got caught up in a wave [jeremy]

Freya left, Jere kept waggling his brows and asking his to share the dirt, and Greg was still humming to himself as he ate his power breakfast and promptly piled all of his dirty dishes in the overflowing sink. Danny flipped off both of his roommates and then headed into the bathroom for a quick shower, a memory of Freya brushing her teeth with her finger popping into his head. He sighed as he got a quick shower, got dressed, woke up Jeremy who had fallen asleep again and then grabbed his wallet and keys and nudged his red-headed friend out the door.

"Where do you wanna go? Connor's?" Danny asked, naming a diner closer by that was one of their usual haunts as he threw a quick glance over his shoulder. He rubbed at his forehead as he trudged down the stairs, floor after floor. Merlin, he had drank too much last night and all of this movement and feelings and tension was not working for him.

He started off down the block toward the greasy diner they often recuperated at on Saturdays and avoided looking at Jeremy. He wasn't great at keeping secrets. He never had been. But this felt a little different. Danny knew he could brag and exaggerate about all the experience he had with girls because it was fun and funny and light, but the stuff with Freya last night felt different. Mostly because it was tinged with rejection too. When Jean Lynch had denied him back in their school days, it had been a bit of a blow to his ego, but he had gotten over it pretty quickly. He didn't know why it felt different with Freya. Maybe because Jean had no idea who he was and Freya knew more about him than probably even his parents. That's what shared history did between friends.

He sighed and kicked a rock off the sidewalk, walking a bit faster than usual, his hands in his pockets, eager to get to Connor's so he could stuff his face with food and think about something else.

@Jeremy Edwards

He shook his head at Danny when he gave him the bird, "Uncalled for." He told him as he got off the sofa and headed for the bathroom. He managed to slip off to sleep with his head leaning on the top of the couch, making it ache when Danny woke him up. He still had his shoes on from last night but he should have probably changed or showered or at the very least splashed some water on his face but it was too late now. Danny was ushering him out the door and honestly the sound of fried potatoes sounded way better than a shower right now anyway.

"Yeah Connors." He agreed, managing to get down the flights of stairs without falling even though the landing turns gave him the spins. His stomach was not happy with him and his head seemed to be leading the riot. When they got out he successfully checked one of two ways before he crossed the street in an effort to keep up. "Slow down mate." He called ahead to Danny. "Severely hungover here." Pointing at himself as he caught up with Danny's fast pace and groaning.

"So are you gonna' tell me what happened or do we have to play twenty questions?"

Danny huffed an impatient breath as Jere did a bad attempt at a valet jog to catch up to him then he started walking again, but slower this time. "You're fine, we're almost there anyway," he muttered. Normally he wasn't a grump. But he was hungry and confused. And really hungry. He pushed a hand through his hair, noticing just now that some of it was still damp.

He slid his gaze over to Jeremy and shrugged saying, "I told you what happened." His tone was short and to the point, but a riot of thoughts were running through his head and Danny had never been very good at being tight-lipped. He spoke before he thought and apologized later usually. That's just how it was. "I think I fucked up," he admitted his cheeks turning a bit red as he avoided Jeremy's look.

Luckily they arrived at Connor's and Danny pulled open the door, holding it for a middle-aged couple as they exited before slipping inside and heading towards their usual booth. Menus weren't necessary for him. He already knew what he wanted and he waved a hand at Millie, the older sassy server who waited on them most weekends, smoked cigarettes out back, and called them "sweetie" or "hunny" more than he could count. "I'm getting the usual. You?" he asked Jere.

Jeremy wasn't taking what he said as the last of it. There was no way that was the entire story. Not with the way both of them had been acting this morning. He might have still be drunk from last night but he wasn't blind. He opened his mouth to ask again, maybe throw in an insult or two, when Danny beat him to the punch. I think I fucked up was definitely not what Jeremy was expecting to here. And honestly, the seriousness of Danny's told put the red head extremely off balance.

