"Disgusting." Says Hester for the third time in two minutes. "Disgusting."

Dot huffs out a sigh and casts a glance over at Anadil, hoping for an ally in her exasperation, but Anadil is gazing at Hester with a faint smile on her face, apparently not annoyed in the slightest.

Dot rolls her eyes and sinks a bit deeper into the couch. She's long been accustomed to third-wheeling Hester and Anadil, and took up the role of "annoying chaperone friend who always seems to be around" many years ago, with probably far too much gusto. But Hester and Anadil are scrolling through Instagram and criticising Agatha's new boyfriend with Anadil's head in Hester's lap, with matching skull piercings, so Dot would say that they're definitely being hypocrites.

"For what it's worth," she chirps, "I think they're cute."

"I don't care." Grunts Hester. "I hate him. You just think he's hot."

"Well, he is. He's a supermodel."

"He used to be. Now he does fad diets and goes to teenager's football games."

"Agatha got him to stop those diets, and he just agreed to do a shoot for Sophie." Argues Dot. Tedros is nice. Agatha says so. And Dot trusts Agatha's judgement much more than she trusts Hester's, even if Hester is her best friend.

"He used to do fad diets, what difference does it make?" demands Anadil. "He's an idiot. If she doesn't drop him soon, we'll have to intervene."

"But the twins like him!" argues Dot. Hester ignores her, scrolling with increasing ferocity, but Anadil looks surprised.

"They do?"

"Yes! Rosalind especially. I think Marcus is still a bit weird, he's been the only guy for ages. But he definitely likes him."

Anadil, who is particularly close with Marcus, narrows her eyes. Dot groans.

"You're not going to let up until you meet him, are you?"

"No." says Anadil plainly, shuffling back a bit in Hester's lap. "Not at all. And maybe not even then."

Dot looks at Hester.

"Whose account are you stalking?"

"Ex-supermodel's."

"Are you going to use his name?"

"No."

"… right."

Anadil, who has been peering at the screen, frowns a bit.

"He… does seem to like her. He takes a lot of photos of her."

"I knew it. Trophy wife." Hester growls. "Look, she cooks for him."

Dot blows out her cheeks, utterly exasperated. Even Anadil looks sceptical, shuffling to sit up.

"Hes, they're not married, and Agatha would never be a trophy wife. She's too… Agatha. Also, she's not hot enough."

"Harsh." Mutters Dot. "I think she's pretty."

"It's not a bad thing." snaps Anadil. "She's got a better job than him, anyway. He can't make much money, anymore."

She catches Dot staring at her and scowls.

"I still don't like him, Dot."

"And to think you were initially smug about him being a supermodel." Sighs Dot, slouching down against the arm of the sofa.

"That was before they were dating!" Hester roars, slamming her phone down. "This is too much. Ani, we used to be the most popular couple in our friend group, remember?"

"Yeah. No one left us alone. It was dreadful."

"We had esteem! I refuse to be taken over by a half-assed het couple, half of which includes an insipid ex-model who drinks protein shakes and went to private school!"

Dot blinks. "Isn't Agatha your friend-?"

Hester sits straight up and grabs Anadil's hand.

"Anadil, bollocks to #tagatha, we're getting married."

A very odd silence follows that sentence.

Hester and Anadil stare at each other with a strange intensity. Neither of them say a word. Hester is still gripping Anadil's hand, and her other is tight on her waist. Anadil is clutching the sleeve of Hester's shirt, so hard she might rip the fabric.

Dot is trying not to have a heart attack on Hester's sofa.

This is not happening.

Hester and Anadil have been together for almost twenty years. They've survived almost fifteen of Sophie's boyfriends, Agatha's twins, Hester getting in numerous bar fights, Hort just in general, and a motorcycle accident. To Dot's knowledge, the subject of marriage has not been broached once. Then again, she doesn't know everything- and she refuses to believe that Hester has just proposed to Anadil over petty jealousy of Agatha's hot new relationship.

Oh my god, Hester just proposed to Anadil-

"Okay." Anadil says faintly, as if Hester has just told her what today's weather is going to be. "Yeah. We should… yes. Yeah. We can… do that."

Hester nods slowly, eyes still fixed firmly on Anadil. They're in a weird, uncomfortable position, but neither of them seem to care.

Dot is basically hyperventilating in the corner, but neither of them have so much glanced her way this whole time-

And then they're kissing and Dot is sobbing, really wanting to hug them, because her best friends in the whole wide world are engaged, but right now they're snogging like the world is ending, so it would just be weird-

Dot dives on top of Anadil, Anadil falls into Hester, Hester falls off of the sofa, and they all land in a tangled heap on the carpet.

"WE'RE GETTING MARRIED!" sobs Dot.

"YOU'RE NOT!" thunders Hester from the bottom of the pile. Anadil is laughing from somewhere around Dot's knees, and although she sounds annoyed, Dot can see Hester grinning, too.

"We're getting married!" she repeats, not even trying to sit up, even as Anadil tries to shove her away. Instead, she flops back on the carpet and squeals like a teenage girl. "Can I be your best man?"

"You're not a man, and we don't have a groom!"

"Can I be your best woman?"

"You can't be anything if you don't get off of me!" yelps Anadil as Dot prods her in the stomach with her foot. "Stop acting like a kid!"

"Oooooh!"

Dot's eyes go big and she sits up, a million ideas assaulting her at once.

"Kids! Marcus and Rosalind! You've gotta give them a role!"

"I feel like you're imagining the sort of wedding that Sophie would throw." Gripes Hester, who is still lying on the floor. "Like her Rhian disaster?"

"Was that the one she ran away from at the altar?" yawns Anadil.

"Yeah, Rafal was the one where she freaked out and cancelled like five minutes before she was meant to walk down the aisle."

"Oh." Anadil scratches her chin. "Rafal was the one where there was that awesome buffet though, right? After we all just… sort of went to the reception anyway?"

"I've still got their contact details!" gasps Dot. "I hired them, remember? After Agatha accidentally-on-purpose delayed the all-vegan one and they got so mad they ditched?"

Hester grins at Anadil. Anadil grins at Hester.

"Now you're talking, Dot." Says Hester, standing up and grabbing Anadil's hand. "But first, I'm going to call Agatha."

"Why Agatha?"

"Because, dear," Grins Hester as she saunters over to her phone, "I have reason to believe that she's going out with her wonderful new boyfriend tonight."

"AND YOU DECIDED TO JUST CALL ME AT RANDOM?" barks Agatha, voice tinny through the phone speaker.

"Thanks for your congratulations." Says Anadil dryly.

"Oh- sorry, you're right, congratulations, of course, oh my god… but did you have to drop it in the middle of the conversation like that?"

"Yes." Says Hester.

"…right. Fair enough." Says Agatha weakly.

There's a short pause. Agatha makes a weird, muffled noise that she's obviously struggling to smother.

Hester and Dot exchange glances.

"Are you crying?" demands Hester down the phone.

"No!" Agatha snaps, but her voice breaks at the end, and it's pretty obvious that she is.

"You are!"

"Shut up!"

Hester grins, wicked and not at all sympathetic.

"Awww, Agathaaaaa, you can be in the wedding party if you like."

"You're just trying to upset me now-!" she seems to be talking to someone else, all of a sudden. "oh- no, I'm fine, I'll tell you in a minute-"

"Ohhhhh, is that who I think that is?"

"Piss off." Agatha is no longer crying. Anadil covers her mouth to muffle her laughter.

Hester raises her eyebrows, even though Agatha can't see her.

"I'm newly engaged, Agatha, that's no way to talk to me!"

"And I'm on a date, we're always rude to each other-"

"ARE YOU NOW?" booms Hester-

"So, congratulations, I love you both, I will see you tomorrow for coffee-"

"Why, are you busy tonight? Wear a turtleneck tomorrow, won't you-?"

"And. If. You. Make. Fun. Of. Me. Again. I. Will. Object. At. Your. Wedding." Growls Agatha.

"There's our Agatha." Chirps Anadil. "See you, love. Don't stay up too late."

"I HATE YOU-"

Hester hangs up.

"Why, Agatha, that's awfully bold of you, no turtleneck-" Hester sees someone behind her and her eyebrows shoot up. "Well well well, would you look at that- you bought the real thing! Where are the twins?"

Agatha leans across the table.

"They're at a friend's." And then, in a furious whisper; "If you're rude to him, I'll kill you."

"No you won't." says Anadil. "You want to come to our wedding."

"He bought his daughter, asshole, please behave- oh my god you already got rings?"

Agatha dives across the table and grabs their hands to look at the bands, and Hester smirks at Anadil over Agatha's head-

And then she computes.

"Wait, his daughter?"

Agatha looks up, irritated.

"Well, sure, aren't you friends with Beatrix? She's never mentioned Alex?"

"Beatrix's daughter?"

"Beatrix and Tedros used to be married. They have a kid." Mutters Agatha. "Shows how much attention you pay to your friends."

