Chapter Text
When dinner service started, everyone settled into their plates for a while. Jane was sitting at the front table beside Hopper, her flower basket parked next to her chair, close enough for her to reach. Clearly, even though the job was technically over, she was not ready to fully let it go. Hopper was cutting something on his plate while Jane explained something to him with dead seriousness. Every now and then, he nodded or gave her a short answer, but his face had softened. He was really listening to her while she talked.
Nancy, Joyce, Becky, and Mama Dolores had fallen into a lively conversation at their own table. Joyce was using her hands as she spoke, and Nancy kept nodding along, adding little things here and there. Becky was quieter, but the warmth on Mama Dolores’s face made all of them look like they belonged at the same table. People who had only met a few hours ago were now talking like they had all come out of the same wedding together.
Since the DJ area had been set up toward the back corner of the ceremony space, the open area near the front of the room was used for the little stage where Mike, James, and Bob would perform. The staff moved carefully. A few cables were run across the floor, microphone stands were carried in, and a small amp was set into place. The spot where they had just spoken their vows, with all those words straight from the heart, was about to become the place where they played the song the bride had asked for.
James was eating with one eye on the setup. Actually, one eye was putting it lightly. His whole attention was over there. His fork stayed in his hand, and he made a decent attempt at pretending he was still part of the conversation, but the second one of the staff members pulled the drum a little too far to the left, his head turned right away. When someone else dropped the hi-hat, his face twisted like he had been the one dropped.
Mike had noticed a while ago, but at first he did not say anything. After a while, though, it was hard not to see what was happening. James had gone a long time without using, which meant his body still had ways of making everything harder than it needed to be, and after spending most of the day living on snacks, his blood sugar was probably low enough to make things that usually would not bother him start bothering him.
“Eat your food,” Mike said, hoping that until James could get to his white powder, at least getting some real food in him might level him out.
“I am eating,” James said, without taking his eyes off the setup.
Meanwhile, El and Mike were still accepting congratulations. Every so often, someone came up to them, left behind a quick hug, a few kind words, sometimes a smile with wet eyes, and then moved on. Mike thanked them every time, and El smiled, and whenever she did not quite know what to say, she held Mike’s hand a little tighter.
But they were not really there.
Not all the way.
Part of their minds was still back at the doors opening. Back in the moment the Rose Theme filled the room. Back with El walking on Hopper’s arm. Back with Mike crying. Back in that tiny, private place where they had said “Hi” like no one else in the world knew what it meant. Back in the bridal room, after the door closed, when they had said wife and husband to each other.
Mike took a bite from his plate, but his eyes drifted back to El again.
El noticed. “You’re looking again.”
“Yeah.”
“You’re supposed to be eating.”
“I know.”
“You’re not eating.”
“Because my wife is extremely distracting.”
El’s face flushed. “Mike.”
Beside from them, James spoke without even lifting his head. “Keep going like we’re not here. Think of me as the tablecloth or something.”
In a dry voice, Kristín said, “The tablecloth would be quieter.”
James lowered his head a little and looked at her over the table. “You’re very mean today.”
“You’re talking a lot today.”
“Because it annoys you.”
Mike laughed. El laughed too, and when El laughed, Mike smiled even wider. After a while, James’s eyes slid back toward the setup.
“Who put the crash cymbal there like that?” he muttered.
Without turning her head, Kristín said, “Go, if you want to go.”
James looked at her. “For real?”
“Yeah. Watching you sit here and glare murder at the staff while grumbling under your breath is actually more exhausting.”
James looked like he was about to stand, then glanced at Mike. “Two minutes.”
Mike nodded. “Go.”
James walked toward the setup area. He spoke to one of the staff members, then showed the angle of the drums with his hand. No attitude, just a quick explanation of what would sit better where. El watched him and smiled.
“He really worked hard on this,” she said.
Mike’s gaze moved to James too. “Yeah.”
“Were you surprised too?”
Mike let out a short breath. “When I saw the crowd?”
El nodded.
Mike’s face softened. “Yeah. I thought it was going to be something small. Safe. Quiet.”
“Me too.”
Mike looked at her. “Were you scared?”
El thought about it for a moment. Then she answered honestly. “At first, yeah. But then I saw you.”
Mike’s hand closed around hers under the table.
El went on. “And everyone… I mean, they weren’t looking at us in a bad way. They were just looking. They were seeing us.”
Mike’s throat tightened a little. “Yeah.”
El looked out at the room. “I think maybe it was good. I don’t know if you noticed, but my mom reacted with the lights. I got worried for a second that people would think it was strange, or get scared.”
Mike nodded, understanding.
