twilight is keeping us close to the stars [freya]

Freya sighed, eyes on the sky. Beef jerky, sure. “Sure,” she said, her voice polite and a little distant. “Hmm?” Freya blinked like she’d forgotten where she was, glancing back at Danny as he held the joint out again. She looked down at it, thinking again about her hair and the smell and how she’d already showered...

She probably shouldn’t. Things were a little weird now, weren’t they? “Um,” she said, stalling. “Maybe a little,” she agreed after another pause. Freya took it, her smile a little apologetic for no reason. Just be normal, she told herself. There existed literally no reason not to be, she thought. She inhaled slowly; there was no rush, after all.

“Lips are weird,” she agreed, passing the joint back to her friend. She held in a cough that wanted to escape her lungs, wrinkling her nose a bit.

She hesitated and even in his buzz, it felt weird that she was so hesitant about everything. And then he couldn't help but wonder if it was his fault. He didn't blame her, or at least he didn't think he did, and he had mostly made up with Aiden already, but he still couldn't help but wonder what this weird thing between them was. And if it would ever go away.

Danny's eyes rested on Freya's lips as she inhaled, his tongue tracing the inside of his lips and then pressing them together to see if it felt more or less buzzy, but the pseudo-science experiment wasn't a thought he could hold on to. His fingers brushed hers as he took it back and took another drag, his lips where hers had been a few moments ago.

His gaze drifted back to the sky, his head leaning back on the couch as he slumped even more and wished he could see stars. They felt so far away somehow. "I apologized to Aiden the other day," he heard himself say out of the blue, paused, and then sighed. He was more loose-lipped when smoking, but maybe he was okay with it in the moment because it had been weighing on him in a weird way. Aiden and Freya. Shit. "Sorry I cockblocked you?" he added bluntly, making his lips turn up in a smile. "I think we're going to need a signal or something. Scrunchie on the doorknob?" It's not something he necessarily wanted to think about, but he would rather watch Puddlemere United get dead last in the league every year before he wanted to catch Freya on top of another guy again.

Freya passed the joint back, then rearranged herself on the chair. She supposed she’d stay for a little while, then. Danny was slouched down now, his head on the back of the couch. Freya copied him, drawing all of her hair over the shoulder further away from him before resting her head back, too. Close, but not too close.

“Oh,” Freya said, raising her eyebrows like she was asking a question. She glanced at her friend, puzzled for a fraction of a second before she realised what he was talking about. Freya could feel her cheeks get a little warmer. “Oh, no,” she said, wrinkling her nose a bit, glad that he was being funny about it instead of… Well, instead of anything else.

“We didn’t go up there to have sex,” Freya told him matter-of-fact, matching both his forthrightness and his jokey tone. She couldn’t quite look at him as she said it though, so she held a hand out for the joint, her eyes on its glowy tip instead. “He came up to use my bathroom, then we were just talking, and…” Freya shrugged. It was a party. A party kiss. She and Aiden hadn’t talked about it, but what was there to talk about? It was quite different, she thought, to the Danny thing from last summer. She couldn’t help but compare the two, especially now.

“So, not cockblocking,” she clarified, her lips forming the words around the joint as she took a light drag. She handed it back with a bit of a smile. Normal! Casual! Freya aimed her gaze up to the sky again. "But you could learn to knock," She added, nudging him with her shoulder, the smile lingering.

"Oh," he said, echoing her, his perception of the night's events changing a bit with that tidbit. But he nodded and hummed along, trying to be as close to perfectly okay with it as he could. For just being friends, this vibe was still way too weird. Danny handed the joint to her as her silent request.

"Well, that's good," he added at her clarification, a faint smile on his lips as he took back the joint, his eyes catching on the glowing tip. His smile got bigger as she nudged his shoulder and he nodded. "It's a tough skill to learn. Very difficult," he joked before he took another drag, blowing the smoke up into the air and then watching as it dissipated into nothing. "But if you and Aiden are going to.. I guess I should start knocking now, shouldn't I," he added, his voice light even though the words felt weird.

He sounded a little surprised and she felt herself cringe internally. Out of embarrassment or what, though? She had no idea. So Danny had thought she and Aiden had snuck off together to hook up, then. That made sense from his perspective, she thought. It explained things a little, but not in any way that felt clarified or resolved. Freya sighed a silent sigh.

“Mhmm,” she replied skeptically, trying to play not-amused by his suggestion that knocking on doors was a difficult thing to learn. She could hear the smile in his tone, though, and that felt nice. Made her feel a little lighter, too. Weightless if she focussed on it, like her arms could just drift upward if not for the gravity — oh wait, no, that was just the weed. Freya held her hand out for the joint again without looking for it, her eyes on the sky instead.

It was weirdly vulnerable to be here, she thought. It was getting a touch colder by the minute as her charm wore off, and she felt like she might just fall up into the sky if she kept looking up at it like this. She felt exposed, somehow.

“I don’t think—” she interjected, but her words weren’t forceful or abrupt. The lightness of her tone matched his. “Just a party thing, I think,” she clarified softly, bringing the joint to her lips. “With Aiden.” Not that she’d hate it if it wasn’t, she supposed, but she was trying not to let her brain cling to it. It was a kiss at a party! She kissed her friends all the time at parties! Well, not all of them, she conceded internally. Not like Danny or Jer or Ari (or Aiden!), but like... Tess she always kissed at parties! And she never overthought that.

The Danny-kiss last summer, and the subsequent fallout, had felt so confusing. She didn’t want to do that with Aiden. The fact that it’d been at a party, and that she’d kept her dress on (thank god) helped keep it more casual in her head. She still hadn’t really had a conversation with him, though. The blonde brought the joint to her lips and inhaled deeply. Aiden probably hooked up with lots of girls at parties, and hadn’t even given it a second thought. How did she feel about that? Freya pushed it from her mind, exhaling slowly.

Her skeptical 'mhmm' made him grin, a chuckle rumbling through his chest. His hand drifted up as if on its own entirely, one finger poking him solidly on the solar plex, the rumble and shake vibrating up his finger too. Weird. But a different sort of weird than whatever was between him and Tricky. That was an kind of uncomfortable if you thought about it, don't-know-what-to-do sort of weird. His rumbly chest was a odd sensation, how-did-people-even-learn-how-to-laugh sort of weird.

And that thought just made him sigh and take another drag, because he hated how not-easy things seemed to be. He just wanted simple, easy, fun.

"Oh," he said again, the epitome of intelligence as her words wound through his brain and he understood them one-by-one, slower to understanding than usual. Just a party thing. A smile betrayed him and he didn't have enough discipline to hide it. Why did that make him feel lighter? And no, it wasn't just because of the weed. Or at least, he didn't think it was.. his thoughts were floaty and his lips were buzzy so it was hard to track one thought to the next.

"Well," Danny said as he passed her back the joint, sliding a little closer, seeking a little warmth as the cool air circled round them. "If Jere and I ever start making out, don't worry it's just a party thing," he joked, cracking up halfway through his sentence. They hadn't really gotten over the accidental kiss at the muggle mall a while ago, but still, the idea was hilarious.