"We've only known her since she's been with Reena, and when I told her you were feuding with Tedros Pendragon, she gave no implication that she knew him beyond him being a model!" grouches Anadil, standing up for a better look. Hester tugs her down as two tall, blonde figures make their way towards them-

She groans.

"Agatha. I was expecting a little kid. We do not have to be nice to his teenage daughter."

Agatha looks mutinous.

"If you're not-"

"Um, hi."

Tedros has reached them, his daughter skulking behind him. Hester can see big hazel eyes peering over his shoulder, but that's about it.

Hester sits back and stares at his stupid sculpted face, wondering what the hell Agatha thought she was doing. He's wearing a collared shirt to a café, for god's sake!

"You must be Anadil and Hester. Congratulations." He tries for a smile, but as they both stare back at him, unimpressed, it wavers a little. "I'm- um, I'm Tedros. Agatha's boyfriend."

"We know." Chorus Anadil and Hester.

Tedros looks very unsettled. Agatha is glaring at them both.

"Um… right. Yeah. And this is my daughter, Alex. I think you know her mom…?"

Hester turns to look at Alex, who had shuffled out from behind her father, expecting a hostile stare to match her own, or possibly a furiously texting mini-Beatrix who is every inch as preppy as her father-

She blinks in surprise.

Alex is tall, skinny and scruffy, with a devastating fashion sense (she's wearing neon green knee socks with overalls and a pink t-shirt), and big, buggy hazel eyes. But the most obvious thing about her is the massive, crooked-toothed grin which seems to span half of her face, scrunching up her cheeks and her nose and her mouth.

Hester blinks.

Alex beams.

"Hi-ii! You're getting married, right? That is so nice! Congrats!"

"Um… yeah. Thanks." Hester says weakly. She's never met anyone so sincere in her life. It's a bit scary. "…how old are you?"

"Fourteen! How old are you?"

"Alex, don't ask people their ages, that's a bit rude…" Tedros mumbles, shepherding her to a chair. Alex looks horrified.

"Oh, no- sorry!"

"That's okay, kid." Anadil manages, looking about as bemused as Hester does.

The next hour or so is spent discussing wedding plans, with very little success.

"I'm not having some half-baked, pretentious church thing with little kids throwing rose petals." Hester decides almost immediately.

"Yeah, we'd much rather throw the little kids." Says Anadil, completely straight-faced, and Hester and Agatha both snort into their coffee at the look on Tedros's face.

"Well, what month is it, July… maybe October?" offers Agatha in an attempt to get it back on track-

Hester slams her hands on the table.

"Ani- Halloween wedding."

Anadil's eyes widen.

"Perfect."

Tedros glances around at everyone to see if they're joking.

They're not.

He goes back to his tea.

Alex, however, is finally drawn back from whatever she's been staring at over the counter for the past ten minutes.

"You could have a costume party!" she exclaims. "Like- everyone could come dressed up! And you could have candy at the dinner!"

Tedros opens his mouth to say something, sees Anadil staring at him, and shuts it again.

Hester stares at this kid for a second. Alex's buggy hazel eyes stare back.

And then she points at her.

"That is a brilliant idea."

Alex beams.

"Can I come?"

"I've decided I like you, so yes."

Alex's eyes go massive, as does her grin.

"Can I be a sheet ghost?"

"You can absolutely be a sheet ghost." Agrees Anadil.

Alex pumps her fists in triumph.

Agatha is grinning too. Only Tedros looks a bit taken aback, but Hester doesn't know what he was expecting, considering she's sat in front of him wearing a leather jacket and black lipstick, with multiple piercings and a neck tattoo of a demon.

All he says, though, is;

"You'll need a wedding planner."

Hester's excitement evaporates.

"Oh, god." She groans.

Agatha perks up.

"Actually, I know someone! She's the mother of a kid on Rosalind's soccer team, you want me to give you her contacts?"

Hester eyes her warily.

"She's a soccer mom?"

"I'm a soccer mom." mutters Agatha. "But she's good, I promise."

Sceptically, Anadil writes down what Agatha tells her.

As it happens, though, Park Eunha is a no-nonsense woman who, after a very brief introduction, gets straight to it.

Marcus and Rosalind are sat at the back- both Agatha and Tedros are at work (what Tedros is actually doing is somewhat of a mystery to Hester, but he promises to come and pick the twins up, so it can't be that long, whatever it is) and Hester and Anadil, as primary babysitters, decided there was no harm is dragging them along.

Eunha, who already knows them both, is not bothered in the slightest.

"Okay, so October, Halloween, costume party- that's all perfectly manageable. Based off the vibe I'm getting, I would suggest involving friends and family in components of it? It feels quite informal, and you obviously care what your friends think and about their opinions."

Hester's jaw drops.

It sounds uncomfortably as if Eunha is suggesting that she's sentimental, or some other sappy bullshit. Just because her friend's boyfriend's teenage daughter from his first marriage had suggested going in costume did not make her sentimental-

"Yeah, that's a good idea." Says Anadil.

Hester turns to gawp at her instead. Anadil ignores her and turns to Marcus and Ros.

"Hey, twins, you wanna help with the wedding?"

Rosalind looks eager. Marcus looks like someone's just told him he's going to die in three days.

Hester doesn't blame the kid; they all know that Marcus prefers to fly under the radar as much as possible, and no doubt the idea of a role at a wedding in front of a bunch of people he doesn't know sounds like the worst sort of nightmare.

"I can help do the tables?" offers Rosalind. "I know who'll get on with who and who really won't. I think." She hesitates. "But would you want my input?"

"Honey, as long as you help me put Hort as far away from me as possible, you can give whatever input you like." Says Hester. "Oh, and Tedros. I don't wanna look at him."

Rosalind rolls her eyes and notes it down on her phone.

"I think my mom will have something to say about that."

"Eh, well, we'll fight about it with her- just remember who you're loyal to, Ros."

"I'm loyal to someone?"

Hester gives her a meaningful look.

"Yeah. Us."

"Oh, right."

Eunha's mouth twitches.

"Send it to me once you've finished, then."

"Will do-"

"Marcus, do you wanna do our flowers?" says Anadil. Hester blinks.

"We're having fl-?"

Anadil kicks her in the shin and Hester shuts up.

Marcus blinks slowly at them, fiddling with a loose thread on his hoodie.

"You don't like flowers." He points out. That had been Hester's point, as well. She has no idea what Anadil's doing.

"I like some flowers." Anadil scoffs. "You can find us good ones. Herbs and cool witchy plants like… I dunno, poison ivy."

"Poison ivy is- well, poisonous." Mutters Marcus. "It gives you a rash."

"Well, not poison ivy, then." Says Anadil in a very I-knew-that manner which suggested she actually hadn't thought of that at all. "But you're smart, you probably know all the flower meanings and stuff, right?"

Marcus shrugs.

"I guess."

He doesn't sound very sure.

Anadil shoots Hester a do something look. Which is bad. Because Anadil is always the one who gets on with Marcus.

Hester racks her brains for something to say-

"But I don't want to get it wrong." Blurts Marcus.

Anadil blinks at him.

"Why would you get it wrong? We don't know anything about flowers, we'd do worse. Just don't put anything sappy in, and we're good. Just spooky."

Hester jumps in;

"Yeah, Mark, you'll do better than us, you're always good at this sort of meticulous shit- didn't you do all that embroidery on Rosalind's skirt for her birthday?"

"He learned it from a YouTube video." Says Ros proudly. Marcus is very red.

"Well, I guess…"

He hesitates. Hester holds her breath-

"Yeah, okay." He mumbles. "I'd like to do that."

"Yes! Thank you, kid."

Apparently satisfied, Anadil spins back to a pleased-looking Eunha. Now starting to wonder if Anadil is slightly more excited about this than she's letting on, Hester does the same.

Tedros turns up to pick up the twins just as they all leave for the day, Hester trying to keep everything from seating to witnesses straight in her head, as Anadil trots ahead, chatting to Marcus, and Rosalind jabbers away to Eunha about the upcoming match this Sunday.

Tedros is stood awkwardly by his car, apparently not sure whether to approach or not- luckily, Rosalind solves that for him, by waving goodbye to Eunha and skipping over to Tedros. Marcus bids goodbye to them and follows a normal pace. Tedros watches him smile and wave to Anadil, looking a bit uncertain, and then turns to him as well. Hester can hear him from where she's stood;

"Hiya, Mark. Ros says you're doing the flowers? That's cool."

Marcus nods, avoiding eye contact, smiles awkwardly, and ducks into the back of the car. Tedros looks a bit lost, not that Hester feels sorry for him, and offers them an awkward wave, before clambering back into the car himself.

"Marcus doesn't like him." Says Anadil, the second they're out of earshot and Eunha has left them.

Hester, who can't be bothered to add the Marcus/Tedros dynamic to the immense mess of things in her head right now, merely grunts. Anadil grins at her.

"You do know you can we have a wedding planner for a reason, right?"

"Shut up." Hester grumbles. "I'm making sure everything actually works out. I may have underestimated how complicated it is, and my head hurts."

"God, you're really trying to think about everything on your own? There's two of us for a reason, Hes."

