come_sailaway | Gh6st Wedding

Entry tags:

Gh6st Wedding

Who: Number 6, Ava Starr & Wedding Guests
What: Number 6 and Ava are getting married!
When: Saturday, August 19, Sunset
Where: Pool Deck
Warnings: Post is open to all but any characters who initiate conflict will be thrown out of the party immediately

Setting The Scene

A package had arrived for Number 6 a few days prior. Inside was a note explaining that an appropriate backdrop for their wedding would appear for the event. The note did not lie. A few hours before the appointed time, a stunning arch of flowers and opalescent crystals appears at the end of a white aisle runner on the pool deck. The various lounges and deck chairs already present have been arranged on either side of the runner, facing the new archway. Aside from that stunning centerpiece, the rest of the decorations appear makeshift upon inspection but are arranged with plenty of care--with soft and gauzy fabrics draped over key tables, such as where the gifts and the wedding cake sit, and improvised cloth flowers for most of the centerpieces and railings. All that’s missing now are the guests.

Ceremony

It begins at sunset, the sky painted with a warm ombre above the pool deck. The railings leading up to the deck are draped with repurposed curtains woven with dozens of flowers sewn from the fabric of Tommy Bahama apparel; they mark the way. As guests choose their seats (on either side, no one is being picky) they will find a cloth flower waiting for them as a party favor.

The whole ceremony is a compromise between traditional and simplistic. Klaus is officiating, but they’ve been asked to keep the ceremony itself short and sweet. Number 6 is standing beside them at the end of the aisle decked out in white himself in the form of a white tuxedo with coat tails (it even has wing holes built-in.) His fingers dance anxiously in front of him like he’s frantically playing an invisible keyboard. And, then, the processional music begins, provided by their very own pianist, Phil.

Number 6 turns his full attention to the center aisle. The first down is Fio, playing the lovely role of flower girl once more, with even more of those specially crafted fabric flowers. Then the best man, Skulduggery, and maid of honor, Valdis. Number 6 barely notices either. He’s waiting for... yes, there’s the music change.

His eyes go wide with awe as he beholds the sight of his gorgeous bride being led down the middle of the aisle on Maximilien’s arm. Not even the sight of that omnic can spoil it for Number 6. He’s never seen anything so stunningly, fabulously, beautiful as Ava looks right now. Even the jittering of his hands has stopped. He can scarcely do more than stare. This is really happening. He almost wants to ask Skulduggery to pinch him.

Ava’s glad for Maximilien’s steadying presence by her side, to hold onto so she doesn’t dissolve away into nervous static in anticipation of her turn down the aisle. But once the music transitions to her song, there’s no hesitation as she gracefully makes her way through the parted crowd of their gathered friends toward the man she’ll so soon be able to call her husband.

Valdis helped style her hair just hours before, with a flower crown, adorned by shimmery feathers that match the patch of blue of the groom’s own wings and the borrowed sapphire necklace to complete the tradition. Her gown is a gauzy chiffon, constructed over the last few months with the help of Okie and Siffleur. The fabric flower bouquet she carries is constructed with the pearls gifted to her by Helena.

She can feel eyes on her; that typically might inspire her to flicker away. But hers remain ahead, looking to her future husband. Their gazes catch, and so does her breath as the moment overwhelms her, and then Ava’s smile brightens-- an expression so rare, so uncomplicated. This is the happiest she’s ever been, taking her place by his side. She gives Maximilien one last squeeze of his arm in appreciation of his support, passes the bouquet off to Valdis, acknowledges Skulduggery with a tiny nod, and then steps in to take Number 6’s hands in her trembling own.

Number 6’s own smile is bright as he takes her by the hand, yet somehow soft. In this light, he almost looks like he’s aged backward, as if the man standing before her is in his twenties now, fresh-faced and free of the weight of worries that have weathered him in the past decade. This is an end and a beginning. A beautiful beginning.

