disheveling | i'm taking back the crown, i'm all dressed up and naked

i'm taking back the crown, i'm all dressed up and naked

[ open post! anything goes. ]

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Asra's halfway into a cup of sparkling wine before he realizes this is one of those places. Where they don't even try to crowd the beast into their stables because they've seen bigger, and odder. Where the wine is sparkling--someone asks him how he likes the champagne, and he answers with a smile around the rim and a tip of his glass. Just fine, thank you. The champagne likes him as well, bubbling down his throat, not so strong as to put him immediately under one of the tables.

He's drinking champagne at something called a fête, and they call the language something different but they still seem to understand each other perfectly.

Just--one of those places. The beast had been following a river, and at some point it had become another river, in another land, and then canals, and then--this keep, dusted in snow. This festival, spilling into courtyards, lanterns hung, the halls of the manor somewhat empty and dark--but in a way that is warm and inviting. "What is the festival for," he'd asked, and been kissed properly on the cheek, handed a new cup. A lot of strangers come through, this time of year. The party lasts as long as the waning of the moon, and there are alliances made, wares sampled, children of odd gifts and coloring sired.

He'd barked a laugh at that, and clinked one glass to another, and let himself return to wandering.

Perhaps when he's all the way into his cups, he'll be persuaded to some of that. Right now he's content to sample foods, committing the shapes of lanterns and odd fashions to memory. Eventually he finds a spot under a tall tree, bare of leaves but made up for in strung lights. There are all shape and size of children playing games that seem to span worlds, and he gathers some of them in a demonstration of simple magic. Little tricks of water and light, pouring gold fish onto cobblestones that burst apart like soft fruit, splattering shrieking girls with gold dust and water that seems to hold no chill.

Toward the end of it, in a final trick, he picks one of them up on his shoulders and turns them to the tree, letting the little boy spread his arms and believe he is the one unfurling bright yellow leaves across its branches, obscuring and coloring the lights.

Monty had been at his father's annual Christmas Party, which means Monty has been absolutely miserable.

There's nothing he dislikes more than being in the same room as his father, and it only gets worse when they have guest they're meant to impress. It means that Monty is in his finest attire, still tight and starchy from being new. Mother is wearing a fine gown, her belly big with pregnancy, and appears to be gossiping with some of the other ladies in attendance while Father keeps a watchful eye on her. That baby, Monty thinks, is their saving grace, and his fucking doom.

He hopes it's a girl. Just to spite his father for not getting another, better heir.

Monty's been tight-smiled and polite conversation all night, doing what he can to stay out of his father's earshot. He's prone to saying the wrong thing, and saying the wrong thing in front of Father will earn him quite the repercussion when the evening is over. Felicity, it seems, has found herself a nice hiding spot, and Monty's envious of it. If Percy were here, he'd at least have some reprieve from the tense festivities. His aunt and uncle are here, across the room with a group of other couples, but Percy had suddenly taken ill and was laid up in bed.

He'll have to go visit, after this. Just so he can bitch and moan to someone who will listen.

But the night's far from over, and Monty needs a break now. If he has to talk to one more stuffy, white-haired earl about London's current political affairs, he's going to go upstairs and pitch himself off the balcony. He excuses himself as politely as possible from his current conversation, and skirts around the room to the double doors leading out into the garden. He pushes through, dragging in a deep breath of cold wintry air, and opens his eyes.

Turning on his heels, he finds not the doors to home, but a set of doors leading into a rustic wooden tavern. He turns again, just to make sure the courtyard is just as unfamiliar as it was moments ago, and it is. It's not unfriendly, though, with all sorts of guests strewn about, and twinkling lights in every bush and barren tree. Somebody presses a glass of something into his hand (brandy, he realizes, once he gets a wiff of it), and they're gone before he can even see if they're a man or woman.

Not that it matters to him, of course.

His question of where am I? to the nearest passerby, doesn't get him the straightest answer, but it does earn him an admiring, lingering look. So, Monty decides fuck it. He'll figure out where he is tomorrow. Tonight, he'll drink and enjoy the time away from his father.

He finds himself another glass before he ends up a little further away from the crowds, and somehow there's some sort of pastry in his hand. He pops it into his mouth, washing it down with a quick drink as he wanders, kicking up snow with his feet. It's the childish laughter that has him turning, and a very interesting looking man that has him coming over. And it's the bright sprouting of fall-colored leaves that has him stopping in his tracks, staring with a rather dumb-founded expression.