Hester doesn't say anything. Anadil yanks her around to face her.

"Hester."

"Wha-at."

"Stop thinking so much."

"If I did, I would be dead."

Anadil looks unimpressed, as expected.

"Don't deliberately misunderstand me. Let's call Dot, we'll go get ice-cream and sort everything out. She's dying to know."

"Fine." Hester grumps. "But-"

Anadil cuts her off by kissing her, and Hester doesn't have it in her to protest anymore.

They spend the next few weeks in a fevered frenzy of researching, booking, and arguing.

Not with each other, that is, they're not stupid enough for that- with everyone else. Sophie who bursts in (breaks in, actually, because she doesn't have a key, and Hester is convinced that she picked the lock, even though she feigned innocence) at 5 am with reams of frilly white fabric. Agatha who reminds them that they need an officiant, and gets so pissed off at their complaining, that she hangs up and tells them two days later that she "got ordained online, actually, so you can stop your bitching about some fusty old minister, thanks". With Tedros, who keeps turning up with Agatha and offering unneeded, and unwanted, fashion advice. With Hort, who turns up with ten heavy metal band recommendations, all of which he has been in at some point.

"Is this just some ploy to get at least one of them to take you back?" Hester asks, scanning down the list.

"No." Says Hort, ears going red.

"You're in your mid-thirties, Hort."

"Everyone in Metallica is, like, fifty!" protests Hort. Hester ignores him.

They go with Dot to every Party City in a ten mile radius, seeking out the components for matching murdered bride costumes, and an axe murderer hood for Dot, with matching bloodied axe. Every shop assistant takes them for very enthusiastic Halloween fans, until they get to the last shop, and the clerk blinks at them, bewildered, as they rip through the assortment of fake blood.

"Halloween prep?" he peeps from behind the desk.

"Our wedding, actually." Says Hester shortly, tipping all the containers onto the desk.

The clerk blinks, bewildered.

"It is on Halloween, though." Anadil clarifies. Hester hadn't expected that to make any more sense to the guy but, inexplicably, his face clears.

"Oh- is your wedding planner Park Eunha, by any chance?"

"Yes." Says Hester, fully prepared to deck him and run if this goes wrong.

Instead, he beams.

"Oh! You must be Hester and Anadil! I'm Park Jun, but call me Jonathan, everyone does- I'm Eunha's husband."

He looks very pleased with himself, and starts ringing up all the fake blood. Whilst being married to Eunha is probably some sort of incredible achievement in itself, Hester still doesn't know why he look so cheerful, but Dot is looking thoughtful;

"Park Jun as in the model, Park Jun?"

"Yes! I am also working at Party City." Says Jonathan proudly.

"…okay." Says Dot.

"That's 20.95." says Jonathan.

Hester curses her own gory preference for Halloween and digs out her wallet.

"Do you guys know Tedros Pendragon?" asks Jonathan as he takes Hester's card. "Eunha mentioned that he was on the guest list."

"Sadly." says Hester.

"Yes!" says Dot.

"He's coming to our wedding, yes." Anadil clarifies.

Jonathan grins.

"Aw, nice! Tell him I said hi, and that if he doesn't text me back I'll burn all those Vogue special editions we did together."

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, YOU'RE NOT WEARING WEDDING DRESSES!" shrieks Sophie.

Tedros, who is currently experiencing his very first Sophie Fury, is as far behind Agatha as he can be without looking utterly pathetic. Agatha looks mildly interested, like they're some sort of vaguely funny sitcom. Rosalind is stifling her laughter. Dot and Hort are cowering behind the couch, long past trying to preserve their pride.

Hester pours more fake blood onto the dress, looking Sophie dead in the eye as she does so.

"I said what I said."

Sophie shrieks.

Hester pulls out the scissors and she screams louder.

Hort, apparently having decided that there was no apparent danger of Sophie throwing anything, has whipped out his phone and started playing the playlist he'd put together of all those damned metal bands, rather loudly.

Tedros winces.

"Haven't you got anything a bit more romantic?"

"Take that stick out of your ass and bludgeon yourself with it, this is real music."

Dot shouts across Sophie's shrieks;

"What was that caterer at Rafal and Sophie's called?"

Hester tries to respond, but now Sophie is screaming louder;

"THAT NIGHT WAS ONE OF TRAUMA AND HEARTBREAK FOR ME-"

"Didn't she call that one off?" whispers Hort-

"AND THE ONLY THING ANY OF YOU REMEMBER IS THAT DETESTABLE BUFFET!"

"Their samosas were so good." Muses Agatha, leaning over Dot's shoulder to look at the screen. "That's their email, there-"

"YOU'RE NOT HELPING, AGATHA!" screams Sophie. "YOU HIRED IT, REMEMBER?!"

"Yeah, it was one of my better ideas." Says Agatha.

Sophie swells like a feeding tick. Tedros disappears, muttering something about making tea.

In the corner, Marcus slams his laptop shut and hands Anadil a list of herbs and flowers. Hester can see sage, rosemary, lavender, mint, yarrow, wolfsbane and thistles all listed. As predicted, he's done a good job. But Hort's thundering bass, Sophie's furious shrieks at an unbothered Agatha, Dot's loud questioning and the steady, but very obvious, accumulation of wedding stuff all over the sitting room are making Hester struggle to focus, and pissing her off, neither of which are preferable.

Scowling, she slashes a few more rips into the dress and rubs her temples.

"It's good music!" Hort is insisting to Rosalind, as Sophie and Agatha argue, Tedros sits on the table and drinks his tea awkwardly, Marcus wanders over to join his sister, and Dot demands to know how many people are coming-

"Hort, turn that off, I've heard enough." Says Anadil tiredly, putting her now-much-bloodier dress on the hanger to dry.

"You've decided?" asks Hort eagerly.

"Decided that I'll be a real murdered bride before I ever let you choose the band, yeah-"

"This is quality, Anadil-!"

"I'm not fighting about it, Hort, be a decent DJ and I'll let you have three songs of your choice."

"But-"

"Shut up, Hort, no one cared about your metal bands when we nearly got married, and no one cares now!" sniffs Sophie, apparently still irritated. Hort flares at once;

"You're just mad because no one wants your fashion advice, and it's only because you discredited yourself by having him model for you-"

"Oh, that's rich!" thunders Tedros, slamming down his mug as Hort stabs his finger at him. "As if you could ever sit for someone as big as her, weasel boy-"

"What, you're going for both sisters?" snaps Hort. "Or maybe you think if you kiss her ass enough she'll save your floundering career, and you won't have to do fad diets to trick people into thinking you're hot-"

Tedros leaps to his feet, but Agatha grabs him under the arms and yanks him backwards.

"Both of you, shut up, this isn't helping-"

"He started it!" Shrieks Tedros. Sophie leaps into the fray-

"Yeah, Hort, you're just jealous-"

"I WOULD NEVER BE JEALOUS OF HIM-"

"No." Dot whispers to Agatha. "He's jealous that Hester and Anadil are getting married and he never got to marry Sophie-"

Hort goes purple.

Everyone starts shouting at the same time. Rosalind is very obviously re-shuffling the seating plan. Marcus is halfway out of the door-

"EVERYONE GET OUT!" Hester thunders.

Everyone stops fighting.

"Huh?" peeps Dot.

"GET OUT!" Hester roars. "GET LOST, RIGHT NOW!"

They do.

Rosalind and Marcus trail behind, smothering their laughter, as everyone twenty years their senior shuffles out like scolded schoolchildren.

"Even me?" demands Dot.

"I'll come and pick you up when I've decided I don't want to snap Hort's neck." Says Hester, through clenched teeth. Dot seems placated by this, and follows everyone else.

Tedros opens his mouth to say something-

He makes eye contact with Hester and closes his mouth with an audible click.

Hester ushers them all out, shoves money into Marcus and Rosalind's hands, begs them to turn up on their own next time and to take over everyone else's jobs ("you two are the only ones I can cope with, for god's sake, maybe Alex if I've had coffee-"), slams the door behind everyone, and collapses against it.

"Ani, I want to elope."

"We can't elope, we've paid the venue."

"I don't care." Grunts Hester, even though she does. It's just that right now, she sort of wants to smother Hort with his own Metallica shirt and beat Tedros to death using Sophie's many shoe samples. And possibly fight Sophie to the death in medieval single combat, using exclusively maces and clubs, but that was more of a regular Wednesday mood. "If Agatha and Sophie just… didn't date, this would be so much easier."

Anadil screws up her face.

"True. But we've known Hort for years."

"And he gets on with Tedros just peachy, doesn't he?" growls Hester. Anadil looks slightly rueful.

"True. But I think we might be being a tad too mean to Tedros, though, Hes. We didn't really ever give him a chance, and I think he's a bit scared of you."

"Good." Grunts Hester. She'd normally say a resounding no to the concept of stopping bullying any of Agatha's boyfriends, but Anadil was asking, so... "We need to refine cruelty to plain old bullying, you mean?"

"… um, yeah, sure. I just think he's got his own problems." Anadil admits.

