Re: The Schoolboy/The Witch
Oliver, on the other hand, had barely asked the question of what he wanted. His life largely stretched out in front of him filled with other people's expectations and wishes, and he had learned early on that to question those, or to remark upon your own was something reserved for being an Adult. Of course, there was some question of when one became an Adult. Not until after school, naturally, nor until you sat your exams at University - sitting them on a topic that would shape the course of the rest of your life - nor likely until you were properly engaged to the proper person, and had your own home, and Oliver had frequently suspected that adult came at some point when you were near the end of your life and nearly everyone left was younger than you and as such you got to have your say, finally. The idea of wanting something and simply doing it was completely new, but not unwelcome.
"It's just to keep space, so that movement can happen easily," he said, but his cheeks were flushed. "And the teachers don't like you getting too close in public." A beat, and then he realized, adding quickly. "Or in private. Or at all." His cheeks were definitely flushed, and the idea of just hanging onto her for the dance was not really helping that. He pushed his shoulders back pushed hair back behind his ear and nodded. "I've never been very drunk," he admitted. "I've been somewhat, but it's not easy to get at school, and there was only one time at home last holiday that we managed to snitch a bottle of the cordial..." She seemed so much older than him, and he was fairly certain that she couldn't be that much older, not really. But it felt as if she'd lived more. "Never mind," he shook it off, and with it the embarrassment about feeling so uninformed, and the embarrassment of others who might be watching him, and he stepped in beside her. "No, this is fine, sorry. Show me?" And eagerness shifted into his tone as he echoed her movement on her toes, a little more uncertainly than she had performed it. "I want to learn."