“Honestly, I don’t know who most of these people are,” he said. “But I’m guessing they’re people from Mama Dolores’s circle. Mama Dolores might be the sweetest and strictest person I’ve ever met. She has very serious rules about character, so… I don’t know. They’re her kind of people. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
He really did not. Like he said, Mama Dolores cared about character. She was not interested in filling space with people just to fill it. She loved big families and crowded rooms, but she did not keep people around just for the sake of having more bodies in the room. These people were, in some way, made of the same stuff she was, and that made them safe. Mike looked at James. He was checking the position of the drum stool now, then nodding his thanks to one of the staff members.
“Much better,” James said when he came back.
Kristín tilted her head and looked at his plate. “Your food’s cold.”
James sat down. “Art requires sacrifice.”
“If a drum stand counts as art, sure.”
James picked up his fork. “The drums are the rhythm of the heart, Doctor. Think of it as the heartbeat you listen to with your stethoscope, except plugged into an amp. If a heartbeat can be art, then this can be art too. And since you can’t exactly play that art standing up like a maniac, the drum stand is absolutely part of the art.”
Kristín looked at him. “Thank you for that very brief lecture on drums.”
A shameless little smile spread across James’s face. “I can give you the long version too.”
“I don’t want that.”
“I could still do it.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
As dinner went on, the conversation drifted into smaller things. James took a quick bathroom break, which was really him going to put an end to the withdrawal for a little while, and when he came back about five minutes later, he was in a much better mood. He immediately launched into an exaggerated story about how many times Mike had asked about the rings before the ceremony. Mike protested at once. When El said Mike absolutely might have done that, he turned to her like she had betrayed him. Kristín added that she still found it unbelievable James did not have a written speech.
James straightened right away. “Look, vows can work without being written down. We all just saw that.”
Kristín slowly turned to him. “Do not use Mike’s vows as evidence in defense of your own irresponsibility.”
“I’m simply supporting spontaneity. Feelings from the heart, the active use of the functional brain God gave mankind, and…”
Kristín cut him off. Her brows pulled together slightly, and she shook her head like she was already tired of the excuse.
“Don’t fool yourself, Jimmy. You don’t have a written speech because you were too lazy to write one.”
James took a bite from his plate and smiled with absolutely no shame. “Yeah. Pretty much, Krissie.”
Kristín stared at him for a few seconds. El lowered her head and tried not to laugh, but then she turned into Mike’s shoulder and lost it. Kristín looked at her like she had been personally betrayed.
“Cortez, you… What kind of nickname is that, for God’s sake? And… El. You’re laughing. Unbelievable. Both of you.”
James’s grin widened. “I’m taking that as a compliment.”
“Don’t.”
“Already did.”
Kristín turned back to her plate, visibly annoyed. James saw it. This time, he did not push. He just went back to his food and kept eating with that small private victory tucked neatly in his pocket.
El leaned closer to Mike. “James really didn’t write a speech?”
Mike looked at James. “No, he didn’t, and maybe it’s better that way. The more time he had to think, the more things he’d find to embarrass me with.” Then he looked back at El. “But you wrote yours. After all that talk about improvising.”
“If I hadn’t, Kristín would’ve killed me. Sorry…” She knew exactly how much that word was going to land, so she checked first to make sure Mike did not have food in his mouth and was not drinking anything.
Then she finished softly.
“…hubby.”
Mike’s face changed at once. His eyes went soft, like a kid waking up on Christmas morning, and his smile grew before he could stop it. A little color rose in his face. "Husband" was already enough to knock him off balance, but that smaller, warmer version of it made his whole system stutter.
“I understand…” He paused. “…wifey.”
El blushed immediately and looked down at her plate, suddenly shy. Meanwhile, James and Kristín were still going at it.
“Why do people have so little faith in me?”
Kristín answered instantly. “Because you earned that.”
James looked at her. “See, this is exactly why I was gonna say nice things about you in my speech, but honestly? Now I changed my mind.”
Kristín’s eyebrows lifted slightly. “Why would I be in your speech at all?”
James went quiet for one second.
Mike had been ignoring them as background noise, but that silence caught his attention, and a small smile pulled at his mouth.
James set his fork down on his plate. “In general. Your dedication as maid of honor. The threats you made. Stuff like that. We’re a team, Krissie, and you were supposed to praise me too. OH MY GOD, WOMAN, NOW I’M ACTUALLY VERY HURT.”
Kristín shook her head. “Talking to you is exhausting, Jim. My stomach has already burned through everything I ate, and I didn’t even get to enjoy it. I don’t think my body had time to register the nutrients.”
James smiled at her, soft but still entirely too pleased with himself. “Doctor... I’m under your skin enough to mess with dinner, and you still keep dragging me? That’s cold. I’m hurt, but I’ll be brave.”
Kristín did not answer. She only focused on the rest of her food, which somehow said more than an answer would have. James watched her for a second, then let the smile fade into something smaller and went back to his plate. For once, he did not push it. A small silence settled over the table. Mike deliberately picked up his water glass, and El turned back to her plate too. In the middle of that strange little quiet, they were still thinking about the same impossible, beautiful thing.
They were finally husband and wife.