Ivy and Gold (Victoria, Matthew)

For future reference:

Oliver wasn't exactly sure what had made him pick up the phone an hour ago. With his legs dangling from his bed, Oliver had been reading Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita when he'd come up with the idea of inviting Victoria over for some ice cream and board games. Against his better thinking, Oliver had stood up, walked down to the living room and picked up the phone - and in a matter of seconds he was being greeted by Victoria's soft voice on the other end of the line. "Hey, it's Oliver." he stated, his voice as friendly as it always was with her. "Just wanted to know if you could come over." In an impulse, he walked over to the kitchen, headed straight for the fridge. Opening it, he saw the bucket of the iced dessert and his mind instantly added "I've got a whole bucket of coffee gelato that's not really going to eat itself." He offered, a smile automatically playing on his lips. "Okay, I'll see you in half an hour?" Good, she was coming. "Awesome, bye!" Without caring where the phone landed, he placed it on the kitchen counter and hurried upstairs. He had to put up some pants (he was only wearing his pajamas, and that was kind of embarrassing) and clean up the backyard, and get some of their old board games out.

As he was running up the stairs, Matthew was coming down. "Hey, Matty, don't eat the ice cream in the fridge! Victoria's coming over." Oliver quickly announced before shutting the door of his room behind him, clearly not wanting to see his brother's reaction as he knew Matthew wasn't fond of the former Ravenclaw. Looking around his messy bedroom, Oliver grabbed some sweats from his drawer and decided they would do - he didn't have to dress up for this things, but he had to look relatively presentable. This wasn't the first time Victoria met his family, but it was certainly the first time he had invited her over to their home, and he at least had to make sure it looked okay. After he was dressed, he reached up to his closet, feeling around for the old boxes they used to place in the living room before Matthew decided he didn't want to play because their father always won. He found some wizard chess and some other muggle ones, so he carried them out to the backyard, not bothering to close his door behind him.

Okay, so the backyard wasn't as messed up as Oliver thought it was. The sky was still very blue, as it was only five in the afternoon, but it was still a good day to play around and eat dessert. Oliver placed the games on the table outside and moved it closer to the windows of the living room, so his parents could see that they weren't going to walk off and do drugs or something like that. He set three chairs - one for Victoria, one for Matthew, and one for him. Regardless of the fact that Matthew was still upset with him, very upset to be exact, he was going to force his younger brother to play with them. He walked back inside to find his brother in the living room, watching television like Victoria WAS NOT GOING TO SHOW UP IN ABOUT FIFTEEN MINUTES. "Matthew! Get up, come on. She's coming over in like a second and you're going to hang out with us." Oliver's hand wrapped around Matthew's arm as he picked his brother up from the cough, even though Matthew was only a few inches shorter than Oliver and Oliver was now 6 feet tall. "I know you always say you're busy, but whatever that is -" he motioned to the tele "- is not nearly as great as ice cream, is it?" Oliver didn't give him time to answer, but he was sure Matthew had a witty comeback, and shoved him upstairs to get him to put some shoes on.

After sending his brother upstairs and hoping he would actually come down later, Oliver waited - rather impatiently - for their guest to arrive.

Matthew was typically a late sleeper, but even he was usually up by late morning. Sleeping any later than that was a complete waste of his day. So when he finally managed to drag himself from his sleep to find that the time was nearly four thirty in the afternoon, he groaned, lifting a hand to rub his face. For a moment, Matthew wondered why he felt so completely exhausted, if he'd somehow managed to sleep into the afternoon - but then, it all came flooding back to him, and he remembered exactly why. Because he hadn't slept in two days because he hadn't gotten in until it was morning. Because the night before, he'd snuck out of the house and visited Ari. And he'd accidentally called her pretty, and he'd actually sat on her bed with her and watched Frozen. The whole thing. Matthew had never drank, but he sort of imagined this was what a hangover felt like - you woke up groggy and confused, regretting everything you had done the night before. Although, he was pretty sure most hangovers didn't come with an annoying song that got stuck in your head and refused to leave.

Finally dragging himself to his feet, Matthew pulled on a pair of jeans and a plain black tee-shirt and opened his door - though, a bit cautiously, just in case either his mother or Ollie had caught onto the fact that he'd been missing for almost the entire night. And for a moment, just as he was padding barefoof down the stairs, he was sure that he'd been caught because all of a sudden Ollie was pretty much charging up the stairs toward him. Matthew froze, mentally sorting through all of the excuses he'd prepared, when his brother just darted past him, shouting something down the stairs at him in the process. Matthew released a relieved breath before Ollie's words finally sunk in. "Hey, wait, why is she coming over?!" Matthew called back, but Ollie's door was already slamming shut. Ugh, Matthew was too tired and confused for this shit. He was sorely tempted to go and devour all of the ice cream that was left, but being so exhausted he didn't think he could manage it. With a heavy sigh, he continued down the stairs into the living room and sank down into the couch, flipping on the TV. There wasn't much good on, and he ended up watching some singing competition show where nearly everyone sucked. He imagined Ari would probably enjoy being on a show like that, where she got to sing in front of everyone - but he wasn't going to think about her.

Apparently, sometimes lame singing competitions were actually pretty interesting, and Matthew was at least slightly engrossed after a bit of watching it. That is, until he was interrupted yet again by Ollie, who was asking him - wait, no - telling him that he was going to hang out. "I'm busy - " Matthew started to say, ignoring Ollie and turning up the television, but Ollie was apparently having none of his shit. "Oh, come on, they're about to say who's going through to next week!" Matthew protested when his brother cut him off and pulled him off the couch. Matthew sighed as Ollie shoved him toward the stairs in a panic, and then ran away like a chicken with his head cut off. Matthew turned to yell after his brother, "Yeah, well, I'd have ice cream and the TV if it weren't for you!" Once Ollie was gone, Matthew turned and headed toward the kitchen, not bothering to go upstairs for his shoes at all. He opened the refrigerator, while humming Let it Go, and grabbed a piece of cold pizza from the box and - Holy shit, no! He ceased his humming instantly, slapping a hand over his mouth in horror. Oh god. NO. No, no, no, no, no. This would not happen. Never again.

Entirely thrown off, and yet again thinking about the night before, Matthew took a bite out of his pizza and headed back into the living room to look for his brother - maybe watching Ollie pine over his not-girlfriend would be enough to distract him from this madness. He found him in the living room, looking all anxious and concerned. "Why'd you invite her over if you're this stressed over it?" Matthew asked, taking another bite of pizza and falling back into the couch, still barefoot. Clearly, Veronica wasn't good for Ollie's nerves. Hopefully, she wasn't a sore loser, because Matthew was the best at Monopoly, and he would show no mercy.