22nd October, 1892 — Selwyn Estate, wedding reception
He couldn’t tell if Cash had had any hand in the invitation. It wasn’t like he’d chosen any other part of this, so he probably hadn’t – and it wasn’t as though Theo wanted to be here either. But of course it would have looked bad if they hadn’t, and Cecily wouldn’t have heard of it, so. Here they were.
He was milling around and counting the minutes, but it was still much too early to leave. Drinking might have made this a little more bearable, but there were far too many of Cash’s relatives in this room to make that a wise decision; so instead Theo was mostly sober and entirely on edge, and was determinedly staying out of the groom’s orbit, for both their sakes.
He had to duck out for some air eventually, though – he’d wandered blindly from the ballroom, down a hall and then out a door onto some kind of unlit patio that didn’t seem decorated as if it was part of the party. Fine. Good. He could hide out here a while. Maybe he should’ve even taken a leaf out of Cash’s book tonight, and had a cigarette to hand. If nothing else, smoking would have given Theo something to do with himself that wasn’t just leaning his head back against the stone wall of the Selwyn manor and taking deep breaths, closing his eyes and wishing he was somewhere else.
Because when he opened his eyes again and started looking absently out at the grounds, Theo registered a movement nearby and almost startled out of his skin. Oh. He wasn’t alone at all – there was someone else out here already, and he’d been too lost in his own head to even notice them.
Theo straightened up a little against the wall, feeling sheepish and caught and doing his best not to show it. “Sorry,” he offered, for unknowingly intruding; he glanced at the other man properly and found, with a faint jolt of surprise, that he recognised him. “...Greengrass, isn’t it?” Theo said hesitantly, with some recollection of his name and of an embarrassingly bad chess match last year, and also, before he could hold back the thought, “– Lestrange’s friend?”
He was milling around and counting the minutes, but it was still much too early to leave. Drinking might have made this a little more bearable, but there were far too many of Cash’s relatives in this room to make that a wise decision; so instead Theo was mostly sober and entirely on edge, and was determinedly staying out of the groom’s orbit, for both their sakes.
He had to duck out for some air eventually, though – he’d wandered blindly from the ballroom, down a hall and then out a door onto some kind of unlit patio that didn’t seem decorated as if it was part of the party. Fine. Good. He could hide out here a while. Maybe he should’ve even taken a leaf out of Cash’s book tonight, and had a cigarette to hand. If nothing else, smoking would have given Theo something to do with himself that wasn’t just leaning his head back against the stone wall of the Selwyn manor and taking deep breaths, closing his eyes and wishing he was somewhere else.
Because when he opened his eyes again and started looking absently out at the grounds, Theo registered a movement nearby and almost startled out of his skin. Oh. He wasn’t alone at all – there was someone else out here already, and he’d been too lost in his own head to even notice them.
Theo straightened up a little against the wall, feeling sheepish and caught and doing his best not to show it. “Sorry,” he offered, for unknowingly intruding; he glanced at the other man properly and found, with a faint jolt of surprise, that he recognised him. “...Greengrass, isn’t it?” Theo said hesitantly, with some recollection of his name and of an embarrassingly bad chess match last year, and also, before he could hold back the thought, “– Lestrange’s friend?”
