another one bites the dust [mary]

Mary’s grin widened as Sam grinned back at her, and again at the suggestion he could subtly fit three macarons in his mouth at once. “You cannot do three at once,” she argued good-naturedly -- and maybe because the gin was convincing her it would be funny to watch him try. “There’d be nothing subtle about it at any rate.”

An awkward silence descended upon them after her bringing up his best friend’s divorce and her own best friend’s death. Despite being in the same house as Caitlin, and only two years apart, Sam and his sister had not been close in school--much to Mary’s dismay--and so it wasn’t as though he knew Caitlin’s friends well, but surely he remembered them as a set, much like he and his friends had been. She wondered briefly if Sam had lost any friends in the battle, but decided now was absolutely not the time to ask (when was?).

Her attempt to change the topic seemingly worked, however. A smile slid onto Mary’s thin lips again and she tried to hide it behind another sip of gin (each successive drink was disappearing faster). “Well, I’m glad you didn’t not come to this one,” she said with a tinkling laugh— then immediately realised what she had said and stopped laughing abruptly. She gawped at him for a second, tried to think what she could say to have that not be the last thing she’d said to him, and; “Because it’s already, you know, a pretty pathetic excuse for a party,” she said quickly, flapping her hand about before tucking an imaginary flyaway strand of hair behind her ear. “If one more person leaves I think we’ll have to officially demote it to a ‘gathering’,” she joked weakly.

The tall witch glanced down at the table of food awkwardly, resting the fingertips of her free hand on the edge, and her dark eyes fell upon the delicately stacked tower of macarons -- thank Merlin. “If you can do three at once you can have them,” she challenged him, hoping that that would sufficiently distract him.

“I’ve got a big mouth,” Sam promised – “You’re best friends with me sister, don’t she complain about it all the time?” Chances were she didn’t – one of the most baffling things about Caitlin was that she appeared to think far less frequently about her role in the Lynch sibling lineup than Sam did. He still thought it ought to have, like, informed her entire personality or something like that. Seemed only fair.

He swished the bottom of his beer in a lazy circle, to feel the liquid within swirl around, and had another sip, almost finishing it off. Mary was glad he’d come, she said. “Me too,” he said – not because it had been fun, because it had only been fun for the first hour or so, but because he was rather starved for good conversation and because he could not wait to see Cait’s face when she came in and realised she’d missed her own surprise party. He shot a glance over his shoulder at the other four partygoers and said, “Aye, two more and it’s just a family affair.” Minus Mary, of course, but she sort of counted as family, as she’d thrown the shindig in the first place.

She looked at the macarons. Sam followed her gaze, and then looked back at her, raising his eyebrows: her dark eyes were hard to read. “I can do four,” he said at once – not because he could do four (he wasn’t even sure he could do three) but because, to try, she’d have to let him have four.

He grinned, and reached one hand for the tower, picking four different colours – would they go well together? surely they would – vanilla went with everything, chocolate went with nearly everything, and all the different colours were probably fruits and would go well with chocolate and vanilla – and tried to strategize, now starting to doubt himself. Sure, he was getting four macarons out of it. He was also going to look like a tool in front of his sister’s roommate. But he turned them on their sides and tucked the first two into his cheeks, and the last two between his teeth, though he couldn’t fit them all the way in his mouth – “‘Ee?” he said, like tada, and bit the two stacked in his teeth in half so he could say, more coherently, “Got it.”

Sam said he had a big mouth and Mary grinned, and shrugged – not entirely subtly staring at that mouth for a moment whilst she had the excuse.

She was saved any obvious embarrassment with her admission by Sam saying he was glad he’d come, too; Mary felt a rush of appreciation (and something else) for him in that moment— swiftly extinguished by his next comment. She grimaced—doing a quick headcount—realising that he was apparently including her in his definition of ‘family’. One step forward and two steps back, every time. “Yeah,” she smiled weakly, downing the remainder of her drink.

Sam met her eyes and Mary swallowed softly under his scrutiny. He raised his eyebrows, she raised hers in reply. I can do four. She laughed. “Prove it.”

