Archive of Our Own

It was a good idea. Probably. Maybe.

Hopefully?

Who was he kidding. It was a horrible idea.

Aaron knew it. Katelyn knew it. Everyone who’d interacted with Neil for more than five seconds knew it.

Still. Aaron hated to admit it, but… Neil was probably his best friend. In a way. In a strange way. In a shows-up-without-warning way. In a bullied-him-into-eating-and-sleeping-during-med-school way. In a now-married-to-his-brother-but-never-forgot-Aaron-still-existed-too way.

God, Neil was just fucking weird. Last month he’d climbed through Aaron and Katelyn’s bedroom window at three in the morning because he’d been bitten by a snake and didn’t trust anyone else to tell him he wasn’t going to die. He and Andrew lived an entire state away. Andrew hadn’t known where Neil was, had needed to come pick Neil up the next morning because Neil had said he hadn’t brought a car.

Aaron still didn’t know how he’d gotten here.

So. Neil. Weird, but a steady if otherwise unstable part of Aaron’s life for years. The first friend he’d made and kept (if running a cockroach over and said cockroach not dying but instead moving in with him the next day and then never leaving counted as making friends).

Andrew didn’t care. Andrew would tell him to go fuck himself if Aaron tried to get him to hold a speech.

And Nicky… Nicky would be unable to hold a speech because he’d be bawling his eyes out. Plus, if Nicky organized Aaron’s bachelor party… well. Aaron wasn’t homophobic, but he could handle only so many male strippers. Nicky would exceed that number.

Therefore, Neil.

He just had to…

Fuck it. He unlocked the phone he’d been staring at for the past hour. Discarded the little speech he’d planned and rewritten three times in his head, because interactions with Neil Josten rarely went according to plan. Adaptability was everything. He’d learned that the hard way (having ended up in a reformer pilates class as a direct result of asking Neil if he needed anything from the supermarket).

He hit the call button, pressed the phone to his ear with too much force.

It rang exactly zero times before a metallic voice told him “The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service.” Which could either mean that Neil was dead, or completely fine and had somehow managed to piss off his network operator into disabling his number. Both options were equally likely.

Needless to say, Aaron was concerned (but not panicking yet).

He called the moron’s husband (aka his darling brother).

Andrew picked up on the seventh ring, which Aaron knew the fucker had done on purpose to make him wait just a little while longer. “Who dares disturb my slumber?” Andrew said, not even pretending to sound tired (it was early afternoon).

“You’re not funny,” Aaron told him, already less concerned about Neil’s potential death. Andrew wouldn’t be making bad jokes if anything had happened. “And you weren’t sleeping.”

“Sleeping is not the only thing people do in beds,” Andrew told him, and Aaron could hear his fucking smirk through the line. “Not that you’d know…”

Four sentences in, and Aaron already wanted to throttle him. He should’ve done so in the womb.

“Great,” he said in his nastiest and best I’m-too-good-to-lower-myself-to-your-niveau voice. “Neil is around, then?”

“Are you around?” Andrew asked, obviously not Aaron. The question was followed by the shuffling of blankets and a low murmur and Aaron was going to throw up if they were actually in bed doing things that were not sleeping.

“No he’s not,” Andrew continued after receiving his answer. “I’m cheating. You got me. Don’t tell my husband.”

Aaron sighed a very heavy and very grown-up and put-upon sigh. “Get the fucker on the phone.”

“My elaborate deception didn’t work,” Andrew said, followed by the sound of the phone landing on something soft. “He saw right through us. You’re on your own.”

“Didn’t we make vows for that?” Neil asked, loud enough for Aaron to hear. “To stay by each other’s side through hardships and stuff?”

“I lied.”

Neil gasped in betrayal, which was the fakest sound Aaron had heard in his entire life. Closely followed by the “Hi Mom” he drawled into the receiver a second later. “You have the best timing, did you know that?”

“I don’t want to know that you were having sex,” Aaron hissed at him. “I want to know why you’re not picking up your phone.”

“Oh. That.” Neil sounded as if he were getting comfortable. “Funny story, actually. I called the guys who do the network operating or providing or whatever for me because I was pretty sure the FBI was back to monitoring my calls-”

Aaron put his face in his hands. Great. Fantastic. Also, he clearly knew Neil too well. He had to stop this before it turned into another pilates situation (he was never going to even look at a reformer again; he hadn’t been able to walk for days).

“Did you annoy them until they canceled your service?" Aaron cut him off in the middle of his recount of some very graphic insults that had been thrown around during what Neil called a perfectly polite conversation.

Neil fell silent for only a moment before saying, fondly: “You know me so well.”

“Get a new plan. You get into too much shit to not have a working phone.”

“Aw, you were worried,” Neil cooed at him, like the asshole he was. “You’re gonna be such a great mom one day.”

“The best mom,” Andrew agreed from the background, just loud enough for Aaron to catch it.

“Anyways was that why you called? We were kind of in the middle of something.”

“Ew,” he said, before the reminder of why he was calling hit him like a bucket of ice water. He powered through. He could do this. He was an adult. Neil was his friend. “And no. Actually… I wanted to ask you something.”

“I’m listening,” Neil said, sounding vaguely curious. “Except if it’s about those ugly shoes of yours that disappeared a few months back. I know nothing about that. They’re not hidden in the air con.”

Aaron pinched the bridge of his nose. Breathed through the pain of suppressing the urge to follow Neil down his rabbit hole of utter bullshit. He made a note for later to dismantle the air con that – now that he thought about it – had started rattling around the same time his shoes disappeared.

“Not that either, though I will strangle you the next time I see you in person,” he pressed out through gritted teeth. “I wanted to ask… Will you be my best man?”

It was silent on the other side for long enough that Aaron pulled the phone away from his ear to check if the call was still ongoing. It was.

“Neil?” he asked, hesitant.

“One moment,” Neil told him, sounding distracted. “I’m just looking up what that is. Aha! Chief assistant of the groom, right-hand man, wedding planning, bachelor party, holding the ring, giving a toast… yeah. Sure. I can totally do that.”

Aaron’s shoulders released their tension, dropped with relief. He hadn’t actually expected Neil to refuse, but the easy agreement was still… well. Everything. And very Neil.

“Hey,” Neil yelped suddenly. “I was in the middle of-”

“Is this a cry for help?” Andrew asked, having apparently wrangled his phone back. “Are you dying? Is someone holding a gun to your head?”

“No,” Aaron scowled. “I just want him to be my best man.”

“You sent me a five-year vaccination and heath-checkup itinerary for Neil last week,” Andrew deadpanned. “Because, and I quote, if he acts like a wild animal he’ll be treated like one. And you want that guy to be your best man?”

“Hey,” Neil protested. “I’m gonna be a killer best man, just you wait and see. I can’t believe Katelyn agreed to marry him, though. She has the worst taste.”

“No, Andrew has the worst taste,” Aaron hissed, knowing full well Neil could still hear him.

“You befriended him first,” his brother pointed out. “And you want him to be your best man. Don’t you have any other friends?”

“No.”

“That’s kind of embarrassing. I can’t believe I’m related to you.”

“Give me your phone back,” Neil demanded, followed by the dull thud of a pillow hitting a face. Repeatedly. “We were having a moment. So, Cupcake,” Neil breathed right into Aaron’s ear, which had him pull the phone away from his ear a few inches with a disgusted grimace. He couldn’t believe this guy was his best friend. “Everything I know about being a best man I know from my ten second Google search two minutes ago. There were pictures, though. Are the strippers for the wedding part or…”

“No.” Aaron knew he needed to make this point very clear. “No strippers at my wedding. Lots of people have them at their bachelor party, but no strippers there either. Tell me you got that.”

