[open] disregard these battle scars --*

[sammy]

Every part of her hurt. Ached it in a way it hadn’t for a while. Though it was a pain she was familiar with; it came with being the only girl of five children. Perpetually throughout her childhood, she’d been picked on by each of her brothers, even the younger ones, but had also done the same with them. She’d grown up as just another one of the boys, fighting, playing sports, getting dirty; none of it was unfamiliar with her, and she was a lot more comfortable doing it than she was dressing up, or putting on make-up, or gossiping. It was a given. When you spent your life wrestling on a make-shift ring in your downstairs basement, formed by couch cushions put together with a few blankets on top, like she had this afternoon, it eventually became second nature, and though it hurt, you enjoyed it.

Somehow disregarding her aching bones and the bruises that were sure to show up within the next few hours, she managed to semi-crawl, half-drag herself out of her parents’ house before her mother could see her and slap a few bandages on some cuts that really weren’t that needed. Sam didn’t mind walking about with a few battle scars. Noting that her hair was a bit of a mess on the way out, thanks to the mirror near the front door, she had grabbed the first hat she’d found, a tuque that she wasn’t quite sure where it had come from, and pulled it on top of her tangled blond locks in hopes of keeping herself from looking completely hobo-ish. She’d never given much thought to her appearance, but she’d rather not have people running from her. She could look quite horrendous, she knew, though her family was always adamant that she looked good all the time. Probably ran in her family since her brothers always seem to have girls coming in and out of the house, with the exception of her oldest brother who was currently wedded to the Megabitch.

Sam thanked the shoe gods (if they existed) that she was wearing her Batman sneakers because she found herself bolting into the Leaky Cauldron and out the back as quickly as she could when she caught sight of an old flame, for lack of a better term. She didn’t stop running until she arrived at her destination, thanking her slim body and flexibility, along with acquired agility, that she was able to weave through people rather quickly, and see over most of them to spot the sign she wanted. Rubbing her freckled face with a long-fingered hand, Sammy pushed her way into Florean Fortescue’s, heading straight to the counter and ordering the largest banana split they had and taking it to her usual table.


click here | this is blah, but meh, she needs posts

[kola]

The best thing to go and get after accomplishing a long and hard job? Ice cream of course! That was why Eliza was currently on her way to Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor. It was one of the best ice cream places around, muggle world or wizarding world. That was the nice thing about being a witch, Eliza was able to benefit from the best of both worlds, she rather enjoyed it. Her father and her had just finished rebuilding the entire engine on one of her cars. It had blown the engine during one of her races about two months ago and had taken quite a while to get fixed. She loved to work on the cars but was also glad when it was over. Completing the job meant she was able to start racing that car again and that was always a nice thing.

As she made her way into the ice cream parlor she glanced around and made sure to weave her way through the people without ramming into them. Once at the front she ordered a waffle cone with cherry ice cream that had chocolate chunks it in, one of her favorites. She remembered getting ice cream as a little girl with her father, now she usually came alone because he was generally busy working and everything else. After grabbing her cone from the man behind the counter and paying for it she spun around on her heel and looked around for an empty table. She didn't expect to see anyone she would know really and so when spotted Sammy she was surprised. Sammy was on the same quidditch team as her so they knew each other well enough she would say.

Deciding to just chance her luck and go over to sit with Sammy since there were no empty tables at the moment, Eliza started walking towards the girl. As she got close enough to talk at a normal volume she smiled and said "Hey Sammy, mind if I join you?" she asked, hoping that the girl wouldn't mind. Eliza like Sammy, the two of them were pretty similar in a lot of ways. Sammy had four brothers and Eliza had five, neither of them had sisters. Both had grown up as one of the guys and neither one was very girly at all. Plus Sammy was also a muggleborn just like herself so that made things even more relate-able between the two of them. Waiting for Sammy to invite her sit down Eliza took a bite out of her waffle cone.

