BINGO AU
Bingo Spaces - college, apartment, neighbors, road trip, greek life, post-hogwarts, opposite self, siblings, sci fi FT. - Sammie Warrick, Tanner Ashton, Liam Lumely, Dmitri Petrov, Asher Solomon, Cheyenne Morales, Christopher Cordell, Luke Bolton, Wilfrid Short, Samuel Wise, Roderick Key
Loren shoved her chevron lamp shade into the back of the pickup, dusting her hands dramatically to the annoyance of Sammie, who slammed the trunk down after she’d tossed the item in. “What?” She asked, innocently. “You’re tossing lampshades in the back of the truck while you’ve got us boys doing all the heavy lifting?” Sammie jerked his thumb in Liam’s direction, where the recently graduated Hufflepuff was straining to shove a box filled with the last of Loren’s things into the back of the U-Haul attached to Sammie’s rusty old pickup. She shrugged. No use in denying it. She’d already sweet-talked the two of her soon-to-be roomies into carrying six boxes from her parents house to the U-Haul before they’d remembered that they were no longer bound to the rules of No Magic Outside of Hogwarts, but even after that excited thought, they figured muggle London wasn’t the best place to test their new-found freedom as wizards and stuck it old school. Or Sammie and Liam did, while Loren transported chevron lampshades and cat scratching poles. She was surprised, honestly, that it's taken them so long to complain. She'd done the same thing at Sammie and Liam's homes before hers, but she supposed there was a difference when it was her things and not theirs. "That's the last of it," Liam piped up, sliding the door of the trailer down. "Time to hit the road." There was a hanging silence for a moment before Sammie prompted the question they'd been thinking about since learning of the the seating situation for their thirteen hour road trip. "I'm taking first shift behind the wheel," Sammie said. "Which of you chumps is taking middle?" Liam narrowed his eyes at the cab of the truck, where there was only one row of seating with two normal sized cushions and one half-sized seat smack dab in the middle of the driver and passenger seats. Loren's charitable side overtook her and she volunteered. She was the smallest, after all, and she'd take middle because regardless of where she sat in the musty, old truck, she was going to be sharing an apartment soon with her two best friends in the entire world, and that's all that mattered. "Now that that's settled," Sammie slung an arm around Loren's shoulder when they were all (somewhat un)comfortably settled into the vehicle and turned to press his lips to hers briefly. "I can pop in my road trip playlist and we can get going." "Is it thirteen hours of Kidz Bop?" Liam asked. Loren interjected with her own suspicions. "Or thirteen hours of Shoop?" Sammie grinned, starting the truck. "What if I told you—" He paused for effect, leaving Loren and Liam staring at him under narrowed lids. "—both?"
After eight stops, two hijacks of the radio station when Sammie got ahold of the tunes again, and an overnight stay at a somewhat sleazy motel, Sammie, Loren, and Liam stood at the edge of their yard, admiring their beautiful new home. Their apartment would be one of four in the pretty white building, and to their luck, they'd snagged a downstairs setup, which was going to make their move a lot easier. Everything seemed perfect. "Hey, fresh ones!" The holler had come from an upstairs window in the building next to theirs, which was painted the same shade of white, but donned giant black Greek letters right in the middle of the house. In an instant, two young men, probably a few years older than the trio of eighteen-year-olds emerged from the home, big grins spread across their faces. The trio shared somewhat weary glances before they were approached. "You guys new to the University?" One of the two asked. Loren answered cheerily. "No, close-to-campus was just in our budget and my older sister is a student here.” The two strangers eyed her, the one who'd originally spoken rolling his eyes over her slowly. "Regardless, Kappa Epsilon would like to welcome you to the neighborhood. I'm Tanner Ashton, this is Dmitri. The idiot who yelled from the window is Asher. You should come to our Back To School get-together tonight and get to know the rest of us and some other people from campus." “Uh, sure! Count us in. Oh--I’m Loren. And these fine gentlemen are Sammie and Liam. What are you guys, then? A...fraternity?” Tanner nodded slowly, smirking at the brunette. “S’right, love. More importantly, though...We’re your new neighbors.”
