Party Poison (open)

[Lorelai Christine Cavaliere]

They'd all gone home for Aura's funeral, a solemn, quiet, teary event. It had been decided immediately after that the younger Cavaliere that were present in Britain would be stationed there permanently until the war's end...or they were needed, whichever came first. Talon hoped that it was the first.

However, with the war at home in a lull and a whole group of them all stationed in one place for the first time since their mutual childhoods, they had decided to throw a celebration. It was kind of a late Carnevale; they'd all been busy at the time. There had been quite a few non-Curia affiliated people invited; friends and boyfriends-slash-girlfriends, mostly. Not many of them had family outside of their native Italy.

Talon smiled to herself as she sat on the front steps of the Salla with Charlie, Al, Ally and Stefan. She'd missed hanging out with Charlie; the crazy cowboy had returned to his native America for a little while to help out. He'd only just gotten back, and he and Al had already established their usual rapport. As for Talon, she'd wanted to smoke a cigarette while she waited for Tristan to show up, which was why she was sitting on the stairs with her siblings, cousin and the cowboy.

She peered down the street briefly, nervously, tugging at the hem of her Sex Pistols tee-shirt to make it lay flat. She hoped that he didn't get lost or something...

[Tristan Gulliver Clark]

Tristan had the best day ever. Not. Apparently the landlord on his flat freaked out when they found out he had just turned 17, and kicked him out because he had been living there before he was an adult. It had something to do with trust, or something. He thought that the guy would realize it when he wasn't there for the whole school year. The idiot. Tristan had packed up all of the things he had managed to buy over the years, before he apparated to the Leaky Cauldron. He was lucky and managed to convince Tom to give him a room for a good half off, until he could find a more permenant place. He promised Tom he'd be out before the end of the month or he would pay the man double the normal rent for any time after that. Tristan wouldn't be able to afford that, so he knew he would have to move out before the month ended. He already had an eye on a good few apartments.

Tristan began getting a little caught up in everything, moving all of his stuff, getting listings for apartments, and worrying about what he would do as soon as he graduated. However, when he was thinking, he immediately thought back to Talon, and how she had invited him to this celebration thing at her place. Tristan hurried out of the place, nodding to Tom to let him know that his room was good and he had no problems, before going to Diagon Alley. Tristan had never been to Talon's place here, but he knew her instructions quite well. Before he knew it, he was walking up to the large building, seeing Talon outside with two others. He slowed his pace (why again was he trying to seem not in rush, again?), before casually walking up to where Talon with a grin.

"Hello," Tristan greeted Talon and the others, "Who... are those guys?" Tristan pointed from the one to the next, Al, then Ally, then Charlie, then Stefan.

[Lorelai Christine Cavaliere]

"Lys, who's he?" Ally asked in Italian, gesturing in Tristan's direction and smiling fleetingly at him.

Tal grinned and stood, putting her stub of a cigarette out in the ashtray that Al had brought out with him. Al did the same and nodded in Tristan's direction while Charlie tipped his Stetson and Stefan grinned. Remembering Stefan's eyepatch, Tal reached over to ruffle his hair, causing it to fall back in his face. Stef got so self-conscious about that around strangers sometimes...

"Those two," she began, pointing at Al and Ally. "Are my elder brother Alistair and his twin sister, Aleina; they usually go by Al and Ally. That's Stefan," she continued, gesturing to her eyepatch-wearing cousin. "My cousin. And that's Charlie. Guys, this is my friend Tristan."

"Oh, that's just our trained monkey Charlie," the cowboy scoffed. "We keep him around for shits and giggles. Cold, Alissia, very cold."

He ignored Talon sticking her tongue out at him and directed his attention to Tristan with a grin.

"I'm Charlie Hernandez," he introduced himself. "Nice to meet you."

[Tristan Gulliver Clark]

Tristan nodded back at Al, then at Charlie and finally at Charlie, who, to him, looks a lot like a cowboy, and Stefan, who had an eye-patch. Just from the looks of the family he could tell that Al and Ally were most likely her siblings, just from looks, though he knew it for a fact because she said that they were. Stefan's eye-patch was slightly surprising at first, but he wasn't that startled, as one of his previous landlords had an eye-patch as well.

"It's nice to meet you," Tristan said with his same grin as he had when he approached them. Tristan placed his hands in his pockets, and just sort of stood there looking at the four people. He almost felt like a little school boy meeting his friends after school and not knowing what to do. That wasn't completely true, as he wasn't worried about what to do, but really he had never been with friends outside of Hogwarts, well his actual friend.

"So, I am right that there is a party, right?" Tristan inquired, hoping that he had gotten the day right. He had been busy lately, so the dates were a little jumbled up in his head.

[Lorelai Christine Cavaliere]

"That it is!" Stefan replied. "So sit the hell down and stop acting like an awkward preteen. You old enough to drink?"

