Throughout his years, Deacon had often been praised for being calm under pressure.
"No matter the situation you always hold it together and soldier through, it is an admirable quality," He had been told more than once. Right at that moment, Deacon wanted to find those people and ask them where the Deacon Roth who held it together no matter the situation was, because he desperately needed that person.
But unfortunately, he was too busy losing it to even think of where exactly he might find those qualities in himself. To be fair, Deacon had every right to be losing it a bit.
He was in a hotel room with Haley Slater. Not only that, he had spent the night sharing a bed with her, that on its own was horrible.
Then the two of them had then gone on to take a flaming dumpster fire, and had thrown it off a cliff with both of them still in the flames.
He and Slater in all of their drunken glory, had decided to get married. It was not even the joke of a marriage that Deacon had initially thought it was. The one where he believed that they had just exchanged rings.
The two of them were legally married, papers signed and all. For a moment his mind briefly fleshed to the chapel across from the club, the one that Deacon had scoffed at when a much more sober him had seen it.
Back then he had laughed at the thought of drunk idiots getting married in an establishment that sat across from a club. As it turned out, he was one of those drunk idiots who would get married in such a place.
What had he done? How could he, his stream of thought, was cut off by the sound of a muffled scream, when he looked over. It was to the sight of Slater screaming with all her might, a pillow held against her face.
When the scream ended, Slater lowered the pillow a bit. She looked up, stared at Deacon, then after taking a deep breath, she brought the pillow back to her face. This time, she allowed herself to fall on her back on the bed. Her legs kicking in the air as she continued screaming once more.
How am I married to such a creature? He thought in disbelief as he watched her literally throwing a tantrum on the bed.
'Yep, that is your wife,' The unforgiving part of his brain, emphasized, and Deacon still could not wrap his mind around it. There were so many things that he could have done while drunk. So many of them regrettable, but still manageable.
He could have gone out there and gotten himself a tattoo. That would have been a very bad decision, but it would have been preferable to waking up as Haley Slater's husband. He could have come to the hotel room with a stripper. At the very least he would have thrown some money at the stripper and been done with it. Heck, even running around naked with the paparazzi taking pictures of him would have been preferable to this.
He, Deacon Roth, the man who wanted nothing to do with marriage, was married. He had literally just told his father the previous day that he did not want to get married. He had been so adamant, so sure of himself. Yet he was a married man to
Haley Slater of all people.
"Haley Slater is my wife," Deacon Roth said the words out loud to himself, and it caused an instant migraine that had him falling to his knees. Eyes tightly shut, his hands thrown over his ears. Almost as though by doing that he would be able to stop himself from hearing the words.
But they were still there, ringing around in his head, amplifying the effects of his hangover. Watching Slater as she continued to freak out, Deacon decided that he too was done being logical for a bit.
What use was keeping a level head in that moment? It was not helping him come up with solutions for the issue.
Instead, he was just stuck, staring at his wife while his mind did its best to tear him apart. His father was going to disown him when he caught wind of the marriage. Not only would he disown him, he would give the company over to Brian Deacon's wasteful younger brother.
All the years of work that Deacon had put in, his dedication to the company, would mean absolutely nothing in the face of this monumental mess that Deacon had made. What had he done?!
Taking a leaf out of Slater's book, Deacon walked over to the bed and grabbed his own pillow. Then, not even bothering to feel ridiculous or childish, he brought it to his face and screamed.
The sound muffled as it was, did not help with his hangover, plus the stress, induced headache.
And when Deacon finally came up for air, he found that the temporary lack of oxygen took away his ability to think for a bit. Something that he normally would have been very disquieted by, but in that moment it was exactly what he needed. Looking over, he found that Slater was still screaming into her own pillow.
And so Deacon did the only thing he could, he buried his own face in his pillow and started screaming again. If somebody, from the outside, were able to look in, they would be very interested to know what sort of weird party the two were having.
But it was not a celebration of any kind, it was simply two people, mourning the loss of their freedom. Haley Slater and Deacon Roth were officially married. The only way things could get worse would be if the world ended that very day...there were no signs of that happening.