Fear Itself

I didn’t know how long we slept. All I know is that for once, Dean wasn’t awake before me. I felt him stirring alongside me, felt him sigh against the back of my neck. On the nightstand beside him, his phone was vibrating. It had been vibrating for quite some time now, though I was sure I had conjured the sound up in a dream then. Without turning or even moving his face from my neck, Dean blindly reached behind him and fumbled for his ringing phone. I heard the sound of aluminum and glass gently scraping on polished wood before Dean settled the phone on his ear and dropped his arm over me again, groggily answering, “Hello?”

The sound of his voice brought a smile to my face, even though my eyes were closed. “What do you mean hello?” I heard Chandler shriek through the phone. My smile widened into a grin, and I bit my lower lip so I didn’t laugh. I shifted slightly in Dean’s arm and laced our hands together, squeezing a little and holding them close to my chest. I could feel the smile on Dean’s lips when when he kissed my neck.

“What’s the problem?” Dean murmured. “Can’t it wait? I’m kind of in the middle of something.”

“More important than your wedding?” Chandler scoffed.

Wedding. His wedding. My wedding. Our wedding. The word had my stomach fluttering and my skin tingling.

“That’s not for a few more hours,” Dean hummed lazily. His chest rose and sank slow and easy against my back. I could feel his heart beating calm and steady.

“A few hours my ass!” Chandler argued. “We’re going to need those few hours to get you and your bride ready for presentation!”

“How long do we have?” I muttered, finally opening my eyes. Light spilled across the room from the window behind us.

“Blondie wants to know how long,” Dean yawned.

“Well, ideally, you would be here in an hour, which is noon, you lazy buggers,” Chandler snapped. “There’s so much that has to be done! You need to get dressed, and she needs to get dressed and get make-up and hair—“

“Tell him I don’t have any hair,” I murmured with a giggle. A laugh escaped Dean’s throat. It wasn’t that I didn’t have any. Over the last three months, my hair had grown back. I had a nice two inches on my scalp all around.

“Blondie doesn’t have any hair,” he sputtered through a laugh. “That’ll save us like two hours. I’m gonna hang up now.”

Dean let go of my hand to move the phone, and I could hear Chandler shouting protests just before Dean hit the end button and tossed the thing back on the nightstand. We were both left giggling by the exchange, even when Dean pulled me closer to him. We both laughed and laughed, grins wide on our faces. Only when Dean shifted to lay me on my back did they subside. “So, where were we?” Dean cleared his throat and grinned.

“Relaxing, I believe,” I joked softly. He smiled and brushed his fingers over my jaw line before he leaned over and kissed me.

“Oh, you’re right,” he agreed softly before he settled back into the bed, half on top of me, which only had me laughing harder.

“Muscles!” I laughed, playfully shoving at his shoulder. “Unfair! I can’t even move!”

“Sorry, Blondie. It appears I’ve entered sleep paralysis. Couldn’t move if I tried.” He closed his eyes and pretended snore, but I shoved him again and smile cracked onto his face.

“Sleep paralysis, my arse,” I huffed with a giggle. He opened one eye and grinned at me.

“Language, Blondie,” Dean scolded jokingly. “That’s no way for a lady to talk.”

I shrugged my shoulders with a smug smile. “Well, good thing I’m not a lady, isn’t it?”

A slow smile built on his face before he chuckled deep and low in his throat. “Remind me why I’m marrying you again.”

“Cause I’m cute,” I chirped with a boastful, wide smile. Dean just laughed. “I’m cute, and I’m a princess.” I tilted my head to him an nodded an affirmation. “Even Kennedy thinks so.”

“Oh, does he?” Dean asked with amused disbelief. “And what kind of princess doesn’t have any hair?”

“The prettiest kind,” I retorted, sticking my tongue out at him for a moment.

“Right,” he told me, beaming radiantly before he kissed me. “Exactly right.” When he drew back a little, our eyes locked, and I could feel my heart beating faster. My cheeks were red with warmth, so I glanced away. He just chuckled and kissed my forehead. “C’mon, babe,” he beckoned as he shifted out of bed. “Chandler’ll be in shambles if we’re not there on time.”

So, we shuffled about filled half with reluctance and half with elation: reluctance to even get out of bed and elation for the on-coming events. We were getting married. The word kept buzzing around in my head, even as we showered. Even as I was getting dressed, I couldn’t help but glance over my shoulder to watch him with a wide grin painted on my face. Just as quickly, we were grabbing granola bars out of the kitchen, bidding Winston farewell for the day, and rushing off to the car so Chandler didn’t die of a stroke before the ceremony.