As Sam plucked his macarons, Mary reached for the gin and topped herself up, watching him out of the corner of her eyes; she set the bottle down just as he was rotating the first two biscuits and wedging them into his cheeks. She hadn’t thought he was actually going to do it. Mary’s lips stretched into a wide, somewhat abashed grin –  she felt like she probably shouldn’t watch, but— no, she was going to watch, obviously.

Sam tucked the last two in and Mary laughed. “Very subtle.” Her dark eyes flicked across to the rest of the group, who hadn’t noticed, before returning to Sam. She plucked a fresh beer from the ice (mostly water, now) bucket and placed it on his side of the table as a reward of sorts – as if four macarons hadn’t been enough. “You do have a big mouth,” she smirked.

Mary didn’t look too happy at his decree of this as a family affair; Sam qualified hastily, “Don’t mean it’s not fun. I mean – you’ve seen how my family parties.” He settled back against the wall, cradling his bottle back against his breastbone. He toyed with the idea of saying that his family parties were the ones he had grown to like the best, these days, but thought it might come across insulting somehow.

Had she ever been to one of the industry parties? Or to the Quidditch ones? He took Cait to some of them, at least, so she must have at least gotten the impression of them – phony, politicky shindigs. He toyed with the idea of complaining about those, too.

Very subtle. His mouth was still stretched around the macarons – “Uh huh,” he managed anyway, taking the proffered beer and fishing his wand out again to pop the cap and wash down the remainder of his desserts. “Told you so,” he said proudly, and had another long swig.

There was a tap in the doorway; when Sam glanced up, Donny’s chess partner was leaving – he raised his eyebrows at Mary rather than say good-bye (he didn’t remember her name, even though he was sure he’d met her earlier – Marsha or something, maybe) and said, in a faux undertone as the door closed, “It’s a family affair now. You got anything good you were hiding from your coworkers?”

He looked over his shoulder, but – fortunately – Donny and their cousin Brody were entertaining themselves just fine now, so he just tilted his head back at Mary and gave her a hopeful smile.

Mary rolled her eyes; she knew this wasn’t much fun, Sam didn’t need to pretend (though she appreciated the sentiment), but she wanted to blame that on them being in party limbo — they could hardly properly get into it before the birthday girl got there, could they?

She was still grinning—eyes darting away and back to him rapidly—at how much of a dork he was being. He might be an internationally recognised rockstar but he was still Sam, not at all deep down, and there was something reassuring about the fact he’d been an affable idiot for as long as she’d known him. Mary tucked a strand of her long, dark hair behind her ear as he said he had told her so, about the macarons. “You did,” she agreed with a nod and a poorly-stifled smirk. She had another sip as he drank; her dark eyes on him a little less subtly now, a few drinks in.

A rap of knuckles on the doorframe stole her attention away— Martha was off. Mary waved goodbye, almost sheepishly, then smoothed the skirt of her dress down and got distracted playing with the hem. Sam lowered his voice and Mary shot him a dark—mostly teasing—look. She was still miffed by the family affair thing but couldn’t really be mad at him — especially not when he pulled that face. She sighed and rolled her eyes pointedly. There was a bottle of whiskey—Cait’s—in the cupboard.

Mary had another (long) sip of her gin and stepped around Sam to the cabinet above the fridge, reached up on her tiptoes (mostly for show, she was certainly tall enough to reach) to open it and withdraw the bottle. She turned around and met his eyes, pausing for a moment before handing the bottle over. “You better finish that first,” she said, inclining her head at the bottle of beer he’d only opened a moment earlier.

Mary did not seem impressed with Sam’s debauchery, which was not altogether unexpected. He raised his eyebrows a fraction and she seemed to relent, though with a spectacular roll of her eyes. Immediately his plaintive, hopeful look lapsed into a smirk.

He raised his eyebrows – you’d better finish that first – and then shrugged and tilted it back, dunked the empty bottle next to the last one on the table thirty seconds later and said, “Let’s have it, then –” she hadn’t gotten out a glass, so he detached himself from the table, shook his head like a dog to clear it (maybe, he allowed himself to think, he should not have done that) and crossed to start opening cabinet doors at random until he’d unearthed a mug.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m drinking this one slower.” He had to; he leaned against the counter next to her and tilted his head back against the cabinet door. “I should not have done that,” he added.

