if you leave the light on { d a n j e r }

"At Mutton's?" he asked with a little tilt of his head. He and Jere had went, but he didn't remember much of the end of the party. Probably because he had drank too much. The only distinct memory he had was of the beer pong game he and Jere had decimated early on in the night. They didn't have many talents but drinking games were their forte.

He did have a fuzzy sort of memory about seeing Freya there. With Tess maybe? And some of her other friends. He definitely hadn't seen her locking lips with Freddy. "Was it Freddy? Thought he was dating some chick that worked in Diagon..?" he asked confused.

He took the joint back, his eyes on her as he took another drag, smoke filling the inbetween before dissipating slowly as it reached for the ceiling. His mind drifted unintentionally back to when they had made out, on his bed, Freya topless. Merlin. That was a dangerous path to go down so he made a joke instead. "Better kisser than me?" he asked, waggling his eyebrows ridiculously.

“Oh, he’s still with Rebecca, no,” Freya said, shaking her head slowly. Freddy was sweet but he was like six foot a hundred or something. She’d probably get a neck injury trying to kiss the tall redhead. Plus, he was from such a rural place in northern Scotland that she couldn’t always understand what he was saying. “You know Callum? Kirk? Oh, CK??” Danny had gone through a Very Fun phase in seventh year, when they’d all been trapped indoors, of calling everyone by their initials – she hadn’t told him her middle name until he’d stopped doing that, of course.

“No no, not him” she said, when he started nodding, “did you meet his American friend? Callum has this hot American friend, and I hung out with him for a bit that night. Indy,” she added. Danny was giving her a bit of a look and she wasn’t sure what was happening in his brain. Maybe he was just super stoned or something? Unlike her?? Freya reached for another cookie and then realised she had taken a bite of one and left it on her knee. She looked between the one in her hand and the one on her knee, totally paralysed with indecision. After a second, she took a bite from the new one and then stacked it neatly on top of the other one. There we go.

“Mmm?” Freya looked up from the cookies, catching Danny’s waggling eyebrows. She opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. Now that it had been brought up, though, she had to run the math in her head. She’d been drunk when she kissed both of them, and despite her mental dismissals, Freya was absolutely far from sober right now. So it was hard to say. The lying-down kissing was good, she thought, but techniques-wise... She couldn’t really say?? What kind of question was that anyway??? Freya felt like all kissing was amazing, unless it was terrible. It was a binary kind of thing for her.

“He was a good kisser,” she answered diplomatically.

"Callum?" Danny repeated with a frown as he tried to remember through the haze in his brain. "Oh, CK? Yeah!" he then added. CK's face clicked to the front of his mind as soon as she called him by his initials. Why, he wasn't sure. Probably that nickname phase he had gone through in the dome. Freya still glared at him whenever he made 'FAT' jokes. It wasn't his fault. Not like he gave her those initials. Was still pretty funny though to see angry Freya. She looked like an angry gerbil. He couldn't stop laughing at the thought, the hilarity of it all heightened because of the smoke.

"His name is Indie? Like indie music?" he asked, not having met CK's 'hot American' friend at the party. He wondered if he had a misspelled tattoo like Hot Duncan. Was that Tricky's type? Guys with stupid tattoos? He idly wondered if he should get one. What would he get though? He hadn't realized he had said that aloud either. PU for Puddlemere stamped on his ass? That would be funny.

So he leaned over and reached for one of the cookies she had stacked on her knee. "Can I have.." he asked, gesturing toward the top one, already planning to play the innocent when Greg asked who ate all his cookies. He was already practicing his 'What cookies?' innocent question. Danny glanced at her, his head resting against the back of the couch as she apparently needed to put some thought into the question. He was hoping she would have responded lightly, jokingly, or maybe shove him and tell him he was ridiculous. All of those would have been better than the honest answer he got. Wasn't interested in that at all. So he changed the topic instead. "Remember when that girl.. what was her name? Gillian? Gia? I dunno.. but I told Jere she was a terrible kisser, really slobbery, and it accidentally got around and she hexed me?" He laughed at the memory even though it hadn't been so funny back then. "Good time.."

