My Best Friend's Wedding
Disclaimer: Seriously? I still don't own a thing. I wish I did – that means I wouldn't be pretty much broke…
AN: So, now this chapter is relatively short compared to some others. Still, there is a LOT going on here.
Chapter seven: Putting the big girl panties on
Her best underwear has been located in a special baggie in her suitcase, and she is getting ready to blow some minds – hopefully mostly Marius'.
She is going to make him regret that he ever hurt her like this – by making him want all of the things that he can no longer have. He can never have her again, because she is not sure if she can ever forgive him for misleading her like that.
"Are you dressed yet," Enjolras calls out from their bedroom.
"I thought the point was me not being dressed," she shouts back from her spot in front of the bathroom mirror. "This is the bachelor party after all. Clothed women not allowed."
Once again, she has made the great Enjolras really uncomfortable with her lackadaisical approach towards wearing clothing. Her tendency to sleep in a sports bra and panties has disturbed him from the beginning, and now that they have been sharing a bed for over a week, it just might be getting to him. She is not bothered by it; she is mostly amused by his response of covering himself up every single night.
"I do not even want to know," he sounds like he is rolling his eyes at her.
As she looks herself over one last time in the gigantic mirror, she knows that she has to freak Enjolras out by walking into their bedroom dressed just like this – wearing only her sexy underwear and heels. She just has to judge the effect.
So she checks herself just one more time in the mirror before throwing the door open and revealing herself in her current barely dressed state.
"What the hell are you doing?" she gets the exact response that she was expecting.
"That is not the effect that I am hoping to get with this," she teases gently.
She is not a model, she knows that much about herself, but somehow his outright rejection really hurts her feelings – it seems as if he cannot even stand to look at her, and she knows that she has really crossed a line with him. She never should have thought that it was funny to freak him out like this, but she cannot back down now that she has made that stupid decision, so she has to stick with it until the end.
"Why are you still dressed like this?" he cannot look at her anymore.
"I am just testing," she sits down next to him on the gigantic bed.
If Marius were to come in at this point, he would probably be really surprised, and also really impressed with Enjolras for getting her mostly naked on the bed. The other boys would probably have an even better response to this situation, because they know that they are faking this relationship – and doing it quite well, if she does say so herself. He has been a constant surprise over the course of this week, and he has been a pretty good partner in crime right until now. He seems more uncomfortable with this plan than he was when they first formed it, and she has absolutely no idea why.
"Well, maybe you should test this on someone else," he finally looks at her.
"Sure," she puts on her sarcastic bitch voice. "You just call over the boys and we'll have a little pageant. Are you serious? I am supposed to be your girlfriend, so you're supposed to be the only guy who sees me in stuff like this."
That is one of the pretty obvious things about a faked relationship. If Marius finds out that she had other boys around when wearing this, there would be no way that he would still believe their charade – and everything would have been for nothing. She will not be able to handle all of this if it has meant nothing in the long run.
"If I'm the only one seeing you like this," Enjolras turns into a skeptical shit, much to her surprise, "you are going to have some serious problems coming out of that cake in front of everyone in the Amis and not letting them see you like this."
Well, she is not going to wear a fucking burka when she comes out of that cake. It defeats the purpose of the entire endeavor. Ugh, her sarcasm is going to be the death of someone, and she figures that it might be him. They are not getting along, and she has no idea why he can suddenly be so angry at something he used to support.
"I thought you were going to be supportive of my plans," she shoots back at him.
"I am supportive," he groans. "I am just pointing out that your logic is very flawed."
It is not as if she is going out just wearing her underwear; she does have little more class than that. And when she says a little, she really means that.
"I'm going to be wearing my sexy dress over this," she announces, now looking for said dress in the closet. "So I'll have decent coverage. Well, when I say decent…"
The dress is now located and she knows that it will not leave very much to the imagination. She is going to have to take off the bra, because there is no way she can wear a dress with that little back to it and that much cleavage and not have most of her bra on display. Oh yes, the bra has got to go.
"Turn around for a bit," she tells him before slipping off her bra.
"I still don't see why you need to do this," he now has his back to her.
She slips on the dress with easy, and while the length of the fabric would only work with heels, the splits up the side of the dress show off a lot of dress. Her red dress is her beautiful dress, but this is her va-va-voom Sexy Dress ™, that never comes out of the closet unless she really has to give it her all. So, it has been gathering dust for years until this very occasion, when it finally gets its day to really shine.
"I'm as decent as I am going to be," she announces, fiddling with the clasps in the front.
"This is what you call decent?" is his surprised reaction when seeing her again.
