FURTHER THAN IMAGINED, FURTHER THAN WE'VE EVER KNOWN.
“I do.”
Luke had felt like he’d become unattached from the real world all day. Yesterday too. All month, if he was honest. It wasn’t that he felt disconnected from what was going on, it was a more surreal feeling than that, a wonderful feeling, like he no longer had to hold both hands on the steering wheel to keep his life on track because some great unseen hand had gently taken him in its grip to usher him on towards his destiny. This was the moment his whole life had been leading to. The exact place in space and time he was supposed to be. He’d felt like he was drifting on clouds.
And now he was standing in a perfectly pressed suit on his precious front lawn at the school, holding the hands of the love of his life as they declared their commitment to each other in front of all the people they cared about most. Everyone was here, both their families seated along the front row, their mothers who’d been worryingly thick as thieves since being introduced, Luke’s brothers and their partners, both their dads, a sprinkle of aunts and cousins. Backing them up were the hordes of Xavier’s School inhabitants. Linus and Luke had invited everyone and most of them had shown up. It made his breath short to glance out at their audience and know that they weren’t gathered here for a memorial this time. This was a happy occasion. The best.
There were flowers everywhere, some grown by Luke himself, others encouraged into bloom by helpful plant manipulators. Feathers of pink blossom floated on the air. It was a beautiful day too, thanks to further intervention from atmokinetics, rendering the sky bright and warm and summery in defiance of the month. Kurt stood before them, having graciously agreed to officiate for them. Paige was at his side, with strict instructions to catch him if he fainted. It was perfect. Everything was perfect.
But it all paled in comparison with the man before him. There had been so many times in Luke’s life when he’d never believed he could be happy. Never believed he deserved such a thing. He spent half his life waiting to die, then the next half wishing he had. And then he’d met Linus Sinker and in an instant, everything had changed. Linus made sense of it all, put all his broken parts back in their proper places, and now they could stand up in front of everyone they knew and say this is all we need, this is our everything.
Their vows had passed between them like a dream made real, and Luke felt a bubble of laughter spill from his throat into the air, too happy to hold it in. He needed to say those two words again.
“Forever, always, I do.” Luke squeezed Linus’s hands, giddy. They were about to be pronounced as husband and husband, and everything they’d been through, together and before, shrank away under the light of this one idyllic moment.
[ Rapid fire! Wait for Linus to tag first though, obv. :D There’s food and music both outside and inside for the rest of the day, and the summery weather will last into the night. <3 ]