"Sure, whatever, I'll stop sharpening knives when he stops by and everything." Sighs Hester.

She grabs Anadil's hand and presses a kiss to her knuckles.

"Thank you for stopping me from hiring an assassin on the deep web to kill all our friends. Shall we put even more blood on our costumes, fiancée?"

"I think that would be a good idea, fiancée."

It's less than a week until W-Day (what Alex has taken to calling the wedding), and Tedros is sulking on Agatha's sofa.

Technically, it's his sofa too, considering they now live together, but he hasn't quite managed to correlate that in his head yet. Right now, his head is full of lots of things, the main thing being that the shoot with Sophie is released tomorrow and he sort of wants to be sick.

(Also that his ex-wife is arriving on Thursday and it will be the first time Beatrix meets Agatha and that's sort of giving him a headache, too, but he's trying his best to forget that, for now.)

He'd been feeling fine about the shoot until a few weeks ago, when he'd met all of Agatha's friends and they'd been slightly less than utterly disparaging about his career, which had been amazingly motivating and made him feel so much better about himself than he'd already felt! And he'd already felt great!

God.

Of course, Sophie and Agatha were always both too busy arguing with the others to say anything in his defence, so Tedros overthinks that too, and then, to top it all off, he's managed to convince himself that Marcus hates him.

He is not sure if Marcus hates him. To begin with, he was certain that he was just insecure and Marcus was just awkward, but the longer Marcus's avoidance of him has dragged on, the worse Tedros has felt.

Speaking of Marcus…

Tedros sneaks a glance at Agatha's youngest-by-half-an-hour child, who is currently sat at the nearby table, with an immense pile of lavender, sage, mint, and various other witchy herbs, tying them into two elaborate bouquets with all the precision of a surgeon, which is apt. He probably gets it from his mother.

"How're you doing, Mark? They look good."

He's never sure if he should be using the nickname or not, because it feels like a very Agatha and Rosalind thing, but when he asked him, and all he did was shrug and mutter that it was fine, so Tedros uses it anyway, albeit slightly uneasily.

Marcus glances briefly over at him, his steady gaze magnified to uncomfortable sizes by his thick glasses.

"Thanks. They're going fine." He says shortly.

They trail off into uncomfortable silence. Tedros has never thought himself bad at holding conversations, but he just doesn't know what to talk about with Marcus. They have very little in common. He never talks first-

"Your shoot comes out tomorrow, doesn't it?"

Apart from today, apparently.

Tedros blinks, surprised- and then realises that Marcus is waiting for an answer.

"Oh- yeah. It is. I didn't know you were really paying attention…"

He trails off. Marcus just nods solemnly.

"Cool. And I was."

He goes back to the flowers.

Feeling uncomfortable, Tedros picks at his nails. Marcus is inscrutable- he finds it impossible to tell what he's thinking. For all he knows, he could think the same as Hort and Hester and the rest of them. He'd rather know for sure, but that's not going to happen.

He's not sure why he wants Marcus's approval so badly. It's probably some alpha male territorial bullshit. But he can't help feeling disappointed whenever Marcus seems to dismiss him.

He's not sure whether Agatha's noticed or not. She's probably got enough on her plate, Tedros reasons with himself. It would be good if he could ask someone who Marcus is close to, though-

His eyes fall back to the bouquets.

Anadil. Marcus is close to Anadil.

He goes to get up, to find her number and ask her-

But then he remembers that she doesn't like him, she's getting married in like, five days, and there's absolutely no reason why she should do him any favours.

He sinks back onto the couch, defeated, and scrolls absently through his phone, in an attempt to distract himself-

There's a text from his mother that he hadn't noticed earlier;

Lance says you should do something with Marcus, because Agatha told Beatrix that she's worried he's not taking to you

Tedros groans. So Agatha had noticed.

He glances over at Marcus, and finds that he's staring at him.

He smiles weakly, receives a very small one in return, stands up, and goes to phone Anadil.

"What do you want?" demands Hester.

Tedros immediately regrets the decision, but it's way too late to back out, not without making himself look like even more of a dumbass then Hester already thinks he is.

"Um… is Anadil there? I know you're both busy, but it'll only be quick, it's just a stupid thing…"

He trails off.

There's a short pause on the other end.

"This is to do with Marcus, isn't it?"

"Yes." Tedros mutters. Hester grunts.

"Thought so. I'll hand her over."

"Oh, thank you-"

"Just saying, whilst she's not here to shout at me for it; if you break Agatha's heart, I will behead you."

"…okay."

"And if you do anything worse, I'll kill you less instantly, and more painfully."

"…right."

"I'm glad we understand one another." Says Hester grimly, and passes the phone over to Anadil.

Tedros is glad she speaks first, because between Marcus, and Hester's threats, he's not sure he could.

"This is about Marcus? Don't tell me you've pissed him off or something and you're trying to cover your tracks before Agatha gets back, because-"

"No, no, I'm just… worried Marcus doesn't like me."

There's a pause. Tedros can hear nothing beside the faint static of the phone and the creak of the floorboards outside.

"That's sort of pathetic, buddy."

"I know." Tedros mumbles. "But I don't know if I've done anything to upset him- I just don't want to be a shitty sort-of-step-dad because I don't understand him, or something, but he doesn't really take to me..."

"Gonna sound radical, but have you tried talking to him?"

"Of course I've tried talking to him! But we don't really have anything in common, he's a massive reader and knows all this stuff, and I'm-"

"Dyslexic?"

"Wha- how the hell did you know that?" splutters Tedros.

"Hester stalked you online the day we found out you were dating Agatha. Probably knows more about you than you do."

"Naturally." Tedros murmurs. Anadil ignores him.

"He's just quiet when he's not sure of people; he's probably not sure what to think of you because he's been the only guy for ages, and suddenly you're around, and the most in the way of male role models he's had is like, Hort."

"Oh, god." Says Tedros. "That's dreadful."

Anadil snorts.

"I'll tell him you said that."

"Do!"

"Hah, he'll hate that. But seriously, Tedros, it might just take a while."

"I know." Tedros grumbles. "I just… want his approval. Which sounds weird, he's twelve, but you know what I mean. All family dynamics and alpha male bullshit aside, I always kinda wanted a son as well. I love Alex, and to be fair she does a lot of son stuff, and it's not like I want her to be a boy, but… I dunno. I guess it feels like I'm being rejected or something, which is kind of crushing."

He has no idea why he's pouring his heart out to Agatha's friend, who sort of hates him, but Anadil is easy to talk to, and he's done it, now, so no reason to dwell on it.

"No, I get it." Says Anadil. "You gotta remember that I've known him since he was a baby, that's all, and we have a lot more in common. If all else fails, I can say with some confidence that he probably doesn't hate you."

Tedros sighs.

"Thanks, Anadil."

"You are very welcome. I've gotta go in a sec, but good luck. Oh, and if you tell Hester I said this, I'll murder you, but I think you're a decent model, and the shoot you did for Sophie looks good. Also, one Park Jun said that you should text him back or he'll burn all of your Vogue covers that you did together. Hurry up and get a costume, by the way, Agatha says you haven't."

"Yeah, yeah, I will. And I'll text Jonathan."

"Good! See you."

The line goes dead, leaving Tedros slightly confused, but also considerably more cheered.

He heads back downstairs, passing Marcus at the table, who gives him a slightly odd look as he heads to the kitchen; he's in such a good mood that he sort of… forgets that he can't cook, and ends up nuking a bagel to such extreme measures that it looks like it's completely made of charcoal.

Marcus gives him an even odder look, and watches him make coffee with some trepidation, which is really fair enough.

Wednesday: T-3 days until W-Day

"Personally," Alex says, cutting holes in the sheet with gusto, "I think my costume is the best, apart from maybe the brides'."

"You're… a sheet ghost." Says Rosalind, whilst Agatha shows her where all the glow in the dark plastic bones go on her black bodysuit (with correct anatomical knowledge, including what they're all called and which ones are hardest to break).

"Yes." Says Alex primly. "The simple brilliance of the sheet ghost, which really captures the classic vibe of Halloween, by covering the face and body, reducing you to a shapeless mass guided only by some raggedy eyeholes and whatever trainers you chose like ten minutes before. It gives the feel of uncertainty and mystique generally held by the dead, and makes you an instantly recognisable icon of Halloween."

Agatha blinks at her.

"Why don't you bullshit like that in your English exams? You'd pass."

"Would I?"

"How about Slayer?" says Hort.

"JUST PUT BRITNEY SPEARS ON AND YOU'LL KEEP YOUR HEAD." booms Dot from where she's surrounded by three laptops and ten empty coffee mugs.

Hort scowls and reluctantly adds Toxic to the playlist.

Eunha is sat on the sofa, looking a lot more put-together, flicking through her phone.

"We've got the DJ, invites are done, guest list is done, tables are final, venue is booked and toured, caterers are booked, everyone has a costume, rings are bought, Marcus has done the bouquet prototypes and is making the proper ones tomorrow, family will begin to arrive from tomorrow…"

Dot feels slightly less harried.