“Sure,” Neil said, sounding very convincing. “I’ll come visit you to pick out napkins or something. I’m thinking orange for the wedding.”

“I’m thinking I’m very glad that’s not your decision," Aaron told him. “I’m hanging up now. Go back to doing my brother.”

“Sir, yessir!” Neil replied enthusiastically, and Aaron was too slow in cutting off the call to not hear Andrew’s deep voice starting to say something that made him want to lobotomize himself.

Joy.

That was done, then. One problem less.

(One problem more. With Neil, it was always one problem more.)

When Aaron woke up on the day of his wedding, his first thought was that he wanted to die.

His head hurt. His eyes hurt. His throat hurt. His face hurt. He could feel his brain, somehow, which was not a nice feeling at all. Medically, he knew that people shouldn’t be able to feel their brains.

His felt like it were about to leak out of his ears. Or eyes. Or nose.

He wanted to die. Until he opened his eyes and saw concrete walls and a minimalistic toilet and the wrong side of bars and realized he’d woken up in a holding cell.

The wanting-to-die urge became a wanting-to-kill one. Neil Josten, specifically, who was sprawled out on the floor between the two concrete slabs functioning as beds for two Minyards.

“Josten,” he growled (groaned pathetically), and rolled over until he fell off his concrete slab and half on top of Neil, who woke up with a yelp of pain that Aaron couldn’t appreciate because the sudden drop had caused everything inside him to roil and protest and do things it wasn’t supposed to and he was going to throw up.

Luckily, they had a toilet.

The next ten minutes were maybe the worst of Aaron’s life, but after coughing up what had to be at least half of his inner organs (he was a doctor, he knew what he was talking about), he did feel slightly better. Still like death warmed over, and now his mouth tasted like regret and his skin was clammy with sweat both old and fresh and his hands were shaking, but, y’know. Relatively speaking? Better.

“Wow,” Neil rasped, sounding as if he’d swallowed some gravel and glass shards. “Can’t believe you just did that.”

When Aaron dragged his eyes (which still hurt) up, he found Neil had dragged himself into the corner between Andrew’s concrete slab and the wall, as far away from everything as possible, and curled up there. His hair was sticking up, his skin was a shade of grey Aaron had last seen in the corpses they’d dissected in med school, and his expression was that of one who’d seen unimaginable horrors. The sight appeased Aaron’s murderous tendencies somewhat.

“I can’t believe you’re both such embarrassments,” Andrew said (too loud, way too loud), sounding fresh and chipper (for Andrew) and not at all different from usual.

He got two very baleful glares for his aliveness. Andrew was lounging against the wall on top of his concrete bed, presiding over the two of them. The fucker didn’t even look rumpled.

“You’re in here with us,” Neil pointed out.

“By choice,” Andrew replied. “I enjoy watching the two of you suffer the consequences of your actions.”

“You’re such an asshole,” Neil said, sounding unbearably fond. “I can’t believe I married you.”

“Stop flirting,” Aaron snapped, afraid he was going to throw up again. And also alarmed, now that he could remember a reason to be. “I’m getting married today.”

“Yeah,” Neil sighed dreamily. “I can’t quite believe it yet either-”

“No, fuckhead,” Aaron snapped. “I’m getting married today. We’re in a holding cell! How did we end up here?”

Neil frowned delicately. Thoughtfully. Then shrugged. “No idea.”

Aaron stared incredulously. “You-!”

Neil raised his eyebrows at him. “Do you?”

He sputtered because of fucking course he knew why- Except no. He did not. There was a black hole where last night’s memories should be.

“Yeah. Didn’t think so.” Neil stretched his arms over his head and slid down the wall to press his face against the cool concrete floor, a truly pathetic sight. “I’m assuming that copious amounts of alcohol were involved, though.”

“Wow,” Aaron muttered. “What a deduction. We need to get out of here.” He flexed his hand and a sharp pain shot up into his forearm, making him wince and reflexively shake out his arm. When he glanced down, his knuckles were red and swollen. As if he’d punched someone.

He frowned. He would remember punching someone, right? Maybe it’d been Neil.

His hopes were destroyed with a glance up at the cockroach. Neil’s face didn’t look much different from usual. Decidedly unpunched. Definitely punchable.

“Easy fix.” Neil lifted his punchable face off the floor. “Hey! Officers!” he yelled with unexpected and unpleasant volume. “We’re alive! Let us out!” Finished, he groaned and slumped back to the floor. “I’m never drinking again.”

“Was yesterday the first time?” Aaron asked. Now that he thought about it, he’d never seen Neil drunk before in the five years that felt like twenty they’d known each other.

“Well, no.” Neil didn’t lift his head, which muffled his voice strangely. “My mom gave me hard liquor when she had to sew me up after run-ins with my father’s men, but only ever enough to take the edge off the pain. So, yeah. Kinda.”

“I hate asking you anything,” Aaron told him. “How do you still have trauma to drop?”

“What can I say?” Neil was grinning into the floor. “I’m a man of many mysteries. Speaking of which.” He rolled his head to one side so he could blink up at Aaron. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Thinking hurt, but Aaron pulled on his big-boy pants and did it anyway. “We met the others at the restaurant.” It had been a nice restaurant. With great cocktails. “Then we went to that club thing…” Neil nodded along, which was a weird sideways motion because half of his face was still smushed to the floor. “Then Nicky dragged us to the bar to do shots. Then… nothing.”

Neil’s expression was very concentrated. “We did shots with Matt too. You don’t remember the strippers?”

“There were strippers?!” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I told you exactly one thing, and that was not to get any strippers! Why did you-”

“Man that just sucks,” Neil pouted. “I can’t actually remember either but I bet they were awesome.”

“They sure were,” Andrew threw in casually. “Matt had some moves.”

“You-” Aaron lost his steam, tilted his head. “What?”

“Oh, yeah, I wasn’t gonna get you actual strippers. I paid Kevin four hundred bucks and told him it’d help with hand to ball coordination or something. Matt did it for free.”

“You had Matt and Kevin dance for me?”

“I think I had them give you a lap dance.” Neil sounded very regretful he couldn’t recall any of it. “Do you wanna know their stage names? I brainstormed for days.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Matthew the Stallion and Kevin the Queen, Son of (S)Exy. The S is in brackets,” Neil explained as if Aaron could’ve somehow missed the pre-school-level pun.

He put his face in his hands and let out a heartfelt groan.

“Am I interrupting something?"

Aaron lifted his head. An officer had appeared on the other side of the bars, was staring down at them as if she’d rather be anywhere else, which Aaron could relate to. He had never been so glad to see a cop in his life.

“Yes!” He scrambled to his feet, which was a mistake, but the wall was there to hold him up when his legs buckled. “We’re sober, he’ll never drink again, I’m getting married, let us out of here,” he begged.

The woman scowled at him, then glanced over his shoulder. “Your friend doesn’t look very sober to me.”

Aaron followed her stare. Neil lifted his head to smile at both of them. “Ma’am, with all due respect – which isn’t a lot – I have never felt better in my life. I am ready to face the consequences of my actions and feel only regret about whatever actions brought me in here.” He turned a little green around the edges, which might have been the alcohol and might have been the insincerity.

“You made a lot of enemies last night,” the officer told Neil.

“Sounds about right,” Aaron muttered.

“I have never made a single enemy in my entire life,” Neil told her.

“You insulted every single officer on duty.”

“That doesn’t sound like me at all. Also, not a crime.”

“It is, actually.”

“What, really?” Neil looked surprised. “How am I not in prison yet?”