“CK, yeah, his friend! Hot, American.... Yeah, like Indy music,” Freya said, tucking her hair behind one ear and wishing that she’d kept that hair tie from earlier. Where the hell had that gotten to…? Then, after a beat, “...No but, Indy – like short for Indiana.” Freya slapped his hand away from her cookie pile, frowning a bit as the pile wobbled at the movement. No he could not have. The blonde got another cookie from the bag, but this one wasn’t for him either.

She didn’t look up as he glossed right over her answer. She was still thinking about kissing him, and kissing Indy at that party, and kissing in general – how good it was, that sort of thing. God, she could really go for a good make-out session right now, she thought. She took a bite of a cookie and brushed her lips with her fingertips, thinking about kissing. “Ravenclaw Gia?” Freya asked, through a mouthful. “I kissed her at a party once,” She said absentmindedly, stacking her third cookie on top of the other two with maximum concentration. They didn’t fall, and she felt an odd sense of satisfaction. She swallowed. “So much tongue,” she added.

Danny blinked a few times at her as his brain whirred. "He's named after a state?" he asked, laughing, finding the idea hilarious. "That's like me being named Gloucestershire, you can call me Shire though," he snickered. Merlin, he was going to get a lot of length out of this joke. He glanced over at her and smirked. "Should I start calling you Cornwall then?" he asked as he tried to lean over and nab another cookie only to be met with another slap of her hand. He frowned at her, pouting.

He was taking another drag of the joint when she dropped that little bomb on him and he started coughing, hacking really, and couldn't quite stop as he tried to recover from his shock. He turned toward her fully, staring at her, his hazel eyes wide. "You what?" Had he misheard? Was he just dreaming that she had said that? "Did you mean Indy because TMI, Tricky," he told her with a grimace, thinking that he definitely had heard her wrong. But had he...? Freya was busy stacking her cookies so he wasn't sure if she saw his surprise. Freya making out with other girls.. it was like the wet dream of the century.

“You know I didn’t think about that,” Freya said, smiling a bit, then laughing a breathy laugh. She put on her poshest accent. “Hello, it’s me, Oxfordshire. You can call me Oxford for short.” She laughed again, slapping his hand away again.

Freya looked up belatedly as Danny started coughing, her eyelids feeling a little heavier than usual, but she looked back at her cookie stack again after a second. Bite, then stack. That was the pattern. She wasn’t sure why exactly that was the pattern, but soon there were five cookies stacked on her leg and a lot of cookie crumbs all over the couch.

“What?” she asked, a bit confused. Indy…? She glanced up at him, blinked a couple times, then, “Oxfordshire? Oh, no, his tongue – just the right amount.” She shook her head. Her sentences were a little choppy, but they flowed out naturally, like there was no reason to have a filter between her brain and her mouth at all. “I mean Ravenclaw…” what was the word? She’d just said it. “Gillian,” she settled on. “Yeah, I think like a few months back, at one of those winter parties. Maybe Bren...ton’s? Brenton’s? His or Mick’s. I don’t know. Anyway, just agreeing with the slob…”

Freya trailed off, her eyes staring blankly into the void as her cookie stack fell, cookies now scattered on both her and the couch. There were little chocolate chips that had melted, too, some of them on her and some in between her calf and the couch itself. Oops. Freya swiped a bit of chocolate from her leg and licked it off her finger, then held her hand out for the joint, making pinchy motions at him again.

"Hey Oxy, can I please get a cookie?" he said laughing with her about the ridiculous nicknames they had just bestowed on themselves. The cookies looked really good and she had only given him that one little bit that she smooshed into his face. It hadn't even been a whole cookie.

