All It Takes • •

[gabriel pearce fitzpatrick]

Gabe drummed his fingers on the counter top as the coffee machine worked its magic beside him for the second time. The wedding plans were more detailed than he could have ever imagined they could be, but then Gabe hadn’t been the type to sit back and fantasize about weddings before he had considered spending the rest of his life with Fallon. Even now he felt he might be getting a little too sidetracked with ancient wedding customs instead of keeping all of his attention on his own. It was his terrible habit though. He needed to research the history of everything he did, even if it was mundane or terrifying once he got nose deep into a dusty tome. Before his original knee surgery he had done the same. He had researched medieval surgical methods which were more than enough to turn the stomach of the strongest people. Thankfully, nothing was stomach churning this time, just strange and sometimes confusing.

“Hey, in Scotland there was a custom of dousing the bride in all kinds of garbage before the wedding. Rotten eggs, chewed up tobacco, even tar. Fancy it, Fal?” He peeked his head out of the kitchen with a huge grin. He could already think up a flurry of foul mouthed responses that could come from his bride to be. None of it meant he would stop telling her about all the things he found in the books he read. They were always worth hearing her reaction over. He turned the page and took the three steps back to the coffee maker, where his cup was now full and steaming with a coffee that could rival Starbucks in his opinion. Then again, when he was on campus, Gabe got used to the cheap sludge that many of the students made do with; college education wasn’t cheap after all, and Gabe had gone all the way to earn his doctorate. He still wasn’t through learning though. He knew people gave him the side eye when he confessed he was a scholar and not some regular nine to five guy in an office. His earnings were sporadic, but it was never about the money. Gabe could be piss poor and he would still be happy with a library card and access to knowledge.

He pushed the worn leather bookmark – a gift from his father – into the page he was on. Break time was over. The home looked like a war room with the amount of placards and papers with wedding options and designs on. Taking his cup, and then Fallon’s, he kept his book tucked under his arm. “So, any decisions made during my absence?” He asked, returning to the film professor and handing her the drink they probably both needed to get through this afternoon. Gabe was mostly playing support here, calming her when she got wild, or saying that he knew he had to get several men into suits on time and that he was organising them to get together for the end of the coming month. It wasn’t as big a deal as her dress, and he knew his event would end with drinks, and probably lots of them.

• • •

TAGGED! Fallon Alexandra Flynn
WORDS! 535!
LYRICS! A Million Dreams - - P!nk
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Fallon Alexandra Flynn]

Fallon had been dreaming about her wedding since she'd been a small child. Of course, back then, she hadn't had any real details and that much had stuck with her through her entire life. She didn't just want her wedding on the beach, it needed to be there. The water seemed to be her calm place, where she could go out and sit for a while, think about life and get everything that was bothering her off her chest. She didn't know when exactly, Gabe turned into her ocean but he kept her just as calm as those rolling waves did. He really was her rock and she really did love him beyond words. Fallon couldn't wait to be his wife, she just wished the whole process wasn't quite so taxing. Most things about their wedding were figured out, Fallon had been planning it since she'd been a small child surrounded by her very own princes and princesses before sword fighting and special effects really took hold of her attention. 

Her problem at the moment wasn't the little details that would be insignificant on the day or the fact that she still didn't have a dress and the wedding day seemed to be fast approaching. No, her problem was that Gabe needed to research the traditions and origins of things happening in his life and as the groom in this wedding, he took it upon himself to research weddings. She'd learned more about things she hadn't ever wanted to know since starting to plan this wedding than she'd ever wanted to know about anything that didn't involve one of the studio's films. But she did love that he was part of the planning process. She knew most men would have groaned at the thought and just offered to ask the men to stand up, get their suits and show up on the day. Fallon loved that Gabe was different, that he wanted to be part of everything. She just wished he would leave the information he found out about the past in the past. However, she had learned after the first few lessons, even before the wedding planning, that offering up the reaction he was looking for was a surefire way of keeping the antics going. Sometimes it amused her to give him what he was expecting but now, when neither of them could decide on which shade of white best suited their needs for their big day, she could do without the typical aftermath of her running her mouth and saying something wildly inappropriate. Instead, she smiled and made sure her middle finger was in plain view for Gabe to see while she otherwise ignored him and turned the page of the fabric sample book they had for napkins. 

