a tired little smile.
“Now you see why Jon and I smoke. The haunted mirror and cannibal mermaid were easier to explain than this shit.”