Whatever she was trying to tell him didn't exactly compute with his brain. Only thing he was picking up was that she may or may not be making out with girls at parties. Parties he attended. Parties at which he was more than willing to make out with girls. Parties at which he was more than happy to watch girls making out with girls. "Where am I when all these girls wanna make out?" he asked, grinning. "Except Ravenclaw slobber fest. Not interested in that one." He couldn't quite get the picture of Freya making out with girls out of his mind. He didn't really want to either..

Danny slowly leaned over to give her the joint at her request but he shook his head once at her, stopping that motion quickly when it felt like his brain was going to roll out of his noggin. Woahhh. "You're a mess, Trick," he chided lightly, seeing her surrounded by cookies, crumbs, and chocolate smears. "Better put those back in the bag or Greg will have your head."

“I dunno, Dan...” Freya said absentmindedly, her voice vague as she rambled a bit. “...But they don’t wanna make out with you... They wanna make out with me... That’s why we made out.” No brain-to-mouth filter. Not one. Nope. She looked at him when he mentioned Gianna or whatever her name was. “You kissed her first,” she commented, mildly amused.

She made more urgent pinching motions at him when he came closer, then slowed as he started pulling his hand back, the joint with it. Immediately, she frowned, grumping at him. She wiped at her mouth with the back of her hand. It didn’t help. Freya looked down at the mess she’d made when Danny mentioned the cookies again and after a moment of staring, the blonde started picking up the cookies – the ones with a single bite taken out of them – and putting them back in the bag.

When she was done, she pushed up to her feet, feeling a little off balance, and brushed extra crumbs off of her body. She looked at her hands, which were chocolatey, and then wiped them on her denim shorts. “Anyway,” she said, thinking about Indy again, “I think I might meet up with this guy again.” She used the bottom of her shirt to wipe her face. It was better; there were some smudges on her shorts now, and the bottom of her t-shirt, but she didn’t look quite as messy. The couch was another issue. She didn’t really want to sit back down on all those melted chocolatey bits. Freya gave it one glance, then sat down on the floor instead, leaving the bag of half eaten cookies where it was. She crossed her legs.

"Wow, harsh, Tricky," he told her with a lazy grin, his eyes unfocused as he glanced up at the ceiling, laughing a little and then a little more at the truths she was telling. "You'd probably be a better wing man than Jere," he added as he leaned his head on the back of the couch. She was at least definitely getting more action than he was apparently at these parties.

Danny watched amused as she tried to get it together. It wasn't a total success and Danny couldn't wait for Greg to discover the cookies, each with one bite taken out of them, but at least she was trying. He got a little distracted as she lifted up her shirt so her could see her stomach as she wiped off her face. He remembered touching her there when they had made out on her bed. He blinked a few times, staring, unable to drag his gaze away. Even as she talked about this other guy who she had made out with.

He had to think longer than usual about what to say, watching as she sat on the floor. "So you like this guy then? What's he do?" Please don't say he's a rock musician, please don't say he's a model/actor.

npc ~ hot greg

Greg felt like a loon.

As he was getting ready for the gym, he'd heard the vague sound of Freya's voice, and immediately come to the decision that he needed to do a pre-workout workout. A few jumping jacks, some sits ups, and twenty push-ups later, he was glistening enough to leave the room. It was silly, but he felt like he had to work harder to impress her. He'd never been friends with her in the way that Jere or Danny had, which meant figuring out little ways to get her to notice him. After his half-lucky half-ass-kicking-hard-work-induced glow-up, it'd gotten a lot easier.

He swiped his water bottle from its place on the dresser and took a swig, standing in front of his mirror in a tank and gym shorts. He took a glance at his watch. There was a training session soon, and Greg couldn't really afford to dawdle, but he needed to hurry up and just ask the question. Freya had been over a lot recently, and it was like every time he encountered her, he said something stupid or Jere and Danny interrupted before he could get it out. He couldn't be mad at them though - not when he had them to thank for all these visits.

Greg headed to the door, pausing momentarily. Should he stop at the bathroom and throw a couple splashes of water on himself for that extra shiny effect? He pondered it for a second before shaking his head dismissively. After another step, he stopped again. Greg pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it over his shoulder. Hey, he'd worked hard on these abs and he'd take whatever extra help he could get. Satisfied, he grabbed his gym bag at the end of his bed and opened the door.