"We're sending Agatha to the train station collect Beatrix, Reena, Nicola, Ravan-"

Hort shoots up.

"Ravan's coming?"

Dot eyes him over the top of her laptops. He definitely looks eager, but also surprised.

"The amount you text him, and you didn't know? What the hell are you sending him- actually, no, I don't think I wanna know. Yes. He's coming."

Hort looks like he might be regretting his werewolf costume, complete with furry gloves and furry silicone mask.

"Wishing you'd gone with sexy Peter Pan, after all?" chirps Dot.

"Shut up-!"

Hort stares at her laptops, frowning.

"What d'you need all those laptops for?" he demands, stomping round to look at the screens. Dot serenely changes tabs, but not fast enough for Hort not to notice-

"WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT TEDROS'S SHOOT FOR SOPHIE-"

"BECAUSE SOME OF US AREN'T BITTER AND CAN ACCEPT THAT HE'S HOT, HORT!"

Thursday: T-2 days until W-Day

Tedros is wedged in-between Beatrix and Agatha on Sophie's pristine cream couch in the middle of what feels distinctly like a war council.

"IF ANYONE," thunders Sophie in the manner of a battle-hardened general. "TALKS DURING THE CEREMONY, THEY DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN."

"If this is what she's like for Hester," chirps Dot, "Agatha should really avoid getting married at all costs, lest someone dies."

Tedros decides not to think into that.

He's more distracted by the fact that he's in-between his ex-wife and his current girlfriend, which isn't awkward at all, whilst Alex, Rosalind and Marcus plot something on the window seat just behind them, which seems to involve small-scale explosives (Tedros makes a mental note to put a stop to that, later), and he is sat in a room with all of Agatha's friends whilst the famous fashion designer who he sat for last month screams about wedding etiquette.

No one is really listening.

"Hester and Anadil aren't even here." Sulks Beatrix. "What's the point?"

"They're with the official wedding planner." Whispers Agatha. "Sophie only thinks she is. I think she's trying to pretend Eunha doesn't exist."

Sophie snaps her head towards them and Agatha turns a laugh into a sneeze. Beatrix adopts the vacant, vaguely interested, expression she'd occasionally used on him to let him know that he was talking shit. Sophie, however, does not know the implications of the expression, and therefore turns away to grill Ravan on whether or not it is appropriate to go to the bathroom during the ceremony. Whatever he answers is incorrect, if Sophie's expression is anything to go by.

Tedros is glad that they're getting on, but he's also having to squash the very compelling instinct to sabotage their relationship before it gets going, lest they start bonding over his shortcomings or embarrassing habits, or Beatrix decides to share the very long story of their convoluted, messy, breakup-

"NO, JUST GO!" Sophie wails, interrupting his train of thought as Ravan tells her the order of the wedding party's entrance wrong for the forth time. "I'VE GIVEN UP ON YOU ALL! CAN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE SIMPLEST BITS OF ETIQUETTE, I HOPE YOU DON'T MAKE FOOLS OF YOURSELVES ON SATURDAY-"

"Good, I was getting hungry." Sighs Beatrix as they're kicked out of the second apartment this month. "Can you cook yet, Teddy?"

"No." say Tedros and Alex in unison. Tedros sighs, but then he hears Sophie shouting at Dot behind them. "She does realise there is no wedding party, doesn't she?"

"She's in denial that it's basically a Halloween party where I marry Hester and Anadil in the middle." Hisses Agatha.

"Why doesn't she just get married?" demands Alex.

Agatha raises her eyebrows.

"You don't know about the saga of Sophie's attempted weddings? Oh, it's a tale for the ages."

Alex stares, fascinated.

"Did she try and marry Hort, by any chance?"

"Ooh, that's number three, I'll start from the beginning…"

They go walking off together, and Beatrix drops back to fling her arm through Tedros's.

"I like Agatha."

"I thought you would. So do I."

"Duh. And you're a liar, Alex told me that you spent all last night demanding to know whether or not she thought we'd get on."

"Alex talks too much." Grumbles Tedros. Beatrix pats his chest, grinning.

"Alex talks the perfect amount to keep me in the know, actually. I saw your shoot, she sent it to me."

Tedros makes a non-committal noise.

"Don't you wanna know what I thought?" demands Beatrix, watching Reena argue with Hort.

"Not really." Tedros admits.

"You're so paranoid." clucks Beatrix. "I think you're still gorgeous- and, frankly, Agatha needs to stop clamming up every time I point it out, and that means a lot, considering I'm a big old homosexual. And also, I'm glad that you're still modelling, and you haven't been beaten down by your own low self-esteem."

"Thanks, Bea." Sighs Tedros. Beatrix just laughs.

"You're very welcome. Shall we see if Agatha agrees with me?"

"No, Bea-"

"AGATHA! DO YOU AGREE THAT TEDROS IS SEXY-? OW GET OFF-"

Tedros grabs her and attempts to cover her mouth, Beatrix bites him and boots him in the shin, Tedros tries to pick her up, she elbows him, and they both trip over the pavement and go sprawling into a nearby hedge, still fighting.

"I can see why they got a divorce." Muses Rosalind.

Friday- T-1 Days until W-Day

The day had been organised. Worryingly so. Nothing had gone wrong. No one had freaked out. Sophie had been calm (ish).

So Agatha is not exactly surprised when Hester calls her at 11:57. She knew she wasn't going to get through the whole day without something happening.

She's woken up by her phone ringing insistently, and immediately knows something is up.

"Who the hell is calling you at midnight?" croaks Tedros from somewhere to her left.

Agatha scrabbles for her phone, wincing at the brightness of the screen-

"Hester, apparently."

She can tell Tedros is so close to telling her to decline, but he just presses his lips together and stays silent.

Agatha rolls her eyes at him and answers.

"What's up, Hester?"

"Oh- you're still awake?"

"Yep." Says Agatha, completely untruthfully. "Why, did you think I wouldn't be?"

"Well, everyone else hasn't been." Mutters Hester.

Agatha gets the distinct impression that she's been calling around everyone, and she was just the first person to pick up.

"…okay. What's up?"

"Um." Hester hesitates.

Agatha thinks she knows.

"I'm freaking out." Hester mumbles.

It had been too good to be true.

Agatha blew out a breath.

"Thought so."

She can't believe she's doing this. But she is.

"I'll pick you up in five, we're going to get pizza and sit in my car."

"What?" says Hester.

"What?" splutters Tedros from behind her.

Agatha hangs up and goes to get a jacket.

Hester's waiting outside her house when Agatha gets there.

"What'd you tell Anadil?" she asks as Hester clambers into the car, scowling.

"Just said I was going out for a bit." Hester mutters. "She didn't mind." She pauses. "She never does."

"I know." Agatha tells her gently, gesturing to the pizza boxes in the back seat. "Tell me what you're freaking out about."

They sit together in Agatha's messy, paper strewn car and eat the shitty pizza and listen to a band on the radio that is so dreadful Agatha is convinced Hort is involved, somehow.

"He's involved in every shitty rock band to ever exist, it's just odds." Says Agatha decisively. "He probably managed them."

Hester grins, but it's half-hearted. They still haven't touched on the whole freaking out thing, even though Agatha asked her. She's very good at topic-dodging.

Agatha is annoying and persistent and has Hester's only method of transport home, though.

"Hey." Agatha prods her with her foot. "Tell me what's up. What's to freak out about? You're basically having the sickest Halloween party ever, you're just getting married at the beginning."

"I know." Hester growls into her paper cup of unidentifiable soda.

"Then what's so bad? It won't take long-"

"You don't get it." Hester snaps. "It's not about that."

"Well then, what is it?" Agatha presses. "I can try and help-"

"Don't act like you understand! You've never gotten married-"

"Yeah, because-"

"-because none of your boyfriends wanted to marry you, that's why." Snarls Hester.

Agatha jerks back, shocked.

"What?"

Hester immediately regrets it, it's obvious, but Agatha is too furious to let it go.

"That came out wrong, I didn't mean it like that-"

"Didn't you? You always seem to mean exactly what you say, though-"

"No! I didn't mean you were undesirable, or something, I just meant that all of your boyfriends always seem to turn out to be shit and they're not…"

She trails off at the look on Agatha's face.

"I've ballsed this up, haven't I?" she says.

"I see what you think." Agatha seethes. "I get it now. Every time you've turned up after I've had a breakup, with wine or whatever other shit you decide I'd like, you've just thought that it was inevitable? That I was never gonna hold that one, not pretty enough, or that one, too boring- you probably think Tedros is going to dump me in, like, a week after he realises I'm getting clingy or he still doesn't get on with Marcus, hell, maybe you're just pitying me at this point-"

"No-"

Hester gets a hold on her wrist, Agatha rips her arm away, Hester grabs both of her shoulders and yanks her so they're nearly nose to nose, Agatha genuinely considers thumping her-

"CAN YOU STOP SHOUTING FOR TEN SECONDS, YOU INSECURE-"

"OH, SO YOU THINK I'M INSECURE-"

"I called you first." Says Hester at normal volume.