He followed the other wizard in and found himself sliding into their favorite booth and felt a certain sense of security when his butt fit perfectly into the mold of the cushion he'd been curating for two years now. "I'm going to need more information than that?" He asked, but Danny was talking about their orders. Neither one of them ever used the menus, unless they were looking to add pie or milkshakes onto their mainstays. Interrupting again Jeremy tried to remind himself that Millie's bad timing wasn't her fault. "The usual for me but extra bacon." He told her and she scribbled it down, a quick 'sure thing hun' as she waited for Danny's order. She was headed off in a moment but Jeremy was yelling out to her. "And extra mash!" He called out, hand griping the edge of the table like he was fighting to dear life. He needed as much food as he could get right now.

Turning back to his investigation the hung over wizard rubbed at his temples again before narrowing his eyes on Danny. He leaned in, whispering even though no one cared what they were talking about as always. He had put all of the non-information he had together so naturally he thought some kind of funny business had happened between them. And while most of him didn't believe it, the rest of him couldn't help but make a quick joke. "Did you have some uh... performance issues?" He said, his index finger pointing upwards and then slumping down depressingly.

"I already told you," Danny grunted impatiently, a hint of irritation in his tone. He didn't even realized he hadn't really told Jere anything of detail. But he felt like the thoughts had been going round and round his head for days and it was making him ornery. He glanced up at Millie and tried not to grumble his usual order of a stack of pancakes with extra syrup and whip cream, an order of hashbrowns, and a pile of bacon.

He slowly rotated his glass of water around as Millie walked away before he glanced at Jeremy. Maybe this was a bad idea. His stomach grumbled then. Nope, he was hungry. He was staying. But still, he doubted Jeremy knew more than him when it came to girls. He was wrapped in his thoughts when Jere asked the question and his jaw dropped before he sat up straight, affronted. "No! Hell no!" he said loudly before glancing around and leaning in to whisper. "My dingle and berries are fine. Operating at 100%. At 120% actually. We're good. No worries there." He nodded with finality. No more questions needed on that part.

"Sooo.. we kind of made out?" he started slowly, his tone high as if asking a question and then it came out in a flood. "I started kissing her and we were on my bed and dude she was so hot but it's also Tricky you know? But then I maybe might have taken her shirt off and then well you can guess what I thought about where it was going but then she stopped and it got really fucking weird and then I slept on the stupid futon." Danny stopped to take a breath as he glanced up at his friend nervously as if Jere was final judge and jury about if this broke the bro code. Freya had always been just one of the boys. Well except for that hot tub time, but that hadn't gone anywhere and Kerr had set his straight with a punch to the nose after that.

"And she was really weird this morning?" he sighed but looked at Jere, his heart hammering as if his fears and suspicions about ruining it hinged on what Jere thought of the situation. It was like he couldn't even trust his own thoughts and feelings at this point because that's what had led them here.

The head ache that was threatening to ruin his breakfast got worse when Danny snapped at him, but he pursurvered, for the sake of science. He cringed at the loudness coming from across the table, the pounding in his skull expanding. He needed those greasy heavenly hash browns and he needed them now. There was a growing chance he was going to steal most of Danny's hash browns too at this rate. He remembered what Freya had told him, in that inopportune moment, and took a gulp of the water that had been set in front of him.

"My dingle and berries are fine. Operating at 100%. At 120% actually. We're good. No worries there." Jeremy choked on his water, spitting some of it out and he used the back of his hand to stop it from running down his chin. "Ugh, good to know." He said, getting more information than he'd needed. But that was just par for the course. Danny was telling him all about his dingle situation, just not the one Jeremy wanted to hear about.

"No really?" He asked, giving him a look that moved from excitement, to disbelief, to pride (because he had helped him along this great journey, naturally), and then back to disbelief. "No you didn't." He said before Danny had finished. And then a thought occurred to him and his face nearly turned into flat out rage. He remembered them dragging him to bed, knocking over his gobstone jar, sitting in his room for a while... did they make out in his bed? That was weird. He took a deep breath as he readied for defcon 1 but Danny talked him off of that ledge quickly as the story finally unfolded.