It's not his finest moment, by far.

Finest moments are overrated: Asra's weaknesses tend toward the earnest and genuine, for all that he is rarely either. Asra's weaknesses tend toward others' moments of weakness, especially when he is half to drunk on champagne, and his ego has been well-enough stroked by the delight of children, the interest and intent of adults. Magic is not always about putting on a show, but when it is--he likes the show to be appreciated.

"I did have a doctor friend," he says, when he's swung the boy down and sidled over to his new audience. "And he did tend to say better out than in, but maybe not tonight." His hand gently pops at the young man's chin, closing his mouth, and this thumb sweeps a flake of pastry away from the corner.

Pretty enough, as mouths go. As strangers at parties go. He taps his thumb at the same corner before letting him go. "You can call me Asra; what should I call you?

"Besides charmed."

Monty has never kept his attractions a secret, not really. Some he was less public about, of course, but he's never seen the sense in playing shy. Fortune favors the flirtatious, after all. But he's never been quite so stupidly gaping about it. It's probably not a good look on him, and that's not something he can say often. To be fair, it's probably more the magic than the handsome man.

It doesn't seem to bother this fellow though, as evidenced by the highly unsubtle touches to his face. Monty's never been one for subtly either, thankfully.

"Very charmed," he answers, putting his deep dimples in full effect as he smiles. "Monty works, as well."

The words 'what are you?' are on his lips, but he bites them back to die in his throat. That's never a way to woo someone into bed, and probably the more pressing question should be: 'What drugs have I taken?'

"You're quite talented," is what he says instead. "I certainly never learned that in my school days."

Ask what he will; he might not get a straight answer, but Asra would certainly be amused. It's something between thrill and safety, being an unknown. Maybe he oughtn't have given his name, but--they're hardly meeting in a place either of them seem to frequent. He's just better at hiding that he doesn't belong--it helps that he inverts it, impresses his power on the space until it's less that he's always been here, and more that he's somehow conquered its obstacles.

Wherever he goes, he seems to do as he pleases. With enough magic, with a bright enough smile--most people make allowances.

"My apologies; first name Very, last name Charmed. I'll remember that." Monty might work, but not yet. Somewhere with fewer people, dimmer lighting. He's quite fetching under the yellowed light of the lanterns, with alcohol and winter air pinking his cheeks, brightening the gold in his hair. Asra isn't sure what school days refers to; there was no age at which he had gone to school. School was for people with coin to spend on books and parents to see them sent off. "I don't think anyone learns much of anything, cooped up in one place. I doubt they told you about places like this, either."

His eyes rake downward, taking in Monty's clothing. More like something Nadia would wear, and not much like their hosts. He doesn't like tight clothing on himself, but he likes the look of Monty's legs in those odd trousers.

Part of Monty's attention has yet to be torn away by the tree with its brightly yellowed leaves, curiously out of place in the middle of winter. He's stuck on it — the wonderment of it, the impossibility. Not so impossible, he supposes, now that he's seen it with his own eyes. Even if there's the distinct possibility that said eyes are being tricked by whatever this alcohol's been laced with.

He should probably be more concerned about that, but it wouldn't be the first time he's ingested drugs, purposefully or otherwise.

"They certainly didn't," Monty says, dragging his gaze away from the tree to survey the area around them. The center of the courtyard is not far off, thick with the strangest sorts of people, all of them talking and laughing and having the grandest of times. Truthfully, he's the one that sticks out, if he cares to think about it. His breeches and his waistcoat, both made out of fine, rich fabrics, appear far different than most of the other attire around them. It doesn't bother him too much — he still looks absolutely dashing.

"I'm supposed to go on a tour of the continent, come summer," Monty says, looking over at Asra with a half-dimpled smile. "Though I doubt I'll come across any place like this, or anybody as pretty as you."

His attention has been on Monty: the leaves are nice, but hardly strange to him. He likes that Monty stands out, that he is something new to find in a place that is new in its own right. Just when the shine might wear off--here is someone else out of place, who seems to realize they might as well make the best of it. There's always a best to be made of new places. They offer experiences, good or bad. Asra thinks, overall, this one will be good.

