rebound, feeling like a re-run { a r i }

JULY 2003

It was a gorgeously sunny day. The birds were chirping, the leaves on trees swayed gently in the breeze, and Freya Trickett sat in a corner seat on the balcony of a new cafe in Stoke Newington sipping her second mimosa. Today, her hair was in a high ponytail. Her curls were neatly pulled back from her face and cascading prettily down her back. She wore some dramatic oversized sunglasses - she figured they suited the occasion - and a short, summery dress. She looked amazing, really, and was aware of the fact. It had actually been an intentional choice.

She put down her drink when her friend appeared.

“Hey Ari!” she said brightly, getting to her feet to give her friend a tight hug. She was buzzing with impatient energy. "Nice, huh?" she asked, gesturing over the balcony rail, overlooking a park and some streets a couple of floors down. They'd been trying new places out for bottomless brunch for a couple of months now, and so far, this was her favourite one. Although it was true that she'd already had a couple of drinks - she needed the liquid courage - so perhaps her opinion was swayed somewhat. She looked over Ari's shoulder, eyeing one of the waiters; she was pretty hungry.

“How’s work, how’s Prosper?” Freya waved a hand as she pulled back from the hug, indicating the et cetera at the end of that sentence. She was impatient to get to the point, though, and didn’t let Ari finish when she started speaking. The truth was, this was a level one million emergency. She didn’t have time to ease into it. Freya slid her sunglasses down just enough so that she could see her friend over them.

“Ari,” she said seriously, before sitting back her chair. She took the sunnies off - they were distracting. Quickly, she asked “Are you drinking today? It’s bottomless,” she added hopefully. Freya gave a big sigh, folding her sunglasses and putting them to one side. “Listen, so, I have some really juicy goss, but... also I’m a massive idiot, ughh” Freya put her face in her hands for dramatic emphasis.

Ari was back early from Paris this weekend for what had become a series of regular brunch dates with Freya. The constant shuttling back and forth had become such a pedestrian occurrence that she no longer really registered what had once felt like such a stark difference between the two cities, despite the obvious visual and cultural disparities. Both were now places where she had familiar, regular haunts, and although these brunch places were usually different establishments, they were often in similar, well-trod neighborhoods. Ari liked the familiarity, liked the feeling of belonging, and liked how that feeling had expanded over the past few years.

Returning Freya's tight hug, she eyed the two glasses - one empty, one half full - with a critical eye. Freya early enough to get two drinks in meant something had happened, probably. Ari arched an eyebrow but kept mum - Freya was terrible at keeping something that was getting at her down for long - and nodded as she looked down toward the park. "Yeah, it's definitely nice to have a spot of green down there. We're goo--" she let Freya cut her off, pressing her lips together to suppress the laugh that was bubbling up at how right she'd been. Familiarity, again, was nice.

"Freya," she returned, trying to match her tone, although the sunglasses antics were too much for her and she did let out a bit of a laugh then. "It's always bottomless, isn't it?" She was in a good mood, buoyed by a few evenings of cuddling and one very nice restaurant with a very nice sea bass, and for some reason teasing her friend in this state of alarm - it probably wasn't the bad kind of alarm or Freya would have owled her immediately, right? - was too easy. "I'll have one, of course, waste of Sickles otherwise."

The temptation was strong for a moment to pretend she was more interested in the food than in whatever Freya was trying to tell her, but that was a little too mean and it subsided pretty soon, although Ari was hungry. "Juicy goss involving yourself, then?" Ari inquired, although she folded her arms below her on top of the menu and leaned in. "Well, what happened? I'm sure you can't be that much of an idiot. Also, are you sure you don't want to tell me over," she glanced briefly down at the menu and said the first thing she read, "lemon ricotta pancakes with blueberries, instead of just drinks?"

“Just one?” Freya asked weakly, before quickly moving on.

“Yes, yes,” she said, waving a hand again. “Just about me. And my stupid, stupid decisions.” It was easier to be self-admonishing and dramatic than it was to be overly vulnerable and open, but she was already a couple of drinks in, so perhaps that would come later. With that thought in mind, Freya reached for her drink again. It was probably a bad idea to be drinking on an empty stomach, but oh well. It was a special occasion, right?