Agatha stops, confused.

"What?"

"I didn't call everyone else first, earlier. I lied. I didn't want to talk to anyone else. I wanted to talk to you. Can you please stop shouting at me so I can explain myself?"

There is a very long pause. Agatha's brain seems to have stopped working.

"…fine." Agatha says. "Fine."

"For the record." Says Hester, "You are very insecure."

Agatha stares at her. Hester clears her throat.

"I… am not very good at apologizing."

"Just explain yourself, you sorry bastard."

"Alright! Damn- okay, Agatha… I know I made it sound like you were undesirable or some shit, what I actually meant was you always seem to get shit ass boyfriends with commitment issues- this is not a dig at Tedros take that look off your face we both know damn well who I'm talking about."

Agatha glances at the photo of Marcus and Rosalind taped to the dashboard.

"Exactly." Says Hester severely. "Then you panicked and overthought it, like you do sometimes. I am sorry that I implied you were undesirable. But I feel like you've been overthinking a lot of stuff recently. I could tell you that your lovely new boyfriend has been doing the same."

Agatha frowns.

"What has this got to do with Tedros?"

"He called Anadil and basically asked her how to get Marcus to not hate him."

Agatha blinks.

"He thinks Marcus hates him? I knew he was sort of funny around him, but I just thought Marcus was taking a while to adjust to him-"

"Yeah, yeah, you're both as horribly insecure as each other, you should probably have a chat about that at some point, but Agatha. Come on. I'm gonna say some sappy shit now, and you're gonna forget about it by tomorrow, right?"

"Depends what it is."

Hester rolls her eyes.

"Well. I called you first, as my best friend, to panic to you about how I'm suddenly paranoid that I don't deserve my fiancée and that I don't want to mess anything up, et bloody cetera. I was expecting shitty pizza and sage advice, I will admit. I didn't turn up with the intention of getting into a screaming match with you in your car, at 1 am."

"If you weren't so goddamn hard-headed-" Agatha begins, but Hester talks over her;

"Be-caauuse I generally view you as the smartest and most level headed of my friends- you're a surgeon, you have to be, and I thought that you would be able to help, because you always help. You're like that. I just think I underestimated how damned insecure you are."

Agatha starts to say something else, but Hester clamps her hand over her mouth.

"No, I don't wanna hear it. You're my best friend, you're incredibly clever, you're hot as hell, all of your ex-boyfriends were low-life bastards and never deserved you anyway, and I am glad that you are officiating my horribly scary wedding tomorrow, because I would never, ever, be able to bear it if it was a single person other than you."

Agatha stares at her.

"And if this ever leaves this car I'll fight you, physically, but I love you, and if Tedros puts a toe out of line, I'll castrate him and steal Alex."

Very, very, slowly, Hester removes her hand. But all Agatha says is;

"You'd never be able to take me in a fight, I'm a head taller than you and I have precise anatomical knowledge of the whole human body. I could destroy you."

"Wanna bet?" Hester demands, and they're back to normal, arguing about who would win in a fight in the McDonalds car park.

"You think you don't deserve Anadil?" Agatha asks a while later, as they drive in lazy circles around the city, listening to another, even worse band that Hort actually has been in- Agatha found the EP under her seat.

Hester shrugs awkwardly.

"Not so much in that way- I just sort of worry that, come tomorrow, she'll realise I'm not really all that and ditch me, or we'll realise it was a massive mistake and have a horrible messy breakup."

Agatha leans back in her seat, watching Hester in the wing mirror.

"We-el, I've never been married-" she chirps-

"Oh, god, stop!"

"-but I would say that they're just typical fatalistic pre-wedding thoughts." Agatha finishes.

"I don't worry, though." Hester sulks. Agatha scoffs.

"I'm sure you do. You just like to squash all your emotions. Come on, it'll be fine. We've had a nice argument, you've got your mind off it, so now, you're gonna finish off the rest of that cold pizza, I'm gonna drive you home to your lady love, and I'm going to give you a rousing motivational speech whilst I do it."

"Please don't."

"Not even saying please will stop me now, asshole. Here we go, motivational speech one of twelve."

"TWELVE?"

"We're going the long way home."

T-0 Days: W-Day TODAY

"You'd have thought it was Sophie's wedding, not mine and Hester's." Tuts Anadil. "Look at her."

Indeed, from the room he, Anadil, the twins, Hort and Beatrix are in, Tedros can see Sophie sprinting in and out of the building in a frenzy, accosting every person who tries to get into the place.

"No one left alive." Laments Anadil.

"I think this is the first time she's sweated, ever." Tedros says, watching Sophie shout at one of the caterers whilst Eunha calmly directs the rest around to the kitchens. "She must really like you."

"Yeah." Sighs Anadil, adjusting the scarily realistic dagger taped to the back of her dress in an uncomfortably idle manner. "Bless her."

Marcus wanders over to the door, black plastic armour clattering. Tedros isn't sure what he's supposed to be.

"Where's everyone else?" he asks.

"Either with Hester, Eunha, or trying to contain my grandmother Evanora." mutters Anadil. "She'll be unbearable by 3, once she's had a gin. We sat her with Agatha for damage control. She likes Agatha."

That also means that Tedros is sat with Anadil's grandmother. And the twins. And Alex.

"Oh." Says Tedros.

"Have fun!" Chirps Beatrix. Hort looks unnecessarily smug. Tedros tries his best to ignore him. He refused to get in a fight with him today, least not whilst they're all still sober.

Anadil looks remarkably calm, though. Everyone else seems to have picked up on it, as well.

"You're very… serene." Says Beatrix, arranging Anadil's tattered veil absently. Anadil bats her off.

"Sure. It's not me who's the worrier. Hester is. I was gonna worry about her, but then Agatha turned up last night and they went off for a bit, had a massive argument, and made up, then spent a really long time bickering about who'd win in a fight. I think they also got shitty pizza. So she's fine. She'll probably look a bit ill, but she'll be okay in the long run."

Tedros stares at her. So does everyone else.

"How'd you know all that?"

"She told me literally everything when she got back. Presumably Agatha told you nothing."

His lack of response is all the confirmation she needs.

"Yeah, thought so." Anadil says, breezing past him to go and check on the decorations. "You two ought to work on your communication, you know."

She's gone before Tedros can argue with her.

Hester is less serene, obviously.

And Dot is not particularly sympathetic.

"Come on, woman, it'll be over in ten minutes!" She booms, smacking her in the ass with a stolen clipboard Hester is sure belongs to Eunha. "All you gotta do is smile, repeat what Agatha says, say I do, and snog Anadil. Oh, and the rings. It's not that hard."

Hester glares at her.

"You know, Agatha was a lot more sympathetic."

Dot shrugs, swiping a pastry from a passing caterer.

"Sorry to disappoint. Where is she, anyway?"

"Probably with Anadil."

"She's not, I saw them earlier-"

Dot turns, nearly walks smack into Agatha, and jumps back.

"Oh! Good timing, love."

Agatha folds her arms over her long brown coat.

"Why is everyone just running around?" she demands, falling into step with them. "Presumably Eunha's got it under control."

"Yeah, but with Sophie, Beatrix, Reena, Tedros and Anadil's grandmother? All in the same place? Come on, love. Recipe for disaster. You make a very sexy pirate, by the way. You should keep those boots."

Agatha grunts vaguely and follows them back inside, tugging on the scarves tied around her waist, three cornered hat and order of proceedings both tucked under her arm. Dot prattles on;

"What's Tedros, some sort of prince? You could pretend to kidnap him, that'd be hot-"

"Dot?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

"Okay."

Hester can't contain a grin at the look on both of their faces.

"Alright, shut up, you horrible lot!" Agatha thunders over the general hubbub half an hour later.

"Really getting into character, there." Says Dot from somewhere to Hester's left. Agatha aims a kick at her and clears her throat.

Tedros glances to his left and hopes Alex won't get too restless. Hopefully Agatha will keep this brief, because Hester looks ready to die, Alex is already fidgety, and Anadil's grandmother is making not-so quiet comments to Nicola, behind them;

"Why didn't they get a proper priest? I mean, Agatha is a lovely girl, but she's not religious-"

"She got ordained -uh- by a priest." Nicola lies quickly. Presumably the knowledge that Agatha was ordained online would not go down well with her. The elder woman seems placated by this, and falls silent.

Agatha is telling some story about some party when they were students, and there's a lot of whistling and whooping going on.

"-so, she demands to know what I know about spleens and how easy they are to rupture-"

Tedros grins a bit, but finds himself looking back at Hester and Anadil, who are both grinning at whatever embarrassing teenage story Agatha is unearthing. Hester still looks way too pale, but she's much less tense than she was, and she's actually smiling now, face bright with clear adoration for Anadil, which Tedros fines a bit unnerving, considering she's only ever looked at him with disdain or other similarly dismissive expressions. But they should probably give each other another chance, he decides, provided he doesn't say something dumb and end up murdered in a ditch before he gets the opportunity.