Vows

The vows begin with a traditional exchange, each of them repeating their promise to love and cherish one another through sickness and through health, for richer or for poorer, until their final deaths do they part. Then come the rings, discretely handed over by Skulduggery.

“With this ring, I pledge myself to you,” Number 6 recites, as he slips a stunning opal and diamond ring onto Ava’s finger. She does the same for him, slipping a simple and elegant golden band upon his finger. This one holds a secret, but he won’t discover it until later.

With the official vows and rings exchanged, there are only personal vows left to give. Number 6 slips a small sheet of paper out of his breast pocket, but he has read and re-read the words so many times, he hardly needs to glance at it. In front of the whole room, he declares his unending love for her and promises to be her first and best supporter, to be the one that lifts her up, always, to help her see herself as the shining light that she is. Theirs will be a partnership built on mutual respect and unending love. He also promises to withhold no part of himself from her, that she will know him more fully than any other in the world. “I put my heart in your hands, forever more, for no one else in all the world has made me believe in a future like you have. No matter what that future holds, these will be the most rewarding days of my life, because I will share them with you.” He starts to lean in like he means to kiss her but has to stop himself. Not yet. Not quite time.

Once it’s Ava’s turn to share her vows, she freezes up. It’s not that she can’t remember. She’s practiced the words over and over, committing them to heart. But she gives Number 6 a quietly worried look that he luckily recognizes, and as she steps in even closer he brings up a wing to shield them from view and save her from embarrassment. It’s not how it was planned, but Ava draws him down toward her, to lovingly whisper the vows into his ear. Promises of devotion and loyalty, of unconditional trust that no spy should ever have in another. She looks forward to cherishing each day that they’ll have together. To strive for a shared future no matter what horrors they face, that waking up next to him will always make it worth it. “I love you” she finishes and allows him to wipe the stray tear from her cheek, laughing lightly in relief.

“I liked it better this way,” Number 6 whispers back, still cupping her face with his hand. “Words only for me to know and cherish.” He cannot resist any longer. Vaguely, he has the sense that Klaus may have declared them husband and wife, and that they now may kiss. But he’s already leaning in, behind the shield of his wing, to claim his very first kiss with his new wife.

Reception

They are introduced to the room now as Mr. and Mrs. Peter and Ava Starr. Since the reception is happening right here on the pool deck, they don’t have much in the way of formalities. The wedding party simply walks back down the aisle and then disperses, as some of them set to the task of clearing the chairs. The newly wedded couple makes their first stop the cake table.

Grinning like school children, the bride and groom cut the first slice of cake and feed each other a bite before the rest is served up. After that is their first dance to At Last. The two of them sway to the ballad, lost in each other’s loving gazes as if all the world has melted away and only the two of them exist in this moment.

Once the first dance finishes, Sharky takes over the party as DJ to provide a mixture of upbeat and romantic dance hits for all to enjoy. Ava takes turns dancing with each of the requesting guests, as does Number 6, although he is not likely to be in nearly as high demand for partners. As it should be, for who would want to miss their chance to dance with the loveliest woman aboard this ship (in his shamelessly biased opinion?)

There's time for speeches, planned and impromptu. The food spread was prepared by Darcy, and though there are a few bottles of champagne, the drinking isn't overly in abundance.

Bride and groom stick around for long enough to mingle, but eventually Mr. and Mrs. Starr sneak away from the crowd for their own private after-party.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Fuck yeah. And you spend months going round and round needling each other as the sexual tension gets so electric it's painful for people around." Pratt is all in favor of this alternate dimension.

"Do you think the Captain would let us see what we're up to in other dimensions? Like could I see what my life was like in the timeline that I didn't fuck shit up with my girlfriend? Or where the cult never showed up? Cuz it'll either be awesome or you know, a depressing learning experience."

"I... like to make up little stories, while we're falling asleep. About all the different universes we might have met in," Ava is almost embarrassed to admit. It came out of trying to rework all the cheesy romance novels she was reading to be more suitable for them, and Peter seemed to enjoy filling in the details.

