gravesend | brand new angle [tara]

april 2004

The Wigtown party had gotten downright depressing, after a point – Sam supposed there was only so much ironic celebration of their determined bottom-of-the-league status they could have indulged in before the charade fell through and they were just twenty idiots in a bar thinking fond thoughts about the last time the Wanderers had a good season, probably in the eighties.

So, of course, eventually, he’d given up. The Gravesend party wasn’t very celebratory either, on account of their fall from the top three, but Sam thought they were marginally less miserable there. At least they hadn’t turned off the jukebox yet.

He did not care for the Griffins much – they had always struck him as a sort cocky bunch – but tonight, though he wasn’t sure he thought they seemed humbled, he thought they seemed less overconfident. There was still a month left in the season – that was still enough time for them to be shunted out of the semi-finals. God willing, at least. The Falcons hadn’t been this – well, he allowed, the Falcons actually had.

He rattled his melting ice around his cup and ordered a refill, shot a glance sideways at the attractive woman on his right. Not one of the players, but she looked vaguely familiar anyway. He gave her a nod – “Buy you a drink?” he said, then, “You here with the Griffins, or are you really confused by all these depressed losers?”

@Tara Kingsley

Tara grinned at the bartender as she leaned her elbows on the counter (which also conveniently pushed her boobs up a bit from her white tank in a way that she liked) and ordered another beer. She wasn't sure what the count on this one was, but she felt it was needed, especially with the group she was currently hanging out with. It was too early to call it a night though and she had a buzz in her system that would seem lonely and pathetic if she went back to her flat now.

As the question, she almost sighed. A familiar line, a familiar move, boring. "No thanks, I've got mine," she said, thanking the bartender who slid her the beer she had just ordered as she took a sip and looked over at the man, recognition lighting in her eyes. She never forgot a face, but names were a bit more tricky. "Both, it seems," she answered as she tried to figure out how she knew him. Vague memories of a ref...?

Oh, a memory of Lynch, the worst ref in the league, surfaced. Tara very distantly remembered arguing about what a hardass his father was after a particularly crucial match had gone to absolute shit. She had been one too many beers in at that time too. Oops. "Lynch, right?" she said, tipping her bottle at him as she guessed, wanting to confirm. "With the way Papa Lynch made calls tonight, you can buy me the next round," she told him, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, but it was light and teasing. Not anywhere near the drunken indignation last time she was trying not to remember. "Don't worry, I won't tell the 'depressed losers,'" Tara added with a grin. If she did, he might get bitched at about calls that Papa Lynch made until he ran screaming.

She was giving him a look like she recognised him too; Sam hoped it was from school. Had she been a Gryffindor? A Hufflepuff? It would beat the usual way people recognised him at Quidditch functions; more than once he’d met somebody who started the conversation with, mate, fuck your dad.

Lynch, right? said the woman. Sam sighed. Fuck his dad. “Sure am,” he said, as his new drink arrived; he took a long sip as she leaned in a little closer. It seemed only fair that he buy the next round anyway, since he’d explicitly asked to, but he said, not as apologetically as he might have, “Yeah, that’s my dad.” His dad was unpopular – and for good reason – but Sam was proud of him anyway. It took bollocks to be hated, and Sam was old enough now to find it more admirable than annoying.

(He’d felt differently when he was younger, of course, but then he’d always been a little hung up on what others thought of him.)

“I’d appreciate that,” he said, not that he thought he’d really be chased out of here. He stuck a hand out for her to shake – “Sam. You here alone?”

- - -

Sam was glad he’d had the foresight not to do anything as pathetic or as typical of him as to attend this party with his sister.

He was not tired yet, even though it was late enough that the street outside was nearly quiet, and the room was painted silver with moonlight. Sam rapped out a tattoo on his stomach with his hands, just for something to do with them; it had been long enough since he’d eaten that it sounded hollow to him, though he may just have been a little tipsy still. “You want anything to eat?” he said, turning his head to look at Tara. “I can make pancakes.”

Tara pressed her lips together with a faint shake of her head. The way he had said 'yeah, that's my dad' seemed so over it like how a tall person responded to what she imagined was an ever popular but definitely not witty 'how's the weather up there?' question. It didn't mean she wasn't going to rag on him a bit about it, it was too tempting.

"Tara," she said before sipping at her beer and then nodded toward the 'depressed losers' lamenting on the Griffins chances to make a comeback to the top of the league this season. "With some of the losers actually, but once they're a few beers in and pretending like they're seers on the outcome of the finals, I lose interest." She could talk stats and facts with the rest of the boys, and better than most considering her brother was the Analytics Manager for the Griffins and that was practically his job, plus she also had a brain and common sense - unlike many of these guys. They were usually good fun and she liked being one of the only girls in the group, even if they did get a little stupid after too many drinks. Cue Sam and an excuse to distance herself a bit from them. He was a good distraction and after he bought her the next beer and then she got the next round and after she had kissed him outside of the bar, one thing lead to another.

