“Wait, lemme just…” Al mutters as he clumsily flicks on the switch by the door, bathing the entryway in a cool wash of light. Behind them, the electric lock hums before letting out a loud ‘ca-thunk.’

Once completely inside, the two drunken men stumble their way into the apartment. Keeping their arms linked over each other’s shoulders quickly proves to be less helpful now that they’re in a smaller space. In the process of trying to keep themselves properly upright, they sway too far to the left and Al’s shoulder roughly hits the wall. Recoiling from the pain, they immediately pull back too far in the other direction so Neil’s hip rams against the opposite wall. 

During the entire debacle, their feet hook over each other, gradually tangling together beneath them. It’s when they finally get themselves into a position of stability that the world tilts all at once. They only manage to get out a harmony of startled yelps as they twist in place and crash to the floor in a heap of limbs.

Al’s back slams against the cold tile, ripping a strangled yelp from his lips. The sound quickly contorts into a choked wheeze when Neil lands directly on top of him, squeezing all the air out of his lungs in one fell swoop. For a solid minute, both of them stay there and simply recuperate. Neil grumbles lowly, less affected by the fall considering the living body that cushioned his landing. It’s Al who takes a little longer, groaning softly with his face pinched in pain.

With a grunt, Neil eventually starts trying to detangle his arms from Al’s. Pushing himself up by one arm, he brings his free hand up to his head and rubs at his aching temples. The harshness of all that movement brought his throbbing headache into a roaring migraine, pulsing behind his eyes like a hammer ramming against the inside of his skull. It’s not until he forces his eyes back open that the racket in his brain mellows to the point of shutting down.

Beneath him, Al lays on the floor, slowly coming back to himself and staring up at him with hazy, drunk dazed eyes. The skin of Neil’s arm barely touches the copper strands of Al’s hair which burns an odd, almost rose gold color under the fluorescent lights. Neil blinks and the honey glazed eyes blink back at him. He’s suddenly struck by the thought that he’s never seen eyes like that before. Warm and bright all at once, like fire under starlight.

“You smell like chicken wings.”

Whatever thoughts were floating through the fog of Neil’s mind are gone now at the look of distaste on Al’s face. He unconsciously mirrors the frown being projected up at him and focuses on his previous goal of trying to get back onto his feet.

“And you smell like tequila,” Neil blandly returns.

“I do?!” A soft ‘oof’ escapes Al when the heels of Neil’s palms sink into his stomach. While Neil shoves himself off of the man on the floor, struggling to stand and using the nearby wall for support, Al pulls his shirt up to his face and gives it a sniff. A look of pure despair ghosts across his face as he rasps out, “I do…”

It takes longer than it should for the both of them to get off the floor and into the living room. But they do, without any more accidents. Unceremoniously, the two men flop onto the large couch, settling in spots far away enough from one another that they just bump ankles. Like this, they lay in the dim room, with the only source of light coming from the entryway and whatever bits of the city manage to sneak in through the curtains.

“So…” Neil stares up at the ceiling and rests his forearm against his forehead. “We really got married in Vegas. Like in the movies.”

“Just like the movies.” Al nods, the hair at the back of his head balling up into ratty knots from where it rubs against the armrest.

“But then… but wait- that means… we’ve been married for over a week?” Neil has a feeling that even if he were to be sober right now, the situation still wouldn’t make much sense to him.

“’s not that long. Don’t people usually go on their honeymoons around this time?”

“About? I don’t know. I haven’t really been to any weddings before. I don’t know how they work.”

“We didn’t have our honeymoon, though.”

“That’s probably ‘cause we didn’t know we were married.”

“I knew.”

“Well, I didn’t. And you found out late, so it doesn’t count. So there, I win.”

“Dang it, I wanted to win.”

A soft chuckle slips past Neil’s lips. It feels crazy, it is crazy. Neil Seagrave, a man who’s never even skipped class before, getting married to a stranger in Las Vegas. Despite that fuzzy cloud his brain is enveloped in, he’s still able to piece a few things together, if just barely.

To think that he broke up with his cheating ex-boyfriend, got blackout drunk, and married another alpha all in one day is a bizarre concept for him. On Kash’s birthday too, as if saying an extra ‘screw you’ to the whole situation. A part of him is pretty sure he’d still be together with Kash if he hadn’t.

It would be ironic if the reason he actually went through with the breakup was because of the marriage. Finding someone new to replace him with just as Kash did to him, and having the decency to end things so he couldn’t be considered a cheater as well. Turning the tables instead of flipping them sounds pretty nice, all things considered.

