Wedding Dress - Bob Floyd x reader
Inspired by Wedding Dress by Megan Moroney
In which her biggest fear is missing Bob Floyd while in her wedding dress.
Warnings: swearing, some angst, leaving Jake at the altar (sorry, Jake)
This is part 1 of 2! Part 2 will be from Bob's perspective which I'll link here -> Marry Me
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Some people's biggest fear is tigers.
Some people's biggest fear is spiders.
Or heights. Or getting lost at sea. Or any other thing that seems so much less stupid than... this.
Being a naval aviator, it'd be reasonable to assume that her biggest fear would be crashing, or an ejection gone wrong, or getting shot out of the sky.
Her biggest fear is standing at the altar on her wedding day, in the dress of her dreams, and something making her think of him.
The shine of a pair of glasses. The soft drawl of a Montana accent. A murmur of "sweet girl."
Just thinking about it now makes her nauseous.
The thought of this awful feeling, the feeling of missing him, and it never going away? The imprint of him burned into her brain, lingering in her dreams, never moving on or getting better? So what if her heart already made up its mind?
She'll find someone new. She has to.
But then there's that sinking feeling in her gut, because what if she does find somebody new, and standing there with the words "I do" on the tip of her tongue, and she thinks of him?
Saying someone new is being generous- it implies that they were ever more than some weird, fucked up, in-between. It implies they ever took the leap, went in for the kiss, said the words out loud.
Three years ago, they'd been sitting in a diner not far from her apartment, celebrating her birthday with the rest of the squad.
They sat next to each other, close enough that their knees bumped every time one of them moved.
The details are spotty in her memory now, but she had taken his hand under the table for some reason, warmth blooming around every point where their skin meet.
She'd been saying something to him, the words dying on her lips as he looked at her so gently. They both leaned in, closer, closer, closer- and then Jake, who had been running late, had banged on the window beside them, scaring them apart.
The blond had laughed and she had slid out of the bench seat to go outside and shove him playfully for being a dick.
But when she came back, her and Bob never got to finish what they had started. Neither of them ever brought it up again, either.
They were best friends. They had been for years. That's all they'd ever be.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't kill her every time she's out on deployment in a bar with other Navy guys, none of them being him.
Or when she's in the grocery store and she sees the coffee he likes, the one she used to keep stocked in her apartment because of how often he'd end up there.
Or in the car when the song that had been playing that night he almost kissed her comes on the radio.
Or she meets someone with his same name, and she feels that familiar tightness in her throat because it's not her Bob.
And a few years pass, and she does meet someone- well, not quite meet in the sense that they never knew each other before, but more like a reconnecting of paths that have crossed before.
When Jake had messaged her about being in her city and wanting to meet to catch up, she didn't expect much of it.
Maybe dinner, a few drinks, and then they'd part ways again as they had before.
But they kept finding their way to each other, it seemed. So when he asked her on an official date, she said yes.
One date became two, and then three, and then it became rose petals on the beach with Jake on one knee and her saying yes, tears in her eyes as he slides a ring on her hand.
When they had their engagement party, the whole Dagger Squad was invited, as even though it'd been years since they were all together, they were all still close.
Maybe it was a mistake, inviting Bob, but she thought she was over it. She really did.
She saw him there across the room, that same awkward demeanor, wide blue eyes behind wire frame glasses, and suddenly she wasn't as over it as she thought.
But she had to be. She waved at him before being whisked away by Jake, by her fiancé.
When his lips press to hers, there's something bitter about it now.
Like a bad taste that threatens to come back up, burning her throat as it does. It was worse on the day of her wedding.
Some beautiful manor in the countryside with sprawling gardens, her closest friends and family sitting, waiting to see her take her vows, to marry Jake.
And there it is. That terrible fear that had plagued her since the day her and Bob had parted the first time, him going overseas, her back to her hometown until her next deployment.
Standing there in her wedding dress, she thinks of him. Of how it should be him waiting at the altar for her. Maybe if she'd gone back in the diner that day and kissed him, pressed her lips to his til they were both out of breath and gasping for air before falling back into each other, it would be him.
And the missing him never did go away, not even as the wedding march began, not as she took her place opposite Jake, eyes scanning the seats for Bob but not seeing him anywhere, even as her eyes land on the rest of the former Daggers, an empty chair next to Phoenix.
It's suffocating her right there at the altar, bearing down on her lungs. She can't hear a word coming out of the officiants mouth as her thoughts shrink down to nothing but the sound of Bob Floyd's voice in the back of her mind.
She hardly even hears the apologies falling from her own mouth as she finds herself running- leaving her own wedding, tears falling down her cheeks as she holds her dress up, like Cinderella as the clock struck midnight. She doesn't exactly know where it is she's running, she just knows she can't stay there, she can't marry Jake.
Rounding the front of the manor, she sees him.
Sitting on the front steps, a silver flask he wouldn't have been caught dead with a few years ago hanging limp in his hand, his black tie loosened almost entirely, is Robert Floyd.
He doesn't seem to notice her until a choked sob breaks free from her chest, standing a few feet to his left. He lifts his head and sees her, white dress and high heels, tears spilling down her cheeks.
"Wh- what're you doing here? Isn't the ceremony supposed to be happening now?" He stands from the step, confusion painting his gentle features.
"I couldn't- I couldn't do it," she sobs, shoulders shaking. "I couldn't stand there and marry him knowing it was you I wanted up there with me and that i never told you how i feel."
"What..?" His voice is so soft it kills her even more.
"You don't have to feel the same, but I couldn't live with myself if I took those vows without telling you that it has always been you, Bob. From the moment we met, it was you. And I tried to be happy with him- but it felt like I was living someone else's life." The words fall from her lips faster than she can stop them, like an avalanche pouring down the side of a mountain.
He's silent, and she takes that as her answer.
"I'm sorry- I shouldn't have said that-" He closes the distance between them, taking her face in his hands, gentle in the way that he always is.
"Sweet girl," he murmurs, "don't apologize, don't ever apologize. I've loved you since the first time I saw you, standing there in the Hard Deck looking like some sort of dream. It killed me when I got the invite, because it felt like I was giving away the life I've always wanted because I was too much of a coward to kiss you in that diner."
"You remember that?" She breathes, the words hardly loud enough to be heard over her shaking breaths.
"I remember every moment I've ever spent with you when I should have told you that you were everything to me but I was too scared." He's crying now too, tears slipping past his glasses.
Calls of her name echo from members of her family, members of the bridal party all looking for the runaway bride.
"Shit," she gasps, "do you have car? Please tell me you drove yourself."
He fishes his keys out of his pocket. "Are you sure you wanna go like this?"
"I've never been more sure of anything in my life, Bobby." She says, wide eyed as she looks up at him. "Except maybe this."
He doesn't even get the chance to ask her what she means when her lips are on his. It's a brief thing, just a fleeting kiss before she's telling him to take her to the car, to get her out of here.
She does feel a pang of regret at leaving Jake like that at the altar, but facing her future with the one person that she always dreamed it would be with? Knowing that the next time she'll be in a wedding dress, she won't have to worry about thinking about him, because it'll be him waiting at the altar for her, she can't help but feel content in the way the day is ending.
