Disguises

[Samuel Echelon-Arnost]

The Appleby Arrows were not hosting a holiday party, and they were certainly not hosting a holiday party with an open bar, which was the rumor floating around the Quidditch league. It was a fairly substantiated rumor, since all of the Captains and Managers from the various English teams had been invited--even Holyhead!

It was the first time ever that Sam had wished he were the Quidditch captain. Usually, he was good with his level of assumed responsibility being "none." It made life easier that no one had particularly high expectations of him. All he was expected to do in life was catch the Snitch, and he could handle that most of the time. On the other hand--open bar.

Clearly, he was planning on crashing the Puddlemere Christmas party (which had actually turned out far easier than he had thought, since security on the doors was relatively low and Disillusionment Charms were something he could manage feasibly well at least half the time). Unfortunately, the rest was not quite as easy, since he'd somehow gotten it into his head that this was a masked party, which, he realized as he slipped into the ballroom, was clearly not true. He now found himself on the edges of a party full of nice, respectable folk, wearing a purple-and-black mask that covered the upper half of his face.

He would clearly be recognized if he took it off, but he'd probably draw even more attention to himself if he left it on. Maybe he could just Disillusion himself again and find the bar? This wasn't turning out as he'd expected.

  

[Guest]

Regan had kissed Aoife and the girls before heading out, and promised that he would be back soon. He hated leaving them for any extended period of time, but he needed to show face at the Puddlemere Cristmas party. With some unease, Regan slipped out of their home in Wellingtonshire and made s way to where the party was being hosted. He hoped that nothing would go catastrophically wrong in his absence, and made a promise to himself to be back within two hours, no more than two and a half nature, he would probably get ribbed for it, but he didn't care. Those girls were his life.

As it was, Regan checked his pocket watch to note that he had only been at the party fifteen minutes but had made his rounds and finished one glass of scotch. He certainly liked whiskey, but being a husband and now a father made him think that scotch might be a better choice. It was classier, and the drink of men, not boys.

He went to the bar and received a second glass of scotch on the rocks. He turned around and stood, back against the bar, surveying the room. He didn't think that he would have any trouble leaving earlier than the party's full length. Regan saw a masked face skulking in the shadows, and a mop of white-blonde hair. There was only one person Regan knew who had hair like that, who could possibly be wearing a mask and crashing a quidditch party. "Sam," he muttered, shaking his head in a slightly amused way. Regan pushed himself off the bar and made his way over to Sam. "A bit lost, mate," Regan asked in a good natured way.

  

[Samuel Echelon-Arnost]

Sam jumped a bit at the sound of his name. Most of the blokes in Quidditch went by their last names, but with his--well, it was just too much of a mouthful, and it didn't lend itself well to any particular shortenings, so most of his friends simply had to call him Sam. Even the people who weren't his friends ended up calling him Sam. This particular person was somewhere between an acquaintance and a chum; he was Sam's age, after all, though they'd been in different houses in school and therefore had been on rival teams since they'd met, all those years ago.

"Pendergast," he said, slipping the mask off with a smile and trying to find a place to put it. He was wearing a suit, but not one with big enough pockets for a mask of the sort he'd been wearing. Still, he couldn't just keep holding it. A passing waiter offered the answer to his question, and Sam stepped forward, obstensibly to take one of the appetisers, depositing his mask on the tray while he did so and hoping the servant didn't notice.

Turning back to Regan, he tasted a corner of the appetizer, wondering exactly what it was. "Blech," he said, making a face. "This meat tastes as if it might still be mooing. Clearly, this is not a night for graceful entries. You'll have to excuse me."

OOC: Day 11. My least favorite food is undercooked meat (I'm a vegetarian).

  

[Guest]

DAY FIVE OF THE JANUARY CHALLENGE

Regan watched as Sam deposited his mask on a tray, and wondered when someone would noticed that someone had shown up in a mask. Or, perhaps one of the youngsters would get too drunk for his or her own good and end up drinking too much, then thinking that the mask was some new sort of food. Or maybe a game like 'button, button, who's got the button.' He had smelled the tray coming from a mile away- it was a mixture of such delicious aromas, and they made Regan miss home. Regan, as well, took an hor d'oeuvre from the platter. He grabbed a different one than Sam must have, however. Sam's apparently was meat.

He had to laugh upon hearing Sam's reaction to his hor d'oeuvre. "It's alright, mate. We all can't be winners." Regan ran his finger absently around the outside of the bread the bruscetta was sitting upon, feeling the ridges of the baguette. He popped it into his mouth and enjoyed the taste of juicy tomatoes, the bite of a raw onion and other herbs and spices that blended nicely.