While the front of her halter dress is being held together by a clasp underneath her breasts, the back of it is tied together in her neck and in the middle of her back. The ties are the only thing covering the expanse of her back, and the cleavage is cut to below the clasp on the front. And because she is taking a provocative pose, most of her legs are showing as well. He appears to be completely scandalized.
"This is what I call the most decent a girl at a bachelor party gets," she poses for him.
"You shouldn't do this, Ponine," he gets serious with her. "Please just stay home."
Why would she give up on Marius now? She loves him still, even though he has hurt her – that is probably the most painful realization of all. She can boast about how she does not need him and she can do it without him and that she hates him now, but she never will because he will always be her Marius. She is pretty sure that she is going to be in love with him for the rest of her life – she just has to learn how to deal with that.
"I am not giving up," she has to explain what this means to her.
"Not going does not mean that you are giving up," he is basically pleading with her to stay behind. "It means that you respect yourself enough to not be made into a joke – these girls in the cakes are treated like jokes. You are better than that."
While it is nice to hear that he has a high opinion of her, she does not want him to keep her from completing her plans. She has to do this, because this is the only way that she can show Marius she is also a woman – and not just his little friend.
It is the only way, right?
"Is this really so important to you?" she has to ask.
"I promise that we are not giving up," he gives her no direct answer. "We will keep on making Marius pay for hurting you. But just not tonight, okay. Wait until tomorrow."
When all else fails, she can try this again in a less public setting. She does not really want the Amis to see her like this, right? It would just be way too awkward – not that she could not deal with awkward situations like this one. Yeah, she would be able to manage something like this just fine, because she is smart and capable.
"Okay," she reluctantly agrees to his one demand.
"I will be back early," he promises her in return. "I won't be drinking anyway, and I doubt that I will have a lot of fun at a shindig like this one anyway."
His use of vocabulary can be so wonderful sometimes that she almost forgets that she is supposed to be at least a little bit mad at him. He acts like a total stick in the mud but he is a master at using the right words in most situations.
"I love that you said shindig," she giggles at him, sitting on the bed in her dress.
"It is because of my love for space westerns," he returns, looking quite dapper in his suit.
She then gets up and basically pushes him out of the door, because she does not want him to be late for the party on her account – even though he is definitely not looking forward to it all that much and he would probably rather be late. He almost gets his jacket caught in the door, and she almost admonishes him for wearing such a fancy suit to a bachelor party, because it will only get dirty. Then she stops in her tracks, because she understands that this is his battle suit, the one that makes him strong.
"Make good choices," she shouts after him through a closed door.
There is no response, which she was already expecting.
Now there is nothing left for her to do but to change back into her sleeping clothes and wait for Enjolras to come back from the party. Really, there is literally nothing to do in their room. She has not brought any books with her, figuring that she would not need them to keep herself occupied, and the guestroom that they are staying in does not have a TV. She can take a nice, long bath, but that is just about it.
Her beautiful Sexy Dress ™ must once again gather dust in the back of her closet, because she probably will not have another perfect situation in which to wear it. It covers too little to wear it to any kind of formal education, but it is too formal to wear it to any other occasion. Really, she either has to have a slutty theme party, or she is going to have to find another cake to climb out of – which will probably never happen, unless she takes up stripping as a second job. And she is never doing that again.
It was just the one time for her, and unless the love of her life asks her to do it for him – in the privacy of their bedroom – she is not doing that again.
"All by myself," she sings softly, trying not to do a dramatic reenactment.
This just makes her feel like prom night all over again, and that thought is what makes everything turn around again. She is not going to be that wallflower again.
e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e- e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e
It is not hard to get to the same club that the men are supposed to be at. Enjolras told her the name of the place when he was still supporting the cake idea, and the name is different enough for there to be only one place of that name.
Of course she is still wearing the Sexy Dress ™. She is going to the bachelor party, whether Enjolras wants her there or not – this has nothing to do with him anyway. It is all about Marius and about her getting him back, and maybe getting him to accept the position as the love of her life and the father of her future children.
Their kids would be the most adorable awkward shits to ever live on the planet, because they would have his eyes and his adorable freckles, and maybe they would have her dark hair or her stubbornness. She could live with them being miniatures of Marius, though.
"No, Ponine," Enjolras has already found her, and he did it so quickly.
"Just let me go, Enjolras," she demands of him. "Let me do what I want here."
Her arms are locked in his grasp, and she is trying not to feel trapped, but it is getting harder by the second. She knows that he would not hurt her, but his crowding her is still terrible enough to possibly trigger some terrible flashbacks. She needs to get away from him, and she needs to do it now. She needs to get her business over and done with.
"I do not want you to embarrass yourself," he keeps a hold of her.
