Owen was breathless, staring down at Ashton, friends, family- and okay, maybe some practical strangers- watching them. He’d let their mother set everything for the ceremony up, because he didn’t really care about much other than that when it was over, Ashton would be his husband. The boy had just finished saying his vows, and he realized that it was his job to say his vows. He’d spent the better part of last night- procrastinating as always- writing them, but they were done, and they were memorized. He just had to get them out without crying or stuttering. Or passing out. Taking a deep breath, he began. “When you grow up in a house where you’re not loved, then you don’t know there’s any other option. I didn’t know there was another option. I’ve done… So many bad things in my life, I never knew I could deserve someone like you, Ash. Never thought that I could have something like we have. Before I met you, I’d been empty for a long time, but with you? I don’t feel so empty anymore. No matter what happens, I’ve always come back to you. After everything is said and done? I still love you more every second I spend with you. You are the only person who has ever been able to pull me from my dark places, the only sun I’ve ever seen when I got bad, the person I can thank for making my life the way it is now. Without you, I wouldn’t have my son. Or my daughter, or my other son.” He paused, looking first at where his daughter stood, then over at where his eldest son stood, holding a tired looking Dexter who was clutching the pillow that held the wedding bands like his life depended on it. “I wouldn’t have any of this without you. No family, nothing. And thank you. Thank you so much for that. So many people say not to make someone your everything- and fuck, maybe it’s the worst decision I could ever make in my life, but I’m making it, with you, because I could never dream of any one or thing being everything to me. You are it for me. From now, until forever. You’re it.” A brief smile flashed over his face as his eyes travelled Ashton’s face, searching it- for what he didn’t know, but he knew within every cell, there held future lines, that would paint the story of the rest of his life. “Today I’m yours. Tomorrow, I’ll still be yours. And I’ll be yours every day, for the rest of my life, for the rest of forever. I can’t imagine it any other way, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I love you. More than I could ever imagine myself loving another person, a year ago. And I don’t regret that. Not for a second. Not for the rest of my life. Nothing about us, or you, I could ever regret. You’re it for me. You’re my forever.”