“I’ve been asking myself that since I met you,” Aaron told him. Then, to the disgruntled cop: “Ignore him. He only has one setting, and that’s being an asshole. I had to live with him for two years.” She looked appropriately sympathetic. “But I really am getting married today, so it would be great if you could forget that this idiot offended half the city yesterday and let us go.”

She let out a heavy sigh. “Yeah, I know. You wouldn’t shut up about the wedding earlier.” She got a key chain from her belt and unlocked – hallelujah! – the door. “You and the redhead can go. You, however,” here she pointed a very stern finger at Andrew, who pointed his own finger at himself with a smirk that made Aaron want to punch his lights out, no matter how much his hand hurt, “need to wait for someone to post bail.”

“What?” Neil’s head snapped up from where he’d been in the process of crawling out of the cell. “Why?!”

“Because he punched a police officer.”

Aaron and Neil looked towards Andrew, who was inspecting his nails, a picture of utter nonchalance, then simultaneously back at the cop. “Why?” Aaron snapped, at the same time as Neil hissed “And what did that police officer do to get himself punched?”

Andrew snorted at them. “Relax, you two. I just didn’t like his face. I told you I was in here by choice.”

“Reagan does kind of have a punchable face,” the officer mused, then waved Neil and Aaron out of the cell and locked it behind them.

Neil immediately latched onto the bars, expression sorrowful. “I’ll visit you every day,” he promised Andrew. “I’ll be the best prison wife. I’ll bring you cake.”

“And ice cream.”

“And ice cream,” Neil agreed tearfully, and now Aaron was very certain that he wasn’t actually fully sober yet. But alas.

He dragged Neil after the officer. “Can’t we just bail him out?”

“Sure,” she said. “But your brother also already called someone.”

“He thinks we’re both broke,” Neil told Aaron.

“I’m making doctor money,” he said, offended. “I’m not broke.”

“He’s making professional athlete money,” Neil shrugged. “Everyone’s kinda broke compared to him. Well, him and-”

“I’m not a prostitute,” a very familiar and very indignant voice greeted them when they made it into the part of this shithole precinct where the releasing-of-brothers magic happened. Kevin was surrounded by a couple of officers (one of which sported a black eye and did look like a complete asshole) and in full Kevin-mode. Which meant lots of posturing and snarling and flails of superiority. “I’m here to bail out a friend.”

If his face and his head and his hand hadn’t hurt so bad, Aaron would’ve dropped to the floor to roll around laughing at the realization that Kevin (Kevin!) was Andrew’s emergency contact. Because really.

As it was, though, his face and his head and his hand hurt really bad, and he was too busy being appalled at what Kevin was wearing to even think about laughing.

Shorts. Short shorts. Short enough to not cover everything they were supposed to cover (Aaron hated himself for looking, not because he was in any way insecure in his heterosexuality but because it was Kevin). Above that, a pale pink sweater vest that was too tight across the shoulders and obviously not his.

And glitter.

In his hair. On his face. On the legs that Aaron could see decidedly too much of.

Neil let out a sorrowful groan next to him, which had Kevin’s head snap up and gave his ire a new target. “I’m so sad I can’t remember yesterday,” Neil wailed. “The fruits of all my efforts and four hundred bucks… forgotten!”

“Why am I here?” Kevin snapped at them (superiorly).

“You look fantastic,” Neil told him.

“Andrew’s locked up,” Aaron explained.

“I know that,” Kevin told Neil.

“Why are you still wearing yesterday’s clothes?” Neil shot back, clear-headed for the first time since waking up (and it was an excellent question too, damnit). "And whose sweater is that?"

The question got better when Kevin blushed furiously and refused to answer. “I know that Andrew’s locked up. I’m asking why I had to come when both of you were already here?”

“Why?” Neil grinned salaciously. “Had anything better do to?”

“I resent you,” Kevin told him (resentfully and superiorly).

“I hear that,” guy-with-the-black-eye muttered behind Kevin, which had Kevin whirl around and point a glittery finger in the man’s face.

“Nobody asked you,” he snapped, sounding even more furious than before.

“He thinks I’m a damsel,” Neil whispered to Aaron. Aaron ignored him.

“Andrew doesn’t think we’re capable enough to get him out of here,” he explained to Kevin. The implication was clear: They weren’t, but Kevin was. Flattery was the way to Kevin’s heart.

And it worked, just like it always did. Somewhat appeased, Kevin nodded and turned back to the officer behind the desk. And started pulling crumpled bills out of the tiny pockets of his indecent shorts. “Good thing I made a lot of money last night, then. How much did you say it was?”

They reconvened in the café across the street, nobody trusting themselves to make it any further. Aaron and Neil went to the bathroom to freshen up, leaving Andrew and Kevin to buy out both extremes of the healthy-unhealthy scale the shop had to offer.

Aaron felt better after rinsing his mouth and washing his face, and then immediately worse after catching a glimpse of said face in the mirror. “What is that?!” he shrieked, loud enough to make Neil jump a foot.

“Your face, Jesus Christ. I know it’s ugly but there’s no reason to-”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Aaron yelled (shrieked), cutting Neil off.

Neil frowned at him. Aaron truly couldn’t fathom how that idiot had managed to acquire a PhD. Bribery must have played a part in it, though. “That you’re ugly? I’ve been telling you.”

“No, asshole. I have a shiner. Why didn’t you say something?”

Neil frowned some more. “Because I thought you knew? Doesn’t your face hurt?”

That… well. That made a lot of sense, actually. Still…

“I’m getting married today! I can’t get married looking like a thug!”

Neil snorted. “You couldn’t look like a thug if you wanted to. Don’t worry. Allison’s gonna fix it.”

“Katelyn’s gonna kill me,” he whined, leaning closer to get a better look in the mirror. It wasn’t just a black eye, either. His left cheekbone was bruised, the skin around it red and swollen. “Did someone punch me?”

“Maybe I did.” Neil put his entire head under the tap and resurfaced looking more alive and dripping everywhere. “You have a very punchable face.”

Best friends for a reason, Aaron reminded himself. “You married that face,” he reminded the cockroach.

“Ha! You wish. C’mon. I want to see if I you’re gonna throw up again after you eat.”

He would have, had he eaten anything the two psychos had gotten them. Kale smoothies from Kevin and glaze-covered donuts from Andrew. Aaron pushed both offerings far away from himself with a grimace and ordered three large black coffees instead, one of which Neil stole immediately.

“So, what’s the plan?” Kevin slurped on his smoothie, glancing between the three of them. “Get back to the hotel, get as much sleep as possible?”

“Yes,” Aaron groaned. His head had started pounding. As if someone were drilling into his skull. He was gonna blame Neil for that. And for everything else.

“Okay.” Kevin downed the lat dregs of his green digustingness. “You have all your things, then? Phones, wallets, the rings?”

There was a horrible beat of silence where everything became very far away and then all of a sudden way too close.

Aaron peeled his eyes open. Neil was staring at him wide-eyed, had already begun ruffling through his own pockets. Aaron frantically followed to do the same, even if he already knew what his search would turn up.

Nothing.

The officers had handed their belongings to Andrew, who in turn had dropped them into Aaron’s hands. The box had not been among them.

“Tell me you have it,” he begged Neil, already knowing the answer.

Neil had started turning his pockets inside-out. “I- No… Fuck, no, fuck!” He raised his eyes to Aaron’s. They looked as panicked as he felt, all his earlier problems suddenly insignificant.

What did it matter that his head hurt when he’d lost his fucking wedding rings?

