forthedog | (no subject)

"Daddy, found tarfish," Mack calls merrily, crouched down in her sundress and poking at something in the sand. Mike leans over to peer at it, a greenish round thing, and shakes his head, grinning. Beside him, Flo is filling her hat with sand and shells with extraordinary concentration.

"That's a sand dollar, honey," he says. "Not a starfish. Leave it alone, it's alive."

"Kay," Mack says, looking mildly put out but forgetting all about it when a long conical shell catches her eye. She picks it up and turns it in the sunlight, blue eyes following its elongated spiral. "Pretty," she murmurs, and Mike tugs at her hat.

"You're pretty," he says, and she bats at his hands and laughs.

"Wan' lunch," Flo announces, looking up from her hat, and Mike ruffles her blond curls. It's not yet high noon, there's a fresh breeze, and the sun feels good on his bare back.

Perfect. Pretty much.

"Daddy Tom'll be here soon," he says, glancing back up in the direction of the boardwalk. "We'll have lunch then."

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He leans back a little, looking at them speculatively as Mack tries to tackle him and he catches her with ease. "Y'know," he says, wrestling her gently to the ground as she giggles, "I never knew what the hell to call you two. 'Lovers' just sounds stupid, so does 'boyfriends', 'partners' makes it seem like a business thing..."

He smiles. "'Husbands', I think I could get used to. Maybe."

"Bullshit," I say to Tom, rolling my eyes and kissing him again, "You don't got any better idea then I do."

I pull away, leaning back on my hands on the picnic blanket, stretching out nudging at Mike's hip with my bare foot. "Maybe."

"There's usually cake," Tom said, grinning a little. "And flowers. And a lot of white."

He smiled with one side of his mouth, one arm draped around Mike's waist, his forehead resting against Neil's cheek.

"Which....come to think of it...I don't think any of us can get away with wearing."

"The girls can wear white," he says, letting Mack wriggle out of his arms and scramble away. "We can wear... I dunno. Whatever. I'm just not doing the tux thing."

He grins at Neil. "As long as there's booze and a wedding night after."

"That's too bad, 'cause you got no idea what I'd do to see you in a tux," I say with a grin, crawling over the scattered remains of their lunch to sit between them and picking up a discarded container of pasta salad to pick through.

"And I know what happens at a wedding ceremony, dumbass. I already had one of those." Even if the other groom never showed up.

"This one will be better," Tom said, no hesitation, all charm and enthusiasm, pushed into the race and now off at a sprint. No time for second guessing, now.

He pulled Neil back against his chest, sagging heavily into Mike in turn.

"We'll even show up," he quipped, grinning against Mike's shirt.

"I think I could make the time." He looks out at the girls, sandwiches abandoned and rolling and laughing in the sand, Flo starting to pile mounds of it into a kind of odd, misshapen castle.

"You think they'll even notice a difference?" If there would even be one.

"Doubt it," I say, letting my head tip over onto Tom's shoulder. "They'll notice if there's a party with cake and if they get to wear frilly dresses, but that's about it."

There's not really much to change. Aside from the vows, we've pretty much been to that point for a while.

"They take pretty much everything in stride," Tom said, grinning against the side of Neil's neck, letting out a soft, contented sigh.

"Peter....Peter we're going to have to talk to."

"You don't think he'll take it in stride, too?" He glances at Tom, curious; Peter is still a little bit of a mystery in some ways. "I mean, yeah, we should talk to him... but it's not like this changes much."

"Might not actually change anything, but it's still big," I say, rolling one shoulder in a shrug, "I mean, he's had a year to get used to how things are now, but... I dunno, it might sound like a big deal to him."

It sounds like a pretty big fuckin' deal to me, in all honesty.

"Ceremonies, parties," Tom shrugged. It had always seemed like huge, ornate goingons when he was a kid.

He closed his eyes. Pinocchio was right. Husbands he could get used to.

"We'll find him a suit, if he wants one."

Mike almost chokes with laughter at the idea, hands moving idly over Neil's thigh. "I don't think you could get that kid into a suit," he says, still chuckling. "Not with a goddamn crowbar. C'mon, Hobbes, you know him."

"I wasn't talkin' 'bout the fuckin' wedding, anyway. Screw the party, man. We're gonna be married. Whether it changes anythin' or not, it's still a big fuckin' deal." They've gotta know that.

"And if you can get that kid into a suit, I'll do whatever you want for the rest of our fuckin' lives."

"You're on," Tom said, spreading one hand over Mike's on Neil's thigh. He closed his eyes, grinning dumbly to himself. The rest of their lives sounds pretty damn good.

"It's a big deal," he agreed, resting his head against Mike's shoulder, squirming around in the sand. "And it will feel scarier later, probably. But now..."

The girls squealed loudly at something, speaking in their own little pidgin, dancing messily in the surf. "Now it feels pretty okay."