"I am not going to embarrass myself," she tells him, trying to make him let go. "And even if I did embarrass myself, which I doubt, you would still have no say over my actions. I can do what I please, and I do not need you to hold me back."
His touch is somewhat normal to her, which is why she is not sticking her stiletto heels in his foot and watching him bleed like a stuck pig. It would be easy enough to get away – because she always has an exist strategy – but she will hear him out for a few more minutes before she tries plans A through M. Some of those plans end with him down for the count because she kicked him in the nuts, so he best be on his guard.
"You are only going to make it worse," he wraps his arms around her.
"How am I making things worse?" she asks, close enough to whisper in his ear.
Somehow the fight just fades from her when he is so close and wrapping his arms around her – giving her the option to escape, but not wanting her to do so. Right now, she feels safe enough to not even want to run away. Still, he is constantly arguing with her, and she hates that about him. She just wants to go on with the plan.
"This is not going to make Marius love you," he continues to argue with her.
"How would you even know, Marble Man?" she uses the nickname to her advantage.
Him being known as the Marble Man by practically everyone pretty much makes her argument for her. It tells everyone that he does not show feelings – which might be an exaggeration – and that he does not know a thing about romantic love. That last bit is perfectly true, because he will never understand how she feels about Marius. She wonders if he will ever be able to love as freely as she has always loved Marius – without anything of herself held back and without any reservations. Enjolras is still so reserved and distant – the fact that he needs her to call him by his last name says enough.
"Marius loves Cosette," he is really trying to bring her down.
"You don't know that," she is sure that Marius will love her as well.
Why else would she be the only person that he has chosen over everyone else? He chose her over his girlfriend in high school, and when they were in college he told his grandfather that he might as well start accepting her presence in his life, because they were never going to stop being in each other's lives. She has always thought that this meant that she was always going to be the most important person in his life.
"Yes, I do know that," he gives her a pitying look that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up. "He told me that. He told me that he is happy that you found someone too, because he does not want you to be so alone all of the time."
That is a stupid thing for Marius to say, because he should know how happy they could be if only he could see her as more than just his old friend Eppie. And even if she does not have a significant other that does not mean that she is alone. But Marius now thinks that she has Enjolras, and that his chance is gone.
Should she fake a break-up with Enjolras? Would that do the trick?
"You're lying," she wants to raise her voice without being noticed.
"I'm not lying," he once again looks on her with that terrible look of pity.
The very second that she starts distancing herself from him, the look of pity turns harsher and into something that is much more appealing to her. They are now both hostile, even though to the rest of the world they appear to be wrapped in a sweet lover's embrace. The dichotomy would make her smile if she felt even remotely interested in being happy ever again – she cannot do that without Marius.
"Marius would never say that," she knows Marius better than anyone in the world.
"He did say that," 'Jolras has to burst that bubble. "He just said that to me tonight."
Wow, that is a very convenient excuse for him to have – Marius having said that on the one night that she was not there with him. She cannot believe this, but she also knows that Marius would never say this to her face – hoping Enjolras would pass on the message to her because he is too scared and too much of a shithead.
"You must be drunk," she is on a desperate quest to make his words untrue.
"I have only had the one beer," his response is normal. "R made me have at least one."
R is an idiot who is undoubtedly playing a stupid trick on him – she would not doubt if Enjolras has consumed at least three beers already, and with his undoubtedly low tolerance for alcohol, she does not envy the boys the rest of their night. She doubts that he gets fun when he gets drunk, so it should get interesting.
"I honestly doubt it was just the one," she rolls her eyes, "but I'll try to believe it."
That only seems to make things worse, because now he thinks that she no longer believes him – when she usually does, because he is a person one can depend on for just about everything that is not related to romance and/or love.
"I am very grateful for your faith in me," he is sarcastic and dark.
"I am only saying it to get you to walk the hell away," she decides to be really honest with him and get it all the hell over and done with. "And do it right now!"
He should just give up on her now – like everyone else always does – and let her make her own damn mistakes. She is starting to fear that this night was one big mistake, but there is just no way back now that she is already here and wearing her dress and ready to charm people into doing what she wants them to do. She is ready for this
"Please don't Eponine," his voice actually breaks. "If you won't do it for me, then do it for yourself. You cannot throw a twenty-year-old friendship down the drain over this. I know he's a bastard and that he really hurt you, but this is not the way to win him back. This is the guaranteed way to make Cosette keep him away from you for the rest of his life. They will never be able to forgive you for it if you go through with it."
Is he really right about this? Can he really be right about this? She does not want to lose Marius forever – even though she secretly fears that she has already lost him.
"I can't just let him go," she confesses what giving up would mean.
"I understand that," he keeps trying. "That's why we'll think of a new plan tomorrow."