Neil is pulled from his thoughts when he notices Al slowly dragging himself up into a sitting position. Al hunches forward, elbows pressing into his thighs, and resting his chin atop the palms of his hands. He looks at Neil through drooping eyelids, who looks back at him from where his head sits comfortably elevated by the other armrest.

“So where’re we gonna go, then?” Al asks, intently waiting for an answer.

“Hnm?” Neil hums in response. They’re on the couch now… didn’t they say something about ice cream earlier? They could go and do that.

“For our honeymoon. People always go someplace cool for theirs. I wanna go to the Bahamas.” Al explains, only making Neil’s brows furrow in confusion.

Neil pulls himself forward, sitting up only halfway to lean back on his elbows. The rough fabric pinches at the sensitive skin there, but he pays it no mind over the new subject of conversation. He honestly was not prepared to discuss any form of honeymoon with his newly discovered husband.

A plethora of things flicker through his head in that moment and finds himself spitting out the first thing that comes to mind.

“The Bahamas are overrated. Everyone goes to the Bahamas. If we’re going anywhere it should be someplace like Switzerland.” Al gasps.

“You take that back! The Bahamas are great! I want to go somewhere with a cool beach. Switzerland is mountains- Mountains! That’s not a beach!” Al argues, pointing an accusing finger at Neil.

“Okay, and? I like mountains. Mountains are different.” Neil jabs a finger right back at him. “If we have to pick one, at least be more creative than ‘beach.’”

“You-!” Al stops, the words dying in his throat as his mouth hangs open, eyes gradually widening. Neil squints as the offending finger being pointed at him begins to droop. “Wait. Do we have to pick one?”

“Uh, yeah? That’s usually how that works.” Neil raises a brow, bringing his arm back down to his side. 

“No, but, like, honeymoons are when the married couple just goes somewhere fun for a week. And they go where they wanna go and do what they wanna do- so what if we just… went to more than one place?”

“That… hm.” Neil tilts his head in thought as Al continues to power through. His hands fly around him as he talks, spitting out words faster and faster while his knuckles whack the back of the couch more than once.

“We could make a list of places to go! We can probably make it longer than a week too, if we really want. Spend a little time in each place, one day in the mountains another at the beach- it’ll be awesome!”

A beat of silence passes between the two where they simply stare at each other again. In the dimness of the room, it’s almost as if fragments of the city lights drift by them, sparking where their eyes meet. Neil can hear the low murmur of the world outside the window over the sound of his own heartbeat and for all but a second he barely forgets to breathe.

“Genius…”

“Wait here.”

Al rolls off the couch and his knees narrowly miss slamming against the floor before he scrambles to his feet. Neil watches as he stumbles away into a room, which immediately erupts into loud rustling and the occasional squealing creak. Something heavy clearly falls to the floor, followed by a lighter object that sounds like it’s been thrown across the room.

Neil stares at the empty door frame in confusion, his expression only deepening when Al reappears in the living room with his arms full. His hair was ruffled quite a bit originally, but now it’s a tangled mess, although there’s a beaming grin on his face now.

When Al’s arms fly out to the sides, dropping everything to the floor with a series of sharp clacks and clatters, Neil jolts forward. He pushes off of his elbows to sit on the edge of the couch cushion, ignoring the spike of pain in his head from the sudden movement.

“Uh… this is…?” He trails off, making a lazy, sweeping gesture at the mess on the floor. Al looks down then back up at Neil, the brightness illuminating his face not dimming in the slightest.

“Vision board!” Is the cheery response.

“Vision board?” Neil echoes, taking the time to properly observe what Al brought out to the living room.

In the low light, he’s still able to roughly make out a few of the items scattered by Al’s feet. Items that include a rolled up poster board, a few magazines, what he thinks is a pair of scissors, and… a tube of glitter? It dawns on him, slowly, that he’s looking at a pile of craft supplies.

“Vision board. Well- not yet, obviously. I was thinking we could make, like, a list of all the places and things we want for our honeymoon. And it’s easier if you get to see it as a picture so,” Al throws his hands down at the mess, “vision board.”

There’s too much going on for Neil to fully process any of it. All he knows in that moment is there’s a glimmer in Al’s eyes that he can feel being reflected in his own. Not to mention, one of the magazines has a really beautiful picture of a mountain on the cover.

“I call first dibs on the glitter.”