Thinking on it, though, he doesn't think he's ever been to such a cheerful wedding, even though there's a plastic severed head just within his line of sight, and both Hester and Anadil are covered in fake blood. All the weddings he's ever been too have been oppressive family affairs with simpering children and unsettling "you're trapped forever, now, buddy!" attitudes. This generalisation includes his own ill-fated wedding.

He glances uncomfortably at Beatrix, who looks remarkably calm, and not at all like she's having flashbacks to her first wedding, where her mother got drunk at the open bar and triggered a massive fight on the dance floor, whilst Tedros's step-dad recorded it, and Tedros and Beatrix politely pretended to be too in love to notice, an attempt which failed miserably in more ways than one-

"-do you, Anadil, take Hester to be your wife, to have and hold, to honour and cherish, in sickness and health, for as long as you shall both live?"

Oh, shit, they're on that bit already.

"I do." Says Anadil, doing a very bad job of pretending she's not crying.

Agatha asks the same of Hester, who is, frankly, doing an even worse job. It's endearing in a very "god, they're so stoic" sort of way.

"I do." Says Hester firmly.

"Alright, lovely." Agatha snaps her fingers at Hort, who shuffles carefully forward with the rings. "Shall we, as Beyoncé says, put a ring on it?"

Everyone cheers. Sophie huffs, as if Agatha's joking around is some sort of grievous social faux pas, but even she is smiling.

Once Hester's hands have stopped shaking enough for her to actually give and accept a ring, Agatha tosses her order of events on the floor and beams.

"So, by the power vested in me by -"

"That's a funny name for a minister-" says Grandmother Evanora, very pointedly, to Nicola. Nicola pretends to not know what she's talking about.

"-I pronounce you legally married. You can trade saliva now."

Hester and Anadil do so, earnestly, and the cheers are honestly deafening.

"-so, Alexandra, I confess myself very confused-" warbles Anadil's grandmother. "Who is your mother?"

Agatha, the only other person left at the table as everyone drifts off to socialise after the meal, quickly pretends to be busy with clearing the plates. She's pretty sure Alex has eaten nothing of substance, based off the veritable mountain of chocolate wrappers on her plate, but considering that she'd been living off kale and burned pasta until about three months ago, she'll let her have it.

"Ohhh." Says Alex, back to being shrouded in her sheet now she's stopped eating. "Well, my biological mom is Beatrix, over there, the blonde one-"

"Oh, yes, she does look quite a bit like you, doesn't she-?"

"Yeah! But she and my dad split up when I was like, two, and she remarried, to Reena, and they moved to France, so she's like my step-mom."

"Oh, so you basically have two mothers?"

"Nah, I've sorta got three."

Agatha pauses, wondering where Alex is going with this-

"See, I don't see Beatrix and Reena all that often, because they live abroad- though we call a lot- but my dad's girlfriend Agatha? You know Agatha, right? She's basically my mother as well, I see her way more often and she always cooks cool shi- uh, stuff- for me, she's a surgeon, too, so she knows what to do when I deck it at football- which I do, a lot. She's awesome. She's got kids, too; Marcus and Ros, they're twins, and they're basically like my little siblings, I love 'em."

Agatha sort of just… stands there, stunned. They both seem to have completely forgotten that she's there.

"Oh, I see…" muses Evanora. "And she's a good sort-of-stepmother to you? Your father likes her?"

Agatha glances over her shoulder and sees Alex nodding vehemently.

"Yeah, yeah! She's the best. My dad likes her a lot. So do I. I think she makes him less antsy. They're good for each other…"

Slightly bemused by the depth of Alex's observations, and also feeling quite a lot like crying, Agatha watches Alex lead Anadil's grandmother back into the crowd, still chattering away.

Agatha turns back to the tables, shaking her head, trying to avoid crying in public-

She turns back around and there's a pair of buggy hazel eyes staring at her through a sheet.

"How did you-"

"She went to interrogate dad. I didn't say something horribly wrong, did I? I do that sometimes."

Agatha decides not to say anything about how Alex apparently did know she was there the whole time.

"No, love. I just didn't know you… thought all that. About me."

"Oh." The sheet bobs slowly as Alex nods. Some of her hair is sticking through one of the eyeholes. "Well, I do."

And as far as Alex is concerned, that's it.

"Wanna come and dance a horrible mashup of the Macarena, the Charleston and the Tango, set to Lady Gaga's Alejandro, with me? No one else wants to, for some reason…"

She trails off, eyes big and earnest through the sheet.

"I will definitely come and do that." Agatha reassures her. Alex's eyes scrunch. Agatha assumes she's grinning.

"Great! Lemme go and bully Hort into playing it, he's kinda scared of me- I think it's my costume."

Agatha stares at her. Alex sighs.

"I keep forgetting you guys can't see my face. I'm joking, it's because I'm only 14 and obviously gonna be taller than him, already. Come on!"

Agatha watches her white sheeted head bob away through the crowd. Then she laughs, wipes her eyes, and follows Alex to the dance floor.

"-um, thank you, I'm just going to… yeah."

Tedros ducks away from Anadil's grandmother, ditching Reena with the elderly lady. No doubt she'll be furious at him, later, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could cope with Evanora musing about how Agatha was "vaguely oriental, do you have a thing for girls like that?"

He leans against a pillar, watching Alex and Agatha flail around the dance floor like idiots, whilst Rosalind cheers them on from the side of the dance-floor, a lollipop held aloft as if she's a shorter, less green, Statue of Liberty.

Tedros feels peaceful for the first time in about three weeks.

And then he notices someone sat in a chair by the wall, feet dangling, looking a bit lost.

"Hey, Mark. Can I sit here?"

Marcus nods solemnly, and Tedros sits down next to him.

"What's up?" he asks. Marcus shrugs.

"Not a big fan of crowds. Or loud people."

"Ah." Says Tedros, trying his best to sound understanding. "Not a big party person, then?"

"No." Marcus agrees. "Normally mom doesn't make me come, but I don't mind coming for Anadil and Hester, much."

They lapse into silence, again, but Tedros is determined that Marcus is not going to hate him.

"Who're you supposed to be, by the way?" he asks, peering at his armour.

Marcus stares at him.

"Mordred. Who are you supposed to be?"

Tedros shrugs.

"Dunno. Some fantasy prince. Who's Mordred?"

Marcus raises his eyebrows.

"From Arthurian legend. The infamous traitor who fought Arthur at the Battle of Camlann, where he was killed and Arthur was fatally wounded."

His blank face must be a dead giveaway. Marcus sighs.

"The evil knight from King Arthur? No?"

"Not ringing any bells."

Marcus huffs.

"Your mother is literally called Guinevere. You seriously haven't ever heard of King Arthur?"

"The guy with the magic sword? Yeah, I know about him, I think I watched a film with him in, once. But I don't know who Mordred is. Why, who's Guinevere in it? Is she important?"

Marcus opens his mouth to respond, seems to decide it's not worth it, and shuts it again. For some reason, this irritates Tedros.

"Alright, be like that. I get it, I'm stupid." Tedros mumbles, annoyed. "Wish you'd tell me why you hate me, though."

When he doesn't get a response, he glances back at him and sees Marcus staring at him, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly slack.

"What?" Tedros demands.

"You think I hate you?" asks Marcus. He sounds genuinely surprised. Tedros suddenly feels uncomfortable.

"Well- I dunno. I didn't think you liked me, maybe hate is a bit strong-"

"I don't hate you." Marcus interrupts.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I've never hated you. Or disliked you."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, I don't make a habit of hating people. Why did you think I hated you?"

Tedros gets the impression he's digging himself into a hole, but he's still talking, so it's a bit late.

"I dunno. I guess you're always so deadpan, I thought you were just trying to conceal that you thought I was a massive prick or something. To be polite. You don't talk much."

"I don't talk if I haven't got anything to say." Grumbles Marcus. Tedros huffs.

"Well, I didn't know what to talk to you about."

"I know. I heard you talking to Anadil. I didn't realise you thought I like… hated you, though."

It's Tedros's turn to be surprised.

"Huh?"

"You talk quite loud."

Tedros carries on staring at him, and Marcus looks awkward for the first time, a dull red flush creeping across his cheeks.

"I wasn't eavesdropping or anything, I just heard you mention my name… okay, maybe I was eavesdropping a bit, but whatever. I was gonna tell you I didn't dislike you then, but then you murdered that bagel and I forgot. I didn't think you'd managed to convince yourself I hated you, though."

Tedros stares at him, still. Marcus is clearly getting more and more unsettled as he stays silent.

"Okay, maybe I'm awkward and weird and it was kinda unsettling having you wandering around after living with only Ros and my mom for twelve years, but you were stupid for thinking that I hated you." He snaps and folds his arms, turning back to stare at the dancefloor.

"I am very stupid." Tedros agrees, finally. "But you're not allowed to start hating me now, kid."

Marcus doesn't respond.

"Who even is Guinevere?" Tedros demands again.

Marcus groans.

"She's King Arthur's wife."

"Oh. She is important, then."

"Just a bit." Says Marcus dryly, turning back to look at him. "She runs off with one of his knights. Know what that knight's called?"