Wait, he is still going to go through with her other plans to piss off Marius? She is starting to doubt some of the plans that she had to get rid of Cosette – because the other woman did not know that Marius was hers first. She still wants Marius very badly, but she is not going to do anything specifically to Cosette.
"I can't lose him, 'Jolras," she needs to say it again. "He is my best friend."
"I promise that I'll help you," he crosses his heart, and then shrugs off his suit jacket and holds it out for her. "Now here, put this on. You're probably freezing."
Since they are still inside, she doubts that she will actually freeze, but he probably wants her to go back to the house soon – and that taxi ride might get really cold if she does not have anything to cover herself with. Also, knowing cabbies as she does, it will also get really awkward. It is a sweet gesture, but she still finds it difficult to accept it.
"You just can't stop trying to be my knight in shining armor, can you?" she asks.
"I just don't want you to catch something," he jokes, acting innocent. "We'd never be able to get Joe near you ever again. That would just make things terribly awkward."
He is bullshitting her to stay away from the topic of his knight-like tendencies. Sure, Joe would be a pain to be near with the sniffles, but she knows Enjolras well enough to know that this is his silly way of protecting her from harm – even though it won't make that much of a difference for the pain in her heart, he will still bother to protect her from the simplest things. She is torn between finding it adorable or finding it insulting.
"Oh, I am sure that that is the reason," she does not believe a single thing about that.
"Haven't you heard?" his face turns quite dark. "I am not a very nice guy."
There is more distance between the two of them now, because she still cannot really believe what he just said. How can anyone tell the guy who would at least try to save anyone from his or her fate that he is not a nice guy? How can he even believe that he is not a good person when all he has ever done is try to help her?
"Whoever said that is going to meet with my fist," her voice is harsh as well.
"I will tell them that you said that," now there is the hint of a smile on his face.
She has now unleashed her defensive and protective instincts, and there is no way that he is ever going to be rid of her now. Once she feels the need to take someone under her wing, that need is there pretty much forever. He is now doomed.
"Do that," she is not even joking about this any longer.
"Let me give you some money for a cab home," he will not let her say no.
The money is in her hands before she even has the time to refuse the offer, and she decides to let this go this one time, to prove to him that he is a good person – and he always will be in her eyes. Still, she feels that she cannot just leave him behind like this, without as much as a thank you. She is terrible at saying the words, but she wants to stay in his comforting embrace for just a bit longer so that they can both feel better.
"One dance?" she does not want to leave without at least having danced once.
"All right," he acquiesces rather quickly, "one last dance for the lady."
They both stay still, waiting for the other person to make the first move for this. They are not normally like this, but one emotional conversation and they are terrified.
"I am not a lady," she scoffs loudly, "especially not in this dress."
She still feels more than a little exposed now, so she wraps his jacket more tightly around her and steps in closer to him to get ready for their final dance. He wraps his arms around her waist awkwardly, and she smiles as she lands her hands on the back of his neck, looping her hands around his neck and making them look like a new couple on prom night – they have not yet gotten so comfortable with each other that they can do these romantic things. Honestly, kissing him seems easier than holding his hand or being in his arms and dancing with him. It just has a lot more meaning to it.
"I will probably always think you are a lady," the words that he says are spoken just loud enough for her to hear them perfectly.
"Thank you, my good sir," she follows his lead and dances.
The song keeps going, so they dance, and they dance, and they dance. It is a slow dance, and their arms are wrapped around each other so tightly. She feels warm and safe and comforted just by his presence with her. The world seems just a little less unfair with her friend there right by her side – not that she will ever tell him that.
"Thank you," she whispers to him, hoping that he will hear.
"It is no problem," he smiles. "Now go home before you catch something."
He walks outside with her, as if he does not want her to be alone long enough to change her mind about Marius and wearing this stupid dress for him. She is not going to change her mind at this point – not after his words and their dance – but she is fine with him making sure that she actually gets into the cab that is standing right in front of the building, as if it is waiting just for her. The cabbie has already noticed her planning to leave, and she knows that it will be a pretty awkward ride – so she stands still and tries to spend just a few more seconds with 'Jolras before she has to leave.
"I will make sure to sneeze in your jacket," she sticks her tongue out at him.
"If you do, just have it dry-cleaned," he does not rise to the taunt.
He watches her get in the cab, and he closes the door behind her and waves.
"Pontmercy mansion," she tells the driver and sits back in the backseat.
And there they go; they are off. She clasps the jacket around her even more tightly. It is warm and it smells of him. He smells rather nice.
AN: That's a twist, is it not? No cake jumping for Éponine. As always, let me know your favorite lines/parts/moments/characterizations/anything.