“Well I - ” Food? Freya stared at her friend, wondering how she could be talking about pancakes at a time like this. She sighed again, this time impatiently. “Sure,” she said. Freya downed the rest of her drink in one smooth motion, and then sat up a little straighter. She held her empty glass to one side as she searched the cafe for the waiter she’d seen before. When they made eye contact, she indicated that she wanted him to come over.

The ordering process was painfully slow. The waiter was a bit flirty with both of the girls, despite Freya doing her best tight-lipped smiles and dismissive “mhmm”s in response. She caught the look that Ari gave her when she ordered a vegan platter. “Greg is vegan and he has abs now,” she said matter-of-factly.

After about forty years, the waiter finally left them alone, and Freya had a chance to talk. She’d been making a fuss about getting to the point, but now that she was here, she wasn’t sure how to start it. “So we got pretty drunk after trivia the other night,” She said, playing self-consciously with the long ponytail that hung over her shoulder. “Jeremy got absolutely trollied.” A fleeting smile played across her lips as she remembered, then disappeared as she kept remembering. She leaned in a bit, biting her lip. "Anyway so it's just... I almo- "

Freya was cut off as the waiter returned with her drink. She took it from him with another tight-lipped smile and a bit of a glare, then turned straight back to Ari, unable to keep it in any longer. "Danny and I almost had sex," she said in a loud whisper.

Well, she would start with one, right? Who committed to a specific number of drinks ahead of time?

Ari was terribly curious now but she was still in quite a sunny mood, so although part of her was about to worry that Freya had gone and gotten herself involved in something that was bigger than she wanted to - was there another famous wrock singer she needed to warn off? - she was still willing to wave off Freya's dramatics as just that. She chuckled at Freya's impatience, patting her friend's arm in an intentionally annoyingly patronizing way. "It's good to have food in the morning with your mimosas," she grinned.

The waiter flirted with both of them, which Ari found bizarre, although she was no longer as oblivious to it as she would have been two years ago. Having a serious relationship had done a number for her awareness when it came to relationships, although she still didn't know how to respond when she wasn't in a relationship with the person in question. Still, she was happy to order, not pancakes after all, but a potato hash with egg and chicken - something a little more hearty.  She ate a lot of Nutella and banana crepes in Paris. Freya, on the other hand, ordered...vegetables? What was even in a vegan platter? "Greg has abs now too?" She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "Hang on, are you trying to be like Greg or endear yourself to him?" She knew Greg, of course, but less well than everyone else. To be fair, he'd never wanted her help with homework the way Danny had and he'd never walked in on her in the bath like Jere, so maybe that was it. Still, Freya probably didn't see Greg like a brother. Maybe that would be a more fruitful avenue than the whole Hot Duncan thing...

"Sounds like a normal night," Ari interjected with a laugh. If Jeremy had gotten that drunk they'd probably put him up to it. Taking a sip of her mimosa - she'd picked grapefruit, couldn't have the normal mimosa if you went to a bottomless place that actually had other flavors - she raised her eyebrows as Freya finally got to the point, and proceeded to choke on the drink.

Coughing profusely, Ari grabbed the water that had also appeared on the table after she'd sat down and attempted to clear her throat and lungs. Grapefruit was way too acidic for this. Her teasing mood had evaporated in the face of her surprise. This many years of 'Danny is like a brother to me' and this? "Almost?" she demanded, still slightly hoarse from the sputtering. "You waited over a day to tell me this?" Freya had said she had made the stupid decisions, so... "Did you...? Make the first move? Are you two okay?" What was going to happen to the Dingleberries and co if something was wrong between them? Would Jeremy know? Had he...Merlin, had poor Jeremy been passed out the entire time they were doing whatever it was they'd done? Ari blinked, her face still clearly somewhat shellshocked. "I need more information," she declared. Some juicy gossip Freya had brought today. "...And maybe another drink."