Out front, Freya was sat on the floor, and Danny on the couch. He glanced between the two of them, then his gaze zeroed in on the bag next to them. His brow furrowed. "Are those my cookies?"

“Yeah... maybe we should go out... and I’ll help you pick up,” she said, the language a little uncharacteristic, but just flowing straight out of her brain. “Um,” Freya started, trying to remember if Indy had mentioned anything. Or what Callum had told her. She kept losing her train of thought. “Indy’s studying magizoolo – magizoology...” she said, correcting herself halfway though, her brain marveling a bit at the weirdness of that one word. She trailed off, though, when someone else appeared.

“Greg!” Freya said, giving him a bright smile. God, he’d been working out, hadn’t he? She could have sworn six months ago there hadn’t been any of… that. Her eyes trailed slowly from his face down his shiny body – when had he stopped wearing shirts? – then quickly snapped back up to his face when he spoke. Cookies? Oh. Freya followed his gaze, guiltily eyeing the open bag of cookies. She felt a little bad, but didn’t even remember that she’d put all of the half eaten ones back in the bag.

“Danny got them,” she told him blankly. She felt guilty, though, so quickly she added, “But I ate some.” she gave him an apologetic smile. After a second, Freya found her gaze wandering down his chest again and had to look away, so she looked at Danny instead. She felt guilty looking at Danny, though, because she’d just thrown him under the bus. So she smiled a bit, then looked back at Greg. “Wait, Greg,” she said slowly, like she was on the blink of understanding something profound, “are they vegan? You’re vegan now, aren’t you?” she added the last question with a puzzled look. “But… eggs…?” She thought she’d seen him eating eggs the other day, and that didn’t seem very vegan to her. But she didn’t know the veeg rules. She felt very confused.

“I didn’t know you were home,” she said vaguely, talking over the top of him a little. “You should come sit,” she said, patting the floor beside her, giving him a dim sort of smile.

"Great, I'll be your wing man too," Danny replied easily. And then remembered she was already kissing guys and apparently lots of hot girls at parties. She probably did need his help anyway.

He was about to say something really funny about magiczoology or whatever it was called, or at least he was going to try to think of something to say when Freya called his roommate's name and Danny swung his head around slowly to see Greg standing there. Shirtless of course. Danny gave Greg and his pack of abs an unamused look as he shrugged lightly about the cookies. "Oh are those yours?" he asked innocently even though there was a big 'Greg' scribbled across the top of the bag.

Danny rolled his eyes at her as she basically threw him under the bus, he didn't mind much though since it was her. Besides, it wasn't the first or last time he had 'accidentally' eaten something of Greg's. He wasn't sure what prompted him to say it, but he didn't particularly like the suggestion of Greg and his abs hanging out. "Don't you have some iron to pump or something?" he said with a nod toward the bag.

npc ~ hot greg

Really he ought to be used to being a victim of food theft in this flat by now - nothing was sacred. He wasn't any better though; he was willing to bet his new abs they'd gone into Jeremy's stash. Couldn't blame them. J had some good shit. Still, he gave Danny a pointed look. “You’re a comedian now? Stop touching my shit you giant tos-” He paused mid-sentence when Freya admitted to eating some and both his tone and expression immediately softened. He noticed the crumbs, blatant evidence, on her face and fought off a laugh. “'s'okay Freya, you can eat them.”

He rested his gym bag beside him, brain working on warp speed trying to figure out when to ask. As long as Danny or Jeremy were here, he knew there was zero chance at alone time. He'd already gotten shit for coming out in a towel before but as far as he was concerned they could piss off. Again, one didn't work for abs of steel and just... not use them. What was the point then?

