A Wall Between

Chapter 44

"I feel like sometimes that can make for even nicer pictures, though," Cooper said. "Life isn't picture perfect. People aren't. When it comes to people I care about, the version of them I'd pick every single time is the real one, flaws and all."

"Too cheesy for me," Mason said. "Anyway, Sasha, do you want to learn how to feed the kitten after the ceremony? You can be my emergency backup kitten feeder."

"Okay," Sasha said.

"Aren't you already Bianca's emergency backup kitten feeder?" Cooper asked.

"Listen, I have anxiety," Mason said. "We need backups of backups or the kitten could die. He needs to eat every three to four hours. He doesn't even know how to poop on his own."

"Okay, yeah, that is kind of scary," Cooper admitted.

"It is, but also in a few weeks time he'll be able to eat out of a bowl and use a litter tray. Now think about a human baby. It's years before they can do even the most basic of self care. It's crazy. How is raising children something that most people do? Have you met most people? Have you met our parents? How are we alive?"

"Well, you can say a lot of things about mum, but she's not inattentive," Cooper pointed out. "I always remember being fed and more clean than I would have liked."

"Kept us out of danger a little too well," Mason grumbled. "Yeah, I guess that tracks. I do kind of wonder what dad would have done if it had been all up to him. Like, realistically if something had happened to mum, we'd have gone to grandparents or something, but if that hadn't been an option. If he'd genuinely been the only person who could take care of us. Part of me feels like he'd have just kicked our little infant selves into a corner and waited for us to starve."

"I can't imagine him actually doing that, but I can't imagine him feeding and changing a baby, either," Cooper admitted. "Both seem completely uncharacteristic, but one of them has to be what would happen."

"Maybe it would be like some of the wildly unethical experiments they did in the forties where they took a bunch of babies and only fulfilled their basic needs, like food and changing them, but gave them no affection and then half of them died before they called the experiment off. So, you know, he wouldn't intentionally kill us, but I'm sure he'd get there in the end."

Cooper sighed. "Yeah, that does sound about right."

"Anyway," Mason held up a digital camera and waggled it, "I'd better go get started taking pictures before people get wise to me and ruin my pictures by being aware they're being taken."

"Don't take bad pictures of me," Sasha said. "I always look bad in pictures."

"Cameras are tricky things like that. Some subjects are harder than others to capture properly, but that doesn't mean anything bad about them. Often it just means they're more complicated."

"Maybe," Sasha said. "I think mostly it just means that I stand weirdly and I don't even notice until someone takes a picture of me."

Cooper bumped his shoulder against Sasha's. "I like the way you stand. The way you move. It's different, but that doesn't mean that it's bad."

Sasha had a hard time really accepting or believing that, but he remembered what Cooper had said earlier about Sasha being different making him feel better about being different. He didn't want to put the idea into Cooper's head that maybe it was bad after all, and to be honest, he didn't really enjoy the idea being in his own head either.

"That's true," Sasha said. "Sometimes it's annoying because I don't like being reminded that people are perceiving me, but I don't think it matters outside of that."

"Good and true," Mason said. "Okay, photography time. I'll come find you after the ceremony."

Ellie and Abra came and joined them before the ceremony started and Sasha took a moment to relax and let his attention be focussed in on fussing over the kitten with Ellie. With her extravagant hairstyles and assertive personality, Ellie had intimidated Sasha at first, but now he found a unique kind of comfort in her presence. She could be as soft and gentle as a situation called for, but she also had a certain infectious confidence that everything would be okay and the capability to make sure that it was. She could make phone calls like it was nothing, which was very impressive to Sasha.

The ceremony started, and they were close enough to the speakers that Sasha could feel his stress metre filling from the steady drip, drip, drip of sensory overload from the slightly too loud music. Cooper shot him a concerned look and Sasha offered him a tight lipped expression and a thumbs up. He was okay. He could tolerate this for a little while. Sometimes very loud environments got so intense that Sasha would have to get away from it immediately or he'd just start crying or something, but this wasn't too bad.

The officiant didn't have anything very interesting to say, but she was less loud than the music, so Sasha wouldn't complain. Sasha focussed on stroking the kitten's head until it was Logan's turn to speak.

Logan fidgeted with a piece of paper he was holding and cleared his throat. "Bianca. I know we planned to keep things simple, but there were some things I wanted to say if you'll indulge me."

Bianca nodded her encouragement.

Logan nodded back and took a deep breath in before looking down at his sheet of paper. "Before I met you, I was lost. I was lonely and I didn't even realise it. I hated who I was, but it was so hard to do anything about it, because self improvement requires a love for yourself that I just didn't have. You saw in me the man I wanted to be, and like an archeologist you took a chisel and a brush and found the person who I am now buried beneath a rough and formless exterior. You brought light and beauty and love into my world, and I'll always be grateful for that. Thank you."

Bianca gave Logan a smile and a shake of her head. "Well, you're welcome, but you don't give yourself enough credit, Logan. I'm not the kind of woman to look at a broken man and think, I can fix him. Yes, you've struggled through a lot of things in the time I've known you and yes, I've helped you when I could, but you were the driving force behind every change you made. You knew what you wanted to change and you made it happen, and seeing you do that is part of what made me fall in love with you. It's not easy to admit to your faults and to actually change."

Logan gave Bianca a soft smile as he reached out and took her hand. "It's a lot easier when you have a partner who you can talk to about these sorts of things and know they won't make you feel worse."

"You're going to be such a good dad," Bianca said as she held eye contact with Logan. "Okay?"

Logan took a deep breath in and nodded his head. There was a moment of silence between them, and then Logan let out a sigh. "Well, uh. Vows now, right?"

A tittering of laughter broke the silence that had fallen over the crowd and the ceremony continued.

The ceremony didn't go too much longer. Vows and rings were exchanged, then Logan and Bianca were pronounced married and they kissed. There was more loud music, and then as they were all getting up from their seats to disperse for cocktail hour, Mason returned and tapped Sasha on the shoulder. "Ready to learn how to feed a kitten?"

Sasha exchanged a glance with Cooper and then nodded. "Okay."

"You take care of him for me," Cooper told Mason as Mason snagged Sasha's suit sleeve and led him off through the crowd.

"Uh huh," Mason called back.