Jeremy listened intently to the story. He was sitting forward in his seat, hands hanging onto his water glass like it was a bowl of popcorn, straw still in his mouth. His eyes grew wider with the mention of a topless Tricky and then dimmed by the end. "The futon?" He said.. it sounded like a question, but really he was just sad. That was the guest bedroom, but it was the absolutely worst place in the apartment to crash. Jere would sleep on the balcony before he slept on the futon. It had a weird smell to it and even though everyone knew what it was from no one talked about it and no one was cleaning it up. "She was really weird." Jeremy finally said after he'd taken a moment to digest what had just been confessed to him.

This changed everything, the entire dynamic of the Dingles. They had always been Willy and Tricky and Eddy and now what were they? Jere had never believed the Prefects bathroom story, he was stubborn like that, but he had a hard time denying this one. All of the facts make sense, the timeline worked, Freya's behavior tracked, he couldn't not believe it. Jeremy considered everything he'd be told and even though his brain was imploding from the hangover and the insane information he was just fed he had to give it up to Danny, just for a second. He raised his hand for a high five, "Nice job mate, well mostly." And then he realized this wasn't some conquest they were bragging about (exaggerating about really), this was Freya. And when that news sunk in he punched Danny's arm from across the table.

"You dolt what did you do to her?"

"Yeah, it is good to know. Very good. Great, actually," Danny added in defense of his dingles, nodding emphatically before he was able to drop it. Just wanted to make sure they were all clear on that tidbit before moving on. He gave his friend a look, as if ready to jump in with more details about how good he was down there if it was needed.

"Yes, really," Danny said dully, taking a sip of his water. "Yes, I did," he added again. See? Even when something did happen just like the hot tub time or the swim in the Great Lake with Casey in their 7th year, no one ever believed him. His friends were the worst. Greg especially with his stupid abs and his waggling eyebrows after he watched Freya leave. "Really weird, right?" Danny said, agreeing, glad that Jeremy was confirming his suspicions. There was a doubt that he had just been overthinking everything, which wasn't usually a problem he had so this whole experience was brand new to him. He would have loved it all things considered if it wasn't Freya.

He grinned a bit as Jere congratulated him but he shrugged it off. It's not like he had done anything really and he was pretty sure he had messed it up more than he had anything to brag about. Still, out of habit, he reached up to return the high five before widening his eyes and howling in pain as he sucker punched him, pain radiating down his arm. "Why is everyone always punching me after I kiss Tricky?" he whined as he rubbed the spot and shot a glare over to his friend.

"I didn't do anything!" he went on as he stretched out his arm and then ran his napkin over the little puddles that had formed on the table from the water that had spilled after Jere rocked the table. "At least, I don't think so? Well, I kissed her first but she was into it? I asked her and she said it was 'alright'. Merlin." He stopped himself and ran his hand through his hair and it stuck up in more of a tangled mess than usual. He realized how bad it sounded when he said it out loud. "She just said she needed a sec. Do you think I rushed her? I mean, it's not like I planned to do it in the first place, it just happened. Fuck, I don't know."

He looked up at Jere as if he was going to provide a miracle solution. "What do you.. do you think I messed it up? Like if you were her, what would you have done?"

"Danny you didn't kiss her in the tub, you have to let that one go, everyone knows it never happened." Jeremy told him with another roll of his eyes. He would deny that epic tale until the day he died, there was no freaking way Danny Willbond had gotten that lucky. And they were sitting here, proof of exactly how unlucky he was when it came to Tricky. And even though Jere wanted to tease him about it, bust balls and all that, he could tell now wasn't the time. Jeremy was goofy and playful and all of that but he was also Danny's best friend for a reason. "You sure?" He asked, giving him a curious look, needing more information so that they could properly unravel this mystery. A new sense of motivation, Jeremy settled in and dedicated himself to helping his friend in these troubled times. They would sit here until they figured out what had happened - or until their breakfast showed up - Jeremy wasn't going to bet on which one would happen first.

