Smoke or Fire?

[Tristan Finch]

Tristan's head was spinning and no matter how hard he stared at the page of his text book he just could not commit the words to memory. A sigh could be heard as he leant back in his chair and clicked his pen on and off, on and off. Damn, Tristan was getting closer and closer to admitting that fluking his way through med school was not a happening thing, all that was keeping him from falling to the ground and begging for help was picturing the smug look that would be on his girlfriend's face if he did so. Slamming the book shut, the young man sat up straight and threw his pen down on the table. Med school was straight up Chuck Norris, he thought, tough as balls. And it wasn't the only thing grinding on Tristan's mind either, the very girlfriend who's smug face he'd just been picturing was doing her fair share of grinding him down too. Sure she was beautiful, in that classy kind of way that Tristan loved, but ever since they had defined their relationship as more than just friends he couldn't seem to become comfortable with it. They'd always just had fun together, that's what their relationship was based on. Lately of course they'd become closer, she'd met his long lost biological brother Izaak with him, but if he had to be honest with himself settling down didn't sit well with him, he felt as though he was missing out on something outside of their relationship. Grabbing a can of beer and sculling it down a wicked glint could be seen in Tristan's azure blue eyes. He crushed the newly emptied can in his hand and hopped out of the door of the apartment, without thinking about his practical exam the next morning, Tristan found his feet taking him around the corner to his local pub and straight through the door, where as always he left every trouble behind at.

It was deja-vu as he strode through the door of the pub, his best sex face on and his eyes already scanning the room for some tail, not a second thought given to his girlfriend as his pre-pub beer went straight to his head. Tristan was no intellectual but he regarded himself highly when it came to seeking out girls in pubs, and within a minute of arriving he had already noticed a lonely blonde sitting at the bar. Gentlemen do prefer blondes, he said to himself. If he'd even given the phrase a second thought he might have realised that the reason he had found himself attracted to the slender blonde was because she resembled his girlfriend, Ava, or the image of his big bro's wife Aly, who more deeply seemed to represent every thought of commitment to him. Ever since his brother's wedding Tristan had been plagued by this stupid thought that Ava was expecting him to be her groom and she is bride, and even though deep down he liked the idea he felt too young and scared to promise to be with somebody forever. But none of those thoughts crossed his mind, all he could think was that he was back in the game as he approached the bar and took the seat next to her. "So, you wanna go somewhere and get weird with each other?" he asked boldly, he always seemed to skip one or ten steps when it came to getting to know somebody, but he had always thought of it as part of his bold charm.

 

[Jennifer Wilkonson]

Jenna was finding herself increasingly stressed with the idea that she and Amy had been together for over three years. It was a lot of pressure for the blonde to have on her shoulders because the next step to living with one another was getting engaged and she didn’t want that. Not now. Not for a very long time and she wasn’t even sure if she wanted that with her girlfriend. Especially with the fact that she was a Death Eater which she had discovered and had caused a long argument and a great deal of fear instilled into Jenn. She thought she loved Amy but she didn’t want anyone of her friends or family to be killed because they were muggles and especially not by her girlfriend. It was too awful of a thought so she needed to find a place to de-stress. She needed a place where she didn’t fear that her life might be taken if she said something wrong around one of Amy’s friends who were coming over more frequently as of late but none more so that a dark haired girl named Avrille. It would be a blatant lie for Jenn to tell if she said that she liked that girl’s company so she wrote a quick note for Amy while she was showering and left, not bothering to tell her where she was going and when she was coming back because the last thing she wanted was to be at her New York apartment at this moment. Luckily most of the time Jenn was able to stay away from Amy through legitimate work because she had to travel with her team which seemed to be falling apart more and more. Nothing had been going Jenn’s way and to top it off she couldn’t even confide in one of her closest friends because of a life-ending accident that she would have never expected to happen to him. Or anyone she knew for that matter.

Life was just falling out of the blonde’s hands and she needed a drink so she apparated to the first place she could think of: California. Jenn had only been once before but it had been such a simple time, with the beach and Scorpius after a Quidditch match between their teams. They had just spoken about how great everything was going for them and how happy they both were and that they should both do this more often but it just wasn’t so. Feeling parched she had walked into the nearest pub that she could find and made her way to the bar and ordered a drink, luckily keeping from ordering a Firewhiskey because that would be a confusing enough explanation. Once it arrived she sipped at it quickly but stopped when someone approached her. Jenn glanced in his direction and smirked at his boldness. “Does that ever work for you?” she all but laughed. She had to say that she did appreciate his attitude towards hooking up with someone because there was no way she could ever confuse that for anything than what it was but she also wasn’t drunk enough to cheat. Not on someone who was a Death Eater. Taking one more sip of her drink she eyed him up and down to see if there was any way she might recognize him or vice versa but he just screamed muggle which was thankful for the blonde. The last thing she needed was for a fan to approach her right now, it wasn’t her shining moment. Drinking with a stranger who was hitting on her while she actually sort of appreciated it.
​