Jesus Christ, how long had it been? Almost five hours. He couldn’t be blamed for anything he’d done after hanging around this shite party for five hours. Thus reassured – this was Caitlin’s fault, if she ever returned (dimly he wondered if they should owl the Ministry just to check on her) – he set his whiskey down on the table next to his depleted beers.

For all that they’d seen each other over the years, he didn’t think he and Mary Hunt had ever had a real conversation. Caitlin had been particularly against the idea of any of her brothers fraternising with her friends, which (as Sam had been against the idea of any of his friends fraternising with his sister) he couldn’t blame her for. He tilted his head – “So what do you like to do for fun?” he said.

Mary watched Sam down his beer with her eyes a little wide in surprise. As he tilted his head back, her gaze drifted down to his Adam’s apple and she found herself staring, a little mesmerised. She had kind of been daring him to do that, she supposed, but to what end? She wasn’t about to get him drunk and corner him in her kitchen — he was Caitlin’s brother, and Caitlin was her best friend— nevermind that he was a world-famous rockstar now, who dated equally famous (she supposed, she’d heard) Quidditch stars.

World-famous rockstar who wasn’t above using a humble mug for his whiskey, though; he pulled out one of the plain ones (Mary tended to stash her cat-shaped one, with a tail-handle, at the back of the cupboard) and poured into it. Mary had been staring at him (again) over the rim of her gin, sipping as she watched him opening cupboards instead of offering directions.

Mary laughed into her glass at Sam’s apparent misfortune — it echoed very unattractively and she grimaced, lowering the vessel quickly and stepping to the table with the bottle of gin on it. “Oh, no, don’t slow down on my account,” she told him, smirking smally as she uncorked the gin and poured a more generous serving than previously, bubbles glugging up the opposite end of the bottle. “And you don’t need to pretend you don’t party much harder on tour to save my feelings,” she sighed softly and glanced towards the living area. “This really is the worst party I’ve ever been to—” she flicked her attention back to Sam, “No offence to present company.”

She was still surprised he was here, to be honest. Him and his family both. She was feeling a little outnumbered, now, but she also wasn’t about to encourage them to leave — this was the longest conversation she had ever had with him. Not that they were saying much right at this minute, she was too busy trying to work out what to say—

She blinked at him across the small kitchen. “Me?” she asked, dumbly, then smiled awkwardly because of course her. “Well, I don’t know,” she said, suddenly doubting her own definition of ‘fun’, or indeed the coolness of her hobbies — did she even have any real hobbies? Mary shrugged, if only to give herself more time to come up with some sort of passable answer.

“I— work a lot,” she prefaced her response, as an excuse, “but I like going out. Cocktails.” Did she sound like an alcoholic? “Dinner.” Now it sounded like she was fishing. “Trying new restaurants, you know. There’s a Mediterranean place I convinced Cait to go to with me and it had the best Moussaka I’ve ever—” She stopped as she met his eyes and grinned down at her feet, running her fingertip around the lip of her glass. “I like staying in too,” she added as an afterthought. “Pour a drink, put a record on,” she said quietly, realising she really didn’t have any real hobbies. She brought her gaze back up to meet his. “What about you?”

Don’t slow down on my account, said Mary; Sam grinned, not having particularly intended to – the momentary dizziness would die down a bit if he rode it out. “You said it, not me,” he said, but grinned anyway – “Trust me, I like it better dull than mental. You ever gone to those avant-garde artsy-schmartsy things in Paris?”

Mary looked taken aback at being asked after herself – Well, I don’t know. Sam was tempted a little to laugh – he wasn’t much for hobbies either, at least not hobbies that seemed like they could be brought up in polite company. She worked a lot – that didn’t surprise him, knowing his sister – and she rambled, which was (he thought with mild surprise) funny. He had always rather thought of Caitlin’s friends as a very inaccessible, stuffed-shirt, prim crowd. Even Mary had to have at least a little of that in her, if she could be friends with Cait.

But he supposed he’d known that she could be fun, too. After all – she’d put together the party of a century.

