[mp] hallow's eve in hogsmeade

"Yeah," he agreed to the home alone on weekends thing which made him feel a little sad and lame. Even Greg had found someone better to hang out with apparently. "Maybe I need to get a new hobby or something," Danny mentioned and then perked up as an idea popped into his head. "Have you heard of broom curling? Wanna try that with me?" He wasn't even exactly sure what it was, but a guy visiting the mailroom had made it sound at least somewhat interesting. Better than attempting to clean the kitchen which is what he considered doing last weekend before giving that up after ten minutes.

He grinned at her snort and rolled his eyes. "You're better off for it anyway, I bet," he said, not understanding what kind of people wouldn't want Freya to be their roomie. "This weekend? I think Jere has something planned with Montse again. Want me to tag along and make sure all the plumbing works correctly or something?" He asked with a smile, but having no clue what normal people actually looked for in a flat. He and Jere had taken the first one that was somewhat decent and in their price range and he was just glad their landlady was good with Jere's 'garden' in exchange for some freebies otherwise he was sure they'd be out on the street.

“Broom curling?” she repeated, wrinkling her nose. It sounded like some silly jokey thing done at christmas, but she couldn’t tell from his brief mention if it was a sport or a craft. “We should get out of London for a day or something,” she said with a bit of a smile.

“Um, maybe we could meet up after?” Freya offered. She tried to be casual about it, and when that didn’t work, she tried to look apologetic, but she couldn’t quite pull it off. “It’s just, they might think you’re my boyfriend or something…” She trailed off, then laughed. Danny could make a rather… loud… first impression. She didn’t want her new roommates put off if he, like, crawled into the cupboard under the stairs and started making Boy Who Lived jokes or something.

“Can you get me one of these?” Freya asked, sliding her menu over, her index finger pointing at a spooky-themed cocktail.

"Yeah," he said with another shrug. "Haven't the foggiest what it actually is though," he told her so he wasn't really bothered when she didn't hop at the chance to do something even he had no idea what it was. Although, he couldn't help the thought that Jere probably would've signed up without knowing. Merlin, he really needed to get a new hobby. Or a girlfriend.

"Oh, yeah, sure," he said breezily, trying not to read too much into the fact that apparently no one wanted to hang out with him. Was what his brother Mark said to him the other day coming true? That he really wasn't that fun to hang out with and it was all going to his head. He thought about that for two seconds before he shook it off. Nah, he was a freaking pizza for Halloween, he was awesome. But she did bring up a good point. He laughed along with her before grinning impishly. "They'd probably thing I'm your brother before they thought I was your boyfriend," he said with a roll of his eyes at the comment that they look so alike that they'd heard for years.

He stood and nodded as he swiped one of the menus and shuffled off sideways toward the bar to order the drinks, nearly taking out a kid dressed as what he guessed was a badly-executed version of a hippogriff. Danny had no clue how that kid was maneuvering around in here since he was barely getting by with his triangle shapedness and he didn't even have to worry about a pair of back hooves.

Danny slid back into his chair saying, "She said they'll bring the drinks over soon" before he nodded behind him. "Looks like trouble in paradise," he said, indicating a young couple who were arguing over their butterbeers. "Think I should go give him some tips?"

“True,” Freya said, wrinkling her nose. The whole Danny-as-a-long-lost-Trickett thing had been a lot less funny to her since the two of them had almost… well. Since that night. “Not sure if that’s better,” she added, but she didn’t elaborate. She reached up and took her hair out of its ponytail as Danny got to his feet. While he was gone, someone came and asked for one of the chairs they weren’t using, and she nodded with a smile. She did her best to get her hair a little less pony-tail-shaped by running her fingers through, mussing up her roots a bit.