"Maybe?" she certainly doesn't want to discourage Pratt, even if she's sure she's far better off not knowing. Then again, it does sound like the sort of high emotional trauma generator that people would willingly subject themselves to. "You should ask."

"Oh my godddddd. Ava that is the most adorable shit I've ever heard. That's writing his name on your schoolwork surrounded by hearts." He fake swoons over how cute this is.

"If I remember I will." The dice have said no, so alas tis not to be. "Maybe not.. that one in particular. I'm not sure if I wanna see myself all happy with kids or some shit. That's gotta be a mindfuck."

She covers her face with one hand bashfully, fading just slightly from view, and makes a playful swipe at Pratt. "Stooopp... it's just. You know, fun to think about. All the different ways we could have fallen in love." Because she's convinced that every universe with them in it, they end up together.

"Ah yeah see revisiting our pasts was bad enough. I think the idea of glimpsing into the futures we'll never have is..." she trails off. Yeah, a mindfuck. "I do want kids, though. If it's ever possible." Which she hasn't really told many people outside of Peter himself. Mostly because the present circumstances don't allow for it.

"Hey it's possible they're all true tho. Never know. Well I guess the Captain might know but he'd probably not tell you, so you can keep on believing." He's so proud of himself for being positive right now - such a change from when he arrived here.

"Is... I mean are we actually real? Would that work?" He's not sure about the biology of being timeline duplicates.

"He only really ever tells you things if you ask him directly. And I have a habit of meandering off topic." And away from the questions she was intending. Oh well. There has been a question nagging at her for awhile that she hasn't been able to bring herself to ask yet.

But her grip on the concept of reality is rather flexible anyway, that Ava simply shrugs. "Not here, no. Which is totally unfair because," she lowers her voice politely, leaning in closer to Pratt. "I still get my period."

"Well that fucking blows. You should ask the Captain for a refund cuz that's not how eternity is supposed to work..." Not that he really knows that much about periods except when his girfriend would throw heating pads at his head to put them back in the microwave.

"I thought we were like... in stasis?"

A small laugh in agreement, because it really is a shitty deal. "Something like that. But. With enough biological functioning to mimic that we're still living, you know? Sure we probably don't need to eat or sleep, but... I like those things, so I still do them." And she's not worried about damaging Pratt's psyche because she knows he's just as far gone as she is.

"I got pretty fucked when I didn't eat for all of October, but I can also probably go like... months without food which is a whole other thing. And I already know the food isn't real, found that out from César and he got all sciency at me telling me to not tell anyone cuz they'd freak, and that uh.. yeah that was true. He's right. People really do not like finding out they're eating magicked up food. Which to me... Doritos are already made of things I can't pronounce and blue number 3 and red 5 so it's probably better for me if it's made of nothing right?"

"We're still bound to how we're meant to work, like how the lights come on without any wiring." Though she wonders if that's something capable of consciously overcoming...

"If you zoom too far in or too far out, existence really starts to make no sense. And some people's brains just aren't wired for that. Remember how everyone freaked out when the notebook went out in the library?" Though no, it's likely that Pratt doesn't. Or if he ever read the information from it at all. So much of it is outdated now anyway.

"Reality is just perception, and most of them are trapped by their lack of it."

"I think it's kinda how we think it's supposed to be though. Not the Captain. I basically willed the crab legs into being cool ranch dorito flavor and it worked. Either that or my brain is so fucked that I can force myself to hallucinate tastes which I think is probably the last step before I need to go on hospice care and be strapped to a gurney." He's going to go with he can influence the environment via wishful thinking because that's the far less distressing option.

"Yeah cuz some of us needed to refer to that shit daily and my thirty pages of cat memes doesn't help if you wanna know how many people have disappeared or like, what experiments blood dude did and the stuff he found out. Especially now that he's gone."

By 'blood dude' he means Palamedes but there's no way in hell he's ever going to remember that name.