“I don’t know what Moussaka is,” he said, as she looked up at him; he was sure she’d guessed as much already, as she promptly hid her smile. “I go out most of the time, too, though – all I know how to cook is breakfast.” He rolled his neck, and added ruefully, “Reckon my mam was all excited about the Europe tours so I could get all cultured, but every time I’m abroad I just carry on ordering whatever looks the most like meat and potatoes.”

She asked about his hobbies; Sam shrugged. “I’m a drummer,” he said, “I drum. And, obviously, I spend a lot of time testing how much food I can fit in my mouth at once.”

Well, good to know that if she ever needed someone to tell her the blunt truth about her event planning she could call upon Sam. Mary’s closed-lipped smile widened when he said he preferred it dull than mental, and she laughed lightly at artsy-schmartsy. “No, I can’t say I have. Do you frequent those often?” she smirked, curious now.

Merlin, she had just kept babbling away like an idiot, hadn’t she? She almost wanted the ground to swallow her whole, especially with the way he was grinning at her — but, also, she wasn’t not enjoying that grin. It was so unfair how men seemed to just get better looking as they got older, wasn’t it? Sam had always been nice to look at, of course, but age had refined him a little — just not his sense of style, but that was for his girlfriend to fix, really. Mary took a long sip, her dark eyes reluctantly flitting around to the living room to see who else was still here.

“You don’t?” she exclaimed, clearly affronted by the idea that one could not know what Moussaka was, as she brought her attention back up to Sam. “Oh, we’re going to have to change that,” she told him, only realising after the fact that it sounded very presumptuous — but she was also well on her way to being gin-drunk, and starting to feel a little more confident about how she could speak to him — practically family, he’d said.

The Auror laughed, distracted from her own inner-ramblings. “Breakfast is the most important meal, supposedly.” She flashed Sam another little smirk, had another little sip of gin. Donny had found the record player and turned it on, apparently giving up on the surprise angle of the party at this point, though he kept the volume low. Mary glanced back at Sam and let out a tinkling little laugh at meat and potatoes. “Very adventurous.”

He was a drummer — she rolled her eyes softly. Everyone knew he was a drummer. She was halfway to having another drink when she snorted quietly into her glass. If she wasn’t so merry she might worry she was laughing too much, but that was hardly her fault. She glanced at the rest of the macarons. “Next time I’ll pick something more challenging,” she offered, casting her gaze over the other food on the table before meeting his eye again. “Cocktail sausages or something,” she smirked again.

Mary was probably being facetious – did he look like he frequented those often? – but Sam suspected it would be immensely fun to share the details of artsy-schmartsy nightlife with her, so he shrugged. “I used to,” he said. “Early tours, you know, back when I was a playboy. But then once you’ve been to one party with people painted gold wearing fruit cups and wings, you’ve been to ‘em all, haven’t you?”

She’d caught him smirking, he thought, but to her credit, didn’t seem too embarrassed, though she looked away (back around the room, as though the party might have gained some life while they were talking.) He kept looking at her – so much of the time when he was around his sister and her friends, he couldn’t help but see them as the awkward gang of teenagers they’d been when he was a young man (Caitlin in particular had been four-eyed and ungainly) but just now Mary was surveying her ruined party with a very regal air.

Though she was badly offended by his not knowing what Moussaka was, she made no move to explain it, and so Sam rolled his eyes (and grinned) and said, “Well, if you must.” People were always telling him he had to try such-and-such; in most situations he’d come out feeling like he really hadn’t had to.

“Well, then I’ve had a lot of very important meals,” said Sam, “And yet none of them have been with the Minister.” Perhaps not the best joke to make; Mary had been an Auror (was she still?) and had probably known the Minister way back when, or something like that – the likelihood of accidentally insulting peoples’ personal family friends while insulting the higher-ups of society had been present since he was in school. (The first time Charlie had told him the wizarding world seemed very small he’d laughed; he’d been eating his words within a month.)

At least she laughed, which he was pretty sure meant he was coming out on top of this party. Take that, Cait, wherever she was. “I could do that easy,” he boasted, and was about to reach for the bowl, before pausing to add, “Well, hold on – if I do it you’ve got to try it too. At least the macarons.”