He returned shortly, and Freya leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Hmm?” She glanced in the direction he was looking, honey-coloured eyes searching for the couple in question. “Oooh,” she said, nodding at him like she knew exactly what he was thinking before leaning in so only Danny could hear her speak, waiting just a beat before she spoke again, eyes on the couple. “You promised me you’d come as a quaffle,” she said quietly, doing her best man-voice as if it were a voice-over. “And now I just look like I’m heading to a match, no one will get the keeper joke!”

He shrugged and didn't put too much thought into it. Thinking of Freya as his sister was just weird. Especially after he had seen her topless and all... at that, he scurried away to the bar.

Danny's eyes lit up as he turned a bit on his chair so he could see both Freya and the arguing couple as he spoke to her from the side of his mouth. "I never agreed to be a quaffle, Leonard," Danny said in his best high-pitched girl voice and then switched quickly to his regular tone. "He kind of looks like a Leonard, right?"

Then he switched back into character, watching as the girl gave what he imagined was another snappy retort, flicking her hair over her shoulder. "Besides you're the one that said I'd look good as vampire," he added in his falsetto voice before swinging his gaze back to grin at Freya.

“Perfect,” Freya whispered, even though it was definitely too loud in here for anyone to hear a thing she was saying. Their drinks arrived just then, and she took them with a smile, sliding Danny one. “These eyeballs look so real,” she complained. She shut up as Danny started talking again, her eyes on the couple.

“You can’t go as a vampire, Veronica,” Freya responded quickly, gleeful as the man put his face into his hands, matching her timing perfectly. “They’re basically people. It’s messed up.” Freya fell quiet as the man did, anticipating Danny’s next line. Just then, though, the woman got to her feet. “Uh-oh,” Freya said. Her eyes went wide as the woman poured her drink on the guy.

“Bit of an overreaction for a costume dispute,” the blonde said, raising her eyebrows at Danny.

"I could do without them oogling me, but I understand it. I'm worldwide handsome," he said with a grin and a bat of his eyelashes as he bobbed the floating eyes down into his drink before turning back to look at the couple, hearing Freya's voice over while watching the couple.

"Yeah, but I look hot so who cares and you haven't even said one thing about how nice my butt looks in this dress," he said, adopting his falsetto voice again before the girl surprised even him and dumped her drink on the guy and flounced out, leaving the poor guy in a puddle.

"I agree, but 10 out of 10 for dramatic flair," he said as he shrugged and turned back towards Freya. "Bottoms up," he said as he clinked his glass towards her and lifted his drink to his lips.

“Happy Halloween,” Freya said brightly, tapping her martini glass against his a little too hard. It made a loud glassy sound, but more importantly, a little liquid spilled out the side. “Oops,” Freya said, but she didn’t linger, opting to bring the glass straight to her lips sheepishly. She took a long sip – most of the glass was empty when she was done – before placing it back on the table. “I don’t love tomato juice, but that’s pretty good,” she said. She looked at the floating eye again, wrinkling her nose. Was she supposed to eat it, she wondered?

"So about that trip," Freya said, glancing up at him again. "I'm serious – we could catch a train to a little seaside town or something...? Ever been east of London?" Danny's family wasn't as quite south-east as hers was, but she doubted he'd gone east of their current home city. She picked up her glass again, holding it there for a moment as she thought about it. They were out of the city now, but it barely felt like someplace new, given all of the weekends they'd spent here and all. She drank the last sip of her drink, putting the glass back down thoughtfully.

"Here here!" Danny cheered as he clinked his glass against hers and slipped some. Whoops, he needed to be more careful. Although, it looked like Tricky had done the same thing so maybe they were a messy match that way. He brought the glass to his lips and sipped and then guzzled, wiping the back of his hand across his lips before he shrugged. "Tastes different than I thought it would, less pumpkiny, but still tasty," he said as he eyed the glass. "You got tomato juice?" he asked glancing at her glass with a grimace. He wasn't into the whole vegetables hidden in your drink type of thing. Only pumpkin spice during the fall season was permitted.