Whoever decided there needed to be so many shades of white needed to have their head checked and then they needed to be shot. She understood, from a filming point of view that not every shade of white played on screen as well as another. She got that but that was work and this was supposed to be fun. The truth was that Fallon knew she was getting worked up for something trivial and that it wouldn't be worth it in five minutes, five years or five decades. But it was what her mind was gripping onto at that moment. There were other things that she could be taking care of, she didn't have flowers figured out yet for example but she was getting caught up in the ridiculous once again. At least she could relax knowing that her father and Bernadette had the caterers sorted, the band and the chairs and tents figured out. No bride hoped or expected rain on their wedding day but she would be prepared for whatever. "I've decided to put a hit out on whoever decided there needed to be fifty-six shades of white but that's as far as I've gotten. You pick," she said, pushing the larger binder away from her and taking her mug from Gabe's hand.

♦ ♦ ♦

TAG; gabriel pearce fitzpatrick
WORDS; 675
LYRICS; Mint --Lindsay Ell
NOTES; <3

[gabriel pearce fitzpatrick]

Gabe didn’t mind if they married on the beach, in a hotel venue or on the moon. He didn’t think red was better than purple for the colour scheme, or if the flowers were the right kind. He had, however, fell down a rabbit hole of the language of flowers from back in the Victorian age. However, he knew how much all of this meant to Fallon and he was doing his best to keep his mouth shut and not tell her if a flower she liked actually once stood for death and condolences. Or that they were marrying under an archway of friendship, not love. He might tell her one day, once they were married and when she wasn’t likely to glare or throw something at him. He could do without a black eye for the big day.

Even though he had little interest in some of the finer points, he still did his best to help her out when she asked. Most of the time he was just agreeing that something was nice or ticking something off on the to-do list that never seemed to get any shorter. Mostly, Gabe just wanted to be able to call Fallon his wife, to have it all signed and photographed so it all felt real and everlasting. There were times when Gabe had to pinch himself. Too many moments he had caught himself thinking this had all been a wonderful dream, but that he would soon wake up in his bed with a dog trying to steal his blanket. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.

“Fifty-Six shades of white? Is that the sequel to Fifty Shades of Grey?” He joked, wondering what on earth the difference could be with white if it wasn’t cream. Gabe sat in the empty space at the other end of the couch, shifting some of the binders and papers so that he had room without crumpling something that could be important. He placed his book on the table next to his mug and glanced over at what Fallon had been doing before the coffee provided a welcome break. “My brain is more academically wired than artistic. I can’t see a difference.” He shrugged, pushing his glasses back into place before reaching for his coffee mug and taking a sip. “Does it have to be white? Would another colour be easier to pick from?” He asked, trying to be helpful, though he doubted that he was anywhere in the ballpark of helpful right now. Maybe it was because he grew up with brothers, but he hadn’t realised there was so much to organise for a wedding. If Fallon had been okay with it, he would have eloped and then just thrown a party when they got back. He knew this wedding meant a lot to her though, and he wanted whatever she wanted for the big day; so long as he got to call her his wife when they fell into bed afterwards.

• • •

TAGGED! Fallon Alexandra Flynn
WORDS! 505!
LYRICS! A Million Dreams - - P!nk
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Fallon Alexandra Flynn]

Fallon didn't even care about the specifics further than her dress and making sure she got married on the beach outside her home to Gabe. She didn't actually care about a colour scheme or if the linens are the right shade of white. She didn't care if they had a full five-course meal curated by a Cordon Bleu-trained chef or if they had store-bought canapes that someone shoved in the oven to cook while the ceremony was taking place. Hell, she'd be happy with a food truck in the drive and drinks on the landing. She would be perfectly happy to have the people who raised her, her father and Bernadette, and Gabe's family there. The only thing she did want, other than that, was a warm, sunny day. Thunderstorms near the water were always a bit more unpredictable with waves and such but other than that, she just wanted Gabe.

She couldn't wait to call him her husband and tell people she was leaving to go see her husband and not just her boyfriend. While she would professionally remain a Flynn, she wanted to become Fallon Fitzpatrick. Fallon really hated all these minor details that everyone else seemed to get so caught up in. She didn't care if her bridesmaid's dressed the same, hell, she wasn't even all that concerned about the colour because she just wanted to walk down that aisle and see Gabe standing there looking back at her. She did, however, want the girly fun of picking out dresses and trying dozens on before finding the one. She was nowhere near as picky as people often thought she was. They had a habit of assuming that because she was blonde and wore designer shoes and lived in California that she was pretentious, stuck-up and snobby. The reality was, she spent most of her life getting dirty with the crews on film sets, making sure things were exactly how they imagined them when they thought out the details. These were the minor details that she would obsess over, not what shade of white she was the serviettes.