“I still had them when we left the restaurant,” he rushed out, brain working at lightning speed. “And I still had them when we entered the club. But I don’t… Kevin!” He snapped around to the man next to him, who had been reaching for the kale monstrosity he’d bought for Aaron and now flinched away from the sudden attention. “You were sober. Do you remember…”

Kevin was already shaking his head. “You had them during the dance. After that… I don’t know. I left, pretty soon after.” He blushed again, but Aaron was too panicked to even properly notice this time.

“If only there were someone else,” Andrew suddenly drawled. “Someone who also stayed sober. Who might know where-”

“Renee!!” Neil and Aaron shouted simultaneously, and for one second, Aaron had the impression that his brother somehow looked disappointed in them both. The feeling was gone as quickly as it’d come.

He scrambled for his phone, breathed a sigh of relief when it turned on, dialed Renee’s number while Neil bounced on the edge of his seat across from him. Angel that she was, Renee picked up on the second ring.

“Good morning, Aaron,” she greeted pleasantly. “How was your-”

“I lost the rings,” he blurted out, for which he got a kick to the shin from somewhere under the table, origins unknown. “I’m sorry,” he course-corrected. “Good morning. I hope you slept well. Do you have a minute? I lost the rings. Do you know where I might-”

“Aaron,” she cut him off gently. “Take a deep breath.” He took a deep breath. After, he was still missing his wedding rings. “Now again, slower. You don’t know where the rings are?”

“Yeah. I don’t remember what happened because I was too drunk and Neil too and Kevin left pretty early and we woke up in a holding cell an hour ago and they’re gone!”

“Oh my. Who’s we?”

“Neil, me, Andrew. Kevin joined later.”

“Ah,” she sounded amused, for some reason. “Well, I left soon after Kevin because I had a bit of a headache, but you were showing off the rings to Dan and Allison when I left. So maybe start there?”

“Dan and Allison,” he breathed. “Thank you so much. Can you ask Allison if she has them?”

“Allison hasn’t come home yet. Neither has Dan, I think.”

Another beat of silence. Then “They what? They’re not- What if something happened to them?!”

The rest of the table looked more alarmed than before at his words. Even Andrew sat up straight.

Renee only chuckled. “You know those two can take care of themselves. Also, they sent a video to the group chat not too long ago. They’re at a karaoke bar.”

Aaron slumped back into his seat. “Start with that, next time. Can you send me the address?”

“Of course. Do you need any help? I could meet you there.”

“That’d be great, actually.” They needed one reasonable person on the team.

He relayed the situation to the others after hanging up, then excused himself, stepped away, and dialed another, far more important number.

“Hey babe,” Kate mumbled into his ear, and his anxieties eased up a bit.

They were getting married today. He was gonna spend the rest of his life with her, rings or no rings. He wasn’t gonna fuck this up.

“You didn’t come home last night. Everything okay?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, sheepish. “You know how it is.”

“Neil?”

“Neil,” he agreed, and her soft laughter in his ear relaxed him further.

“Listen, I didn’t tell you… but the ceremony starts at four.”

That gave him pause. He was pretty sure his wedding was supposed to start at noon. In two hours. “What do you…”

“I pushed it back. A week ago. I figured you’d need some extra time to fix whatever mess was created by well-meaning third parties last night.”

“You are the best thing that ever happened to me," he told her in wonder, meaning every word.

“Save it for the vows,” she smiled. “Six hours, now. Think that’s enough?”

“It will be,” he promised. It had to be.

Six hours to retrieve his wedding rings. Aaron was a man on a mission.

Andrew sidled up to him as soon as he saw that Aaron had hung up. He held his own phone under Aaron’s nose wordlessly, but Aaron could tell that whatever he was about to see amused his brother greatly.

Andrew scrolled down some to show him that every post was the same video from slightly different perspectives, liking every one he came across, then clicked on a random one. The video started playing.

Aaron almost cringed away out of reflex, but forced himself to push through. It was the club they’d been in yesterday night. It was him, in a chair, face flushed and looking like he was both laughing and crying.

And it was Kevin. And it was Matt.

And they were dancing, to the cheers of what had to be the entire club’s patrons.

Wild music was coming out of the phone’s speakers, much quieter than Aaron imagined it had been during the night. Matt’s shorts were as short as Kevin’s, their tops basically nonexistent. A lot of skin was exposed, and most of it was either covered in glitter or oiled up.

And, well, Aaron was still straight, but even he noticed that the number of abs between the two of them was obscene.

He watched, speechless and horrified, as Matt did a slut drop between Aaron’s legs, failing to keep his expression what Aaron had to believe was supposed to be seductive because he was laughing too hard, while Kevin gyrated his hips in the air next to yesterday-Aaron’s face, expression comically concentrated.

Allison’s shriek was louder than even the music. She started throwing money at them from somewhere off screen.

“How many people have seen those?” Aaron asked weakly when the video looped back to the start, watching as Andrew hit repost and started liking comments that identified the two famous Exy players and reply to one that asked which Minyard was in the chair.

“Couple million,” Andrew gave back casually.

“Great. Does Kevin know?”

Andrew’s look was answer enough. Kevin didn’t know. They’d know, if Kevin knew. The entire city would know.

Aaron dragged his brother back to the table Neil was now sprawled across, pawing at Kevin’s (not Kevin’s) sweater like an annoying cat.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” he snapped, and both sat up straight. “Find Dan and Allison. Retrieve my rings. Get me to my wedding that has been pushed back by four hours on time.”

“Get you married,” Neil added with finger guns.

“Not your job,” Kevin told him.

“We need to get sober,” Aaron said to Neil, then considered the last green smoothie on the table with a grimace. But really… there was only one way to get through the next six hours. He braced himself, grabbed the kale puree, downed it in one go.

Neil was gaping at him when he came up for air. “How… was that?” he asked. Carefully, as if he knew that even a faint breeze would be enough to knock Aaron out right then.

“Not good,” he returned, then made an about-turn and beelined back to the toilets.

Their departure was delayed by another twenty minutes.

Renee was waiting for them in front of the karaoke bar, looking fresh and put-together and decidedly too awake for eleven in the morning.

“Rough night?” she asked when they stumbled within hearing range, which was as close to an insult as she’d ever get.

“Not the first one I spent in a holding cell,” Neil shrugged, which was interesting but unsurprising and currently irrelevant.

“Mine was lovely, actually,” Kevin harrumphed.

“And I’m gonna pry every single detail out of you later,” Neil promised wriggling his fingers in a way that was just upsetting, then rubbed his hands like a raccoon with rabies. “Okay. Where are they?”

They followed Renee inside. The bar was almost entirely empty because normal people weren’t at karaoke bars at this time of day, so it wasn’t hard to find the only occupied room. Renee opened the door and Aaron immediately wished she hadn’t, because Allison and Dan were somehow still singing.

Badly.

“Renee!” both of them shrieked (into their microphones!) and bounded over to drag Renee into the room with them. It was dark inside except for the epilepsy-inducing lights flashing from every corner and the screen displaying the lyrics to what should have been Lady Gaga and was made to sound like a 13 year-old’s birthday party instead.

“Oh my fucking Lord hell what the-” Neil groaned behind Aaron, pushing him further inside. “I want to die. What is this?”

“Gaga, you uncultured swine,” Allison answered (into the microphone!!!).

“Andrew,” Neil pleaded vaguely towards his husband, hanging off Aaron now. “Love of my life. Full control over my wardrobe for a month if you make it stop.”

Andrew considered the offer. Considered Allison and Dan, both having hooked their arms through Renee’s on either side and swaying to the music, doing their best to fuck up a perfectly good song. “Six.”

“Six?” Neil asked, indignant. “Two.”