That attention--narrow, assessing--softens at the mention of a tour. Perhaps not a well-traveled young man, but keen on it. Curiosity looks good on anyone, but the dimples don't hurt.

"Why worry about that, when you have me here and now," he asks. It's the only way anyone has ever really had him, and it always sounds good when the here and now is just at its start. "And don't doubt the compelling nature of new people, in new places. Let them at least be interesting, if you're ruined for pretty."

Monty has always been rather keen on living in the here and now. His immediate future may hold an adventurous tour of the continent, to be filled with he and Percy gallivanting about and doing what they please with very little adult supervision, but his less-immediate future is dark and grim. After the tour, his future is filled with stuffy rooms and stuffy people, chained to his father's side to learn and likely be smacked around when he messes something up. Not to mention, it's going to be Percy-less.

It's enough to make him want to step off the top-floor balcony before it can all happen.

"I'm not worrying about anything tonight," he says, voicing the thought aloud. All that matters is here and now, and just how long it's going to take to get his present company to fall into bed with him. "I do need another drink, though. Care to join me?"

"Better than," he says; every word understandable to Monty, but the accent strange. Hints of south, and east. Somewhere warm, with a salt sea that the canals eventually drain into. Monty's voice resembles Nadia's as well, though it's not nearly as laced up. It might not even be as deep. "Let me get you something."

Asra doesn't turn to the tables, or pluck a glass from the passing trays. Turning in a flourish of vest and scarves, he picks up one of the pitchers.

"I'm only after a sip; much more than I've had and I'll be using you to stand up." He says it conversationally, not even looking at his hands as he makes a tumbler appear as if from his sleeve, but he's only given a rolling flick of his hand. There's only a moment's break in his collected, showy manner--his brows confer in concentration, and then it's done. Amber liquid pours from the pitcher of water and fills the glass.

"Where I'm from, we make this with almonds and fruit pits," he says, taking his sip before offering it.

Just when he thinks his mind has adjusted to his bewildering surroundings, there's something new for him to absorb. At first, he thinks it's simply sleight of hand. His brain misses the moment the glass appears, presumably from Asra's sleeve. He's always enjoyed the manufactured mystery of card tricks, especially when preformed by handsome boys. There was a boy at boarding school who spent much of his time in the library with a deck of cards, and subsequently, Monty spent much of his time in the library watching those elegant hands manipulate them.

A lot like how he's watching Asra's hands now. There places he'd like for them to wander, particularly beneath the hems of his clothes.

"I can think of a lot worse things than you draped on me for the night," he responds, his eyes wandering to the rest of Asra for just a moment. When he looks back, he finds the liquid being poured for him is a lot darker than the liquid in the pitcher, and the rest of his thoughts drop off as he tries to process it.

He takes the glass with a small amount of hesitation, but his gaze lifts with a dimpled smile. "Now you're just trying to impress me."

"Perhaps you're just easily impressed," Asra teases; creating water is a greater feat than transforming it to another liquid. Just a nudge at the nature of a thing, a request. Perhaps the man that can beguile water to be liquor finds little trouble with handsome young men. It doesn't hurt that Monty seems interested in being beguiled.

Asra lets his own interest slip their fingers together around the glass, but doesn't linger.

Violet eyes track the bow of lips over the glass, the shift of the throat. "Now that I've shown you something of my world, you should share something of yours. A dance, a game--an interestingly placed birth mark?"

Asra says world like he's from further away than just another continent, which-- might very well be true, given everything. Not minutes before, he was at home simply seeking solace from his father's uppity guests. Now he's watching a handsome man turn water to liquor, and maybe it's not the brightest idea to drink it, but he's doing it anyway, with a smile.

It's hard not to smile when he's being watched so attentively.

"I was at my father's Christmas party. I like to play a game each year where I find the loveliest person in attendance and steal them away for a party for two." Another drink, but his gaze hasn't left Asra's. "Care to be my plus one this year?"

[ cont from here! ]

grumpy cat is just part of your charm. I've always found cuddling up to cats, grumpy or otherwise, to be quite lovely.

I wouldn't blame my organs if they just decided to quit working after this weekend.

Way too much information, and it's only Saturday night--but it sounds like a fun party, and Monty did invite her. So Beth goes, and it's like all the best parties she went to in high school, except bigger. Fewer people she knows, more food and drinks, and it's indoors, which is pretty cool.

