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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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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