“Six.”

“Three!”

“Six.”

Dan tried to hit a high note, and Neil physically cringed against Aaron’s back. “Fine, six months, fucking tyrant. Now make it-”

Andrew had already strolled over to the screen. It took him exactly two seconds to find the right cables and tear them out of their outlets, plunging the room into blissful, perfect silence.

“-stop,” Neil finished lamely.

“Hey!” Dan protested. “We were in the middle of something.”

“I was acting on orders,” Andrew said, pointing at Neil which looked like pointing at Aaron, thereby throwing both of them under the bus.

Two very vicious glares turned their way. Neil, brave and resilient individual that he was, hid behind Aaron’s back. “I know it’s your bachelor party, Minyard,” Allison sniffed. “But we were just having fun. You could’ve joined!”

“It’s no longer my bachelor party,” he started, only to get cut off by dual wailing before he could elaborate on that.

“What?” Dan crooned, stumbling over to him. She grabbed him, started to shake him. “You’re no longer getting married?!”

“Are you still drunk?” Neil asked from over his shoulder, sounding impressed.

“Of course,” Dan said (shouted directly in his face). “It’s Aaron’s bachelor party! Why wouldn’t we be?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Aaron snapped, shaking her arms off. “It’s already tomorrow. I’m getting married in a few hours. The party’s over!”

Dan blinked at him in incomprehension, then turned to look over her shoulder at Allison, who’d started drunkenly flirting with her wife. “For real?”

“For real,” he confirmed. “And I kind of really need you to be less drunk right now because I lost the rings and you two are the only ones who might know-”

“Kevin!!!” Dan shrieked as the man tried to inconspicuously make his way past them, reaching over to deliver a loud slap to the man’s ass. “You absolute animal! Fucking legend, my man. Have you seen the videos? You’re completely viral.”

Kevin had frozen. His eye twitched. “Videos,” he repeated slowly, his glare moving and moving and settling on the cockroach in Aaron’s back. “What videos?”

“No idea what you're talking about,” Neil squeaked, and tried to make a hasty retreat.

Aaron, amazing friend that he was, put him in a headlock and mentally disassociated for the next ten minutes of yelling that turned into nearly an hour when Kevin snatched Allison’s phone out of her hand and saw her social media.

Fun times.

Four hours left, now.

They (Aaron and Renee, really, the rest was useless) made Allison and Dan drink two pitchers of water each before he attempted his questioning a second time, much more successful.

“Oh yeah, sure. You gave them to us to awe over, we handed them back to you. Last I saw them, Nicky was crying over them and how much you’ve grown – mentally, I’m guessing – and how his baby cousins were all happy now and-”

“Nicky.” Neil snapped his fingers, pointing at Allison. “I knew we were still missing people.”

“We’re missing more than just Nicky,” Aaron told him, but he was distracted by their next clue. So Nicky had had them. And then… what?

“We have to find Nicky. Any ideas?” He looked around. Clueless faces looked back.

“He left with Wilds and Reynolds,” Andrew said, sounding utterly bored. “Said he wanted to bless the world with his rendition of My Heart Will Go On. Which is the exact reason the rest of us didn’t go.”

“You’re perfect,” Neil told Andrew, who nodded his agreement. “The only useful one.”

“I’m pretty sure I’d remember Nicky’s singing,” Dan frowned.

“You would,” Aaron told her, having suffered through enough of those traumatic experiences to know.

“Ha! No. I know what happened.” Allison barked out a laugh. “We came past this park and he said he needed to climb Erik like a tree and then dragged him into some bushes. And then we ran away.”

“Ah yeah.” Dan nodded, grinning. “That’s what happened. Has anyone seen my husband, by the way?”

“Great.” Aaron rubbed his temples, then gave up pretending that helped and groaned into his hands instead. “So what now? We find the park, then search for Nicky and Erik?”

“Not necessary,” Andrew said, ending a call that he’d somehow taken without any of them noticing. “He just called.”

“Really?” Aaron breathed a sigh of relief, shoulders dropping. “That’s great. Where is he?” He’d be back at the hotel for sure, ready for the wedding, wondering where they all were. Everything was going to be-

“Police station. He needs someone to come bail him out.”

It was a different precinct than the one they’d woken up in, which had one major advantage: Neil hadn’t yet had time to make enemies of all the officers on duty.

They sent Kevin in first. Because a) people recognized him and fawned over him and asked him for autographs and shit and b) Kevin was currently wearing very short shorts and therefore appealing to any gender, regardless of sexuality.

The rest of them followed like a pack of deranged ducklings. Dan and Allison were the only reason the other one wasn’t falling flat on her face with each step, hanging off each others’ necks.

Kevin put on his sparkling personality for the first time that day and started dazzling. Aaron held Neil’s mouth shut every time he attempted to talk to someone in uniform.

Because no.

Enough was enough.

Andrew posted bail and one of the men that was daydreaming about having a life and kids with Kevin Day despite being heterosexual and probably vaguely homophobic promised that someone would get their cousin and Erik as soon as possible.

They could hear Nicky before they saw the two of them.

“I’m telling you, we were in no way indecent! This is a hate crime!” Nicky’s shrill voice echoed towards them.

An officer appeared that looked as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. Probably the one who’d had to keep an eye on Nicky for the last few hours. “Ma’am,” he said bleary-eyed, not even bothering to look over his shoulder as he lead the way towards their group, the address unexpected enough to stun even Nicky into momentarily shutting up. “We caught you with your hand down your husband’s pants. In a public space.”

Nicky shook off his stupefaction. “In a park. Behind a tree. At night.”

“I really don’t care,” the officer replied, circling their group once as if to signal he’d completed his delivery before he shuffled back to where he’d come from.

Nicky winced when he met Aaron’s stare. “Sorry,” he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. Erik was a silent and steady presence at his back, as usual. “I didn’t mean to- I thought nobody would see!”

Aaron waved him off, happy to look past his cousin trying to have sex in public on his wedding day, when Neil piped up: “You weren’t the only ones! Andrew, Aaron and me woke up in a holding cell too.”

Nicky looked between the three of them. Pursed his lips. “For different reasons, I hope?”

“Ew.” Aaron shoved him back a foot. “Seriously, ew. That’s disgusting. As if I’d ever… Not with Neil!”

“You could do worse,” Nicky told him.

“I’m actively doing better! I’m getting married to better! In-” he checked his phone, “three hours. Where are my rings?”

Nicky waited for a beat, then looked to his left and right and behind himself before he realized Aaron was talking to him. He pointed a finger at himself. “Me? How am I supposed to know?”

“You had them! Before you went on your sex adventure!”

“Sex adventure.” Nicky laughed as if he found him adorable. Aaron was going to strangle him. “I gave them to Dan.”

Aaron turned to Dan, incredulous. She snapped her fingers. “That’s right! I did have them!”

“And then…” he prompted.

She frowned, deep in thought, before her face lit up. It was like watching a toddler form their first thought ever. “I gave them to Matt.” She looked around. “Where is Matt?”

“Did we lose him?” Nicky shrieked, going to worst-case immediately.

“Do you want to file a missing person report?” the cop who was maybe definitely in love with Kevin and who’d been staring at him this entire time offered.

“Don’t worry,” Renee told him with a smile. “He’s not the first person we’ve lost today. And so far, all of them have found their way back to us.”

“Also,” Neil jumped in, unchecked for one fucking second, “you’re way too incompetent to actually help. I wouldn’t trust any of you to find a building if I handed you a map and told you the way.”