 

[Tristan Finch]

Sliding onto the stool next to the young blonde was a natural reaction for Tristan and as he kicked his sneaker up onto the foot rest he smirked back, yeah I've still got it, he reassured himself as the young woman immediately jumped into conversation with him. It didn't matter what his foster sister, or anyone else for that matter, tried to tell him because Tristan knew that when it came down to it, treating girls in his lewd but straight up manner did work and he had the late night bar stats to prove it. "I don't know, you tell me" he said coyly, leaning his elbows on the bar as he tried to make eye contact with the bartender. This was about as clever as Tristan got on a late night booze high, it had gotten him far enough in the past, if he was being honest it wasn't as though many of the women he had encountered in California were that hard to get, or too intelligent for him. Ava being the exception of course, but she was far from his mind now that he was in his zone, ordering his regular pint. "What are you drinking?" he asked the blonde, a proper gentleman always bought the lady a drink. Looking around the bar Tristan inhaled deeply, the smell he had missed for so long, he'd been spending so much time with his girlfriend lately he had barely had the time to get completely off his face, not to mention all the studying and reading and note taking he was having to do on top of lectures and labs. Tristan would never admit that his charm and wit were no longer seeming to carry him through med school, and his practicals were looming next morning. Who the hell needed to practise or study to put an IV line in anyway? He'd seen it on that TV show, Scrubs was it? Just stick her in away she goes, right? It couldn't be that hard.

Whilst Tristan was faking his way to being a doctor his girlfriend Avalyn was flying high at law school, getting good grades, acting all beautiful and intelligent and other worldly, right in Tristan's face like she always did. That's what he loved about the bar, nobody was better than anybody else there, as far as he could tell they all had things to bury beneath a few gallons of alcohol, his girlfriend could learn something from them. Oh man, girlfriend, did he just say that? The word set his head spinning (or was it the drink going to his head before he realised he was even drinking it?), especially when others used it. Tristan and Ava, Ava and Tristan, man something seemed off and Tristan couldn't place it. They had been great together before all of the labels and the hand holding and the public affection. He had been happy to meet up with her after lectures and forget his trouble beneath her sheets, hell he had even enjoyed their time spent alone at his big brother's wedding. But now it felt like a choker hold around him, if he hung onto Ava too tightly he might miss out on any number of late night bar stool warmers, speaking of. "Damn girl, you must make sacrifices to the ass gods daily" it was a low and lewd comment, but when in doubt Tristan fell back on them never really forgetting his high school party days where it seemed to work for him. Paying for his drink Tristan thought of Ava for one last time, he loved her, that was true but it wasn't like he was cheating, he was just buying the poor girl a drink. She looked like she needed it, it would be like giving to charity, simple as that.

 

[Jennifer Wilkonson]

Jenna eyed this cheeky stranger with amusement but said nothing. She simply shook her head and scoffed humorously at him, taking another sip and wishing that she had actually ordered something much stronger because she needed it. The Chaser knew that she had commitments even if she wanted to be free of them for some time. She also didn't want to get an arm cut off or her internal organs failing because of some dark magic her girlfriend put on her in anger because she could no longer put Amy past it now that she was a Death Eater. With all this on the blonde's mind she pushed away her inhibitions and said, "A cocktail but I need something stronger. Are you interested in doing a couple shots...?" Jenna eyed up the hot blue eyed drinker and dared him to do it with her, to prove his ability because a lot of people wouldn't be able to drink what she was about to. While waiting for his answer she quickly finished her cocktail and waited with her arm propped up and her fingers fiddling with her long hair lazily. It'd been so long since she flirted with anyone so she felt strange doing it, especially in this environment but she figured she could throw the guy a bone because she wasn't totally disinterested when she compared this to going home to Amaryllis. Besides, Jenn had never really let herself do anything like this before. Just let go and have fun with some random guy she didn't give two craps about and felt similarly about her. Actually, Jenn had never done anything that Tristan was offering with a guy but he didn't need to know that. Or she didn't think he did. It was probably easier this way.

Being a professional athlete meant that Jennifer had to be in the best shape which meant lots of squats which seemed to help her at this very moment as she could feel her ass being stared at before it was commented on. She wasn't going to tell him how much she sweat to get them, instead she said, "Yeah. I've pretty much started up my own church." Without waiting any longer she ordered two shots for them and when they were poured and slid over she raised her glass to her lips, finding that her bottom one quivered before she quickly brought her head back and downed the entire thing and easily tapped the glass on the bar before saying with guts, more than she's had in a long time, "Does that offer still stand?"

