Being them, Dan and Phil could only hope that everything went right today, but the odds were against them.
Dan stood in front of a long mirror, adjusting his bow tie with shaky hands and brushing imaginary dust from his suit jacket. The tuxedo had been fitted perfectly, but Dan felt as if it was suffocating him where it cinched at the waist. Every nerve was on fire; he couldn't stop worrying over what could potentially go wrong on the one day it needed to go right. He looked himself over, picking apart the minutest details and wishing he had slept more the night before, until a pair of familiar arms wrapped snugly around his torso.
Dan smiled, pushing his concerns to the back of his mind and loosely held the hands fisted against his jacket. "No," he grinned. "You're gonna get both our tuxes all wrinkly."
"Don't care," Phil responded, head down and face pressed into Dan's shoulder, breathing deeply to take in the scent of that new cologne he'd bought for his future husband. "Smell so good."
Dan laughed and pried the arms off his waist. "No, really. I want everything to be perfect today and it can't start with us wearing wrinkled up suits. We're the grooms, for fuck's sake, aren't we supposed to look more incredible than anyone out there?"
Phil smiled and turned Dan around by his shoulders so he could get a good look at him. He had expected Dan to look stunning, but not this stunning. Seeing his fiancé –husband in just an hour or so- looking so amazingly gorgeous in his wedding tuxedo, not just willing but eager to marry him, made Phil a bit breathless. He went to look the taller man dead in the eye, but lowered his gaze a bit, blushing as he found him staring, too. "You look…" There was honestly no word to describe it. "… You look brilliant."
Dan hardly noticed he had said anything, too busy drinking in his fiancé in his own tux, admiring how it fit him in all the right ways. He tried to say something, but just let out an embarrassed laugh every time he was going to say anything about it. He wiped the mistiness from his eyes. "Damn that no kissing rule…" he mumbled through a bright smile. He reached in to grab Phil's face and kiss him hard, but Phil pulled away.
"No, no kissing until we're pronounced husbands," Phil scolded, smirking. "You've made it this long already-"
"Don't remind me," Dan groaned.
"You've made it this long without a kiss, just another hour or so." He hugged Dan tightly but pulled back after only a few seconds. "I'm gonna g check how everything going. I'll see you at the altar."
Dan had to smile at that thought, watching him go. He fiddled with the buttons on his jacket, his anxiety over tonight's ceremony starting to subside.
Phil pulled the cards out of his pocket –he'd tried so hard to memorize what he wanted to say, but he knew he was not articulate enough to get it right. He had the entire speech on the card, and though he didn't want to be reading right off of it, he didn't want to disappoint Dan by messing this up, either. His hands were shaking almost too badly to read the words printed.
He gasped quietly as Dan laid a hand on his wrist, reassuring and calming him. Dan pulled back and Phil smiled gratefully, swallowing his nerves.
"Dan, when I tried to write this, I honestly had no idea what to say. There was so much I'd already told you, but still so much left to be said that I would never fit it into the entire ceremony, let alone this little piece of it. I… I was falling in love with you long before we met in person, maybe two months before we actually said it. And I haven't ever regretted it… I mean, if I had any doubt that we could happily spend our lives together, I wouldn't have ever asked you to marry me, for your own sake. I regret a lot of things I've done in my life, but you're not one of them." He stopped talking for a second, laughing nervously as he realized how dirty that might've sounded. He was relieved when Dan laughed with him. "Anyway, we've been through so much together over the last six years. At this point I'm finding it difficult imagining how I could get through anything without you. We…" He bit his lip for a moment. "We both went through a lot last year, and though we like to think we've gotten past it, it's not gonna be something we can really forget. But I don't want those six months apart to define the next fifty, sixty years of our life together. We'll continue to help each other to move on, but still remember that we love each other as much as we did on either side of that. But let's put our focus on all the good times we've already had, and all the great times we have ahead of us." He smiled brightly, probably the brightest he had in a long, long time. "I promise to keep loving you like I've never loved anyone else, to spend every day working to make you smile, and every night holding you in my arms. I love you, Daniel –then, now, and forever."
Dan's eyes were welling up, and he smiled fondly at how Phil was wiping his own tears away, stuffing the cards back into his pocket. Dan mouthed an 'I love you' to him, but he wasn't sure if he saw it or not.