“I’m vegetarian,” he clarified, “and I try to eat clean.” Greg grinned at Freya's invitation to sit down. Training could wait. He walked over, grabbing the bag of cookies on his way. His shirt slipped a little down his shoulder so he pulled it back. Retrieving a cookie, he gave it an inspection and raised an eyebrow. “Don’t you have some files to sort or some coffee to get,” he countered, tossing the half-bitten cookie to the side. “Freya invited me to have a seat.” He pulled out another cookie with one bite in it and just gave up after that. No post-pre-workout-workout snack for him.

“Anyway, Freya,” he said, emphasising her name so Danny knew it was an A and B conversation. “What are you up to tomorrow? Wanna go out for a drink or something?”  Straight to the point. He'd learned by now that if he got caught up in all the details, the opportunity to say what he wanted to say would be gone in a flash. “No pressure,” he reassured her, putting his hands behind his head and laying back.

Eating clean. Freya had tried that for about two months after she’d graduated – back when she, too, had had visibly defined abdominal muscles, and before she’d learned how to order food from her couch. She’d exercised with Brita a lot and eaten the healthiest meals that took the least amount of skill to eat. Once she’d worked out the pizza delivery system for her favourite pizza place in London, though, that had been it for her. And her abs.

Freya patted her own stomach self consciously as Greg came and plopped himself down next to her. “God, you’ve been working out, haven’t you?” she asked vaguely, the words she’d been thinking just a moment ago repeating in her head, then right out of her mouth. Without really thinking, she reached out and poked his arm, then patted it lightly before pulling her hand back. The boys were talking a bit, but she’d zoned out. She was in Freya world.

“Tomorrow?” she repeated, blinking at him as he lay down, stretching out on the floor beside her. She straightened up, feeling a little dizzy, and tried to go back over the last few sentences they’d just exchanged. How was she supposed to concentrate, though, really? Freya reached out and patted his stomach absentmindedly. Yep. Definitely real. “Uh...?” she said, looking at his face, her brain seeming to move at a snail’s pace. But actually, wait a sec. “Wait, just you and me?” she asked curiously, “like a...?” Her hand hadn’t moved from his abs yet.

She’d only just been talking about her maybe-date with Indy, but it was hard to keep her thoughts in line at the moment. When he said no pressure, she smiled a bit. “Like a chill thing,” she clarified. Becoming a bit more self aware, Freya patted him a couple of times and reluctantly withdrew her hand. “Why not,” she said. She laughed a little.

Danny's amused look turned to shock and he held up his hands in a huff as Greg quickly went from 'don't eat my stuff' to 'it's ok, Freya'. Course his roommate would say that. He shot a narrowed glance at Freya. It was that puppy dog eyes expression she always used to get her way. It was dangerous. He was pretty sure that she had even used that expression to get the last of his nachos before. And that was a feat in itself.

Greg was all smiles for Tricky and Danny watched him with a bored expression as he explained his vegetarian ways. He was pretty sure he didn't even know what eating clean was or how Greg mustered the balls to not eat nachos three times a week, but he couldn't doubt the fact that it did wonders for his abs. Danny glanced down and pulled out the collar of his shirt, peeking at his stomach. Yep, still no abs.

"I'm. Not. A. Secretary," Danny bit out in the age-old argument with Greg before he took another drag on the joint and blew the smoke off to the side. Besides, he had an intern that got him coffee. Well, sort of. He grumbled under his breath about it some more as he dragged the bag of crisps toward him and opened it with a pop, taking a handful and eating them before offering the bag to Freya only. "Tricky, want some crisps?" he asked, pointedly not offering any to Greg.

He almost choked on a crisp as Greg asked Freya out. He knew Greg was direct, but dude! He was sitting right here! He frowned, not liking this idea at all. Danny glanced between the two of them, hazel eyes trying to figure out what she might say. He focused in on the fact that she was still patting his abs. Merlin, he needed to do some crunches like yesterday. "Freya," he started, emphasizing her name just like Greg had done. "Weren't you just talking about this new guy you were dating? The Hot American guy?" he said, throwing a look at Greg like 'Sorry dude' and shrugging.