"Cool ranch crab legs..." she can't decide if that sounds delicious or an atrocity to seafood. Nor if that's just Pratt's brain melting or he's truly on to something. "But there has to be... A method. Of overcoming what we believe." She's been gnawing on that for awhile. But even the Captain had told her that he couldn't just decide to change such a thing, when she was asking about why there was no underworld. It wouldn't work, the magic would know better.

"Even if reality is malleable... I don't want to accidentally break something." Except doesn't she. Just not so recklessly that it endangers everyone.

"Ah, Palamedes just made the obvious conclusion that our blood showed no signs of expected degradation over prolonged periods of time. Like you said, in stasis."

"What's the worst that can happen?"

The age old expression by people who are about to find out exactly that.

"Okay cool I'm pretty sure that's what he told me but he explained it with a bunch of science speak that I didn't understand. Him and César should have hung out more. A nerd table during lunch figuring shit out that ultimately doesn't matter. Well okay, the blood thing probably matters, but not if we can't do anything about it." Or wait... can they do something about it? "You can force people to change their beliefs if you twist 'em the right way. What are you trying to overcome?"

He's living proof of that right here right now.

"I'm good at translating nonsense science. Had to deal with that type of nerd my entire life," Ava laughs fondly. Because she doesn't mean the ones at SHIELD that experimented on her. But her father, Bill, even Dr. Pym.

"And I'm really not up for brainwashing," Ava winces sympathetically. "I don't know. Nothing at the moment, I have everything I want," it is the middle of her wedding reception after all.

"But. It's not over yet. This isn't the happy ending where the story fades out and the rest is left to the imagination." Or it is, just their own. "I have to keep pushing forward. But there's all sorts of limitations. Things I don't know or can't do or..." she shakes that thought off. "I just feel like there's something that I'm missing."

This is probably not the conversation to have mid-wedding, so Pratt drops the brainwashing bit without even mentioning that he's probably an expert in doing that to other people.

"Well the happy ending is you know... the end. It's kinda in the phrase. This is just continuing happy stuff. With ups and downs and shit. And I guess being here is eternal? So you get that whole 'forever' thing going on." Sure forever is a long, long time, but that's a problem for future them, current them can just keep on keeping on.

"There's hella shit we're missing cuz we showed up here without instructions. There shoulda been a tutorial or whatever. There's whole ass mechanics we don't know about! Like the shit with the hourglasses? Been here an entire fucking year and then that shit gets figured out? I hope you rubbed it in everyone's faces that it's legit the Matrix. Right down to the tubes and everything."

"Only been a year and a half, a bit early to start making claims at eternity." But if they manage to figure things out, it'll only be temporary anyway. She knows Pratt's one of the few that actually prefers being here, given his status back home, and that dying here doesn't carry that same weight. Given that he's suffered worse treatment.

"Nobody else here knows what the Matrix even is," Ava laughs. "But no, I figured everything out and not a single person was all that impressed. But never really got all that much recognition for working in the shadows. It's just how it is."

"Okay but a year in a pocket reality has to age like dog years and we've been here the equivalent of eight years." As to why that would be the case, he doesn't elaborate.

"Booooo. Well, genius is never recognized in it's own time." Which sounds good if he doesn't add that it's something Sharky said to him after being arrested for putting fireworks under a manhole cover to see if he could levitate on it when they exploded. "I think it's cool you figured that shit out tho."

"I'd say it's more for some and less for others. Some spent far too much time within those dream worlds. Years or more. Or woke up with decades of memories shoved into their minds, like Maeve. Then there's those like me that haven't aged a day," she grins to emphasize her youthful determination.

"Yeah, thanks. It took a lot of investment and investigation and piecing together information from other sources and trying to make sense of it all... and you definitely helped. With our poor Hurricane friend." Ava raises a champagne flute in mock cheers to the former bartender.

He'll join in that toast, grinning big and giving a salute to their fallen barman Brad. May he float free as the ghostly himbo he was destined to be.

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Gh6st Wedding

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