"Oh yeah?" he asked, looking at her over the table, keen on the idea. "Not really.. where were you thinking?" he asked, trying to think of ideas of where they could go that would be fun. Geography wasn't exactly his forte though. A coworker had asked him what he thought the capital of Belgium was (because she thought she was proving a point that he was a dunce) and he proudly answered 'Waffle" before someone clued him in that that was really not the right answer. He had shrugged it off, but this trip idea with Tricky sounded like fun. He knew no matter where they went, they would make it fun somehow.

"It'd be nice to get out of the city though for a bit," he added. He was a born and bred country boy so living in the city still felt strange to him at times.

“Yeah, I – wait, you got a pumpkin drink? Serious?” Freya asked, staring at him. He didn’t get it right away, so she smacked him on the arm. She felt okay right now, though, so it mustn’t have touched her skin or whatever. The blonde looked down at the splash he’d made on the table and moved further back into her seat, wrapping her red cloak around her for effect. Sure, pumpkin drinks were very halloweeny but they were also murderous! How could he have forgotten! Like she did every Halloween, Freya had covered her arms in a salve her healer brother had given her at some point, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

Aside from her dramatic grumping, Freya couldn’t help but be lured back into the conversation. “I don’t know,” she responded. “I just haven’t been that way,” she added, smiling. Slowly, she stretched her legs out again. It seemed apparent that she wasn’t on the brink of dying from her allergy, so things were good. “Should get us another drink, Dan,” she said. He went to speak and she cut him off. “Nuh-uh! You owe me for last Friday!” Danny had forgotten to bring muggle money to trivia – again – so she’d given him some. Payback in the form of halloween cocktails seemed like a fair trade. “But no pumpkin this time,” she whined.

He protested as she slapped his arm and gave her an injured look. "What, it's not like I offered to share," he said in a puny defense. He loved pumpkin spice everything just like the next teen witch. She couldn't hold that against him just because she was deathly allergic. Danny hadn't thought of the splash factor though so he gave her an apologetic grin and tried to swipe some of the liquid away from her side of the table. "Sorry Tricky," he told her before he finished off his drink and sucked one of the eyeballs into his mouth. "Ohhh tastes like oranges," he said with his mouth full and a wide smile.

"Oh you know what I've wanted to do? Want to sky dive? You know that muggle thing where they drop out of planes and only have a parachute. Doesn't that sound nuts? I mean, we could bring out wands and do a charm if the parachute doesn't work and all but muggles do it all the time without magic. Crazy!" he said even though there was no hint of censure in his tone, only wonder and awe and excitement.

He nodded happily at the suggestions for more drinks and immediately tried to follow it up with a "not it" but her complaints overpowered him and made him pout, but he couldn't help the little smile that tipped up the corners of his lips. She was right, like always. "Okay, okay, fine," he said standing up again and shuffling sideways back to the bar.

A few minutes later, he returned with two more cocktails. He placed a green one in front of her complete with a misty fog floating on the top and his was a deep purple with a pair of bones floating on the top. "No pumpkin this time," he promised as he held up his glass for another cheers.

“Totally bonkers,” Freya agreed. “Ugh, I feel like the Gryffindor thing to do is to not use magic…” She scrunched her lips to one side, mulling it over. “I dunno!” she added after a beat, “But I wanna try it too!”

Stupid Danny and his stupid smile, she couldn’t stay serious for long before the corners of her lips were turning up, too, and she was grinning in response. Sometimes she thought they were like a little feedback loop in that way, with smiling or laughing or anything; set one of them off and they’d be in high spirits for days.

The last time she’d been out with a guy was a monthish ago, when she’d still been seeing Indy. The blonde watched Danny disappear into the crowd, thinking that it was weird how that whole thing had fizzled out just as fast as it had begun. She didn’t really regret it, but she couldn’t help but feel like she’d failed. Again.