"Realistically, it doesn't matter. We're not putting this on film for the masses so the exact right shade of white is irrelevant but it's still irritating that they even bothered to put so many in here. No one can be this picky, can they?" She asked rhetorically. She knew the answer to that already and didn't need Gabe to confirm that there were, in fact, people out there crazy enough to demand the exact shade of white; even if twelve of them were actually the exact same colour with different names because of company brands. "Want to run away to Vegas?" She asked, also rhetorically. Their parents would be devastated if they'd pulled a stunt like that. She knew her father would be incredibly sad that he didn't get to walk her down the aisle and she imagined Gabe's mother would like to see her youngest boy say "I do", even if it was to a woman who'd no doubt made the worst first impression on the planet. They'd laughed about it afterwards and she waved Fallon's hundreds of apologies away, knowing the reason she'd reacted the way she had was because she'd been caught off-guard. Fallon loved that woman almost as much as she loved her son and did not want to disappoint her.

♦ ♦ ♦

TAG; gabriel pearce fitzpatrick
WORDS; 564
LYRICS; Mint --Lindsay Ell
NOTES; <3

[gabriel pearce fitzpatrick]

Gabe was something of a romantic. He would easily and happily admit to that. Weddings, however, weren’t something he had too much experience with, or had given much thought to. He was more caught up in the shorter moments, the things that would become memories to look back on. He had spent weeks making sure the proposal was just perfect, but Gabe hadn’t given a minute of thought to what would come after that – at least not in terms of the big day. He supposed he had believed Fallon would have her wishes for that and Gabe was more than happy to give her everything she wanted for it. The only thing he had ever brought up had been accessibility measures for his mom, and that was something he was used to mentioning whenever they looked at family vacations or he was booking restaurants and tickets in the city when she came to visit him. He knew he wanted his family there when he married Fallon, and he knew that there would be more trouble than it was worth if the Greek brothers didn’t get to show up and party at some point too. They called it tradition, but Gabe knew they mostly just enjoyed the chance to pretend like they weren’t actually grown ups now with college and Frat parties collecting dust in their rear-view mirrors.

“Someone must be or they wouldn’t exist.” Gabe pointed out, thankful to any deity that might have been listening in that Fallon was not one of those picky types. He wasn’t sure he could handle a complete Bridezilla. He didn’t mind helping out with the wedding planning, found that he enjoyed sitting through some of the discussions and samples, but Gabe was not fit for this sort of thing day in and day out. He was an academic. He liked books and history and the world that came before. He didn’t handle screaming tantrums from fully grown women, or high maintenance demands. He just wanted peace and quiet, and the company of a house full of animals while he worked, and then to spend an evening with Fallon, teasing her and listening to her tales of the day while he made dinner. Gabe didn’t want to be totally distanced from all of the wedding planning, but he was grateful that she had girl friends who could be there when Fallon did need to worry over dress fabrics or gripe about the flower arrangements Gabe thought he was likely to sneeze over if he was asked to look at too many.

Chuckling, he pulled Fallon close and pressed a light kiss to the top of her head. “If we ran away to Vegas we’d have to keep running because there would be a long line of angry people chasing after us and you know it.” He pointed out. Gabe knew that Fallon would regret eloping, just as much as he knew that she’d adore every minute of their wedding day when it rolled around. Nothing worth having ever came easy. “And my knee is not built for running.” His knee was barely built for making it up the stairs in the Humanities Building at NYU, but Gabe disliked the rickety old elevator in that place, and he was reluctant to admit that his body was struggling at the grand of age of twenty-five. But that was a fight for another day.

• • •

TAGGED! Fallon Alexandra Flynn
WORDS! 573!
LYRICS! A Million Dreams - - P!nk
NOTES! <3 <3 <3

[Fallon Alexandra Flynn]

Fallon was getting closer and closer to the idea that running away and eloping was a good idea. It wasn’t and she knew that, but it seemed like such a simple option. Just go, say those two words that seemed to seal that particular deal and be done with it all. The only thing that stopped her was knowing that her father and Gabe’s mother would both be heartbroken if they did it. She loved them both so much that she didn’t want to cause any harm to them and knew that the wedding day for her wasn’t about the show and the pomp, but it was for them just as it was for Gabe and Fallon. It was the only wedding Fallon was ever going to have and Gabe was the baby of his family; and as far as Fallon was concerned, it was the only wedding he was having, too. The truth of it all wasn’t that she was stressed about planning the wedding, it was just that there were so many little things and she just wanted the day to get there. She didn’t care if it was perfect, she didn’t care if it rained or snowed or hailed. She didn’t care if a volcano went of right there or the house blew up behind them, she just wanted to marry Gabe. She’d helped to plan dozens of weddings for films. She knew what she liked and what she didn’t, and she knew that Gabe didn’t really care, though he seemed to at least like that she asked his opinion on matters. He was happy to have his nose in the history books and let Fallon do the rest.