Five minutes of pretentious alpha male posturing and then some alpha male tears later and kicked out of the police precinct, they continued their strategy meeting on the sidewalk in front of the building, ignoring the fact that Neil had managed to make a grown man cry at his workplace. “How do we find Matt? Who was the last person who saw him?”

“Thirty million people on the internet,” Andrew said, and turned his phone around so they could all see the video of Matt and Kevin giving Aaron a lap dance again. Allison let out a wolf whistle.

“Not helpful,” Aaron told Andrew. “How many of them did your repost?”

“All.”

“You’re a public figure,” Kevin hissed, scandalized. “You can’t just-”

“I’m an overpaid jock,” Andrew cut him off, sounding bored. “I can do whatever the fuck I want.” And then he hit repost on another video.

“Turn that off,” Kevin snapped, then pulled out his own phone. “I can’t believe my publicist hasn’t contacted me about any of this yet. This is an absolute-” He blinked down at the phone in his hand. “That’s not my phone.”

Aaron groaned. “Fantastic.”

Neil moved unexpectedly, shot forward and snatched the phone out of Kevin’s hold (striker reflexes, ladies and gentleman), cackling wildly.

“What- Give that back you shit stain of a human being!” Neil danced out of Kevin’s reach, looking both triumphant and unhinged. Kevin dissolved into French cursing for a while, which was historically the only way to express his feelings about Neil being Neil.

“What do you even want with that?” Aaron asked, catching Neil’s sleeve and holding him down so Kevin could wrestle back the phone that wasn’t his just like the sweater wasn't his.

“Sneak back into the police station, find forensics, get fingerprints from the screen, find out who Kevin lost his virginity to after nearly three decades of celibacy because he can’t fuck an Exy court,” Neil replied without missing a beat.

There was a moment of contemplative silence.

“I’m down with that,” Allison finally said, and raised her hand. “Everyone in favor…”

“We’re not breaking into the police station. Any police station,” Aaron added when he saw their sly faces. “You can annoy the truth out of him later, that’s probably faster,” he promised Neil (he was going to be an amazing dad some day after all this fucking practice). “For now, we’re on a bit of a tight schedule.”

“Ha!” Dan explained, immaculate timing for once. She was zooming in on something on her phone. “Found him! I’ve got him geo-tagged. Looks like… a restaurant?”

“Matt?” Aaron asked eagerly.

“Obviously Matt. I don’t have random people geo-tagged.”

“What do I know,” he muttered, trying to catch a good look at her screen and getting her elbow into his stomach instead.

“That’s only three blocks away. Let’s go!”

It was a taco place. Small, cozy, welcoming.

Aaron squinted up at the sign of an overweight Mexican smiling and waving with an equally overweight taco. “This place looks vaguely familiar.”

“That’s because we were here last night,” Andrew said. “Right after the others went off to karaoke.”

Something about the way Andrew answered his question nagged at Aaron, but he dismissed it when his brother only stared back at him expressionlessly. Andrew had no reason to lie. And wouldn’t, even if.

“I could go for some tacos right now,” Allison noted.

“We’re here for Matt. And the rings.”

“Sure.” Dan nodded. “But tacos.”

Aaron sighed and lead the way inside. They were intercepted by a man with an uncanny resemblance to the sign out front. A visibly furious man with a very red face and a very sturdy wooden spoon he was waving around. “You!” he shouted, and Aaron shoved Neil towards the front because that kind of welcome usually meant people were looking for the redhead.

Neil gave him a betrayed look that turned into a broad grin and two raised middle fingers when the man rushed right past him and got all up in Aaron’s face, which was a first and obviously some kind of mistake.

“Me?” he asked, incredulous, then pointed at his brother. “Not him?” Then Neil. "Or him?"

The man graced Andrew and Neil with passing glances only before returning the full force of his glower on Aaron. “No, you! I recognize a troublemaker when I see one! You dare show your face here again after the mess you made?!”

“I-” He stumbled over how to respond to that. Neil waved his middle fingers at him from behind the man’s back. “What?”

“You punched my son!”

“I did what?”

“The cook!”

“I- Why?” This didn’t make any sense. Aaron wasn’t the kind of person who punched people. Without reason.

“Violent people don’t need reasons to be violent,” the very violent looking owner (???) grumbled at him, a bit calmer now that he saw that Aaron wasn’t here to keep punching people.

“He was flirting with Neil,” Andrew threw in from somewhere behind him, which made a lot of people pause.

Neil lowered his middle fingers. “Flirting… with me?”

“Not that you realized.”

“And I was the one who punched him?” Aaron asked, very incredulous. Because why?

“I have it on video,” Andrew replied. “It was very pathetic. Wanna see?”

Aaron remembered the mess his face was right now. “Did he hit back?”

Andrew snorted. “No. You swung too far and fell over. Wanna see?”

“No.”

“We do!” Nicky, Dan, and Allison crowded around Andrew. His darling brother made sure to turn the volume up loud enough that even Aaron and Neil could hear yesterday-Aaron’s drunk slur of That’s my brother-in-law, bitch!, followed by grunting and glasses shattering.

Aaron cringed when he looked back at the owner of the place, face as dark as before. Seemed like some apologies were in order.

He did the appropriate groveling. Apologized to the owner and the servers who’d had to clean up his mess and the owner’s son, finally, who was at least nine feet tall and looked like he was barely out of high school. Also, his face showed not a trace of having been punched, which was just embarrassing. Also also, he kept throwing puppy-dog eyes Neil’s way the entire time Aaron was apologizing as if he hoped the redhead would come over and kiss his non-existent injury better.

Neil, oblivious idiot that he was, started making out with Andrew in some corner. The puppy beanstalk looked heartbroken. Aaron patted his back and left him to his sorrows, deciding against buying him a drink to drown them because he was pretty sure that the only thing that would’ve gotten him was another stint to jail.

He would’ve preferred to get Matt and leave, but the others still wanted tacos and he’d pacified the owner enough to not throw them out and or call the cops on them. So tacos it was.

Matt was sleeping underneath a table at the very back that felt familiar in a way that told Aaron they’d sat here during the night, too. The others had already ordered their weight in tacos when he joined them, but nobody had bothered waking up Matt yet.

Matt was… still in yesterday's clothes, obviously. Which translated to shorts and oil and glitter. Unlike Kevin, he hadn’t stolen some woman’s sweater, which meant that he was wearing the thing he’d worn in the lap-dance videos that would’ve barely covered his nipples had it not sat so askew. Meaning it did not even that.

“Did someone check if he’s still breathing?” Aaron asked, falling into the seat between Neil and Renee.

Dan waved him off. “He’s fine. He didn’t even drink that much, he’s just catching up. The little ones didn’t let us get much sleep lately.”

“Okay.” He kicked Matt not-so-accidentally, and instead of waking up the man rolled around and grabbed his leg like a teddy bear and kept snoring. “Great. But I need him awake.”

Dan had just put an entire taco in her mouth, so she only shrugged, which Aaron decided to interpret as Go ahead.

Neil acted before Aaron had decided which approach to take about climbing under the table and waking the sleeping giant, and simply emptied a glass of water over the man’s head. Results were immediate.

Matt shot up, gasping, and promptly hit his head on the underside of the table with enough force to shift most of the plates and upset a few glasses. Groaning, he fell back to the floor. “Motherf- Who was that?” he growled.

Neil stuck his head under the table, owning up for once. “Me.”

Matt’s glare immediately softened. He reached out to pat Neil’s curls. “Ah, that’s okay then. Glad you’re back. I thought you forgot me.”

“We would never,” Neil replied, zero shame. “You should come up here. We have tacos. And questions.”

