Work Text:
It was Colin's fault, Penelope decided before she even opened her eyes. The massive headache that welcomed her upon waking up made the jumbled mess of memories flash back to what transpired only a few hours before. And since Penelope couldn't accept she was that stupid, she decided to make Colin her scapegoat.
It was him who brought that stupidly delicious pomegranate wine from Italy. It was also him who ordered a whole crate of it, after his family drank an entire bottle in one tasting and decided it was the best they ever had. It was also Colin who invited everyone over yesterday for an impromptu Bridgerton BBQ since it was supposed to be the very last truly warm day that year. And since Penelope was an honorary Bridgerton herself, she was included.
As they sat at the table on the terrace, Colin raced Eloise to the only chair left next to Penelope. And since his legs were way longer, he easily took the place, making Eloise sit across from them. That was how Penelope ended up between Hyacinth, who unexpectedly was a devil disguised as a sweet teenage girl, and the third brother, who apparently formed a silent plan with his youngest sibling to make the redhead as drunk as possible.
So yes, it was 100% Colin's fault that Penelope ended up drinking more than she ever had. And she knew better; all of them did. She was a lightweight, and one glass of wine already made her pleasantly tipsy and slightly flushed. Two had the ability to make her lose her inhibitions, and three was her limit, when her speech would get a bit slow and slurred. Her brain would also slow down, unsolicited giggles would spill out of her lips, and her tongue? That damn thing almost had a mind of its own. Almost. That's how she knew where to stop. But this time, with Colin and Hyacinth plotting her doom, she forgot her own limits.
At first, they lied and told her it was her second glass, when in fact it was her third… and that was basically enough for her to lose all connection to the little voice of reason that usually screamed at her from inside her own head.
The conversation, as it often did with the Bridgertons, turned to gossip. Specifically, Eloise’s disastrous recent date.
“...and then he asked if feminism was that new restaurant that opened just outside campus,” Eloise finished, throwing her hands up in exasperation as the table laughed. “I mean, honestly! Why can’t I just find a decent man?” She took a big gulp of her wine and observed how Colin whispered something into Penelope's ear, making her giggle. “You’re lucky, Pen. It must be such a great feeling to have a crush on your best friend,” Eloise added as she looked from Penelope to Colin, indicating who the mentioned crush was. Colin's brows furrowed and he pointed a finger at himself as if asking, “me?”.
Eloise just managed to tip her head to the side as if asking, “Really? You never noticed?” when Penelope giggle-snorted as if she had told the best joke.
“Colin? Nah!” The redhead giggled some more as if the notion itself was laughable. “I don't want a marshmallow man,” she declared, looking pointedly at the Bridgerton man on her left, before her eyes wandered to the eldest one by the grill. As she took him in, she bit her lower lip sultrily before sighing longingly and admitting, “I'm more into the coconut kind of guys.”
A stunned silence fell over the patio table. Colin, the oblivious one with selective hearing, made a face of bewildered offense. “A… a marshmallow man?” he repeated, his voice cracking.
But no one was listening to him. All eyes were on Penelope. By the grill, Anthony, who had been in the middle of flipping a sausage, froze with the tongs halfway to the grate.
Benedict was the first to recover. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, his eyes glinting with the light of a thousand impending suns. “Penelope, my dear,” he said, his voice dangerously calm. “I think you’re going to have to elaborate on the coconut theory. For science.”
Penelope beamed, thrilled to have an audience for her profound revelation. She gestured grandly towards Anthony, who looked like he was praying for a meteor to strike him.
“Well, look at him!” she said, her voice full of the earnest passion of a scholar defending her thesis. “He’s all… hard and hairy on the outside.”
A few surprised snickers were hushed by Benedict, who didn't fare much better, but was determined to hear the whole reason behind the comparison. He just hummed, “mhmm,” with a nod, prompting her to finish her thought as his lips formed a straight line across his face (clearly holding in the laughter that was about to bubble out of him).
“He’s impossible to get into!” Penelope continued, completely unaware of the chaos she was causing. “You look at him and you think, ‘that’s a tough nut to crack.’ You can’t just poke him and get to the good stuff. Oh no. You need tools. Brute force, even. You have to really work for it.”
Hyacinth, with the foresight of a seasoned war reporter, was now discreetly filming the entire monologue on her phone from under the table.
“But if you can finally, finally crack him open,” Penelope went on, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial, dreamy whisper, “it’s worth it. Because on the inside, he’s not hard at all. He’s full of sweet, refreshing… emotions?” She scrunched her brows adorably as if she wasn't sure that was what she really meant. But her idle state didn't let her dwell on it, so she shrugged and finished the wine with one big gulp.
With that, Benedict lost the fight. He slumped forward, his forehead hitting the table with a soft thud as his entire body quaked with silent, breathless laughter.
Penelope, emboldened by the joyous reaction, got fully lost in her metaphor. She waved her hand as if to show the exposition she was marveling about. “And then there’s the meat of it all! His feelings! They’re all soft and white and pure!” Her hand closed into a fist that she brought to her chest as if she was talking about something precious that held a special place in her heart. But then a tiny hiccup escaped her before she finished with, “And you just want to scoop them out! With a spoon!”
It was Colin's turn to snort so loud, he almost choked on air. Hyacinth was trying her very best not to laugh so the video wouldn't be too shaky, but she was failing miserably. Eloise had to hide her face in her hands, not being able to look at her bestie sputtering such nonsense about her eldest brother. The rest were more or less dying inside but trying not to show it too much, so the wrath of the coconut man wouldn't reach them.
