April 28th, 1891 — Theodore Gallivan’s Birthday Party; One of the Chudley Stadium Stands

Tristan was sure that Gallivan probably already had a tabletop Quidditch set. And likely an even better one than the one he had gotten wrapped up and was now set upon the table laden with gifts. It wasn't like he knew the man well enough to give a better gift. He had a couple of years on him and they hadn't been friends during school. At least he was here, he had given the birthday man a birthday greeting and had given a gift.

Stepping out of the tent where people were dancing and conversing, Tristan pulled out his cigarettes. Catching sight of a fellow Quidditch player that he had briefly dallied with - and was now avoiding - Tristan snuck off to one of the stadiums stands. Settling in, he sparked up his cigarette and was enjoying solitude. At least, he had been before the sound of footsteps made it clear that someone was joining him.

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Last year had been bad, but at least it had been over prematurely; this year was worse, because Cee had been undeterred and he’d known it was happening in advance and presumably had to be here until the end of it, which was... shit, still in far too long.

Theo had been trying (at least a little) to grin through it, greet guests and talk quidditch to quidditch people and talk - other stupid niceties to the non-quidditch sorts, if only not to seem entirely ungrateful for this, when it was supposed to be a Nice Thing. But he had just smiled and waved his way through another conversation that he had not really wanted to have and needed a... break, at the very least. Choosing his moment, Theo slid a bottle of wine off one of the tables, and disappeared off up the stairs to one of his usual spots in the stands. 

And look, he wasn’t the first one here - dark hair, cigarette in hand, that was about all Theodore had noticed before he flung himself onto the same row. “D’you think if I splinch myself this year she’ll give up on throwing par-”

He’d just looked over again, and oh. “Er,” Theo said now, visibly floundering. “Sorry, I -” he gave an awkward wave to explain the obvious. I thought you were someone else. Would it be rude to stay, or rude to immediately leave? Or - no, technically, arguably, Michaud was being the rude one, as a guest, sneaking away from the bounds of the party to which he had been invited, in a stadium that wasn’t even his home pitch. Ha. Check and mate.

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Tristan was mildly startled when someone started talking. He hadn't been quite expecting someone to join him but it wasn't like it was his pitch. "Never know until you try. Maybe she'll associate splinching with your birthday," Tristan said even though the question had obviously not actually been meant for him. The last thing one usually expected was for the birthday boy to escape their own party.

"Going to join me? I just needed to be alone for a bit but we can be alone together." Tristan didn't know the guy too well. Gallivan was older and in a different house. But he had made an impression with one school quidditch event in particular that had him stick to ones mind.

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Well, he was being fairly gracious about the interruption, at least. At Michaud’s casual answer to the splinching question, Theo’s mouth pulled up in a lopsided grin – and although he was trying to seem as though he was joking, it would be a lie to say he wasn’t still seriously weighing up the pros and cons.

But while he ruminated on purposely splinching himself: “...well, if you don’t mind,” Theo answered awkwardly. It still felt like he was intruding, but if Michaud had also come for a breather then at least he got it and maybe wouldn’t judge his appearance here; and he was still sure it would be rude to immediately turn his back on a guest to go be deliberately antisocial somewhere else. (That was what he had been doing already, but... he hadn’t meant it to be this obvious.)

“If you don’t tell anyone,” he amended with another half-grin; even if Michaud didn’t mind the company, Theo didn’t need it getting around to Cee or Veronica or anyone else that he’d been hiding at his own party. “I have wine,” he added with a brighter shrug, setting it down between them in offering.

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"I don't mind. It is your pitch, after all," and his birthday party but Tristan figured that much was obvious and did not need mentioning. Besides, there were worse people to have intruded upon him. Ex-lovers, uppity players, that sort. As far as he could tell, Gallivan did not fall into the latter and was not the former as far as Tristan could recall.

"It'll be our little secret," Tristan assured since, well, who would he even say anything to? It wasn't like he had many close friends who would care that Gallivan had not wanted to be at his own party. "Is this to buy my silence?" He teased as he picked up the bottle to see what kind it was.

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“It is now,” Theo shot back, his grin abruptly less forced. “Well – and a little extra courage to work myself up to the splinching, you know,” he added dryly, with a gesture to say so save me some. Really he ought to have taken a bottle of firewhiskey for that, but Cecily’s quidditch-garden-party-fare had been a little lacking in the hard liquor.

All the same, Theodore settled back in a little more relief, sure that Michaud wasn’t the worst company at which he could have thrown himself. “So what brings you up here?” he asked, nonchalantly enough. I just needed to be alone for a bit, the chaser had said, and Theo didn’t really expect him to elaborate on why – it was none of his business, either – but he thought he probably ought to make sure nothing was really wrong, too.

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Tristan definitely liked Theo's vibe, he decided. He took a swig of the wine before passing it back to the other young man. It was hardly hard liquor but it would do its job well enough. Tristan had a moment of reflecting that he should maybe cut back on drinking anyway before dismissing the thought.

Tristan shrugged in response to the question. "Sometimes people are just a bit much, you know?" He had always been an extrovert but in the past few years, he had found himself developing a preference for his own company. Rasmus leaving for good had not even been the cause, he didn't think. He had already been that way long before Rasmus's departure for France.