 

[Tristan Finch]

It didn't take Tristan long to reach the bottom of the glass, and he could already feel his worries slipping away from him. He truly could understand alcoholics, in his opinion they got far too much crap for being bad people, when really they had found the key to happiness. In Tristan's mind that key to happiness lay at the bottom of the glass, and whilst his drinking hadn't become addictive yet it was one of the only things that seemed to be keeping up his mood lately and it was his sole mission to find that key at the bottom of every glass. Too intent on finishing his drink he hadn't even noticed that his prospective mate had been laughing and scoffing at his advances, and when the moment called for shots it seemed it was of little importance to the blonde whether she liked him or he would make a suitable father or husband, it rarely did when it came to having a little harmless fun, which was all Tristan ever considered it. "As long as you think you can handle it?" Tristan joked, he knew by the look of this girl that, if challenged, she couldn't say no. She looked competitive, something he already admired about her, then immediately shook off, why on earth was he starting to admire her? Being with Ava was messing up his game, making him notice endearing traits in the opposite sex that he would normally overlook, he didn't need to like this girl she just had get his motor going. At first it had seemed the young woman hadn't been very interested in Tristan's advances, but in light of the slim pickings in the bar at the current time of night it seemed that she was lowering her standards by the minute, not even bothering to pick a fight about his commenting on her rear end. Instead she played along and Tristan laughed, before eyeing the bar tender as their shots were presented.

By now Tristan should have already found happiness, the shots were going to be overkill, but he wasn't thinking about that right now, all he could see was a beautiful, no sexy woman sitting next to him who astoundingly seemed just as interested in him as he was her, and although they hadn't even exchanged names yet by the time the shot had stung the back of his throat and been slammed onto the bar counter top Tristan could see where this was going. Watching her lips move as she spoke Tristan felt his head begin to spin a little, "Offer..?" he said, not firmly, before his sense seemed to return to him and he remembered the first bold line he had spoken to the woman, "Oh, that offer. Only if you're up for it?" he said, with an accompanying eyebrow movement, he was never one to force a woman into anything she didn't want to do, he made sure of it. "Your place or mine?" it was a cliché, and little did he know it was a little more dangerous than one would immediately think for one of them to be caught than the other. Standing on his numbed legs, Tristan ran his hand through his sweat dampened hair before swiftly moving it around the young woman's waist, he could already tell they weren't going to exchange names, it didn't seem the time or the place. Making their way towards the exit a thought danced in Tristan's mind, boy would his brother be proud of him. Well, the old Izaak might have been, it was a move right out of the Finch man's handbook and Tristan seemed to cling to this idea which allowed him to fulfil his identity as a Finch, something he hadn't been able to do all his life. Happily married now, Izaak would think Tristan's actions childish, especially considering his current relationship with Ava, but Tristan's immaturity twisted his brother's impressions, allowing them to work in his favour, following in his dangerous footsteps just like he would have as a child, had he been lucky enough to grow up with his biological brother in the first place.

 

[Jennifer Wilkonson]

Jenna knew what she was doing was wrong but she was so frustrated that any chance of her morals kicking in were completely gone. Even if she was completely sober, although she could barely pass as wasted, she would probably be ending up with someone tonight and truth be told, this man seemed to be the best looking one she`d seen all night and the blonde needed a break from women. She also needed a break from the wizarding world so a dumb muggle to help her de-stress was just what the doctor ordered. It seemed that this person felt similarly with his overwhelming bluntness and his euphemisms to which she could now only respond, "I think I'll live. Don't you fret." She gave him a look to show her condescending tone was one of playfulness but in reality, what did either of them care. It was hardly like she was looking for anything serious and neither was he. This was going to be a simple thing that she would feel shame and regret but that was alright. She could handle it, or she thought she could. Truth be told, Jenn didn't really think about the fact that she might just aggravate the Death Eater into killing her or something which was what had lead her to the drinking anyway but here she was, with alcohol numbing her mind and a stranger's hand around her waist.

The blonde figured that apparation was completely out of the question and as she didn't live in California, nor have a hotel room, she said, "Yours." She couldn't quite believe that she was leaving with a person whose name she didn't even know and probably would never know unless it occurred to him to say something of the sort but Jenn wasn't going to be the first. She was a stubborn old thing, that was for sure. Jenna chewed down on her bottom lip before asking, "Do you live close or...?" She trailed off as she looked into the eyes of the young man, only now realizing the depth in them although they only served to remind her of her dead friend's although the colour was different as day and night. She didn't want to seem too eager, because truth be told, she wasn't but she did want to know how much repair she would have to do to her feet the next morning because these shoes were not made for walking. It was probably strange for her to be worried about this when she should be worried about how she could face herself in the mirror the next day or how she would do anything when she got there because she'd experimented around with Amy but it was a completely different game with this guy. With any guy. If Jenn was in a proper frame of mind it might be a little daunting for her but because she wasn't all she kept thinking was if this guy's confidence was properly placed.