"What?"

"Lancelot."

"Piss off, that cannot be true!" Tedros gasps. Marcus nods eagerly, the most animated he's seen him yet. He's obviously interested in all this stuff.

"It is! Read up about it, I swear, I was so surprised when you mentioned it-"

Tedros pulls a face.

"Not a big reader, I'm afraid. I'll take your word for it."

"Why not?" Marcus frowns. "It's really interesting. And your family is Welsh, right? It's a Welsh legend."

Tedros shrugs awkwardly.

"I'm sure it is. I just… um, don't."

Marcus can obviously tell he's lying, and as he stares at him, Tedros notices that his eyes are, uncomfortably, a similar shade to Agatha's-

"I'm dyslexic, alright?" he snaps. "So unless you've got the time to tell it all to me, like four times, I'm afraid I'm not learning shit. It'll all be old English as well, I hated Shakespeare…"

"It's quite a bit before Shakespeare." Marcus mutters. Tedros ignores him, propping his chin on his fists and glaring at the dancefloor.

Marcus is quiet for a bit. Alex has shed her sheet and is currently trying to cover Ros with it and shove her into the pond next to the veranda. Ros is screaming and trying to kick her. Hort is plastered and currently playing a dreadful remix of the Chicken Dance at full blast.

"Well, I don't hate you, so you can check that off." Marcus says finally.

"Good to know." Mumbles Tedros, relaxing a bit.

They sit there in companionable silence for a minute. Tedros finally realises that Marcus's silence is more contemplative, as opposed to judging. It's comforting to know.

(When Agatha passes them later, they're shouting for Alex as she and Hort grapple for control of the laptop, and they cheer when Hort goes down in a heap, after Alex's carefully placed kick to the shin. She rolls her eyes and leaves them without comment. )

The rest of the night continues with even more chaos. Instead of throwing her bouquet, Hester hurls hers straight at Ravan's head, as payback for a lewd joke. Ravan ducks, someone gets shoved, and Agatha catches it before it can hit Grandma Evanora in the eye. She then realises the implications, panics, and chucks it at Nicola, who throws it at Hort, who dumps it on Tedros, who sneezes and ditches it in Marcus's arms. Marcus rolls his eyes and puts it on the table.

Anadil's bouquet nails a triumphant Ravan in the groin just as he stands up.

Ravan and Hort disappear, very conspicuously, a couple of hours later, leaving Sophie sulking at the bar (Agatha knew she still sort of liked him), and Alex with full and briefly uncontested control over the laptop. They are forced to listen to the "Spooky Scary Skeletons" dubstep remix for two hours, which is how long Alex holds out for, battling everyone who attempts to wrest control from her back, like a sugar-hyped tower defence game, before Tedros physically carries her away.

Everything else after that is a blur for most people, apart from Agatha, who distinctly remembers Beatrix and Tedros crying on each other, over some war flashback to their wedding, and also remembers Rosalind and Alex cramming as much food into their bags and pockets as they can possibly fit, whilst Marcus stands guard and ignores how she's staring at them.

This also means that she's almost the only one who's vaguely alert the next morning at breakfast. Hester and Anadil look fine enough, but literally everyone else, apart from the kids, (and any irritatingly peppy Tedros, who apparently hadn't drunk anything and had just cried because Beatrix had cried and he'd panicked) are nursing hangovers or suffering from sleep deprivation, or both. Grandma Evanora isn't even there. ("She's okay!" Anadil reassures them when she subject is broached. "But she nearly took my head off when I tried to wake her up, so we left her.")

"Well," Hester muses to Agatha, as Hort's head sinks lower and lower over his plate of eggs. "At least no one's gonna have the energy to take the piss when we leave later."

"Where are you even going?" Asks Agatha, watching Eunha snap her fingers under Jonathan's nose as his eyes start to droop.

"We're going on a tour of all of the most haunted places in England." Says Anadil cheerfully.

"Naturally."

"It's gonna be so much fun." Hester says, completely sincerely. Agatha begs to differ, but she doesn't say anything beyond;

"If you get possessed, you're never coming over for dinner again."

Hester shrugs.

"Who'd wanna possess me? I'm horrible enough as it is."

Anadil looks adoring. Agatha rolls her eyes and returns to her food.

Seeing as most people can't stand up, let alone go outside, it's really only Agatha, Tedros, the kids, Eunha, and a very determined Dot, who go out to see them off.

"Bye Eunha!" Hester shouts from the passenger seat. "We'll pay you the rest tonight!"

Eunha shudders.

"Good. I'm not sure I'll ever recover. Sophie very clearly wanted to murder me in cold blood."

Agatha pats her arm.

"Well, I didn't have to perform emergency surgery anywhere indecent, this time, so that makes you the best wedding planner we've ever met."

Eunha stares at her.

"This time? What the hell happened at the last wedding you went to?"

"Oh, you don't wanna know." Says Agatha grimly.

Alex is passing pocketfuls of Haribos to Hester through the window. Hester looks very impressed.

"How did you get all of these?"

"It was when everyone was hammered, at the end." Says Alex cheerfully, sauntering back over to Tedros. "No one so much as glanced our way."

The twins wave them off, and then its Agatha's turn.

"Don't do anything stupid." She says.

"Aw, Agatha, you'd have thought you actually cared about us." Says Hester. Agatha stares at her. Hester grins. "Anyway, we were gonna say the same to you."

"No chance." Agatha sighs. "Got a bunch of shifts this week, to make up for the ones I've missed."

"We appreciate your sacrifice." Says Anadil seriously. "But yeah, we'll be fine. We're going ghost-hunting!"

Agatha can't be bothered to reply. They laugh at her anyway.

"Aaalright." Anadil revs the engine. "Hotels with gory history, here we come!"

Dot cheers, leaning heavily on Agatha's shoulder.

"Go gory history! Have fun! Text me everything!"

"I will absolutely text you everything!" Hester reassures her. "Oh, one last thing-"

Anadil is already pulling out of the parking space, but Hester hangs out of the window;

"TEDROS, WE HAVE DECIDED THAT WE TOLERATE YOU, AND IF YOU MESS UP, WE WILL KILL YOU QUICKLY INSTEAD OF EXCRUTIATINGLY SLOWLY."

Tedros blinks.

"Thanks." He says. "I think."

"IT'S THE BEST YOU'RE GONNA GET, MATE, SO YOU SHOULD PROBABLY TAKE IT. CIAO, ASSHOLES!"

And with that, they're gone.

Once they're home, Rosalind frowns.

"So… what do we do now?"

"I'm going to bed until I have to go to work." Grumbles Agatha. "Maybe I haven't got a hangover, but I gotta sleep off the stress of the last few months."

"All in, like, five hours?" demands Tedros.

"Take what you can get, my love." Agatha mutters, already slogging up the stairs.

"I'm going to the library." Marcus says instantly.

"Obviously." Sighs Alex. Marcus gives her a weirdly significant look, which she doesn't notice, but Rosalind does.

"Oh." Says Ros. "I'll come with you- we'll be fine, it's like five minutes away." She says, quickly, noticing Tedros about to say something.

Tedros blinks.

"Okay."

Alex shrugs.

"Well, whatever. I'm gonna watch reruns of Say Yes to the Dress."

And just like that, they're back to normal.

Or Tedros thinks they are.

But when Ros and Marcus get home, Marcus wastes no time in dropping down on the couch next to him.

"Get anything good?" Tedros asks, trying to pretend like he's not freaked out at this sudden change in routine.

"I got this for you." Says Marcus, and holds a book out to him. Tedros blinks.

"For me? Marcus-"

"It's King Arthur, but dyslexia friendly. I reserved it last night."

Tedros stares at him for a second.

"…what?"

Marcus colours a bit. He's still holding the book out to him.

"It's not as in depth as I'd have liked, but it'll do. I figured… well, I figured it could like… be our thing. Because you said to Anadil that we didn't have anything in common. So I thought I'd change that. And you don't have to think I hate you anymore."

Tedros is silent for a minute, staring at the book. There's an odd lump in his throat.

Marcus looks unnerved by his silence, and makes to withdraw his hand-

Tedros takes the book from him.

"Thank you, Marcus." He says gruffly. He clears his throat and tries again; "Really. Thanks."

Marcus goes even more scarlet.

"'s fine." He mutters.

They lapse back into an awkward silence.

"Wanna go and get ice-cream on Saturday, after the girl's football games?" Tedros asks him, suddenly.

Marcus looks uncertain.

"Like… with everyone?"

"Nah. Just us. I figured I could tell you where I'm up to in this, and you can correct me on what I get wrong." He waves the book at him.

Marcus looks at him for a second.

"Yeah." He says, finally. "Yeah. I think I'd like that."

Tedros smiles.

"Good. I hoped you would."

They sit and watch Alex shout at the brides on the television, but Tedros doesn't miss how Marcus tentatively leans against him, about halfway through Alex's rant about scalloped sleeves. He doesn't move, afraid of scaring him off, but it's progress.

They'll be fine.