But Hyacinth, the only one in the family who could get away with murder, knew they had to strike while the iron was still hot, and so she declared, “Let's play truth or dare!” If not for the fact that they instinctively knew it was to exploit Penelope's fizzy state, no one would agree to it. But here they were, nodding eagerly as if it was the best idea in the history of the best ideas.
Hyacinth didn't even bother with a pretense of fairness. She grabbed an empty wine bottle, set it on the table, and gave it a spin that was so obviously aimed, it might as well have been placed pointing at Pen from the get-go. It spun lazily, wobbled, and came to a perfect, dead stop pointing directly at… Penelope. Duh.
“Oh, what are the odds!” Hyacinth’s fake gasp was so bad it could have easily won her a Golden Raspberry Award. “Truth or Dare, Pen?” Eloise asked, leaning forward with a predatory glint in her eye.
Penelope, feeling like the queen of the party and emboldened by the sixth (seventh?) glass of red, slammed her hand on the table. “DARE! I’m not afraid of anything!”
The siblings exchanged a look of pure, diabolical glee. This was it. The main event.
“Dance with the coconut man. Show us how to get to his insides,” Eloise declared, snapping her fingers at Benedict, the ever-helpful agent of chaos, who now put on a slow, romantic song.
Penelope had marched right over to a shell-shocked Anthony, grabbed his hand, and pulled him away from the grill onto the lawn.
For a moment, it was almost sweet. Anthony, stiff with embarrassment, allowed her to sway against him, her head tucked under his chin. He could feel the eyes of his entire family on them, their phones no doubt recording every second. A small, traitorous part of him didn't care. It was nice, holding her.
And then the music changed.
The slow, soulful melody was violently cut off, replaced by the unmistakable, sultry beat of "Buttons" by the Pussycat Dolls. Anthony shot Benedict a look that could kill, but the second brother only shrugged his shoulders with a smirk plastered on his smug face.
Penelope pulled back from his chest, and a slow, wicked grin spread across her wine-flushed face. The pomegranate-fueled lizard part of her brain heard the beat and took complete control.
"What are you—" Anthony began, but was cut off as Penelope launched into a series of moves that were less “ballroom dance” and more “mating dance.” She wiggled. She shimmied. She ran a hand slowly up his chest, her eyes half-lidded.
"Loosen up your buttons, babe," she purred, her voice a slurry imitation of Nicole Scherzinger.
From the corner of his eye, Anthony could see his siblings losing their minds. They weren't laughing out loud—that would break the spell. No, this was far more insidious. Colin was trying to stuff his entire fist into his mouth to keep from screaming. Eloise was crouched behind a patio chair, her shoulders shaking violently. Benedict now had his head buried in Daphne’s lap, who was patting his back while biting her own lip so hard it was a wonder it wasn't bleeding. Hyacinth was almost suffocating Gregory, who couldn't keep his laughter in and was kicking his legs both from laughter and lack of oxygen. Only pure, gentle Francesca was scrunching her face as if the sight itself was hurting her.
“Penelope, stop it. You're drunk. You will regret it tomorrow,” Anthony tried to get through to her as she basically dry-humped him in his own garden as his siblings watched. At least his mother went to bed early, otherwise she might have suffered a heart attack seeing what her favorite little redhead was up to.
Anthony's plea, however, was processed by Penelope’s pomegranate-soaked brain not as a warning, but as a challenge. She stopped her wiggling and pulled back just enough to look up at him with wide, serious eyes.
“Honey, the only thing I’m going to regret is not finding out just how hairy you are under all these… buttons.” And then she lunged.
Her target was the top button of his polo shirt. Her fine motor skills, however, had long since abandoned her for the night. Her fingers fumbled against the fabric like a toddler trying to solve a Rubik's cube. She poked his collarbone, missing the button entirely, and then, as if he could read her mind, Anthony caught her hands as she was about to try to rip his shirt open.
The world narrowed to the two of them. Her eyes, wide and a little confused, stared into his. He could see her baby blue irises sparkling with mirth. The ridiculous song, the cackling of his siblings, it all faded into a dull buzz as he got lost in her.
Then she hiccupped. Loudly. And the moment was shattered.
With a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of all the world’s suffering, Anthony let her hands fall to her sides. She staggered, barely finding her footing, before he hooked an arm under Penelope's knees and lifted her into his arms.
"Show's over. I'm taking the menace home.”
"You smell so good," she murmured. "Like... responsible decisions and a really healthy 401k.”
He strode across the lawn, ignoring the renewed howls and whoops of laughter from his siblings. As he carried her towards the house, Penelope, now limp and sleepy in his arms, snuggled her face into the crook of his neck.
“You’re a good coconut,” she mumbled, her voice thick with impending sleep.
Anthony actually felt a small, reluctant smile tug at his lips. He was mortified. He was exasperated. But as he looked down at the woman who had just turned his world upside down with a series of unhinged food metaphors and a clumsy sexy dance… he also felt something warm and gooey stirring in his chest.
Damn it. Maybe he was a bit coco-nutty.
It was absolutely, unequivocally Colin's fault. She decided this as more memories flooded back, each one more horrifying than the last. The certainty of Colin's guilt was the only thing keeping her from dying of shame right there. Well, that and the surprisingly solid warmth spooning her from behind.
Her eyes snapped open. Anthony Bridgerton was plastered to her back, using her as a human body pillow.
For a dizzying second, her brain was just a dial tone of pure panic. Her grand plan had always involved climbing him like a tree. How had she ended up as the tree? And why was the notorious grump cuddling her like a koala bear? Then, an unhinged thought crossed her mind. A coconut needed a palm tree, right? It was just... symbiosis. She held in the chuckle that would have surely woken him up.
Yes. It was all Colin's fault. And he had absolutely earned a thank-you gift. A giant s'mores set, for the marshmallow man who'd made it all happen.