And unlike the parties she went to in high school, where everyone had known everyone since kindergarten, there's no way in hell her dad will ever hear about this. She's surrounded by strangers, untold miles from her family, and no one here will ever tell her father she showed up...let alone what she did after that point.

So she has a drink. And then another. By the time she finds Monty in the crush of people, she's tipsy, bright-eyed and willing to say stupider things than usual. "There you are!" she says, waving with her free hand (the other has a half-empty wine cooler--fakey peach flavored--in it). "You're not supposed to invite people to parties and then ditch them, you know."

Monty has already had two cheap beers and is halfway through some bright green cocktail whipped up for him by a girl with the loveliest legs he's seen in a long time, and since he showed up to this party already tipsy, he's beginning to feel just wonderful. It's that fine line between drunk enough to dance with some varsity football player's girl, but not so drunk that he does it before the guy leaves to go buy more cheap beer.

But drunk enough to almost forget he invited Beth until he sees her. Suddenly she's there, catching his attention for all the same reasons she did when he first stopped by the coffee shop for hangover coffee. It's like she bleeds all her gentle, sunshiny roots into the air, and then reels you in with that lovely grin and those bright eyes, and seals the deal with a lulling accent.

He isn't in love by any means (he's only in love with Percy, who unknowingly has his heart despite being an ocean away. Monty could forgive his father for shipping him off to America for school, but he could never forgive him for not letting Percy come with him.) but he's quite enamored. The shop she works at is out of his way, but he still makes a point to stop by if he knows she's working. He stopped paying the scholarship kid from his American Lit class to do his homework so he could pay her for tutoring services. His flirting is absolutely relentless, though that's true for almost anyone he talks to.

Wherever he was going before has easily slipped from his mind in favor of joining Beth instead. The second he reaches her, he's reaching out to tuck a bit of her hair behind her ear.

"Well, I can promise I won't be losing you again. Finish that," he says, gesturing to her drink with his own. "We should dance."

Beth glances at her drink, her cheeks going hot from the crowded room and Monty brushing a wavy tendril of hair back from her face. He's being...probably exactly as flirty as he always is, because she's pretty sure Monty can't breathe without flirting with somebody, let alone try and puzzle through his English homework or go to a house party. (The fact that she's apparently better at lit than a guy who went to one of the fanciest high schools on the planet is crazy, by the way, but it's also extra cash, so she'll take it.) Downing a wine cooler in a couple gulps seems like a bad idea, but it's not like she's that drunk. She can probably do it and be fine for later.

And then they can dance. She guesses. God, that's so weird. He's being himself, and she's actually being affected by it, like the part of her brain that knows Monty's full of crap is the part that's drunk.

So Beth shrugs and chugs it, hoping it looks like she knows exactly what she's doing with a bottle of Bartles and Jaymes in the first place. Setting it aside, she glances over at Monty--over, not up--and reaches for his hand. If he's going to be that touchy-feely, then she gets to be, too. "You know how to dance?"

She looks lovely with the pink in her cheeks, and he doesn't care if it's from the crowded room or the alcohol or his fingers brushing her cheek. It'll probably be even better after they've danced to a few songs and had another drink and can't quite seem to keep their hands off each other.

Well-- Monty can never keep his hands to himself. He's just hoping she won't be, either.

He waits for her to finish her drink, a little bit impressed by how she chugs it like a champ. He might be a little more impressed if it weren't a wine cooler, but he's willing to give her a little leeway given that this likely isn't her scene. It is, however, Monty's, and he's thriving about as well as one would expect surrounded by liquor and music and gorgeous people.

This time, she reaches for his hand, and he's absolutely thrilled by it. His fingers curl around her's, cheeks dimpling with a smile as he tugs her towards the crowd of dancers. "I might have skipped most of lit, but I did pick up a thing or two at boarding school."

Granted, that was a different kind of dancing than what they're about to do. He learned this kind of dancing at boarding school too, just in the woods during bonfire parties instead of in the dance hall.

There's no denying that his smile is really cute. Especially when it's not him being a jackass about themes and symbolism or trying to con her into doing his work for her, instead of helping him figuring out how to do it himself. Right here, where nothing they do actually matters, he looks at home, and it makes all of him a lot more appealing.

