“I really got married to a stranger in Vegas.” Neil takes a swig from his water bottle. “Never thought I’d be the type.”

“Hard to believe, I know.” Alfred grins, leaning back against the couch and shutting his eyes against the morning light.

“It’s not really the believing part that’s getting to me. The concept that we are in a legally binding relationship is what’s taking me some time to process.”

Since their first conversation, neither one of them dared to get up. Alfred’s still barely containing the results of his hangover, whereas Neil feels like he’s one wrong word away from having his knees give out. They’ve talked a bit more about the missing memories from their Las Vegas trip, and Neil has found that he’s slowly remembering bits and pieces of it, however faint they may be.

At the very least he can vaguely recall outrunning the cops more than once because they were breaking a small plethora of laws during their excursion. After all, to get from a bar to a church in what was about the opposite side of the city, would take some driving. And he knows for a fact that nobody he was with that night was sober.

“That’s fair.” Alfred lets out a little sigh as he stretches his arms up and over his head. “I was considering looking for you at one point, but all I had to go off of was your name, face, and the last place I saw you. Which- actually now that I think about it… what are you doing here?”

Enough has been going on over the past twenty-four hours that Neil genuinely forgot the last place he’d seen Alfred was in Las Vegas. A place he’s clearly not from, considering the man’s apartment is just a short walk away from the university he goes to. Which is another strange coincidence.

“I could say the same thing to you. I go to school here.” Neil looks over at Alfred and observes the utter bafflement blooming across his face.

“You go to school here? At the university? No, you can’t.”

“Wha- what is that supposed to mean?”

“You can’t go to the university, because I go to the university.”

They both go silent, staring at each other in muted shock. Of course the man Neil ends up drunk marrying goes to the same school as him.

“How come I’ve never seen you?” Neil manages to ask when his brain is done rebooting.

“I don’t know. A lot of my classes are online and I have a bad habit of skipping, so maybe that’s why?” Alfred shrugs, face still a little slack from the discovery.

“How did you end up all the way in Las Vegas?” Neil inquires over the rim of his water bottle, taking another sip before rolling his head to the side. The change in mood is instant as the smile droops off the alpha’s face, his entire body sags before his very eyes.

“A bachelor party,” Alfred mumbles, casting his own gaze down to his lap.

“Bachelor party?”

“It’s a long story. It’s also the reason I was at that nightclub in the first place.” Alfred takes a deep breath before recounting the events leading up to their blackout-drunk adventure. “So I’ve been… in love with this girl for, like, ten years. I never had the chance to confess to her and the one time I tried dropping a hint, she completely brushed over it.”

“She’d been going on and on about alpha-omega relationships, and I couldn’t help but bring up alpha-beta pairs. They aren’t impossible, and I was hoping she might pick up on what I was nudging at her. She’s a beta, and the only one I hang out with as often as I do. But she shut me down, saying alphas and betas don’t work because of their biological incompatibility- whatever that means.” There’s a stale bitterness to his voice, like the idea itself puts a vile taste on his tongue.

“Then she got engaged. To another beta. And then she had him ask me to be one of the groomsmen, which led to… well. I never ended up looking for you because I was distracted by the wedding preparations. The wedding that finished up yesterday afternoon.”

The pathetic little whimpered huff Alfred lets out reminds Neil of a sad puppy. He can almost see large dog ears drooping at the sides of his head, making it a bit difficult to sympathize when he’s trying so hard not to be amused at the overzealous reactions. He settles a hand on Alfred’s shoulder and gives it a few firm pats, and Alfred unconsciously leans into his touch.

He has his own opinions about the alpha-beta topic, especially after what he’s been through with Kash. But now’s not the time for it. Sparing a quick glance at the messy collage still left untouched on the floor, he gives the shoulder under his hand a gentle squeeze.

 “We’ve got a lot in common, you and I.” Neil lets a helpless smile creep onto his face.

“Hm? How so?”

“I was in Vegas for a department trip. But the real reason I went was to get away from my ex-boyfriend. He’s an alpha who cheated on me with an omega. That’s probably why I let myself get so drunk. That night was his birthday and I was willing to do whatever I could  to think about literally anything else.”

“Really?”

Neil nods, a bitter expression pulling tight at his features. “I was at the bar yesterday because my friend was trying to comfort me after I finally confronted him. He tried convincing me that he was innocent with an obvious mating bite on his neck.”

He hears the sharp intake of breath from Alfred. No one knows the importance of such a bond as well as an alpha does. Another thing that separates him from their world, and another reason he should’ve seen that his relationship was doomed from the start.

“I guess we do have a lot in common.” Alfred’s voice is the softest it’s been since they both woke up.

“I guess so. It’s crazy coincidences one after the other. Vegas, the marriage, the fact that we even go to the same school. And we’re both suffering from the same alpha-beta relationship problem.” Neil chuckles and the bottle of water in his hand crackles when he grips it a little too tightly.

After a long moment, Alfred speaks.

“Maybe it’s fate.” Neil snorts at the awed way Alfred says it. “I almost don’t want to get a divorce now. Maybe our meeting is destined.”

“Oh shut up, this isn’t a cheesy romance movie. You’re gonna give me goosebumps.” Neil shoves lightly at Alfred’s shoulder and his entire demeanor brightens up from the earlier gloom.

“But look, we even planned out our honeymoon and everything!” Alfred gestures at the poster board and Neil suddenly can’t stop smiling.

“You’re obviously too hungover to read. That says ‘honmon.’ we planned a ‘honmon.’ Two completely different things.”

“No, you’re right. One involves hot love while the other has a house full of trampolines.” Neil hiccups, nearly inhaling his own spit, and quickly presses a fist to his face as he desperately tries to reign in the laughter.

Alfred all the while points aggressively at a spot on the collage where there are a series of trampolines cut out and pasted in the shape of a house. It surely wasn’t the weirdest image on the poster board, but it was one of the more outlandish ones.

“We really should get this whole thing worked out though, sooner rather than later.” Neil enjoys the conversation and the company Alfred presents, but he’s not the type to leave things unfinished.

He still has a list of things to do before next week. Along with his tasks for school and work, there’s also spending the day apologizing to Dinah, and starting on the apartment tours. Since this is a situation involving the literal law, as well as their future relationships, getting the divorce over and done with is on the top of the list of priorities. It shouldn’t be too difficult either, considering the divorce is a mutual agreement, which means they won’t have to go to court over anything.

“Hm? What d’you mean?” Alfred asks. Neil turns to face him again.

“You know, the divorce?”

“Oooohhh. Yeah, right, yeah.” Alfred chuckles, nudging him a bit with his elbow. “Aw, but I don’t want to get divorced.”

Neil rolls his eyes, shooting an amused look his way. “I’m serious. There’s paperwork and stuff we have to fill out. There might be a few other steps too, but I don’t know what those are yet. We have to go through the official process since our marriage is legitimate under the law.”

He’s never been married or had to get divorced before, so this is all new to him. He isn’t sure how these things work or how difficult they are to get through. They can always do a little bit of research before they start going around blindly, helping make the process go smoother.

“Okay but… I have a question.” The hesitant tone goes unnoticed by Neil who’s lost in his head trying to work this situation into his list of things to do, and visualizing how it would fit into his current schedule.

“Shoot,” Neil replies distractedly.

“What if we genuinely didn’t get divorced?”