OUTFIT

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[sammy]

For some reason, Sammy found herself as the subject of quite a few odd stares as she took her massive bowl to her seat. Yes, the ice cream she had ordered was habitually made to serve two people, and she was just one tall, skinny stick. But she needed it! She was a growing girl after all. Well, not so much, but she always ate a lot, and it seemed like she was always munching on something, and she never stopped. She’d slowed down a bit since graduating school (Hogwarts had been pretty much Hell for her, she was hungry the entire time) and moving out on her own, since she now has to stock up her fridge and cabinets by herself. Well, Georgie was living there too, but Sam wasn’t going to make her pay for all the groceries that she mostly ate herself. Her mother had to have had a hell of a time feeding four, well in all honesty Sam considered herself as another guy and adding her father made it six, boys in the house, while working all day and having to clean up after them when she got home, and deal with football practice, baseball, and everything else they did. Her father had helped some, taking over part of the sports, but it was Brooke, her mom, who handled the schedule and kept everyone in line.

Sam had quite some respect for mothers; they always seemed to have everything together. At least, her mother did, and being an O’Keefe mom couldn’t be easy. After all, when your eldest son is shipped off to a wizarding school, followed by your second oldest child, then having to deal with the somewhat jealousy of a non-magical child, another magical child, and a now angsty teenage brat, Sam’s mom hadn’t had it easy. She’d have to remember to thank her mother the next time she was at her parents’ house, which would probably only be tomorrow. Since a year or so after graduation, Sam had been living in her own place with Georgina, but still popped into her home quite often, mostly because her brothers were there, partly because there never seemed to lack food in the fridge. And it was always nice to see her parents and know they were okay.

“Hmm?” she mumbled as she was pushed out of her internal rambling, and external face shoving. Remembering her manners, or at least the few she had (she knew she was a terrible dinner guest unless she was paying close attention to what she was doing, and this was just ice cream, nothing fancy, so she really wasn’t worried about looking like a slob) she swallowed the cold semi-liquid that was in her mouth, coupled with banana and syrup, before wiping off her lips and replying. “Sure!” Sam said brightly. “Feel free,” she swept her hand in front of her, indicating the large expanse of table and the chair available for Elizabeth to take.

click here | lalala~

[kola]

Eliza realized after she asked if she could sit down that Sammy had been deeply in thought and hoped she hadn't interrupted anything too terribly important. When Sammy nodded and invited her to sit down at the table Eliza did so, sitting across from the other girl. "How are you today?" she asked with a smile licking some of her ice cream from the cone in her hand. She enjoyed hanging out with Sammy during practice and figured that sitting with the girl to enjoy some ice cream together might be fun as well. Eliza wasn't big on the the whole friend and people department. She was an extremely friendly girl and always nice to everyone but because she spent so much time devoted to her family, racing, working and playing quidditch she never really had a whole lot of time to do anything else.

Plus Eliza had always related more to the guys around her. She had never really had a great girl friend to hang out with because while girls liked to talk about boys, makeup and the latest fashion, Eliza liked to talk about cars, quidditch and getting down and dirty. Most girls didn't understand half of what she was talking about when she did try to have a conversation with them and so she had eventually just pretended to care about girly things when she was around girls and reverted back to her normal self when she was around the guys. The other thing was that Eliza hadn't really ever dated much during her lifetime. She had had a couple of boyfriends but never anything serious. Mostly because they didn't like that she couldn't devote more of her time to them or because she didn't like to get dressed up and be their trophy. She didn't have very good manners, she wasn't girly and she didn't act like a stupid bimbo which meant most guys steered clear of her.

Eliza sometimes wondered what she might have grown up as if she had maybe been around more girls. Her mother was the only female that she was ever really around and she did give her mother props. The woman had birthed six children and taken care of them all while working a full time job. Eliza's dad worked full time as a mechanic and was home as much as he could be but had to stay late and work a lot of overtime most of the time. Eliza was the second oldest in her family, having one older brother, one twin brother and three younger brothers which meant she had helped raise her younger brothers as much as she could so that her mother didn't have so much to do after she got home from work. Eliza generally helped keep up with the inside chores, dishes, laundry and the like while the boys had to do stuff such as mowing, stacking wood and pressure washing. The workload was pretty even throughout the kids and none of them tended to complain about anything knowing that their parents needed the help. Eliza was just like that though, rarely a complainer about anything.