Tal offered Tristan a sheepish, apologetic smile, sitting down herself and motioning for him to do the same. Her family had this habit of being flat-out strange, sometimes, and she didn't want them to scare off Tristan; she really liked him, a lot more than she was comfortable admitting. It was her first realy crush, honestly...was that sad? She was seventeen, had only just had her first crush, and it was on an Englishman. Some ancestor of hers was turning in their grave...she was sure of it.

"It hasn't started yet," she explained. "You're a bit early. We're still waiting for the others to get back from work and whatnot."

[Tristan Gulliver Clark]

"Er, yeah, just turned 17 in July," Tristan answered Stefan.

Needless to say, but Jason forced Tristan to come with him to a bar. Tristan was responsible and didn't get wasted, ending up having to bring Jason home. However, it had been the only time Tristan had ever really drank (not even later in the summer when Jason threw some of his wild parties Tristan felt obligated to attend because he wanted to make sure his friend was not going to get himself killed).

Tristan never expected to really ever like anyone, and after Jason, he felt that it was only that guy who he would ever actually like, until he met Lorelai. Talon was having an affect on him that was new to him. When he gave the feeling a name it was infatuation and crush. Really, it was a good feeling, and a terrible one because it made him feel so uneasy and nervous occasionally when around Talon.

"Oh good," Tristan replied taking the seat that he was told to take before by Stefan, choosing to sit near where Talon was, "I was worried I was going to be late."

[Lorelai Christine Cavaliere]

"Excellent!" Stefan beamed. He reached behind himself to snag a Guiness out of the little blue cooler and hand it to Tristan. "The residents of the British Isles only got three things right, ever: whiskey, scotch and Guiness."

Talon and Ally rolled their eyes at their cousin simultaneously. The sisters had been more physically-similar before Talon started dying her hair, but the personality similarities were definitely still there. It was a recurring theme amongst the three siblings, all three of whom shared certain personality traits, mostly inherited from their deceased mother, Vittoria.

Tal smiled at Tristan when he sat near her. She didn't get nervous often; it wasn't in her blood, even slightly. So she wasn't sure why she'd gotten so suddenly sheepish when someone had wondered why she and Tristan weren't boyfriend and girlfriend. Over time, she'd realized and accepted that it was because she wanted their relationship to be more than platonic. She had to admit that she liked the easy friendship that they had, though. There never seemed to be any pretense or wasted words; she liked that. The lack of forced pageantry was very appealing.

"You can't be late to Carnevale," Al scoffed. "You just show up."

"The Italians in Diagon Alley are celebrating Carnevale twice for us this year," Ally explained. "Today marks the beginning. We'll all go out to the Third Yard together later."

[Tristan Gulliver Clark]

"I wouldn't really know. I don't really drink much," Tristan replied as he took the Guiness from Stefan, opening it and taking a small sip.

It was almost uncanny how much Ally looked like Talon when they rolled their eyes. He bet that if they had the same hair color they'd look so much alike. It was actually really weird to feel like such an outsider here, though Charlie and his cowboy look did help him feel a little less out of place. Tristan let himself relax and just try to have fun. It was a party right? Boy would Jason have a cow when he found out that Tristan was invited and not Mr. Parties-A-Lot.

"What exactly does the Carnevale celebrate?" Tristan wondered, hoping that he didn't sound like an ignorant idiot when he asked it.

[Lorelai Christine Cavaliere]

"He's not supposed to," Ally noted dryly. "Stef's just never been much for rules."

"Comes with wearing the eye patch," Charlie quipped.

Talon and Al laughed when Stefan and Charlie started horsing around. Ally waved to Gabe as he, Lexi and Julius approached the stairs from Diagon Alley. Gabe grinned evilly when he saw his cousin and best friend. He promptly decided to end the minor fist fight by sitting on both of them.

"You fat ass! Get off!" Charlie protested.

"Psh! My ass is not fat!" Gabe scoffed.

"Daddy! Stop saying bad words!" Lexi fussed.

"Sorry, mia bambina," he cooed. He finally decided to smile at Tristan. "Oh! You're Alissia's friend, si? I'm Gabe, her cousin. Those two are my children, Lexi and Julius."

"Friend or boyfriend?" Lexi asked critically, eyeing the two and their close proximity to one another.

"Lexi! You don't just ask people that!" Julius protested.

"Why not?!" she demanded.

Talon laughed again at the twins' antics, shaking her head. Meanwhile, Gabe continued to sit on a protesting Stefan and Charlie. Al decided to take it upon himself to, once again, explain things. Geez, why was he becoming the go-to professor on Italian culture lately...?

"Carnevale is the last hurrah that we Italians have before Lent," he explained. "It's basically a week-long party. We were all stationed in cities throughout Southern Italy during Carnevale this year, and this is the first time in over fifty years that there's been a Curia presence in Diagon Alley. In honor of that, the residents of the Italian district decided to throw a late Carnevale celebration for us that kicks off today. It was really nice of them."