One Shots #VariaSquad

Marry You

It's a beautiful night, we're looking for something dumb to do.
Hey baby, I think I wanna marry you.

~ Marry You by Bruno Mars

Las Vegas, Sin City, City of Lights, Capital of Second Chances, The Marriage Capital of the World. And, in the year 2020, host city of the International Indian Film Academy Awards, more commonly known as the IIFA Awards.

A number of Bollywood stars were found in The Silver City over the three days the festival spanned, many leaving the day after it finished but a few, mainly the younger lot, remaining behind for a few days to relax and let loose, celebrate their successes and their failures too, celebrate being alive. Among those that remained were Varun Dhawan and Alia Bhatt, both relishing in the luck they'd had over the weekend, managing to bag best actor and actress in a leading role for their performances the previous year. 

But, while they're basking in their victories, they're also trying to hide their sorrows. 

He's finally ended his on-again, off-again relationship with his high school girlfriend and, while he knows that it's for the best, that the love wasn't there anymore and hadn't been for a long time, there's still a sadness in him, a feeling that only grows as he watches the people around him talk about their other halves or sit in couples. 

She, on the other hand, hasn't been in a relationship for a long time. She's good with that, doesn't really care if she has a boyfriend or not, but as she watches her friend of ten years hide his feelings behind too bright smiles and short laughs, she feels a different kind sadness. Mostly she feels it for him but some of it is for her, for the way she still feels for him and the impossibility of anything coming of those feelings. 

The night after the awards weekend has finished, she decides to do something to get them both out of their own heads and convinces him to accompany her to a club, telling him there's no way they're going to leave Vegas without having gone out at least once. He's reluctant but eventually agrees when she asks if he'd rather she go alone and end up wondering around the city drunk and by herself. 

His plan is to stay sober the whole night but, once they're in the club and he sees the shots of tequila she's ordered lined up on the bar, he thinks of the burn of alcohol going down his throat and the giddy feeling he'll experience when it gets into his system and clouds his brain and he decides to join her, downing three out of the six shots in front of them. 

Over the next few hours, he follows the three shots with a shot of vodka, a jaeger bomb and a martini, interspersing his drinking with dancing, Alia going with him to and from the dance floor to the bar, both of them more than a little tipsy before three hours are up. 

She's giggly and can't barely walk straight and he's holding her up while cracking jokes and making her laugh some more. They decide to leave the club, aware that they've both reached their capacities - probably exceeded them. As they're walking down the brightly lit streets of Las Vegas, he looks at her and he doesn't know if it's the way her eyes are shining with laughter and it seems like the stars are reflected in them or the alcohol coursing through his veins or the fact that they're here in a city known as the Capital of Second Chances but he decides to throw caution to the wind. 'You know what, let's do something stupid,' he tells her, feeling completely reckless and completely correct in what he's thinking. 

'How stupid?' she asks, giggling at the way he's looking at her. 

'Let's get married,' he tells her in answer.