#btw this just showed up on my dash I didn’t go scrounging around for old Sonadow stuff in the tags

[my-name-is-jefferooni]

OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD DO YOU KNOW HOW INSANE THIS IS MAKING ME RIGHT NOW

Gang, this is Shadow.

[lumiereswig]

Ooh please do plumiere with drunken shenanigans (I adore your blog btw!!)

“whoooOOOOOooooo hhahahhahahahaaaa !!!. !!!...!!!”

Belle, peeking up from under her coverlet: “Adam. What the fuck is that?”

Adam, lighting the bedside candle with the world-weary elegance of the perpetually exhausted: “Sounds like Plumette and Lumiere found that bottle of ‘43 Cogsworth’s been saving up.”

“what?!”

“they like a good time, belle. and they haven’t seen one for the length of the curse, and, oh, you don’t.....see, every once in a while the servants kick up all their heels and get thoroughly wrecked. Every couple months or so. They find some bottle of Cogsworth’s that he swore he’d hide better, and they pull out bottles of chardonnay I pretend I never ordered, and they have a raucous, wild bacchanal, while I pretend that the walls are soundproof and I have no reason to leave my room for 15 hours.”

“why haven’t you ever joined them?”

“What, and—” he sees the little dancing lights in her eyes, the ones he can’t resist, and realizes all at once—for about the thousandth time since meeting Belle—that his life has just got a whole lot more fun. “Do you want to join them?” 

“Do i want to—?! Of course I want to! And you do, too, but you’re too shy.”

“I figured they probably didn’t want me....” He’s already dragging on socks and slippers; on the other side of the bed, Belle ties her hair back and scrounges for a robe.  “But we can at least go down and peep.”

“We’ll do more than peep; we’ll show them how to properly drink a bottle of chardonnay. Not that I’d know, but I’m sure you’ve got the knack.”

They tip-toe down the stairs, letting Plumette’s delighted shrieks guide them through the darkened hall. Hearing a low, seductive chuckle far too close at hand, Adam grabs Belle and ducks under a table.

“Mon amour!” Lumiere is so throaty, so entirely overcome with desire, that Belle needs to bury her face in Adam’s shirt to keep from laughing. “have you always had these hands, these fingers?! oh, mon dieu, touch right therrohh—”

His choked gasp overcomes Belle with a fit of the giggles. Plumette’s shoe, barely visible, turns in coquettish fashion.

“And what of here, my love? Or here?”

“Plumette! Sacre.....”

A moment of silence, touched only by the tiny noises of pressed hands and small gasps and kisses no one was meant to hear. Then, suddenly, raucous laughter from them both; a swaying leg in golden silk comes into view; and then the two have dashed past them, sucking in cool air and crying out with laughter, and they’ve vanished down the hall.

“should we follow them?” belle whispers. “I don’t much fancy being accidentally snogged by Lumiere in a corner, tonight.”

“don’t worry, when he’s in these moods he limits himself to Plumette and Cogsworth. Oh, and Cadenza on occasion.....and Mrs. Potts. And Cuisinier. And me, once.”

“Once?”

“Twice? Oh, I don’t know, I lose count. Look, the old sot just has affection to spare.”

“I can see that.” Belle picks up a dropped handkerchief, soaked through with Lumiere’s perfume. “Just, if he gets that seductive look in his big eyes, pull me away quick.”

“It’d be more effective to just swap you out with someone else. I’ll keep Cogsworth on hand for the purpose.”

They creep down the hall, slippers dragging after them, and peep into a little side-parlor used for little besides storing the doilies Adam’s maiden aunts send him. It is a good thing the maiden aunts are not present, for the debauchery currently spread over every lace pouf would scandalize even his most liberal relatives.

Mrs. Potts, pouring tea into hot toddies made almost entirely of rum. Cogsworth, going on some inebriated rant about how they should not have cracked into that wine, that wine was reserved for the gala next month, now he’s going to have to find some sort of.....And then he loses the train of thought, and starts another game of bridge with Cuisinier, though heaven knows there are already four half-played games strewn around them. Chapeau plays his fiddle, in long, merry strokes that jump and waver; Cadenza and Garderobe, half undressed, cheer him on and kiss each other in rotation. Lumiere and Plumette have started a dance, and bottles are spilled and stacked and drank all over the little lace doilies; and the moon slanting in through the windows gives everything a fun-house air, of tipped-over and tossed-about and having-a-jolly-good-time.

“Master! Mistress!” Lumiere pulls them into his dance, and sets up Belle with Plumette and Adam with himself. “You have joined us at last!”

“Is this all right?” Adam is still timid, and holds up Lumiere like he would a lighted match. “We won’t disturb you?”

“The old dreamer’s wanted you to come for years,” calls Cogsworth, looking up from a bridge-game that’s turned into an artful reconstruction of Westminster Abbey. “And when you’re done dancing with him, come over by us! We’ve got the prime stout, Cuisinier and I, and we have a drinking-game to play.”

They dance until dawn, tossing up their heels and toasting nothing but the moon. Lumiere and Plumette hide behind the curtains, and kiss and touch and sleep in each other’s arms. And Belle and Adam—a little more stumbling than they were at the start, but far more cheered and far happier—tip-toe back to the upper rooms, sharing a bottle between them.