My feet were practically bouncing the whole car ride over to Chandler’s place: a magnificent Spanish Colonial style villa that was just as flashy as his clothing designs. We pulled up to be greeted by an outdoor living area, dining terrace, fire pit, and a pool with an attached hot tub, right beside the driveway, which was almost entirely void of cars, save for a green sports car that looked a lot like Dean’s red one. I had a hard time understanding why Chandler never invited anybody over when Dean and I approached the front door hand-in-hand.

We didn’t wait to be greeted; Dean insisted Chandler wouldn’t care, and we walked right into the living room, which as Dean once described to me, was entirely white save for the furniture. Dean also commented that Chandler had pulled the plastic off the couches, so it must have been a special occasion. Just off to the left of the sofas circled around a mahogany coffee table was a piano. If I hadn’t noticed Chandler buzz through the room, I probably would have wanted to play it, but he came flying out of a nearby hall and quickly separated us. “Dean, up the stairs. Last room on the left,” he instructed. “Don’t even come to the right side of the house. Just stay away, Dean.” Chandler concluded this with a glare.

“Got it,” Dean chuckled just as we were split up, and Chandler proceeded to hurry me up a staircase to the right, practically tugging me until I stumbled. He was a man on a mission, which kind of had me wary of what I was in for when he pulled me into a guest bedroom and sat me down on a chair in front of a brightly lit vanity. Almost immediately, Chandler rubbed my entire face in a clear moisturizer. While we waited for that to dry, Chandler stuck a white feather clip shaped like a flower, adorned with a rhinestone center, on the left side of my head.

“Huh,” Chandler mused with surprise. “That was easier than I thought.” He grabbed another bottle off the vanity, this one filled with a beige liquid. He removed his sun glasses and held it up to his eye, comparing it to my face. Chandler nodded to himself with satisfaction as he dabbed some out on his index finger and applied it all over my face. That was before he brushed it all in with a tiny foam sponge. He followed that up with another tan substance, but this one, he only dabbed in certain places.

He sat back and looked my face over. His face narrowed when he huffed. “Thalia Giroux, how dare you look this good all the time. You look good with long hair, you look good bald, you even look good with a pixie cut. I didn’t even have to mess with it, how dare you,” he commented with a sliver of a grin. “Oh, if Charlotte Kennedy could see you, she’d be eating her words.”

“You know, she’s quite lovely looking herself,” I commented with a flattered smile, trying not to get ahead of myself, even though Charlotte Kennedy had no reason to say a kind word about me (never did either).

“Stop being modest,” Chandler retorted as he pulled his own chair up to me. “Not that I think you really need any make-up…” He hummed a little as he opened a black box on the vanity top, exposing a rather alarming palette of colored powders and glosses. “I just don’t want you to wash out under the camera flashes. Close your eyes.”

I did as told as I felt the bristles of a large brush move across my face in smooth, even strokes. Once I felt him move to my neck, I opened my eyes again. “You’re taking pictures?” I inquired. Chandler turned back to his box and pulled out a small tube, also holding something tan.

“Of course,” he laughed. His green eyes gleamed when he grinned. “Close your eyes.” I did. I felt his fingers brush over my eyelids and up to my brows, leaving something wet and cold in it’s place. After a moment, that subsided. “It’s your wedding. We have to immortalize it.” I kept my eyes shut tight as I felt a pencil line my upper lids. “Open again and look up,” he instructed calmly before he ran the pencil along my lower lid.

“Photos are nice,” I reasoned quietly. “But don’t you think memories are enough?” Chandler laughed at this.

“The human memory is astonishingly unreliable,” Chandler joked as he set the pencil back in his box. He reached for two circular containers filled with power: one a creamy color, the other a pale violet. “Close,” he told me again. He began brushing over my eyelids in various motions, first smooth, but sometimes choppy. “I hope they take lots of pictures at my wedding,” he mused. “It’s nice to look back and remember how perfect everything was, how in that one moment, you were so overjoyed that time stood still, and the earth stopped turning. Time doesn’t stand still often, darling.”

He went over the pencil line with another pencil, but this one was cold and smooth. He did this twice before I could open my eyes again. Then, he brushed over my eyelashes with a round brush covered in ink. “Almost done,” he assured me. He took a deep breath as he rifled through his box. He brushed a pink power over my cheeks. Next, came a clear gloss for my lips. “Beautiful,” Chandler mused as he closed the box up. “Darling, you are going to make him the luckiest man in the world. Even if I’m drooling over you.” A giddy grin graced his features, but what he said next caught me off-guard.

Chandler leapt up to his feet with a bit of an enthusiastic flail. “Oh!” he exclaimed with a gasp. “The dress is next, which reminds me. There’s somebody you need to meet.”