Matt hit his head two more times and upended a few more glasses on his arduous journey out and up. Finally back with them, he pressed a kiss to Dan’s temple and then devoured three servings of tacos. With gusto.

“So, Matt.” Aaron folded his hands under his chin like a movie villain because he’d spent too much time with the rest of them and also it was too late for shame now, really. “My rings. Where are they?”

Matt looked clueless, which was not a good sign. “Your rings?”

“Yes, my rings. My wedding rings. For my wedding. In a bit over two hours.”

Matt’s eyes went wide as saucers as he choked on his current taco. “Two hours? What are you doing here, man?! We need to get you to the hotel!”

“I’m searching for my rings, that’s what I’m doing here,” he stressed. “I gave them to Allison and then to Nicky, who gave them to Dan who gave them to you. So. Where are my rings?”

“Uhhh… I gave them back. To you.”

Aaron reared back as if slapped. “You what?”

“Well you were kinda crying about your hand hurting and Neil was crying out of sympathy or something and I thought it’d cheer you up to see your rings! Plus, Andrew was sober and watching over the both of you, so I thought you wouldn’t lose them for sure!”

Aaron’s brain decided to skip over every single piece of information he’d just gotten. He turned to Neil, who had mirrored Aaron’s wannabe-villain gesture (probably so that he could see how stupid it looked). “So I still had them when we left here.”

Neil nodded, deep in thought. “What happened after? You must have lost them on the way.”

“You got arrested,” puppy-eyes popped up out of nowhere with at least six more servings of tacos. If he’d had a tail, he would’ve wagged it. “Right outside the door.”

Neil continued nodding, then paused. And frowned. “Who are you?” he asked the guy, who left with his metaphorical tail between his legs, double-heartbroken now.

“Wait…” Aaron’s brain was buffering. Dots were being connected. Cogs were turning. He pointed at the table. “If I had them when we were here…” he pointed at the exit, “… and we got arrested the second we left…”

Neil picked up his thread. “That means you still had them when we got arrested!”

They looked at each other. Aaron’s finger hovered in the air and then moved and moved… until it pointed at Andrew. Andrew, who wasn’t grinning but whose face did the Andrew-equivalent of it.

Andrew, who’d been handed their belongings at the precinct, and who’d had ample time to slip something in his pocket without Aaron’s notice.

Andrew, who’d woken up looking refreshed and not hungover at all, and who’d been in that cell by choice.

"Motherfucker," Aaron breathed.

Andrew, who’d been sober this entire fucking time and who now reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, very familiar satin box and placed it on the table between them.

“It’s hard to believe, but you two make each other dumber,” was the only thing he said.

Aaron snatched the box up, frantically checking its contents. One. Two. All the stones. Not a scratch. “I hate you so much,” he muttered, and thunked his head next to a plate of food, the tension he’d been carrying this entire time finally, finally bleeding out of him. He was too relieved even to be angry.

“Wait whaaaat,” Neil said. “I don’t understand?”

“He had them,” Aaron groaned. “This entire time. While we ran around like fools.”

“But that… doesn’t make any sense. We don’t remember, remember?”

Andrew hummed. “I never said that.”

Aaron rolled his head sideways to glare up at Neil. “You do realize that you and Andrew don’t have a shared memory, right?”

Neil frowned down at him. Aaron expected something profound. Or disgustingly romantic. What came out instead was “Your hair is in the green stuff.”

Aaron turned back face-down. Groaned some more. He didn’t even care that he had guacamole in his hair. “Why didn’t we just fucking ask him?”

Someone started patting his back. Renee, probably.

“You had them this entire time?” Neil repeated, only now coming to terms with his husband’s betrayal. “And you didn’t tell us?”

Andrew slurped on something. Probably a mojito or something, smug fucker that he was. “You didn’t ask.”

“I should have known, though,” Neil wailed suddenly, and something heavier than a hand hit Aaron’s back. Neil’s head, probably. “What kind of husband am I if I don’t see through your schemes?”

“A drunk one,” Andrew replied.

Aaron lifted his head, pushed Neil off himself to grab his face and check his eyes. “What? Still?”

“I’m not drunk,” Neil protested, pushing at him weakly. “I learned my lesson.”

“You still need to give a speech later.”

“I’m gonna give a killer speech,” Neil promised, then fished something out of his pocket. “That being said, it might actually go better if I’m drunk. Look what I found in my pocket.”

He put a napkin down in front of Aaron, flattening it out on the table. The napkin was covered in numbers. Columns. Calculations. Aaron had no idea what he was looking at, but he did recognize Neil’s handwriting.

“What is this?”

“A five-year plan,” Neil explained, proudly. “That I came up with. While wasted.”

“A plan for what?”

“A strip club. That you and me are going to run, with Kevin and Matt as our main attractions.”

“I’m in,” Matt said from across the table, zero hesitation because zero brain.

“I have a job,” Aaron told Neil. “As do you, I think. And those two are among the highest-paid professional athletes in the world right now. Why would they want to work as strippers?”

Neil shrugged his shoulders. “Blackmail. I have enough on them both.”

“Very true.” Matt nodded enthusiastically, as if that wasn’t reason for concern.

“And yeah, sure, you have a job. But look at what we’d be making. Annually.” Neil pointed at the bottom line, where a number was circled and underlined.

And yeah. Okay. Those were a lot of zeros.

“You’re insane if you think drunk you is smart enough to come up with a business that makes that much money,” Kevin scoffed, having read along over several heads.

“No, it would work.” Allison nodded. “He explained the entire thing to us. Granted, I caught only half of because we were still at the club, but I’d invest my entire fortune in that.” She pointed a well-manicured nail at the crumpled napkin.

“Ha!” Neil crooned into Kevin’s bitter expression. “Suck on that! I’m going to exploit you and become rich.”

“You’re married to a millionaire,” Kevin shrieked back, furiously slurping on another green monstrosity (and where had he even gotten that??).

Something about Kevin’s words prompted Nicky to burst into tears and start on his everyone-is-so-happy-waaaaaah bullshit again, and the resulting chaos was enough distraction for Aaron to slip the napkin into a glass of juice and watch as it dissolved there alongside Neil’s hopes and dreams.

Nobody even noticed.

He leaned his head back and took a deep breath. Watched his family be chaotic and watched the owner’s expression become more and more pinched with every shout from their table.

For the first time that day, he knew exactly what would happen next.

In less than ten minutes, the nice owner of this nice taco place would thrown them out for the second time today.

They’d trudge their way back to the hotel, would arrive too late and rush through preparations that would have otherwise stressed him out for hours, had he not spent the entirety of those hours hunting down rings that had never been lost.

And then, he’d get married.

That wasn’t the end of it, of course. He felt like an idiot for having even momentarily assumed the rest of the day would go smoothly.

One of the flower girls was throwing a tantrum or something, so the first person that walked down the aisle towards Aaron that wasn’t a child (physically, at least) was not his beautiful wife to-be, but Neil. Who’d lost his tie somewhere between the elevator and the hotel’s reception and was throwing flowers in the guests’ faces by the handful. With relish.

“I got a promotion,” he whispered towards Aaron on his way past and Aaron kind of wanted to take a swing at him but didn't because it might’ve been inappropriate. Also, Kate started walking down the aisle and his head went completely silent besides wow.

Wow.

It was a bit of a blur. Everything except for Kate’s smile, the way her eyes were shining. The officiant’s words rushed over him. It was impossible to avert his eyes from Kate’s.

They did their vows. Aaron pretended he wasn’t crying a bit. And then-

The rings.

Andrew handed them to Neil who handed them to Aaron. Aaron slipped Kate’s ring on her finger, hands shaking, and then Kate slid Aaron’s on his, much more steady than he’d been.