"You know, if you wanted to come to the party, all you had to do was ask to be my date." Regan was joking, of course, but he was truly wondering why Sam had decided to crash. Regan was certain he was not the new captain of the Arrows (though he hadn't seen said person yet), and he most definitely was not on the Puddlemere team. "But in all seriousness, how've you been? I thought you were dead up until the time you joined the Arrows."

  

[Samuel Echelon-Arnost]

Sam wasn't sure whether the phrase we can't all be winners was meant to make fun of him personally, or to make fun of his team. If the former, he really didn't mind; he'd spent his entire life not living up to expectations, and it was almost a point of pride at this point in his life. His team, however, he would get defensive about, especially since they'd had a rather good season so far. They were second in the league, only after the Ballycastle Bats, where as Puddlemere's last game had been--well, rather abysmal. True, Regan Pendergast hadn't been a part of it (and good thing, too, based on their sponsor Mr. Pettigrew's reaction to the loss), but it had been his team whom had performed so terribly, while Pendergast was--well, Sam wasn't even sure where he was. Sick? Injured? Playing with a puppy? It didn't really make much of a difference.

The perhaps-insult, however, was eclipsed when Pendergast jokingly said Sam could have been his date. Words like that set off little warning bells in his head, but Pendergast had just gotten married--just--and it was probably just a joke. He laughed, to cover the momentary uncertainty he'd had, which was so fleeting the keeper likely hadn't noticed. "I doubt your new wife would be pleased, Pendergast, even though it would have been such a great opportunity to try out that new dress I got for my birthday," he joked. Recovery managed.

Catching a passing waiter, Sam took a small glass of something off his hands. He wasn't fussed about what it was; it wasn't enough to be dangerous, unless it was Amortentia, or some such thing. "I've been about. Not dead yet," he joked, sniffing at the glass offhandedly. "Though every once in a while, I come a little closer than I'd like."

  

[Guest]

DAY ELEVEN OF THE JANUARY CHALLENGE

Although Sam had paused a moment and took a second to respond to Regan's joke about having been his date, Regan hadn't noticed. He was somewhat still too busy with the sensory overload he had with the bruscetta to notice a slightly longer pause in someone's retorts. Plus, he knew that not everyone was quick with a joke or to light up your smoke. Sometimes even he wasn't that quick.

He laughed perhaps a tad too loudly when Sam made the joke about wearing his new dress. "I'm sure you'd look smashing in it, mate." In all honesty, Regan thought that any male wearing a dress (or skirt, for that matter) was a bit touched in the head. Even the Scots who had kilts for their ceremonies and such he thought were a bit strange. After all, who purposefully makes a skirt for a man? That just seemed strange.

Sam was quick to respond about not being dead after taking a shooter of clear liquid from a silver tray. Regan, who still had the drink he had requested at the bar, passed on the drink and stole a tart or pastry of some sort from the next hor d'eourve tray. He popped it in his mouth and spit it out almost instantly in a napkin. "I think what I got what you had," he said, sounding a bit miserable. "This meat just isn't cutting it." He smiled wryly at Sam. "I guess that makes two of us who aren't winning with food tonight." Regan deposited his napkin on a passing tray and looked to Sam. "We're in the sport of Quidditch. I think we've all come a bit closer to death every here and there than we'd like." He didn't think it was his business to be poking his nose elsewhere, places it might not be wanted. If Sam meant something other than near-death encounters from Quidditch and he wanted to talk, he could bring it up if he wanted.





NOTE: couldn't this challenge have been 'use lyrics from a billy joel song'?! xD

  

[Samuel Echelon-Arnost]

Well, it was nice to have his opinion on that particular hors d'eouvr validated, he supposed, though he wouldn't have wished that on anyone; if he had caught sight of what Pendergast was eating before he'd swallowed, he might have warned him somehow.

As the tray circled away again, Sam laughed quietly at Pendergast's comment about Quidditch and near-death experiences. He supposed that was true--though more in Pendergast's field. Keepers were easy targets for bludgers, since they never left a certain area of the air space. Seekers, on the other hand, were chosen for their dexterity and speed; if Sam couldn't outfly a rogue bludger, he was having an off day. Still, he'd been hit with his fair share, so he supposed Pendergast wasn't wrong, even though he didn't really encompass all of the totally crazy shit Sam had done in his life so far.

"I need a drink," Sam said with a laugh. "And if you need to wash that taste out of your mouth, you might need another one. Am I right?" he asked, looking around for the bar.