He ran his fingers across the peach fuzz he had lining his chin as Danny gave up more details. She had said she was alright with it, that was a good sign... but also a bad one. Jeremy didn't have a ton of knowledge in this sector but he was pretty sure if she was just okay with it, things were probably not going very well. And that was what saying 'alright' sounded like to him. He could tell Danny was really struggling and that was rough to see. They were goofballs, they were allergic to serious things, but here they were. Jeremy wasn't just a sunny day kind of friend though, he was here for the long haul.

"I mean.. if you call seven years rushing it.." He mused, thinking out loud as he worked through everything. He felt like Danny had been secretly not-so-secretly pining over Tricky for as long as he could remember. No one talked about it, it was never mentioned, but he couldn't of been the only one of their friends that had noticed. He was always joking with her, going above and beyond to make her laugh, tugging on those adorable golden curls, it was hard not to notice. "Maybe your breath was just really nachoey... happens to us all man." Jeremy patted him on the shoulder, doing his best to be comforting.

It was not often that Jere was asked for advice -- and for good reason. When Danny gave him that look he perked up, rising to the call, like a good Gryffindor and all that. Sitting straight up in his seat he cleared his throat in preparation. He pushed his hair back, adjusting his hero hair-do and getting ready to give the best advice ever.

And then he burped.. remembering he was still drunk.

"I hope you didn't mess it up because trivia is already weird enough when Ana and Prosper~ come. I can't handle any more awkwardness if you and Tricky can't be in the same room." He said the French wizard's name with the same annoying trill as he always had, it was just his default now. "But I mean how could you... all you did was make out." He had no honest idea how to answer Danny's question. What would he do if he was Freya? He wouldn't of been kissing Danny in the first place, obviously, he'd be kissing Ariana, if he was Freya... he let his drunk thoughts roll that idea around for a moment before snapping back to the conversation. "Maybe you should owl her, or call, or whatever. That's what hot Duncan would do right?" Jeremy had no idea. 

"I did too!" he interjected, affronted that his "best friend" - you know the guy who got even less game than he did - still didn't believe him. "Just ask her," he added, talking over Jere. "If I didn't, why did Kerr punch me in the face then, hmm?" He was getting worked up over an old argument on top of this new drama and he was sick of it. "Yeah, I'm sure," he insisted. Normally he would take a bit more pleasure and amusement out of this game of trying to convince Jeremy he wasn't as hopeless with girls as everyone thought. Today, wasn't one of those days.

"Seven years?" he questioned a confused look. "We're just friends," Danny said, the usual line coming out as more of a question. Him and Freya were just friends right? That night in the hot tub was just a blip in their friendship, something every randy teenage boy would jump at, but besides arguing to all of his friends that it was in fact the truth and not something made up, he had thought he and Frey were clearly and unquestionably "bros". That's what made last night all the more confusing.

He pushed Jere's hand away as he patted him on the shoulder and shrugged, bringing his hand up and smelling his breath. Maybe it was still too nachoey and that's why she didn't want to get breakfast? Although, if that was the truth, Danny wasn't sure if he would ever get a girl. Nachos were his main sustenance. He groaned and put his head in his hands. He really didn't want to be known as He Who Hasn't Been Laid for the rest of his life.

Danny watched as Jere prepped and he was ready to get his best friend's sage advice. The burp was unexpected, but not surprising. Danny waved a hand in front of him with a grimace. "And you said I was one with nachoey breath? Gross, dude." But Jere actually did help a little. He perked his brows up. Could it be that simple? "I guess.." he said as the thought dawned on him that maybe he was just making a big deal out of it. "Just some snogging, under the shirt action, that's no big deal, right? Think we could go back to being normal?" he asked, hopeful.