If she hadn’t been so set on getting married on the private bit of beach behind her childhood home, her only real request for the day, she would have planned the whole thing on the Fitzpatrick family farm. Except, aside from Gabe’s arms, that was the place she felt safest. That was the only other place she called home and she couldn’t imagine her wedding day without her little bit of sea in the background. It hadn’t taken her a minute to know how she was going to make sure her mother-in-law was able to comfortably get down the aisle and immediately made some calls out to the West Coast and the studio out there. So, before she’d had anything else sorted out and organised, she’d had bit of plywood, wide enough for an aisle cut up to be in pieces, because she wanted to walk down the aisle barefoot, to set down for when it was time. They were already even in the garage of the house, just waiting for the day, which was quickly approaching. Fallon was excited and knew that these little things were the last of it all. After this was sorted, she only had to worry about getting her hair and nails done. Her dress was almost ready, one or two more fittings would suffice, and she had just offered a colour scheme for her bridesmaids instead of specific styles in mind. She wanted them to be comfortable in the dresses and figured the best way that could happen is if they picked them out themselves. If they wanted her to go along, she would be more than happy to do so, of course, but if they just wanted to get something quick, that was just as good with the bride-to-be.

Fallon closed her eyes and leaned into Gabe a little more for a second or two. She loved this man with everything she had in her and knew without a doubt that she would continue to love him long past her dying day. “I know people. We could have new identities in a couple days.” She said with as much of a serious tone as she could muster but there was still mischief there that would give her away in a second. No, she wanted this wedding; she just wanted it to get there already. “You know, we could just close our eyes and point at all the options and pick that way? If it’s wrong or it clashes, Bernie will just fix it for us.” She pointed out with a grin. Really, they were doing this to send out to Bernadette so she could finish up the loose ends on her end. It was all happening out there anyway, and Bernie was the face of the wedding on that end. Fallon and Gabe were the ones supposedly making the decisions, but the reality was, the only woman Fallon had ever felt like calling “Mom” was the one doing all the real heavy lifting. “And then we could spend our time doing something I find infinitely more fun.” She teased, leaning close and pressing her lips to Gabe’s shoulder.

♦ ♦ ♦

TAG; gabriel pearce fitzpatrick
WORDS; 807
LYRICS; Mint --Lindsay Ell
NOTES; <3[/quote]

[gabriel pearce fitzpatrick]

As soon as they were married and the honeymoon began, Gabe had every intention of spoiling Fallon. He knew she wanted to spend a long time locked in the bedroom, but he also had a desire to help her relax after all this wedding planning. It might have been easy for him to be distracted by the cultural traditions that accompanied the wedding scene, but he wasn’t the one who had to make sure the colour combination matched perfectly from the dresses to the flowers to the icing on the cake; if it was left to him then the whole day would probably look more like a patchwork quilt than the well put together dream that Fallon was carefully piecing together. He could only be there when she asked for his opinion and then ensure that she got to enjoy the actual day after all the hard work she put in.

Gabe held Fallon close, savouring the moment for as long as he could stretch it out for. He still wasn’t sure how he’d ended up so lucky after a lifetime of cupid misfiring every shot he took. He couldn’t imagine his life without Fallon – hell, he didn’t want to imagine it either. He was so damn grateful every single day that he got to spend each one with her, and that she had agreed to spend the rest of hers with him, even if he drove her crazy with the random facts of trivia he came across in his research; he knew some of them left her feeling a little less than peachy sometimes. Still, she listened to him, and she’d let him get excited over those little things whereas so many people in the past would have just mocked him and told him to shut up when he was in the middle of explaining what he had just found out and how it was going to change the nature of his paper.

“I like my identity though. It suits me.” He joked, pressing a light kiss to the side of her head, continuing as though this was as serious as their daily conversations about what they’d have for dinner. “I’m not answering that phone call to explain why you’ve put emerald with…” He paused to read the first colour card that appeared when he picked one at random from the pile on the table. “vermillion orange.” He finished, tossing it back down as quickly as he had picked it up. He had no idea how wedding planners did this on a daily basis. He was going cross-eyed looking at most of the stuff that was in the apartment, but at least they were only making these choices once. Gabe pulled Fallon close, kissing her back and smiling into it before sighing as he pulled away slowly. “As much as I love any excuse for that, I will not be your excuse to avoid all of this.” He gestured back to the table of wedding materials and raised his eyebrows. “I’m more chaos than order, but can I help with anything?” It sounded like a silly question given that he was the groom, but he didn’t want to try to help and only cause more mess and trouble for his already stressed out bride.

• • •

TAGGED! Fallon Alexandra Flynn
WORDS! 555!
LYRICS! A Million Dreams - - P!nk
NOTES! <3 <3 <3