--

She traced lines that weren't there on her ceiling as she listened to him drum on his tummy. Tara reached over to place her hands over his as she turned on her side to face him, the sheet half-draped around her, a pleasant buzz threading through her. "I could go for that," she told him as he met her gaze and then smirked. "But if you try to add chocolate chips to mine, you're out," she added before she rolled back over and got up, leaving the sheet behind as she walked toward the bathroom and then flicked a finger out toward the hall. "Kitchen's just through there." It's not like she had given him a tour or anything on the way in. They had been a bit busy for that. She paused with her hand on the door as she glanced back at him. "Maybe some eggs while you're at it?" she asked before disappearing into the bathroom.

As he had no other recipes memorised, Sam had the measurements for pancakes down pat – he rooted through Tara’s kitchen until he’d located everything. “Sure, he said, as she disappeared into her bathroom; he didn’t really know how to make eggs, but it couldn’t be that hard – he was more concerned about his (in)ability to multitask than anything. Wasn’t sure what she had against chocolate chips in pancakes, either; clearly her mother had never refused to make it that way and thus created a tantalising temptation.

“Hi,” he said, when she reemerged; he had gotten flour on her countertops, and was now engaged in the tricky process of transferring his (chocolate chipless) batter to a larger bowl so he could stir it without spilling. “You’ve got your kitchen laid out pretty funny.”

It took a few tries, and a bit of swearing, to get the stove lit, and a bit of searching (he probably should have done the searching before lighting the stove) to find a pan and a plate. He realised only when the first couple of pancakes had been flipped that he had to find a plate to put them on, and so the first batch was rather browner than he meant them to be, though nothing that wouldn’t be fixed if he sprinkled on a little extra sugar at the end. (She had frosting sugar, right?)

While he waited, he drummed on the counter with the handles of her spoon and spatula; he realised belatedly that he’d forgotten to make eggs, and said, pausing his percussing, “There enough room for you to make the eggs, if you want ‘em? Reckon I’ll burn it all if I try to handle two pans at once.”

((so sorry for the delay <333))

"Oh hello," she said in reply, breezy, playful, as she finished tying up the sash of her lavender satin robe that fell to mid thigh. Tara peered into the batter, just to double check he listened about the chocolate chips, before she perked a brow at him. "No," she disagreed easily. "It works pretty well," she said glancing around at her kitchen. Everything made sense to her and considering he couldn't even light the stove... "You're doing it wrong, you have to--" she stopped as he finally succeeded.

Leaning her hip against the counter, she watched him work, wondered if he had ever cooked pancakes before because he did seem a little all over the place. She didn't bother helping though. It was amusing to watch him, pulling a container towards her on the counter and opening it up to pick through the almonds inside and pop them in.

She had just picked up another handful when her eyes darted to where he was drumming again. Wow, that was pretty annoying. Tara moved a step closer and reached out a hand to lay it on the handle of the spatula. "My nan got that set for me," she said with a pointed glance down at the utensils. A lie, but she hoped it would stop him from that annoying habit. "Not much of a multi-tasker?" Tara asked as she moved behind him and then nudged him with her hip as she put on a second pan and pulled the eggs toward her. Silly of him to offer to make her a breakfast and then ask her to finish it up, but at least she knew the eggs wouldn't be half burnt.

"Did you want any?" she asked even as she was cracking an eye for him as well.

“Who puts the knives across the kitchen from the utensils?” Sam protested, but he supposed that kitchen layouts were the sort of thing that parents passed down to their children heedless of the consequences, like neuroticism and Catholicism, so he shouldn’t harp on it too much. At least he’d found everything eventually. At least he managed to get the stove on eventually, too – that would have been embarrassing. Once he’d tried to put a kettle on at Charlie’s old place and had to ask Charlie to turn the stove on for him; Muggle gadgets were like that.

He was settling into his rhythm – literally and figuratively – when Tara reached across; he thought at first she was trying to grab his hand, but she was only going for the spatula in his hand; he frowned down at it until he realised she was afraid he would break them. “Right,” he said, quitting it at once. “Sorry – habit.” It was a habit he’d had since he was a kid; until Banshee had made it big, he thought his drum kit was probably in his mother’s top five life regrets.

Tara said, perhaps jokingly, that he wasn’t much of a multi-tasker; Sam nodded – “Snape told me once he didn’t trust me to slice daisy roots unattended.” Apparently catching onto his ineptitude, Tara seemed glad to take over the eggs; Sam glanced over at the pan, trying to tell what kind of egg she was going for, and said, “Er, sure – however you’re having them. Thanks,” and then added, “I never learned how to make eggs, I don’t eat them often.”