InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "just a skinny streak of nothin"

Greg Goyle (goyle_g) wrote in finnigans_rpg,
@ 2015-04-20 13:40:00

Entry tags:

character: gregory goyle, character: tristan travers

Quidditch on a sunny Saturday
Who: Greg and Tristan
What: Quidditch, conversation
Where: Finnigan's, the Den
When: Saturday April 18th, Afternoon [Backdated]
Rating: SFW for now

In the months he'd lived in Monument Alley, Greg had learned to arrive early for Quidditch if he wanted to find a seat. So he set his home wireless to the right channel as he slowly caught up on the journal entries he'd missed through the week, a bag of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans at his elbow. He didn't comment much, and he refused on principal to read anything from Granger, Potter or the stupid Weasleys, but he looked out for anything his friends had written and tried to commit important details to memory. When the pre-match coverage began, he gathered up his things and turned the wireless off before heading to Finnigan's.

He could have listened to the match at home. In some ways, it would have been easier - he could have set the wireless volume to the exact level he needed to be comfortable - but he'd found that if he tried to listen to it by himself, his attention wandered and at the end of a match he was left with the final score, but no idea who'd scored the goals or how Marcus had played. Listening at Finnigan's meant that at least he had the crowd around him to act as notification of important plays or goals.

Afternoon matches seemed to draw more of a crowd, and with as close to the end of the season as they were, he was lucky his preferred table was still free. Greg sprawled out on the seat, not looking like he'd welcome company much, and set the half-finished packet of Every Flavour Beans down on the table.

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alliterative
2015-04-22 02:16 pm UTC (link)

Although Tristan liked Quidditch well enough, he wasn't as sure he liked crowds. However, he was trying to ease into crowds where he didn't have the barrier of a bar separating himself from other people, and he thought listening to one of the weekly Quidditch matches might be a good place to start. Everyone would be more into the game than into the people around the pub listening to the match, and it'd give him some good experience being a passive member of a crowd.

It was, in his estimation, a decent plan, and he thought, if he made it through unscathed, his therapist might find it to be proper progress. She didn't seem to think sitting around and not talking at a support group was progress, and, while he agreed on some level, the thought that he could be in the same room under such pretenses was progress enough on that front. He knew logically he had every right to be there, and no one had explicitly asked him to leave and never come back. But just because he knew he had a right to be there, too, didn't mean he felt comfortable. And that was part of what today was about. If he could be comfortable in a casual setting where no one would talk to him, then he could hopefully ease into being comfortable in other situations with other people.

Tristan had arrived early to scope out a table, selecting one that allowed him to see the entire room and the exit while also making sure his back wasn't to any other table. Maybe it was a little extreme, a little paranoid, but it allowed him to feel less anxious as he idly snacked on a basket of chips.

Quietly, he watched the den of the pub fill up, and he concentrated on his breathing to quell any nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. It wasn't a cure-all to that anxious feeling, but it seemed to help a bit. It allowed him make random notes about some of the people around him, including someone he thought was familiar. He quietly and subtly studied the man, trying to figure out if he knew him. He memory was good enough that he knew he'd know, and, after a few minutes, he thought he might. He'd seen him around Diagon Alley and Monument Alley. Nothing special or particularly memorable, but he'd also seen him at school. And he'd been invited to his birthday party.

Tristan licked his lips, looking down at his chips, wondering if he should say hello or leave him alone. Although he had the tendency to be talkative in the right situation, that didn't mean he'd ever been the most social even before the war. Even so, it'd nagged him not knowing for sure if Gregory Goyle had gotten his thank you for the cream puffs last month. It wasn't like he needed to have a conversation with the other man. He just hadn't known if his owl had been received. And it wouldn't hurt to reiterate his thanks, especially since he'd replied to the birthday invitation saying he'd attend the party.

Another few moments found Tristan putting a few things on the table to make sure he noted it was taken before standing up. He straightened his black robes out, brushed his hair behind his ears, and approached the other man. He kept a polite distance, making sure to allow for personal space while also being close enough to signify he was clearly there to speak with him.

He cleared his throat a little and said, "Hi. I'm Tristan. I won't bother you for long. Last month, you sent me a couple of cream puffs. Just wanted to say thank you for them so thank you." He smiled, then took a step back, subconsciously preparing himself to return to his table.

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goyle_g
2015-04-24 11:13 am UTC (link)

It would probably surprise most people to learn that Greg was actually quite observant. He had no memory for facts, nor faces, but when he was out in the world he was conscious of what was going on around him. It came about from years of putting himself between Draco and the nearest aggressor, so that Draco could belittle and mock without fear of getting involved physically - Greg and Vince were there for that. So he noticed, when someone approached his table, and looked up well in advance of his first words.

He didn't say anything immediately, instead waiting for the other man to speak. When he did, Greg frowned - the name Tristan meant little to him. Though they'd commented back and forth on the journals, Greg didn't particularly notice the names of everyone whose thoughts he read - unless they were already known to him. Fortunately, his memory for sweets of any kind was much better, and as far as he knew he'd only had cream puffs once this year. "Oh, right," he said. "Yeah, I got your owl." It hadn't occurred to him to owl back - what would he have said? He'd simply taken the thanks as one of those shows of manners that he was never really interested in and had forgotten about it. "You helped me with the St Patrick's thing," he added, because the cream puffs had been a 'thank you' in themselves, and thanking someone for their thanks just seemed needlessly complicated.

"You want to sit?" he asked. He knew Tristan already had a table, had seen him get up from it even before he knew he was coming over, but it was further from the wireless - far enough that with the chatter in the room, Greg would have been concerned about being able to hear properly if he had sat there. He figured that Tristan might feel similarly, and there was room at Greg's table for one more.

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