“Oh my gosh,” she said, forgetting her train of thoughts as Danny reappeared with two more cocktails. She leaned in immediately, sniffing at the green one’s mist. “Smells coconutty,” she declared. “Piña colada?” she mused out loud, indicating for Danny to try some. She snuck a sip of his through the straw, then picked up her own glass, waiting for another toast.

"To what?" she said, "Halloween? Pizza? To Frangipane, the best duo this town's ever seen?"

"We gotta do it the muggle way. Earn a 'we're crazy like the muggs' badge or something right?" he said with a grin, always down to do something that was labeled as 'not recommended' or 'too dangerous' or just 'plain dumb'. It was kind of his thing. Don't think, just do. It had gotten him pretty far up to this point.

"Coconutty?" he echoed, brows perked with curiosity as he slid her glass towards him and had a sip before quickly nodding his head. "Mmm, this one is good," he said, watching as she tried his drink before going to try it for himself before realizing she wanted to do another toast. He quickly help his glass up to hers, spilling at little again and giving her a sheepish, carefree smile and a quick "whoopsies."

"To the best pizza and little red riding hood combo the world has ever seen!" he said as he clinked his glass against hers with a big grin and then started gulping down his. He burped a little and shrugged. "Not as good as the pumpkin one, but still pretty -- oh hey look, the bones are melting. Wicked!" he said, pointing at his glass where the bones were fizzling into the small amount of liquid left there.

“Imagine if we actually died, though,” Freya said, cringing at how wimpy the words sounded coming out of her mouth. Thank god they were never going back to high school, honestly, where the most central ideal she had to live up to was being brave. Freya had wasted too much time feeling inadequate about that, and still had an internal response to not meeting what she imagined was a typical gryffindor standard.

“Pizza,” Freya added solemnly, tapping her glass against his (a little more gently this time), before taking a long sip. Cocktails were really the killer, she thought. Killer for her body because she felt like she could just drink them endlessly without any consequences (not true), and killer for her savings because they were so much more expensive than, say, a glass of wine. Though, to be fair, she hadn’t bought one tonight, so it was basically free drinks.

She paused drinking to look at the bones dissolving in his drink, nodded encouragingly, then went back to drinking and finished the rest of her cocktail in one go. Placing the glass back down on the table, Freya nodded again. It was good! Just the two of them, but fun and normal! "I wish you guys had a spare room or something," she commented mindlessly, thinking of her upcoming house viewing. "Wouldn't it be fun?" she asked, glancing his way.

"Wow but what a way to go though," Danny said immediately, clearly taking the opposite view. "Would we even know that we were going to die? Doesn't it happen too fast? Think we would splat like a bug?" he asked, his eyes bright, a grin on his face. 'Safety' had never been a top priority for him. And his track record was only proof. He was pretty sure the welcome witch at Mungo's wasn't even surprised when he showed up with his various and usually strange injuries. It was a good thing the Ministry had a good insurance policy, his mum had had to remind him about that.

Danny pulled the little table menu stand thingy towards him as Freya commented about a spare room and nodded as he looked over the menu, now feeling hungry. He was always hungry. "What, you don't want to crash in the guest bedroom?" he joked with a devilish grin. He was pretty sure no one would want to crash on the futon they had renamed as the 'guest bedroom'. "Want to order some chips?" he asked, pointing to the fries on the menu that he know would come piled with cheese and was already licking his lips at the thought.

"Sure," he easily agreed. Tricky was always fun to have around, no matter what they were doing. He wondered at that sometimes considering most girls got annoyed at him and Jere at some point. Maybe it was just because they were on the same wavelength most of the time. "We could have pizza and nachos nights, more than we do now. And you could meet our downstairs neighbor who I swear Jere hooked up with, I told you he was into cougars," he said with a laugh and lifted one side of his pizza in a shrug. "And maybe Greg will get over his little crush on you then. Poor guy," he added, giving her a smirk, not feeling bad at all for outing his friend. Wasn't it old news by now? He was pretty sure he had confessed worse the last time he was high, not that he exactly remembered...