Dan's hands were sweating as he pulled his cue card out of his pocket. He had his vows mostly memorized, but he kept the card on him to make sure it went as smoothly as it could. Now with his fiancé in front of him, looking amazing in his tuxedo with a soft smile on his face, Dan had to wrack his brain for the words he was supposed to be reciting. He glanced down at the card nervously, taking in some key words to refresh himself, and looked back to Phil. He stared into his eyes –his one good one and the other immaculately painted glass one, the flesh around it healed pretty well. Phil smiled a bit wider as the pause drew out, silently encouraging Dan that it would be fine, urging him to go on. Dan felt the corner of his lips twitch as things suddenly felt lighter.
"I made a lot of dumb decisions when I was a teenager –yes, more so than would probably be considered a normal amount of mistakes. But when I was seventeen, I had a kind of crazy idea that I was going to make you mine. That… That was probably the best decision of my life." He paused for a moment, not letting himself reminisce too deeply. "We fell in love. I-" He laughed. "I was a fangirl and achieved every fangirl's dream. And… what teenager doesn't want to marry their idol?... Well, I never really stopped chasing you. Sometimes I can't quite catch up, but that's when you grab my hand and lead me along with you, into your light. And those times, those times are when I know what we have is real, and forever. You've been a constant in my life for six years to the day now. I want nothing more out of the rest of my life than to spend it with you, because I know that as long as you're here beside me, I'm gonna be okay." He flipped the card over in his hand absently. "These aren't vows, exactly; I'm not promising you anything I can't know the future has in store for us. These are just some things I wanted you to know today, and for everyone in this room right now to hear. But I will promise you one thing." He dropped the card to the floor and took both of Phil's hands in his own, staring straight into his eyes. "I promise to love you until the day I die, and for whatever eternity there may be beyond that. I swear that to you; I pledge my heart to you."
Phil knew that it was coming soon, anyway, so he didn't bother waiting for the man officiating the ceremony to announce them as husbands. Tears pricking in his eyes again at the beginning of Dan's speech, slipping freely down his cheeks by the end, he couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed Dan's face and pulled him in, kissing him hard on the mouth. Dan reciprocated immediately, wrapping his arms around Phil's waist and tugging him closer. This kiss was well worth the wait, the most amazing they'd ever had, full of love and passion and the promise of eternity. Their guests were enthusiastically applauding.
The man marrying them laughed awkwardly, smiling but used to couples waiting for instruction to kiss. This wasn't an unwelcome change, though.
"I, uh, now pronounce you husbands; Mr. and Mr. Howell-Lester."
The ceremony was wonderful as far as the heartfelt and touching moments went. The reception was the fun part.
Neither groom had any qualms about drinking a bit much at the party. Still, they both knew how much alcohol they could handle without getting sloppy, and stuck firmly to that, knowing they would be ending their spell of abstinence tonight and wanting to remember it in the morning.
"Was I not right about the cake?" Dan asked his husband, laughing over the music as Phil saw it for the first time, playfully shoving him.
"It does look pretty great," Phil admitted, smiling. The cake was four tiers tall, white icing and dark chocolate trickled from the top of each cake. "I guess it's a good thing you handled it. I almost was gonna go for 'wedding cake roulette.'"
Dan laughed, imagining all their guests either loving or disgusted with their slices. "That would be anarchy. It'd be amazing." He kissed Phil's cheek dramatically. "Who would suspect the sweet and adorable Phil Howell-Lester to be so diabolical at his own wedding?"
Phil grinned and pulled away slightly. "I know you've got your own plans. I swear though, if you shove cake into my face, it's gonna mean war."
Dan smirked and ruffled his hair. "Is that a challenge?"
It was nearing the end of the reception. Dan and Phil just stood against each other on the dance floor, swaying slowly in vague rhythm to the music. The world around them was moving slowly; they were ignorant to anything but each other. Their faces and hair and shirts were covered in cake after Dan had accepted the challenge. Neither had actually tasted the dessert, but were saving a piece. Phil laid his head against Dan's shoulder, and Dan buried his nose in his hair.
Phil moaned softly, and Dan stroked a hand up and down his back. "Dan?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"Can this night just never end? Can we just stay here like this forever?"
Dan smiled and kissed his head. "As long as you want."
Phil smiled softly, kissing Dan's shoulder. They stayed just like that until the reception ended and after, until the management told them they needed to go.
A/N: Reviews = quicker updates!