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[sammy]

Sam regarded Elizabeth’s question carefully; how was she today? Well, to be frank, she wasn’t sure. Her morning had started out rather well, she’d woken up late, got ready quickly as she always did, headed over to her parents’ house for late breakfast and lunch, had a mini show-down with her brothers after playing catch outside (yes, they were all adults and still played like children, but the family that plays together, stays together) then it had started going downhill. Her brother had stopped over at her parents’ home with his wife, effectively ruining Sam’s afternoon as it was. She and that woman had never gotten along. Marissa was a proper lady, always clean, dressed impeccably, had a nice cushy job within the Ministry, never went wild, and judged people properly. She liked to believe that Sam was some sort of Devil’s spawn and an insult to all womendom, to which Sam would always respond proudly that she was. Marissa was quite clearly much smarter than Sam, and that bugged her to no end. The woman was constantly picking at her so subtly her family could hardly tell, whereas when Sammy tried to retaliate, she was caught immediately, and then she’d have the embarrassment of not only being caught, but still being able to be punished by her parents, who she couldn’t stand to disappoint.

How was she? She was alright she supposed, she was used to Marissa and her antics, but she honestly hadn’t been prepared to see her old boyfriend (albeit short-term, they’d only seen each other for a few months) still with the girl he had cheated on her with. The worst part was that she had just shrugged off the end of their relationship and agreed to still be friends with him, and she had kept that promise. She held no feelings for him, it was just a little bit of an eye-opener whenever she saw them together, that there were better women around, so she really stood no chance at all in the relationship front. Sam had officially resigned herself to being ‘one of the guys’ forever, and she was quite comfortable in her position.

“I’m just fucking peachy,” she said sarcastically, gritting her teeth a little before forcing a huge glob of ice cream, banana and sprinkles in her mouth. Food never failed to make her feel better. “How’re you doing?” she asked in turn, her green eyes fixing Eliza for a bit.

click here | lalala~

[kola]

The way that Sammy answered the question of how was she didn't lead Eliza to really believe that she was doing all that well but considering that her and Sammy were best friends like Sammy and Georgie were she figured she should pry. If Sammy needed to talk to someone she would go to her friend and Eliza wasn't the type of person to try and get people to tell her their problems. If they wanted to talk to her than they could and she was a great listener, even gave some good advice at times, but she wouldn't make anyone tell her something. Instead she just let the statement roll off her and in turn decided to answer Sammy's return question.

"I am doing well" she replied with a smile. She really was doing pretty well. She didn't have a whole lot on her plate to worry about. Her family life was as good as it ever had been and she was happy to be playing quidditch and doing with her life what she wanted to do. She got to race cars, play quidditch and spend time with her family, what more could she ask for. All of her brothers so far were single so she didn't even have to worry about nagging girlfriends trying to infiltrate her family. She was sure it would happen eventually as it had happened before but currently no one in the family was seeing anyone, not even Eliza. Though having a boyfriend wasn't something she usually was a part of anyway. She wasn't exactly the dateable kind of girl or so it seemed to her.

Boys were generally taken aback by her life activities and didn't know how to be around a girl that probably knew more about cars than they did. Boys were pretty prideful in the aspect of cars or at least the ones she was around because she did spend most of her time at the tracks. But hey it wasn't really that she was trying to know more than them, she had just been raised in a garage so from the time she was little all she had ever done was tear things apart and put them back together again. It didn't matter much though because she wasn't too worried about what other people had to say about her. She was who she was and that was good enough for her, ever the optimist some people said.

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[sammy]

“That’s good to hear,” Sam replied with a smile, generally happy that Elizabeth was doing well. She didn’t know the other woman all too well. They played on the same quidditch team, and their relationship hadn’t progressed father than that. They were okay with each other, she presumed. Eliza had never done anything to hint otherwise, and Sam certainly hoped she hadn’t gotten on the girl’s bad side. Sam liked to stay in mostly everyone’s good graces, just because it was a nuisance to have people angry at her and dislike her, but she supposed if people didn’t like her... well, that was their problem, wasn’t it? She wasn’t going to go out of her way to impress anyone. Merlin knows she wasn’t impressive at all anyway. Personally, she quite liked Eliza herself. The girl came from much the same background as she and had some interesting hobbies. She was quite easy to talk to, Sam found, though she wasn’t going to go spilling today’s woes on the poor girl.