Freya just snorted when Ari asked if she was trying to endear herself to Greg. That was a whole different story, she thought. Danny had told her that Greg had liked her “throughout school”, whatever that meant, and then there was the abs thing and Danny’s weirdness in the kitchen... She waved the question away, moving onto more pressing matters.

“Right!” Freya agreed, nodding and feeling vindicated as Ari coughed her lungs up, finally getting the response she deemed appropriate. Almost? “Almost!” Freya answered, in a stage whisper, clutching her new drink in between two hands like it was a mug rather than a champagne flute. She rolled her eyes, “yeah well yesterday I had to drown myself in the shower, y’know, and I knew I was seeing - ” Freya stopped as Ari interjected.

“Sort of??” she answered helplessly, clearly flustered. Freya cut her drink down to half as Ari declared that she needed more information. And fair enough, she thought! Freya put her glass down on the table again, straightening as she gathered her thoughts. She dabbed at the corner of her lips with the serviette that had been placed in front of her at the table. She already felt a bit tipsy, and that made everything just a touch more difficult. “Hmm.” She said, thinking.

“He kissed me first,” Freya started, before biting her lip and pausing. “But Dan and I were sort of flirting all night,” she admitted. “But that’s not weird for us, you know?” She added quickly. She shifted forward in her chair. “Like, it’s always been a little flirty - you know how Danny is. Always teasing, always bantering, and we’ve all sort of cuddled before when we’ve been drunk… And we were drinking…” She sighed again. She and Danny and Jeremy had all passed out in Jeremy’s bed once. A bit of cuddling wasn’t weird. “We got into this weird space, like we were talking about school and reminiscing and he said all these really sweet things, and I don’t think I’ve seen him quite like that before.”

She wanted to talk about the way he’d looked when he’d asked her if she thought he was a joke, the vulnerability she had absolutely never seen on him in the past. But it felt a bit weird to bring it up here, in a cafe, in the sun. “He said some really nice stuff,” she said instead, picking up the pace again as everything came out at once. “But then… I don’t know, he kissed me and things got really heated and then I stopped it and then… It was so awkward, Ari,” she said, a bit of vulnerability of her own coming out right at the end of her babbling.

Freya was still being a little dramatic, but Ari now felt sure that it was partly to cover up the real feelings she had underneath about it all. It was easy to cast yourself as the dramatic, hopeless one in the self-deprecating way people their age did. Ari had done it herself with much better (in hindsight) news when she'd first told Freya about going to the symphony with Prosper. It was a lot harder to figure out what role you really had and what role the other person really had, and who'd made the mistakes, than it was to just cast it all as a catastrophe.

Ari started listening more closely, although she was taking more sips of her mimosa than she would otherwise. The halting nature of her recapping of the night made her want to fill up time with the sweet liquid. "Yeah..." she did know exactly how Danny was, although it was a fond thought. Ari thought hard for a moment about Danny Willbond. Did she believe that there was something more to him underneath all of that ridiculousness? Of course. Danny was a doting big brother, the kind of friend who would definitely stick up for you if you were in a tight spot, even if he'd cover all that up with a bunch of jokes. You didn't get to be any of that without having a good heart. Had he ever really let on about it? Not to her. It wasn't like she felt like he was holding back a lot of thoughts - Danny kind of talked enough that she felt like at least seventy percent of what went through his head came out of his mouth. Maybe whatever was there, whatever Freya had seen, was was just buried deep enough that even he didn't consciously think about it most of the time.

"Well...I guess the question is why you stopped it?" She scratched her ear absent-mindedly, glancing out over the park below the balcony for a minute before turning back to Freya thoughtfully. "Like you seem to regret it, but I don't know if it's because you didn't enjoy it or because you're worried about what it means, you know?"

“Why I stopped it?” Freya asked, like she didn’t understand the question. “It’s Danny,” she said, as if this were the obvious answer. “You know? Danny Willbond? Ever heard him talk about a girl before?” She stopped herself, feeling like her insecurities were showing just a liiiitttle bit too much. “We were drunk,” she said again, which was true, but didn’t really cover the tone of the night. Would they have kissed if they weren’t drinking? Well, probably not. Since they wouldn’t be all cuddled up in bed if they hadn’t been drinking. He wouldn’t have said all those nice things if they weren’t drinking - at least not in that tone.