(It also helps that she's had two drinks. She might not really be feeling them, but when it comes to Monty, they've apparently done some work.)

That said, this is more her scene than he might realize--the only real difference is that she's usually the lone sober observer, laughing all the harder at everything for that fact--and she's no stranger to dancing. "Since when do they teach you this at...what's it called? Eton?"

This, of course, being the kind of dancing that's not quite bump-and-grind nastiness but still doesn't seem like it belongs in some stuffy boarding school. It's loud over with the other dancers, not least because somebody way drunker than Beth is shouting the lyrics to a Katy Perry song that isn't even playing. His friends' attempts to drag him away only sort of work, but it's still an improvement when the current song isn't competing with YOU'RE HOT AND YOU'RE COLD, YOU'RE YES AND YOU'RE NO. She falls into the rhythm of it easily, giving Monty a grin to beat all grins.

Monty hums, finishing the last of his own drink in a few quick gulps on the way. It gives him a brief brain freeze that hardly registers with the alcohol hitting him, and he stops near the outskirts of the dancing crowd in order to not get sucked in a separated in the throng of bodies. Sometimes he forgets how much he tells her. He can't remember specifically referring to Eton by name, but he must have, at some point.

(He does know that he never told her why he got expelled from Eton, for participating in inappropriate relations with some of the other students. A routine thing in a co-ed boarding school, but means for expulsion in an all-boys. Means for expulsion and his father knocking the hell out of him.)

"You'd be surprised what we can get up to in those fancy private schools." His hand drops to her waist, sliding to her lower back to pull her in closer to him. He'd be lying if he said he weren't surprised when she picks up a rhythm easily, and they're dancing wonderfully close together to the thrumming beat of the music. She's always surprising him, a pretty girl from sunny Georgia who isn't near as sheltered as television stereotypes led him to believe.

She grins at him, and it's enough to make him tip his head back and laugh, the sound barely carrying over the music. Suddenly, he's glad he thought to invite her, because he can't think of anyone else he'd rather dance with right now. (Other than Percy, but that goes without saying.)

Beth's always pictured his boarding-school days like Harry Potter: go on adventures, get in trouble, lose points. But tame trouble, one-detention-and-you're-done trouble. Not the kind of mischief that teaches you how to make a girl's chest go all warm just by touching the small of her back. Were her cheeks warm before? They're definitely warm now.

Considering how much he knows about vices of all kinds--according to their conversations over his sloppy lit notes, anyway--she probably should have known he'd be a good dancer. But this is beyond good, something that isn't really about skill at all. Being right here with him feels like it fits, in a way she never would have associated with Henry Montague. He's not being a jerk or melodramatic or that pointedly phony kind of flirty that kind of feels like an insult. He's just being himself, and it's its own circle of warmth, something she can cross into and stay in. It's surprising, not to mention surprisingly nice.

At least she knows enough to expect him to be kind of a dork, despite all his claims of coolness. He laughs, which is seriously dorky in its own way, and she beams brighter, an arm sliding up around his neck. The song has a good beat for this, fast without being too fast, and she's drunk enough so far that she doesn't even find herself slipping into theory mindset, trying to figure the chord progression. (So much music theory. She won't be sorry when she's done with it.) Her hips bump up against his in time to the music, just this side of tasteful.

Boarding school was a riot, before it came to a screeching halt. There were plenty of boys questioning their sexuality, and plenty of opportunities for Monty to draw them out of their shells and help them experiment. Eton was separated by a length of woods from its sister school, an all-girl's private school. Social events that brought the two schools together were closely monitored by teachers, but Monty still found it fairly easy to sneak the interested girls off to a deserted classroom.

It all came crumbling down, of course, and Monty got all sorts of bruises for his efforts. And clearly, he hasn't learned his lesson. He still spends his nights with his hands all over somebody pretty. And tonight, that somebody pretty is Beth. He doubts this will end with their clothes on the floor, but maybe he can clear a few bases before the night is over.

Between the alcohol and the music and Beth's body bumping against his, his blood feels hot coursing through his veins. Something about the tasteful way she dances is driving him up the wall, like having the promise of something dangled in front of him without a hope of getting it. The hand on her back slides down to her hip, the other finding her hand to spin her around with ease. With her back to his chest, he pulls her closer again, fingers trailing her skin before both hands frame her hips.

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