At the mention of Hot Duncan, Danny rolled his eyes. Freya had mentioned Hot Duncan way too many times last night. He was sick of hearing of that guy. "Hot Duncan, Greg, and everyone else with abs can go to hell," he grumbled before forcing a smile as Millie came back with steaming plates of food piled up in her arms.

While Jeremy knew Kerr had indeed punched him in the face, he stuck to his losing argument. He kept fighting the good fight because if Danny really did make out with Freya in Hogwarts than that would just prove he had been the cooler friend all along and Jeremy wasn't ready to give up that title yet. He wanted it for at least a few more years, at least until they were like old and boring, and then he would let Danny be cooler for a little while. Maybe. "Sure, sure you did." Coddling Danny with a couple nods and a soft tone Jeremy tried to keep from smiling. If Danny wanted to believe is his fairy tale, maybe he should just let him. Even for just this one day, he was already having a pretty bad one.

While he could let him have his delusions he could only let them go so far. Danny denied it, and maybe it was true, Jeremy supposed his friend should know his own feelings better, but Jeremy wasn't convinced. He'd been watching the two of them for years. And it wasn't like he didn't understand. Freya was basically a Goddess, especially standing next to these buffoons, who wouldn't want to date her. He should have said something when Danny said they were just friends, but he had to let that one go too. Jeremy knew it wouldn't do any good and they had bigger fish to fry. Whatever happened in the last years didn't matter.

They needed to focus on last night.

They were going to get to the bottom of this.

When he burped he laughed, tasting the nachos and the vodka, and then laughed again when Danny said it was gross. He was proud of it, and damn he had earned it. "How the hell many shots did I have last night?" He asked, rubbing at his dry eyes as they got down to business. He was caught off guard by the descriptors and slammed his hands on the table again. "Dude that's Freya!" He said, feeling a little protective of their golden lioness, and then shrugging it off. "Also, up top!" He said holding his hand up for another high five. Regardless of everything else Jeremy had to give it up for the under the shirt action, he was ashamed to say it had been sometime a.k.a. never since he'd had some under the shirt action. The twenty something was hopeless, but he just told himself he was playing the long game.

"I guess maybe..." He replied, wondering if they could go back to normal. Wondering what normal even was anymore. For a moment he allowed himself to picture what life would be like if Freya and Danny actually were dating. She'd be over more, which he was fine with she was always welcome, but they'd probably exclude him more, which he wasn't very keen on. He wondered if Trivia nights would be different too. Would he be a third wheel when no one else showed up? Danny grumbled about his lack of abs (and Jere shared his grief) and the redhead nodded. "Yeah, screw those guys. We could have abs if we wanted to." He said as he piled a stack of bacon straight into his mouth and then lipped a quick thanks to Millie. He raced Danny for the syrup and globbed a bunch of it onto well.. pretty much everything on his plate.

"Do you know why she stopped it?" He asked, wondering if that mind provide clues, "Like what did she say, exactly?" Jere shoved a bit of syrup with a little bit of sausage into his mouth and chewed loudly as he waited for the answer.

Danny sent his friend a glare as he placated him about the hot tub situation again. It wasn't an argument he wanted to get into again, especially when they had this new issue to deal with. He half wanted to punch himself in the face for messing things up with Tricky. "Dunno," he answered Jere's question about how many shots with a careless shrug. "Not like I was keeping count. He dug into his food after snagging the syrup from Jere and he already felt like he would be ordering another short stack of pancakes. His stomach felt like an empty hole.

He glanced up, his brows flying up in similar alarm that matched Jere's tone. "I know dude! That's why I'm trying to figure out how to fix it!" Then he regarded his friend's high five dubiously before slapping his palm against Jere's. At least someone believed him this time. Hopefully. He didn't want this turning into another hot tub situation that 'didn't happen.'