She rested her forearms across the table’s surface. “I mean.. I enjoyed it at the time - you know it’s been like... a year... since I had - ” The waiter came back just then, with a basket of bread and a top up for Ari’s drink and she gave her friend a meaningful look. “But like, after…” She paused again, gaze aimed downward as she picked up the sunglasses she’d had on earlier and played with them absentmindedly.

When she started talking, Freya picked up pace once more. Alcohol made her chatty, and Finn hadn’t been home, so she’d been alone with her thoughts. “I apologised a lot and we said we were good, and he made some jokes and then he left.” Freya shook her head, mostly at herself. “It’s my fault, I didn’t ask him to stay or anything but…” She trailed off, then shrugged. “We didn’t talk about it, and I felt bad like I’d led him on or something.” Freya knew that Ari would chastise her for that part, but she said it anyway. Maybe she needed to hear it.

Ari grimaced. Well when she put it that way, it sounded just as bad as she was making it out to be. Ari wasn't totally sure if it was fair, though. "I mean, yes, ew, but you just said you were seeing a...different side of him, or something. I mean, look, like you said, it's Danny. I don't think you're just some random girl to him." Surely even Danny would think it was gross to brag about getting somewhere with Freya, or how big her boobs were, or something. She'd literally just been thinking to herself how Danny was a good guy deep down.

She crossed her arms on the table and leaned into it, scrunching her forehead in thought. "I mean...if you didn't want it to go anywhere the entire time, then yeah, I guess you kind of did," she said slowly. If they hadn't talked about it, she wondered what Danny was thinking. Grabbing a piece of bread, she rolled a soft piece into a ball between her fingers before popping it into her mouth to chew. "But I don't know, you're right, being drunk is a valid reason to put a stop to things - you don't want to ruin a friendship over a drunken encounter or whatever - but is that all it was to you? A thing that felt good in the moment? You don't think any part of it was...real, or whatever?" Ari didn't know what she meant by that but either Freya would interpret it in a way and it would probably get at what she was asking or she'd have to try and clarify.

She gave a huge sigh, wishing something more substantial than bread was in front of her. "Look, if he kissed you first he probably thinks he started it so he's probably beating himself up somewhere right now. You know you have to talk about it, right? What are you going to say?"

Freya looked at her friend, feeling vulnerable as she searched Ari’s eyes to make sure she was being serious... or something. She was scared about being a “random girl” to Danny. Of course she was scared of that. Not that she wanted to marry him or anything - she had literally not thought about him non-platonically once in the past couple years, until the night before last. But she didn’t want him to think about it the same way he thought about random girls he saw, or girls he’d been into in the past or whatever. She didn't want him to think less of her or something. Put her in any category other than the "best mates" one she was in already. She valued it a lot. Also... Freya loved being “one of the guys” with Danny and Jeremy. And Greg, even. Was this whole thing going to jeopardise that? She sighed again.

“I don’t think so,” Freya answered, a little uncertain. She paused for a moment, then went for her drink again, sipping a little more lightly this time. It didn’t really mean anything, did it? It was just a one time thing that happened because of some very specific circumstances? Was it possible that she’d been hiding some super secret feelings for Danny all this time, deep in her heart somewhere? Freya shook her head. Nah, she didn’t think so. “He’s like my brother,” she said, repeating something she’d said a lot in the past. Not just about Danny, either, but about Jeremy, Finn… And she hadn’t been wrong before.

But it hadn’t felt particularly brotherly the other night.

“It wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been drinking,” She said, settling on something that she felt she knew to be true. “I don’t know. Can’t you just legilimency him or something and find out what he’s thinking for me?” Freya gave a bit of a smile. “Aren’t they teaching you anything useful up at Auror HQ?”