“Loren?” The female voice was somewhat startling, considering her roommate situation, but after sticking her head around the corner from her bedroom, the face she put to the voice in the hall wasn’t very surprising at all. “I swear, it’s going to look much better in here when we unpack everything.” Dalia laughed, traipsing into her younger sister’s room. She perched gracefully atop the closest box to the door. “I’m not judging, little sister. I still have boxes in my dorm that should’ve been unpacked months ago. You sure you don’t want to skip your Ministry job and do the whole college thing?” Loren offered her sister a playful glare. “Don’t think so. I’ve got all I need right here already.” She extended her arms, not referencing anything specifically. Dalia groaned. “You’re disgusting,” she teased. “So wholesome, so unadventurous, so worried about other people.” Loren shrugged. “I like to play it safe. Keep my ducks in a row.” “Yada yada, we get it--you’re responsible and successful and mom and dad love you the most. What are you wearing? C’mon, get something slutty on, it’s almost time for the Epsilon party.” Loren lowered her gaze to her sundress, flattening it down. Her smile faltered a tad and she cocked her head to the side. “This is what I was going to wear…” Dalia scoffed. “I don’t think so, little sister.” Dalia pushed up from the box she’d settled on and tasked herself with looking through the various other boxes for ones that contained clothing. It took her a while to find something that wasn’t floral, pastel, or knee-length, but she came up with a mustard yellow halter crop top and a pair of tiny leather shorts that Loren had only worn once as part of a Halloween costume. “I can’t wear that,” Loren responded, her brows furrowed. Dalia wasn’t going to take no for an answer, it seemed, and Loren found herself shimmying into the outfit just in time for Sammie to place himself in her doorway. “Wo--” Sammie eyed the sisters with raised brows, his jaw hanging a tad. “You look--” Dalia interrupted. “She looks hot. Grab your hot friend, Warrick, and let’s kick it.”
The music was deafening, but somehow, Dalia’s voice projected over the sounds from the DJ booth as well as the chattering of students that surrounded them. “If you’re going to live next door to Epsilon, you’ve got to know the key players.” Sammie and Liam had split from the girls when they entered to find the refreshments and under the guise of being helpful, Dalia had dragged Loren to a leather couch in the fraternity home’s sitting room and was pointing out the brothers of Kappa Epsilon. “That one’s Wilfrid Short. His parents are authors or something, so he’s a little strange but he’s got money.” Dalia’s finger moved from the dark haired boy to another, who was chatting up a couple girls by the stairs. “Cordell Christophers. Very charming, very nice, very, very rich.” Loren snickered, looking over at her older sister. “Why’s everything about money with you? We have plenty of money.” “One can never have too much money, Loren. Anyways, pay attention--Luke Bolton. Rugged, sexy, decent money. Roderick Key--not very good in bed.” Loren groaned again. “And you said you met Dmitri and Tanner?” She nodded in response to Dalia’s question, her eyes raking the party to land on the latter of the men in question, who was talking to Sammie. Before she could think too much about it, she was distracted by green in her peripheral. “Why...Is he…” Dalia snorted. “That’s Samuel Wise. Poor kid, The Epsilon boys always convince him their parties have a theme. I think it’s sci-fi tonight. Either that or the green bodysuit has nothing to do with aliens. Now that I think of it, the last few themes have been science fiction related. I think Sam’s really into it, or I feel like he’d stop showing up as Doctor Who characters to these things.”
“You’ve got a hot piece of ass with you, mate.” Tanner commented casually, turning away from Sammie for a moment to accept a drink from a girl with CHEYENNE scrawled across her chest in black marker. When he turned back to his new neighbor, he spoke again. “How long the two of you been together?” Sammie took a long drink from the cup in his hand before responding. “Three years.” The two watched Loren lift from the couch she’d been seated at with Dalia, Tanner speaking again when she started to weave through the crowd towards them. “S’pose that’ll make it more difficult for me to fuck her.” Sammie’s gaze snapped from Loren to the other young man at his side, his expression incredulous for only a moment. When Loren finally reached the pair of young men, Sammie was clapping his hand down on Tanner’s shoulders, offering a bellowed laugh.