Mulling over the option of just treating it like it was no big deal, Danny shoveled in some pieces of bacon, the crispy, greasy slices doing wonders for his hangover. Tricky was really missing out. "Maybe," he agreed hesitantly, thinking of how weird it had been this morning before she had left their flat. "Do you think girls forget stuff like that? Like don't they make big deals over little things?" he asked. He had a lot of sisters and if he had learned anything from them, he knew girls were like another species when it came to how they reacted to things. Danny was always guessing wrong.

Danny paused at Jere's question, wondering what exactly she had said when she had stopped them. "Errr.. she said hold on a sec. So I stopped and gave her some room because at that point, I was pretty much on... Anyway, she didn't why. And then it got really weird? Covering herself with the sheet so it kind of felt like I shouldn't have done anything in the first place so then I got the hell out of there so I didn't do anything else stupid," he confessed, looking up at his friend as if he would have the answers. "That's probably not a good sign, right?"

Jeremy was a mix of emotions as they continued down this little rabbit hole but at least now he wasn't doing it on a stomach full of vodka and regrets. He ate another piece of bacon and let it sooth his tummy. He considered what Danny was saying with a little bit more thought than usual as he munched on his bacon and covered the potatoes on his plate with salt and ketchup. He paused, wanting to tell Danny good things, but he didn't have it in him to lie this morning. Not even to spare Danny a little bit of pain. And honesty was the best policy right? "Um... I don't think girls let things go like we do... You know... everything has like.. nuances and stuff?" He wanted to tell Danny everything would be fine, back to normal, if that was what he wanted, but Jeremy didn't think that it would be. Not really. Whether they'd made out, hooked up, or gotten married it wouldn't of mattered now because the balance of things had irrevocably shifted now.

He asked him more questions, waiting for answers as he piled more breakfast meat and potatoes into his mouth and began eyeing Danny's order of pancakes. If the waitress came back around he'd definitely be ordering another round of those for himself. He sort of missed Freya being here, she always got a little side of fruit and let Jeremy steal the grapes off it. Just another reminder of things that had changed. Sure they were the most candy like of the fruits but it was still something he wouldn't of ordered on his own. And Merlin knew he needed to eat more real food and less things deep fried, covered in nacho cheese, or packed with sugar. He washed the thought away as he added more syrup to his sausages before cutting them up more and responding to Danny.

"Proooobably not..." He said between a big bite of sausage and hash browns barely staying in his mouth. "But it could be worse!" He said shortly after, spitting a little bit of the browns out in the excitement. "I mean she could of run out crying or something?" He tried to help but probably made it worse. "Honestly mate it's probably for the best she stopped you guys. What if you had gone through with it? I mean... do you want to date Tricky?" The red head asked seriously, needing to know exactly what Danny's intentions were and caught in the middle of feeling the need to protect both of his best friends, from each other even, if it was necessary.

"What the hell is a nuance? Speak English, mate," Danny complained as he started cutting up his pancakes into quarters, folding in over on his fork before shoveling it in. Mmm, these were so good. He eyed up Jere's potatoes and reached over snagging a fork full before his friend got too territorial. But the overall thought was a little worrying. If Freya wasn't going to let it go, did her insisting that 'everything was fine' really mean that then? When the hell was someone going to write a book on decoding girl behavior so he could read it. Or really, what was more likely was that Greg would read it and Danny would just ask for the cliffnotes.

"Worse? I don't see how," he grumbled as he grimaced and flicked Jere's hashbrown spittle off his sleeve and then peered down into his cup of orange juice, noticing some bits floating in there. "Gross, dude," he said before swapping his glass for Jeremy's that had somehow avoided the spittle. The picture of Tricky crying and running away from him was a bit terrifying and he wished it made him feel better. "Yeah, I guess that's true. What can I say, the ladies love me," he joked, but there was no spirit to it. Girls not running away from him, wow. The height of manliness right there.

