i, achilles

ac & pk are getting married.

“i’m not gonna puke,” AC tells himself in the mirror. “i’m doing really good, actually.”

“hell yeah, brother,” jax applauds him, clapping a hand on his shoulder and then leveraging it to spin him around so that he can tie the bowtie that AC has long since given up on. he does this quickly and expertly, which makes AC feel stupid, because it had taken him forty-five minutes just to get it not to fall apart. “lookin’ good, big man. you’re gonna knock ’em dead.”

AC swallows. yeah. jax is right. he’s going to knock ’em dead, for a given value of dead, which is in fact staying alive for the rest of forever with his best friend, except his best friend will be upgraded to being his husband. AC has never thought he was the type of person to be a husband, much less to have one. in fact he’s not entirely convince that he’s not going to get out there and instead of PK standing up by doc, in a matching bowtie, suit jacket, board shorts and backwards hat — the agreed-upon uniform, although the board shorts were a compromise — he’s going to blink and find out that he’s back in sophomore year and this has all been an extremely elaborate hallucination owing to a bad batch of acid.

he looks down at his tank top, which says I YAM. PK’s says I LOVE SWEET POTATOES. when AC’s mom had seen their wedding outfits she had burst into a fit of hysterics and told him if he insisted on wearing it she wouldn’t be able to invite anyone from the country club, which had puzzled him as a threat because he didn’t even know the women from her country club, except for mrs. robertson, who smelled like onions. 

AC blows out a long breath. he’s not going to puke. his whole body feels shaky and his head doesn’t quite feel attached to his body but he thinks that’s normal, probably. it’s not nerves. or like not exactly nerves. it’s like now that the wedding is so close he’s suddenly thinking about all the things that could go wrong and ruin it. he’s like, two hours from having PK joined to him in front of the eyes of his friends and also, you know. god or whatever. but a lot of things can happen in two hours.