Sam had never been one to complain, much less to other people. Complaining meant that you wanted something changed and were too lazy to do it yourself. Sam neither wanted things to change or to do it, so complaining wasn’t in her vocabulary. She could be highly irritated at something, but she wouldn’t complain about it. At least...not out loud. Samantha preferred internal grumbling and keeping useless things to herself. After all, why would she trouble people and bother them when they had their own things to deal with? She couldn’t justify it. Besides, she was sure Eliza wouldn’t appreciate the troubles of a woman who was basically a stranger in the lesser sense of the word.

“What have you been up to?” Sam asked casually, dipping her spoon back into her slowly melting ice cream. That was one of the reasons she loved Florean’s; they charmed their ice cream so it didn’t turn into a sopping mess before you got to then, though she’d never had any troubles with that before. The ice cream was always securely in Sam’s stomach before it melting: the curse of a high metabolism. At least it meant she could eat as much as she wanted... though she did find herself with the occasional brain freeze, like now. To which she swallowed the ice cream, and pressed her thumb to the roof of her mouth to quell the feeling.

click here | lalala~

[kola]

Eliza thought for a moment on how to best divulge her life happenings without causing it to bore Sammy to death. She tended to only ever talk about racing or cars which in turn drove the people around her insane because they just wished she would talk about something else. "Same ol', same ol'. Just been hanging out with my family and spending most of my time at the track. My dad and I are rebuilding a '67 Chevy Chevelle right now. But I don't want to bore you with the gory details" she replied with a laugh. It was true, she always felt bad when people started to just nod along while she was talking because they were making an attempt to listen but were completely uninterested.

A smile crossed her face as Sammy stuck her thumb against the roof of her mouth "Brain freeze?" she asked with a smile still on her face. She knew the feeling all to well and was surprised to see that Sammy remedied her brain freeze in much the same way as Eliza did. Eliza took another bit of her waffle cone, taking some ice cream with it at the same time. Boy did she love that cherry ice cream. The crunch of the waffle cone and delicious chocolate chunks just made it that much better. Eliza was a sucker for chocolates and cherries, probably the fastest way to her heart if anyone ever were to even try.

Much like Sammy, Eliza was blessed with a fast metabolism. Of course she did tend to work out as well but mainly because she enjoyed working out not because she had to. Her slim figure was something that tended to be due to genetics. Her mother was a small framed woman and her brothers were all either slim or extremely fit. In her opinion she didn't like girls that were overly fit, she found it gross, but to each their own. Besides she tended to eat very often but not a lot at each sitting. She was much like a bird and her mother often called her one. Ever since she was little she had just pecked at food here and there, rarely sitting down to eat a full meal. This was mainly because she was always so darn busy that she never found the time to sit down and eat. She liked to eat on the go so that she could get the optimal amount of things done in one day. She was odd like that she supposed.

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[sammy]

“That sounds pretty cool actually,” Sam added with a smile. “I remember restoring a ’65 Barracuda with my dad and my brothers one summer. Obviously none of us really knew what we were doing, but it was fun and a lot of work,” Sam recalled fondly. She nearly chuckled at the memory. That had been one of the best summers really. Every day when her father came home from work, they’d eat supper then kick it in the garage until their mom finally called them all inside, including their father, for bed. The amount of grease she’d been painted with that summer, the calluses on her fingers that had hardened and the nights spent wasted laying on the cement ground, watching her dad and eldest brother fiddle around with the engine until she or one of her brothers were needed.

“Yeah, oops,” she said with a grimace, wrinkling her freckled nose as she tried to shake the head ache off. She soldiered on, however, never being one to slow down even when she was hurting, and shovelled more ice cream into her mouth, content in believing that if she managed to freeze the rest of herself, her head wouldn’t feel so bad. Yes, Sam’s reasoning was usually flawed, but in most ways she made sense at least somewhat. She’d never claimed to be particularly smart; she hadn’t been placed in ravenclaw for a reason, but she wasn’t dumb. Maybe once in a while she had her blonde moments, but over all she wasn’t of lower intelligence than the average person.


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