His serious question made Danny shrug. "I dunno," he threw at his friend. "It's not like I was doing a lot of logical thinking last night." All the thinking had been done with the downstairs dingle who never made good decisions. But the idea of dating Tricky. It hadn't really occurred to him. She was always the girl who was way out of his league and he was just lucky that she put up with him, well them, enough to be friends. "Besides, Tricky wouldn't want to date me," he added without thought. Then, because that sounded pretty pathetic, he tacked on, "I don't think I'm her type." Then laughed it off with a careless shrug and hoped that portion of the conversation was over.

He swatted at Danny's fork with his own, like it was some kind of sword death match and he was protecting the honor of his one true love: fried potatoes, and then huffed when Danny made off with some. The conversation continued but that little act of betrayal just made him that more likely to steal Danny's pancakes rather than ordering his own and going through the nonsense of trying to butter, cut, and syrup them himself. It sounded like an awful lot of work and Danny's were ready to be eaten. "A nuance, like has more than one meaning. Like your pancakes, you know, layers." He said as he stabbed his fork through a cut up stack and moved away as quickly as he had struck.

Even Jeremy though his hash brown mess was a bit gross as he wiped bits of half eaten ketchuppy potatoes off of his chin. "What do you expect from me?" He asked sharply. "I'm still drunk man." And damn if that wasn't the truth. One day his body was going to catch up to him and nights like last night would have him hugging the porcelain for a day and a half. Luckily they were still young enough to be making all the same mistakes though. "Hey!" He shouted, garnering some looks from an elderly couple a few booths down, as Danny stole his juice. He glared at him, eyes narrowing as he chewed the hash browns still in his mouth dramatically slow.

"As opposed to?" Jeremy teased about Danny's lack of logical thinking last night with a smile. As much as he loved to dog on his best friend Danny did not have a bigger supporter than Jeremy in this world. He was always on Danny's side, always in his corner, silently rooting for him even while he was the one pranking him. Of course this situation was a little different because he was also a huge fan of Freya's and he couldn't bring himself to root for one or the other. In this moment though, he was on Danny's side, and he didn't want to see his friend downing on himself like this.

He pointed his fork at him, the end of a greasy sausage hanging dangerously on one of the tongs, and spoke sharply. "Don't you dare say that." He told him, another burp threatening to ruin his seriousness but he swallowed it awkwardly instead. "You're every girl's type, your Danny Willbond." He told him with a sharp nod and then popped the fork into his mouth. He took a breath, wanting to sigh a little but holding it in, as the words came to his lips. He could do it, he knew Danny needed this, but it almost pained him to admit it.

"After all, you're the guy who snogged with Freya Trickett in the Prefects Bathtub in 6th year!"

"Whatever," he muttered as he fork fought with Jere over some plates of food. See, this is why they needed Tricky. She was their referee usually.

Danny just gave him an unamused look. Yeah, they both knew body part he was thinking with last night. That didn't need explaining. He finished off another pancake just before he sat back in his seat a little as Jere pointed his sausage-pinned fork at him. He glanced between the sausage hanging precariously and his friend's face, it taking him a moment to catch on to what he was saying. He thought it was going to be another scolding for messing with Tricky, but this? This felt a little better. Surprising, but better.

He nodded, slowly at first and then more quickly, pushing his shoulders back as the morose look on his face was replaced with something a little less pathetic. "Yeah, you're right. I am," Danny said, hyping himself up off Jere's words and tone and loyalty. But then! Then!! He dropped his mouth open in a little surprise at Jeremy having admitted it and he said, "Yeah, I did that! I'm that guy!" He was more excited because his friend finally admitted to it, rather than bragging about the actual deed. Somewhere in his mind a little voice said it was a peck and not a snog but he pushed that voice away. Go way, tiny voice dude, I need this moment!

Danny pointed his own fork at Jeremy, his words just as adamant. He was pumping himself up as if he was going into a hated rivalry match. "You're right, mate. I'm not perfect, I've made mistakes before. But Freya knows this and she's still friends with me for some reason. We can get over this, right?" he asked, glancing around as if he expected a yelled and furious "Yes!" from everyone at the diner, the little elderly couple included.