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Theo twisted the bottle around in his hand contemplatively. “Yeah,” he said mildly, absently scanning the people spilling out of the tents down on the grass. “I don’t think I even know this many people,” he admitted: he didn’t know where Cee had scrounged them all up from, but he doubted even half of the quidditch people here would even be able to pick him out in the crowd to save their lives. But that was probably for the best – it meant he could hang out up here for a while and not be noticed. Theo laughed. “How much do you want to bet they only came to nose around the stadium and spy on the Cannons’ strategies for the next match?”

(Michaud would probably know more surely – he played for Puddlemere, and technically could have been one of them.)

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"Most of them are probably league folk or Quidditch fanatics," Tristan said in response to Gallivans admittance that he didn't even know most of the people in attendance. He couldn't help but chuckle in response to the next question posed by the young sponsor.

"I definitely would not put it past a Falmouth Falcon," Tristan responded. The Falmouth Falcons were known for being violent, not caring about fouls and so he was sure at least one among the teams number would not be above the scenario Gallivan described.

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That was probably accurate; besides, Cee probably knew every Quidditch fanatic in the country, being one herself. Look, he had to resent her for doing things like this – well-meant parties that felt like methods of personal torture – but he was grateful she was around for the rest of it. He couldn’t admit it to her, but honestly he was. 

“I wouldn’t put anything past a Falmouth Falcon,” Theo joked, in return. He snorted in laughter, took a gulp and passed the bottle back across. “I’d go down and catch one of them at it later, but I think if I tried to throw any of them out it’d end up in a fistfight,” he pictured, still joking. Mostly. (Realistically, if anyone could get themselves thrown out of a garden party birthday celebration, it would be a Falmouth Falcon, no question.)

But Theo was trying to get through this without making a scene, so he was going to stay up here for as long as he could.

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Tristan laughed in agreement. If there was one thing that could potentially unite several different Quidditch teams, it was in the agreement that Falmouth Falcons were particularly violent. And not just in the game.

"Now wouldn't that be quite the impression to make on the Quidditch world," Tristan snarked, wondering what would then be said about the young sponsor.

  

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“What, for them – or for me?” Theo asked, pulling a face and half-snorting, half-wincing at the thought. He suspected Michaud meant the latter, if only because the words Falmouth Falcons and fistfight in close combination was really just par for the course. If anyone in the quidditch world didn’t know that team’s reputation, were they even in it?

Though there was a twist of amusement at the corner of his mouth, Theo didn’t much like to think about possible impressions he could make, or might already be making on the quidditch world. Mostly because (he figured, with a knot of guilt in his gut) they probably weren’t good. Sure, the Cannons still had funding – no one had died since they’d opened up the stadium to spectators again – the team had won a match or two or a few this season. But Theo was sure people still saw straight through him: judged him underqualified and uninspired and generally out of his depth.

And that was just the surface of the problem, wasn’t it? There were other things they could uncover, and then the Cannons would be out of a sponsor and a seeker.

Maybe getting a reputation for a few ill-advised fistfights didn’t sound so bad after all.

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Tristan couldn't help but laugh a bit. "You, of course. I doubt anyone would be surprised to hear a Falcon got into a fistfight." It was literally what they were most known for, after all. "I can just see the headlines now. Young Sponsor Takes on Rival Team."

  

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Theo chuckled, ceding to the funny side of it in spite of the lingering unease in his gut. “Yeah, that’s not really, uh, the impression I’ve been going for,” he said helplessly. (And the sinking of the good Gallivan name was part of what his father had been trying to avoid, so Theo oughtn’t tempt fate into letting that happen, however easy it would be not to care about the consequences of his actions.)

But he shrugged, and managed, eventually, to send a mischievous grin Michaud’s way. “But if the splinching doesn’t work, maybe I will keep that idea up my sleeve.” Getting into a public fistfight would likely be enough to convince Cecily to give up on the birthday parties once and for all.

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"I can't imagine being responsible for a whole team," Tristan mused, wondering just how much crap Gallivan had to do for it. The game could get exhausting but at least he loved it. And he was on the pitch, not having to deal with diplomatic type crap with teams he would rather pummel. "Do you ever wish you were doing something else?"

  

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How much did Michaud know, simply from public awareness, and how much was he guessing? That his father was presumed dead and Theodore had inherited this – maybe. That Theo had been training as an Auror? No, probably not – he was a few years younger, hadn’t been out of Hogwarts so long. That Theo had had no desire to be responsible for a quidditch team, or indeed responsible for anything? Maybe everyone could read it in him, and Theo was making it too plain.

He was supposed to be trying harder now, anyways. And it had been – a bit different, the last couple months, hadn’t been the same hell it was. He chewed on his lip for a moment, worrying about saying too much, being too honest. He didn’t know Michaud well, after all; he had already been too candid and complained too much.

“It’s not exactly what I always dreamt of,” Theo said lightly, because that was clear enough from how he’d fallen into it, “but it’s not all that bad.” (Birthday parties thrown by his sister were all that bad, however.) “Easier than being on the pitch, probably. What about you?” He raised a brow. “Professional Chasing all you’d hoped it would be?”

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