Ari groaned slightly. She was sort of hoping that Freya would say yes, actually. She wanted to give both of them a pass for whatever had happened, and she wanted things to be okay. "Freya, then why..." she groaned again. "I don't know what to tell you then, it's not like I can tell you not to get drunk with Danny. I guess I should tell you that you can't use alcohol as an excuse for giving in to something you don't really want to do, or something." But it wasn't like Freya didn't already know that something had gone wrong. It was sort of redundant.

"Maybe. Do you think he feels that way?" Even if Freya didn't feel anything for him, maybe he did for her? "Or, I guess not," she said, laughing a little at the absurdity of the statement. "Not all Aurors get Legilimency training, Frey. I don't particularly want to be able to read people's minds. It's so...invasive," she said. It was sort of like everything she'd been thinking in her talks with Edith, but she didn't need to go there right now. "I'm afraid you're going to have to do it the old fashioned way and ask him yourself."

She twisted a little in her seat, and was about to speak up again when their food arrived. Stabbing a potato with a fork as the waiter walked away, leaving an unnecessary wink along with his 'enjoy your meal', she chewed on it, swallowed, and then shrugged. "What exactly are you worried about? Maybe he feels the same way, like it wasn't something you'd do otherwise and he doesn't want your friendship to be ruined. If you're on the same page and can just say that, it should be okay, right?"

“Yeah I know,” Freya said, a bit deflated now that she’d spent the last ten minutes rambling. Ari knew that the only times she’d done anything more than kissing with guys in the past couple years had involved alcohol. The whole thing was… complicated. “No,” Freya answered quickly, shaking her head. She gave Ari a quizzical look. If Danny had feelings for her, real ones... well then he’d…

She paused this train of thought. What would Danny be like if he had serious feelings for someone? If he was in love? She’d seen him into girls before, but for the most part it was just some kind of humorous infatuation or whatever. Freya had a lot of those too, though they manifested differently. She had a bit of a problem of falling in love with any barista, bartender or shopworker who smiled at her a bit too long. If she hadn’t been in a highly-strung space today, then even the waiter who lingered by their table a bit too long would probably have her sighing dreamily over her sliced avocado.

"I knooww," She said, a bit of her normal, teasing self slipping out in between the more serious-Freya. “Yeah,” She breathed, eyes on her food as she pushed it around her plate absentmindedly, brows furrowed. “I just really hope I didn’t fuck it up,” she said quietly. “I’m worried about things being different.” Freya paused for a moment, feeling that last drink washing over her at once. “I’m really worried that he’ll think of me differently, in a worse way. That all of them will.”

Okay, maybe it wasn't that simple. Ari felt sure that Danny did not want to ruin their friendship either and there would be no disagreements about that, but there was probably some ego thing about being told that whatever had happened was just something that felt good but was a meaningless and bad idea, right? Even if he didn't have...those kinds of feelings, maybe it was still something he'd thought about or wanted but hadn't said, and maybe hearing confirmation that nothing would never happen was worse than just never asking because he knew it was a bad idea. Boys, or men or whatever they were now, probably still boys, were dumb like that. Danny's mind was a mystery to her--they were friends, not heart-to-heart friends.

"I mean..." Ari drew the last word out, trying to wrap her mind around the situation. She felt sort of stupid trying to give advice as if she had any certainty about what was going to happen, and she rubbed her forehead with her fork-free hand. "If something was fucked up in all this, it sounds like both of you contributed. And if he sees that then both of you guys can figure it out." She heaved a sigh. "I can't promise things won't be different," she admitted. "At least for a bit. Like, it's probably not possible for it to be exactly the same given how big of a deal you seem to think it is. But that doesn't mean it has to be worse? Maybe it'll even be better, after it's all over and you've worked through it. More honest, or something." At the very least, they wouldn't be pretending they weren't attracted in any way to each other.

She pushed the egg around her plate. "I guess you just have to trust that your friendship over...Merlin, half your life...is worth something. If I'm right, then he's not going to be out to paint you in a bad light to everyone. And if he does, I will hex his brains out, I swear it." She offered Freya an unusually rogueish grin, trying to lighten the mood, and took another bite. "Eat up, I don't need you drunkenly hitting on me at the end of this," she teased, gesturing to Freya's vegetables.

