Come What May [OPEN!]

[niepokonany]

WHO: Fai, Feliks, and anyone and everyone!
WHAT: Mr. Feliks Łukasiewicz and Mr. Fai Flourite, together with their families, have requested the honor of your presence at their wedding!
WHERE: In and around the Institute!
WHEN: Backdated to April 7th.
WARNING(S): Alcohol use among the mostly-responsible adults, potentially lethal concentrations of fierceness. If anything unexpected happens, put it in the subject lines!



The last six years dragged and dragged, and the last six weeks have been such a rush.

Getting everything put together on such short notice has involved pulling a number of strings, a nearly impossible amount of free time, and an amount of money that Feliks would rather not even talk about, but when the big day dawns bright and clear, there's no time to worry about any of that. All morning, there's a bustle of activity as the decorations are set up and a small legion of Polish and Italian aunts occupy the kitchen -- it'd be pretty hard to miss all the commotion if you tried.

The ceremony is in the afternoon, with the reception stretching into the evening. Everyone is invited, and the dress code is "be fabulous." So, what are you all waiting for?

[OOC: Will put up headers for different parts of the party. Feel free to use this as a mingle opportunity!]

Comments

[niepokonany]

Feliks led her along, speeding up gradually until they were keeping pace with the music. He tried to keep the steps simple, just guiding their direction to keep them circling around the dance floor, his own skirts sweeping along behind them.

[eileaneathompson]

And he would hear something few people at this school have heard since... well... ever. Eli, not a clone, but ELI, laughed.

A simple laugh of a girl just... having a ton of fun. Real, unmarred by shyness or nerves or anything. His skirt, her skirt, their feet... She had completely lost that she was dancing with a guy, that there were people around, that there were reasons to be self-conscious; and for perhaps the first time since June... she was having a really good time. She was having fun.

This was the Eli her friends saw, broad smile, soft laugh, eyes shining as she focuses on whatever she's trying. This was who Eli was, at her core, when she wasn't trying to be what she thought others wanted from her.

[niepokonany]

As someone who had never much cared what people thought of him, never had time for pretending to be anything or anyone, Feliks often found himself at a little bit of a loss with Eli. Seeing all the knots she tied herself into to make herself inoffensive was dizzying and exhausting, and he could never quite shake the feeling that he'd accidentally said something to imply to her that she'd done something wrong when he'd just meant to be friendly.

But this Eli... He liked her like this. Feliks grinned, giving her a little whirl, without a care in the world for the occasional faltering step, or for anything but the simple, innocent fun of the dance.

[eileaneathompson]

She giggled as she was spun... until on the spin back, she looked up accidentally... and... saw all the people around them. She stumbled as she was suddenly aware again that there were people around.

She flushed darkly, as she tumbled into him, wide eyed, and pale under the blush.

[niepokonany]

At first, he was confused.

But he could see a bit of himself in the way she looked at everyone -- could remember all the places he'd felt alone in a crowd, all the times that the presence of strangers had ever felt like a weight that would crush him. There was a lot about the way she thought that he couldn't understand -- but that was a feeling he knew.

"It's cool, myszko," he murmured, like he was talking to a spooked animal, squeezing her hand in his and continuing the dance like nothing was wrong. "I actually don't like strangers much, either, you know. But we're just dancing, ok? Don't think about them."

[eileaneathompson]

She clung to him, to his words and to his hand as she desperately tried to dance with him without making a fool of them.

"But... they... they're here for your wedding, they're your friends... right? Not... not strangers to you," she whispered. She envied him, not the wedding part, but having this many people who would come out for him.

She knew... if she had a party... Krista would show up. Maybe. If anyone else did... she'd be shocked. She... she felt so alone.

[niepokonany]

"I mean, most of them are? I don't know a ton of Fai's, like, great-great-aunts who only speak Swedish and English with a hilarious Swedish accent or whatever. And we did sort of go ahead and invite like half the school."

He'd done a lot of dancing in his life, so with him in the lead, there wasn't too much thinking or effort necessary after learning the basic step. He kept it all simple, sweeping her around the floor, trying to keep her from having to do any of the work.

"You're pretty new here, so you're still meeting people, right? Like, when I'd been here a few months, I just had Fai, and... well, a couple other people, but the point is, it wouldn't have looked like this! Don't let it get you down too much, ok?"

[eileaneathompson]

"I.... I used to have friends," she said softly. She looked down at their feet again, this time out of a feeling of shame. "But..." she shook her head, closing her eyes as they moved.

Dang it... this was his wedding day. She shouldn't be ruining it this way. "S...sorry," she whispered, shaking. "Sorry."

[niepokonany]

Myszko. Little mouse. She was definitely a myszko.

He shook his head, even if she wouldn't see, and gave her hand another chaste little squeeze.

"No skin off my back, babe." She hadn't done a thing to hurt him, had she? "It's ok. You make new friends here." He paused, and then admitted: "I didn't used to. Before here, I mean. Like... at all."

[eileaneathompson]

"H...how could...you ever not have friends?" she asked, stunned. "You... you seem like anyone would want to be your friend. I mean... you freaked me out at first... but... well.... Guys never talked to me one on one before I came here..." she said softly. "I had no clue how to handle it..."

Her voice was a small whisper.

[niepokonany]

He shrugged, wondering at it a little himself. Not really at how people had never liked him -- more at how completely he'd grown into himself since then.