Or. Tried to.

They both paused when the ring got stuck on his first joint. Looked down. At his hand. That was still hurting. And red. And swollen enough to make his finger too thick for the ring that should’ve fit him perfectly.

Someone behind Aaron made a choked noise, and Aaron’s shoulders tensed because he knew exactly what was about to happen.

Neil kept it together long enough for the officiant to proclaim them husband and wife, and for them to exchange a kiss and for everyone else to cheer. And then he lost it completely. Full-bellied, bent-over, tears streaming down his face. Getting worse when he caught another glance at the way the ring was stuck halfway down Aaron’s finger.

Aaron… Aaron was only human.

Aaron pushed Neil into the reflective pool behind them.

And then Aaron had to rescue Neil, because the idiot was still laughing too hard to remember to keep his head up and was about to drown in the two feet of water.

Which, Aaron had to remind himself repeatedly, was not the desired outcome. And would put a damper on everyone’s mood.

His too. Maybe. A little.

Aaron stared sullenly down at the orange flowers decorating each table. He hated those flowers. Hated more that Neil had been right and they looked spectacular.

Neil had disappeared after the pool-incident. Aaron pretended he didn’t know where he’d gone. Pretended he hadn’t seen his brother’s eyes when Neil had emerged from the water, dripping wet and shirt nearly translucent (because good lord did he wish he hadn’t seen Andrew’s expression). And pretended he hadn’t seen Andrew drag Neil off to make out in a broom closet or something (and good lord did he hope they were only making out).

They returned on time for the speeches. Neil’s hair was a different kind of mess than before they’d left, he was wearing Andrew’s jacket with nothing underneath and his face had a distinct flush that said he’d just been made to see god (so much, he hated them both so fucking much).

Kate’s maid of honor did the clinking-a-glass thing to get everyone’s attention. Which was good. Aaron was pretty sure Neil would have been less polite about it.

Her speech was… okay. Heartfelt. Aaron laughed at the appropriate times and mostly stared at Kate next to him (his wife!!!) and felt like the luckiest man on earth.

And then she was done. And Neil took her place (still wearing no shirt underneath his jacket which kind of worked stylistically but Aaron found offensive on a personal level).

“The last time I had to speak in front of so many people was at the trial of the biggest serial killer this country’s seen in quite some time, so maybe don’t expect too much,” Neil said into the microphone, which got him a couple of nervous chuckles from Katelyn’s side of the family, who didn’t realize he was being perfectly serious.

Neil pulled out a stack of paper and paged through it, then scowled and put it down.

“I had everyone write a little something to say.” He looked up, finding Aaron easily. “But it got way too long. You’ll have to read that later. There’s good stuff in there. Very sweet. Some very creative insults.” A few people in Aaron’s section cheered at that. Allison’s whistle was distinct.

“I’m going to make this short.” Neil looked between Aaron and Katelyn, and smiled. “Minyards are… decisive. Andrew knew he was going to marry me the day after we met. And then he did. And Aaron told me that Katelyn was the one when he came home after the first time he saw her in one of those classes where they cut up dead bodies, months before they went on their first date. And then he never shut up about her, not to this day. When I broke into your apartment that day,” he continued, directly to Kate, who snorted when some others let out scandalized gasps, “I wasn’t there for the first time, actually. I’d already done a very thorough background check to make sure you were good enough for him. I thought you were kind of stupid, in the beginning. Because you were so nice.” Neil looked down to fumble with the paper in front of him. “Took me a while to realize that that doesn’t make you weak. Or stupid. You’re kind. And a good person. I hadn’t met someone like that, before you. And Aaron’s a bit of an asshole, so he needs someone to balance that out.” He looked up with a careful grin, gauging Kate’s reaction. Aaron did too.

His wife (wife!!!) was smiling, and crying, and laughing, and looked entirely too endeared by Neil’s words, and Aaron took her hand and squeezed it and pretended his own eyes weren’t burning.

“And Aaron,” Neil continued, a little clumsily. A little awkwardly. “I think you running me over was the best thing that ever happened to me.” He grimaced a little, broke their eye contact to stare down at his hands again. “We don’t say shit like that but you were the first person who showed me that love doesn’t come with pain. Or conditions. That… I didn’t know that, before you.”

Kate squeezed his hand. He squeezed back just as tightly.

“So.” Neil raised his head again and smiled when he saw their expressions, a little crooked and entirely honest. “You two deserve only the best. And that’s each other. You’ll be great.”

Aaron wasn’t crying. Aaron didn’t cry. But that… Well. It was something. That hadn’t been said before. And probably wouldn’t get said again.

He just simply… hadn’t known. That Neil was articulate enough to say something like this.

The strange (emotional) mood didn’t hold out for long before it was time for the first dance, which Aaron spent staring deeply into Kate’s eyes and being very fundamentally happy. Then Kate got whisked away by her father and Aaron danced with his mother-in-law and then Renee and Allison and Dan and then Neil latched onto him like a deranged barnacle and pulled him into a tango that didn’t fit the music and consisted mostly of him stepping on Aaron’s toes and twirling him at inopportune moments while staring deeply into Aaron's eyes and enjoying the way he fumbled his response to the speech.

Kevin was the one who saved him from that particular misfortune (salvation came from unexpected sources sometimes) because he was a masochist and wanted to dance with Neil himself.

Aaron finally escaped the dance floor, swearing to himself that Kate was the only reason he’d set foot on it again.

Andrew appeared at his elbow after he’d found a corner to catch his breath, eating cake and staring out at the crown with him in silence for a few minutes.

“I would’ve been your best man. If you’d asked,” his brother said suddenly.

“Yeah, I know.” He smiled when he saw Kate and Nicky laughing while twirling each other. “I thought about it. But you wouldn't have enjoyed the organizing and speech part like Neil did, and you were the one who took care of the rings, in the end. So it was kind of both of you anyways.”

Andrew snorted at that, which Aaron took as agreement. He caught a glimpse of Kevin and Neil slow-dancing at the edges of the crowd, with Neil’s hands wrapped around Kevin’s waist and Kevin’s chin propped on Neil’s curls. To Aaron’s humble eyes, that looked kind of gay. But what did he know.

The scratch of a fork against a plate made him frown, then turn to look at Andrew. And the cake. That he was eating.

The cake that Aaron was very sure he and Kate hadn’t cut yet.

“Where did you get that?”

“Brought my own.”

“You brought your own cake. To my wedding,” Aaron repeated flatly.

Andrew shrugged. “Yours kinda sucks.”

“You haven’t even tried it yet!”

“That is incorrect.”

Aaron looked over to the cake. The cake that was very white and very smooth and very visibly still whole.

Andrew snorted as he followed his eyes. “I’m not a fucking amateur. I went to the bakery weeks ago. Told them I wanted a second taste-testing.”

The local bakery. Hundreds of miles away from where Andrew lived. Aaron decided to ignore the insanity in that. “And they bought that?”

Andrew waved his fork at his own face, which Aaron guessed was fair enough.

“And you didn’t like it?”

“I’m a connoisseur.”

“You could’ve changed it,” Aaron pointed out. He probably wouldn’t have even realized, with so much else going on.

“It’s your wedding. I’m not gonna mess with that.”

Aaron hummed and turned back to the dance floor. “Kinda crazy, right? That we get to have this.”

He saw Andrew pause out of the corner of his eye, and follow Aaron’s stare. To his own redhead out there, probably.

“Yeah,” he said, softer than Aaron had ever heard him. “I didn’t think any of us would.”

“Same. I’m glad we were wrong.”

“Yeah. Me too.”