Freya felt a little bit of that unhealthy thing she’d felt that night - the sense that she had some kind of responsibility to follow through once things had started. That she’d done something wrong when she’d stopped, even though in the moment she’d panicked a bit and continuing would have been awful. She clearly had some way to go when it came to her people-pleasing tendencies.

“True,” Freya said, in response to Ari’s comment about their friendship having lasted half her life. She did want to trust it, and when it was framed like that it felt a bit more achievable. She had a problem seeing herself through other people’s eyes, but Ari was right that Danny had been her friend for a long time. “And I appreciate that,” she added, with an amused smile. She did actually appreciate it, though. Freya had a bit to think about before she saw Danny again, whenever that was going to be. If she wasn’t such a coward, she could just apparate over there right after brunch.

Going to his house to talk sounded like a terrible idea right now, though. She'd be far too self-conscious with Greg and Jeremy on the other side of the wall. She didn't know what Danny would tell them, or how he'd frame it, or what he thought. It felt weird to be on the outside of that. The idea of not being able to talk to Jer about stuff made her sad. She and Danny were always bantering, sometimes bickering, but Jeremy was a bit sweeter, and in the past their relationship had been a soft place to work things out.

“You know I think we were onto something just before Prosper swooped in and stole you away,” she said, pointing her fork at her friend. If her wand had been easily accessible she would have recreated Ari’s little towel-man that she’d brought out a year and a half ago. She did what Ari said, though, and started actually eating her food.

Ari laughed, relieved that Freya appeared to have been drawn somewhat out of her concern, for whatever reason that was. Ariana appreciated quieter, deeper conversations, and they weren't completely absent from her relationship with Freya, but she also admittedly relied on her friend to pull her out of her own more crushing moods. Seeing Freya like this felt a little off-kilter, even though Ari knew that it was disrespectful to feel like there could only be one side of her friend.

Ari shook her head, her eyes crinkling in a smile. "As I recall, he was already halfway through the process of swooping at the time," she retorted, shaking her own fork in Freya's direction, then making a surprised face as a tiny bit of egg flew off the end and landed in her mimosa, bobbing around on the surface like some unidentifiable blob from the deep. "Oops. Good thing it's bottomless, right?" she laughed. "Anyway, Prosper's been in open relationships," she pointed out. She knew that much, even if he'd never gone into detail and Ari had long since decided it was probably better that she not ask. He'd never said anything about wishing this one was, but Ari wasn't really sure whether that was just because he didn't think she was the kind of person to agree or because he wanted something different at this particular time in his life.

She didn't want to interrupt her friend by prompting a response when she'd finally started eating, but after letting the silence between them stretch on for a while, surrounded by the ambient noise of other diners and the streets below, she looked up after a swallow. "Are you okay?" she prodded gently. "Think you know what you're going to say?"

Freya gave Ari a rather displeased look as a bit of her egg landed in her drink. She picked up the glass, stared at the offender and then went about fishing it out with her finger because she was fancy like that. “He’s what?” she asked distractedly. Then, she looked up from her drink.

“Has he really?” she asked, smiling a bit at this bit of gossip. It made sense, she supposed, Prosper was a free spirit! An artisté. Then she frowned, her mimosa hand going still as she gave ari a curious look. “Doesn’t that freak you out a bit? Like, I know you guys have been together forever or whatever--” zero jealousy though, “--but I feel like that would freak me out, just a little.” Freya put her glass back down and shook the liquid off her hand down next to the table, trying to be inconspicuous about it.

“Yes well, I’d been laying groundwork for years,” Freya complained, a distinct playful whine in her voice. She glanced at her food again, an amused smile on her lips as she remembered Danny phrasing it exactly like that. Laying groundwork. That’s probably where she got it from.

She could tell that Ari was trying to be gentle, but Freya had shifted out of the more vulnerable place she’d been in a moment ago. There was no need to show Ari all of her insecurities at once, was there? “Oh, probably just like we were so drunk, ha ha. How funny.” Freya rolled her eyes at herself.