"I know, I'm pretty fabulous -- they just had the worst taste, I guess?" He smiled, thinner and more wry than usual. "That, and I guess I freak a lot of people out at first. I mean, I'm kinda out there, right? I say what I think all the time, and I don't really take people's crap, plus people somehow figured out I was gonna grow up gay years before I was even old enough to get a crush on anybody, and that didn't go over so hot in a Catholic school. And I used to talk kinda more like this, like veeth the accent and vhatever, and I've always been small, so I got beat up a lot even before my mutation turned up."

Even talking about this, he sounds... somehow untouched by it. There's always been something in him that none of that and nothing since could break, and as an adult, he's completely secure in it.

[eileaneathompson]

"No one liked me until we moved, until the braces came off." Braces was putting it mildly.

"Then on the first day of school at my new school... suddenly..." she shrugged as they danced. "I had a choice, if I changed to a skirt, I'd have friends. And I did. I've worn dresses ever since. And until High School Graduation... I.... I always had friends. Then suddenly... Suddenly.... no one. Everyone went different ways for summer, went to different colleges... None of my so called friends have called me, responded to my emails or texts..."

[niepokonany]

"Lucky. They would have hit me harder if they knew about the dresses," Feliks said, not losing even a little of his cheer over it. If you could laugh at the things that hurt you, he believed, that meant they hadn't won.

"But hey -- maybe they're super busy, I don't know. If they're worth it, you shouldn't give up on staying in touch... Just don't let it hold you back from all the awesome people you can meet here, ok?"

[eileaneathompson]

"I've tried meeting people here..." she mumbled, then shook her head. "Is the student population 90% male or what?" she asked, still looking at his feet. "I mean... seriously.... And pretty much every time I think I made a female friend... after a month or two... she's just... gone."

She sighed heavily. "I... I have one friend now.. well... and you... but... I just keep waiting, you know? Till she decides I'm not worth it..."

[niepokonany]

"What, like you can't be friends with guys? I mean, I think it's about half and half, but..."

He shrugs a bit, continuing to lead her as the song changes to a slower, calmer one.

"Don't let that limit you, you know? And don't give up. The people who like you for you are gonna be out there."

[eileaneathompson]

"Guys are too hard to talk to," she mumbled. "And... I don't care if my friends like me for me... so long as they like me... I'll be whoever they want me to be," she said softly.

[niepokonany]

"Okay, um..."

Wow, how was he supposed to put this delicately? Normally, he wouldn't even try, but she already sort of seemed about to burst into tears, too obviously for even him to miss.

"You... don't think that might be kind of part of your problem? I mean, how's anybody supposed to get to be your friend if you don't let them know you?"

[eileaneathompson]

"What's to know?" she asked with a small shrug as she stared at their dancing feet. "I'll be whoever my friends want me to be. That's who I've been since I made friends that first day in the new school, back in Elementary."

She honestly does not see the things that make her... her. She does not see that the things she used to hide from her friends back home are the very things that would make her friends by the boatload here. She doesn't even see those things as noteworthy, really.

If anything, she hides them because they're too much like Andrea. And that was the line drawn in the sand when she was younger. Like Andrea, or one of "the girls". She put on the skirt, because she and Andrea were the only ones in pants. Because she would rather have a cluster of friends that she could make herself fit with... than befriend one girl who might truly see her and like her.. as she was. For who she was.

Andrea was the only one from High school who ever texted Eli, tried to stay in contact with Eli... and Eli kept blowing her off because by now it was ingrained... talking to Andrea was social suicide.

[niepokonany]

"Ok, this is my wedding, so I'm allowed to give advice like an old person," he decreed. Because he obviously had to be doing something right to get to this point, didn't he?

"The people worth hanging onto? They'll love you without you having to act like someone else. The others can either get on your level or get lost."

[eileaneathompson]

"Harder to say that when there aren't really any choices," she told him softly, then shook her head. "But you're right, it's your wedding, you should be having a blast, dancing with everyone, laughing, eating kissing your... ah... kissing him."

She was mumbling and pulled herself up short. "I should probably just go."

[niepokonany]

Feliks sulked openly, looking for all the world young enough to be in high school.

"Ah-- hey, don't just ignore what I'm saying like that! I was being way serious! And I've got plenty of time for my husband in a minute." The way she shied away from the word sort of grated at him -- what, like he didn't get to use the same word for it as everyone else did?

"Just think about it, ok? If you wanna make the best kind of friends, the ones who stick with you, you have to let them see who you actually are. That's all I'm saying!"

[eileaneathompson]

Not that he couldn't use the word, more like she was afraid of not knowing what word he wanted her to use.

"I...I know you were being serious," she said softly. "And you shouldn't have to be on what was meant to be a wonderful day for you and your husband."

Once he made it clear that was the right word, she had no problem using it, didn't even realize the mild censure in how he had said it.

"But there is nothing to me, beyond wanting to make my friends happy. There's nothing to see, okay?!"

She flushed, realizing she had said that a little too loudly.

[niepokonany]

His patience was running a little bit short. "Honey, it'll take a lot more than you and your identity crisis to rain on my parade."

He wasn't angry, just a little frustrated that she wasn't listening when, for once in his life, he actually knew how to help with a social situation. He'd let it go in half a second, once the conversation was over, but as far as he was concerned, it wasn't yet.

"Just -- think about it, ok? That can be your wedding gift. I'd like that better than, I don't know, a coffee maker or whatever anyway."

[eileaneathompson]

She sighed and nodded. "Alright... I'll think about it."

Not... that there was really much to think about. Or anything, really.

[niepokonany]

Feliks executes a terribly gallant bow for a man in voluminous, floor-length layers of silk and tulle, not letting go of her hand just yet.

"Pinky promise?"