When the bird flew into his room, Ford was mentally debating the pros and cons of robbing a Muggle modiste.
Cons:
- a potentially grave violation of the International Statute of Secrecy if he were caught
- the clothes would obviously not be tailored to fit, and having them later tailored elsewhere might seem suspicious
- the general morality of the thing
Pros:
- it was the only solution Ford had determined so far for the problem of how he would furnish Clementine with this list of items Mama insisted were necessary for new debutantes, and nevermind what Grace would need.
He'd been sat at the desk in his cramped room for over an hour trying to balance the figures in the various family accounts, but no amount of math scribbled in the margins of his parchment was going to make money appear out of nowhere. They simply couldn't afford it, which meant they'd have to prioritize on what they needed and scrimp and save elsewhere — which in turn meant he would have to admit to them all how dire things were.
Or he could rob a Muggle modiste. Maybe he could claim the things had been imported and that was why they needed to be tailored, after having been purchased elsewhere? But not from France — too many people went to France regularly and would ask about the shops. And where did one import women's clothes from, if not France?
When he saw the flutter of wings at the window he assumed it was an owl, and even after he realized the coloring was wrong he still thought it must have been a letter. Buying some weird, exotic bird to deliver mail didn't seem far-fetched for Tycho, so it might have been him. There wasn't a letter, though... and what was more, the bird's flapping had knocked half the papers off Ford's desk within seconds of arrival.
"Hell," Ford swore as he ducked, then subsequently lost his balance and fell out of his chair and to the floor. Did he really have a wild bird in his bedroom? What was he supposed to do about that? His hand went to his pocket, but his wand had been out on the desk when the bird flew in, and was now... somewhere.
Ford grabbed the nearest thing he could find — a blanket that had slipped off the foot of his bed — and waved it at the mess of wings, hoping to spook it back towards the window.
Ford had thought this isn't working, what next? when the nature of his problem changed dramatically. He hadn't been looking up at the bird when the change happened, instead casting a glance around at the floor around him for something he could perhaps throw at it. As a result, a person landing atop him caught him entirely by surprise. He couldn't help the noise of surprise — "Ah!" — but as the whole thing had knocked the breath out of him, he wasn't capable of saying anything else, even if he'd known what to say. Where the hell had this person come from? There were anti-Apparition charms on the house (as there would have been in any respectable house that was home to unmarried young women), so it couldn't have been a run of the mill burglar. Before Ford could devote any more thought to who this tangled mess of limbs belonged to or how this person had arrived here, the other man spoke, and Ford immediately recognized the voice.
"Tycho?" At first he was still confused. It was undeniably Tycho but how Ty had materialized in his bedroom (and why) were still mysteries. And what had happened to the bird?
That was the missing piece of the puzzle. When he realized the bird was gone, the rest fell into place. The final step of the process involved a storm, and there had just been one earlier tonight — the only reason Ford had opened his window in the first place was that he was nostalgic for the way their old home in the country had always smelled right after it rained. Ford's face broke into a wide grin, and without thinking he launched himself at Tycho to hug him. "You did it!"
In the flurry of movement and the confusion of the moment Ford hadn't fully realized Tycho's state of undress, but he was forced to confront it now. As soon as he'd wrapped his arm around Ty's torso he noticed that there was skin beneath his hands where there ought to have been a shirt. He started to look down but forced himself to stop before he saw anything — anything, that was, except a very well placed tattoo. The relief that had filled him a moment ago — relief because bloody hell, he'd actually done it, and now Ford didn't have to worry that he'd end up maiming himself whenever the attempt occurred — flooded out and were replaced by embarrassment. This was only compounded when Ty started talking about showing instead of telling.
Ford was still on top of Tycho, and now that the other man was hugging him back it would have been difficult to disentangle himself without turning this into an impromptu wrestling match. He stayed where he was, but his cheeks flushed deep red. "Uhm. Ty..." he started, but didn't know how to continue. Surely this hadn't been part of the plan?
Tycho touching his cheek did something to Ford's insides, even if he was only doing it in jest. They were awfully close. Ford was practically on top of Tycho. It would be easy to — well. It would be easy for things to get out of hand.
Tycho had to have known that. He wasn't naive. He'd been the one to come here in the first place, and...
... and apparently the lack of clothing was accidental after all. Ford felt slightly deflated at that and told himself it was more confusion than anything else, but the truth was that he didn't have time to fully interrogate the feeling because of what Tycho said next. Ford's cheeks grew even deeper red.
"No, no," he sputtered, altogether too quickly. "I wasn't — I didn't — uhm. I didn't mean to."
He still had not moved off of Ty, nor taken any steps to retrieve a blanket, because Ford's brain was stuck in a loop several steps prior to taking any actual action.
That Ty laughed at him was bad enough, but when he reached to touch Ford's face again, Ford felt as though he actually might die. The expression on his face may have been panic, but he couldn't help how the rest of him reacted — given their proximity, it was now obvious that they were both turned on. Ford's heart was beating so hard and loud it was making it difficult for him to think, but the few thoughts he could manage mortified him. At the moment they seemed to be in a strange dissociative bubble, but eventually it would pop and they'd both have to deal with the fact that Tycho had caressed his cheek and Ford had had an erection (somehow this seemed far more damning and embarrassing than the reciprocal) and when that happened Ford was going to absolutely die from embarrassment.
Staying in this position was unsustainable. The eye contact from Tycho was so intense Ford felt he might melt below the heat of it. When he broke it, however, he didn't move away; instinct instead brought him closer to Ty as he pressed his cheek against Tycho's chest and hugged him tightly once again.
Ford had chosen a bad position to be in. For one thing, if he tried to look anywhere from this vantage he couldn't help but see quite a bit of what he'd just told Tycho he hadn't been looking at. For another, Tycho was still touching his face, which was tying his stomach in knots. This was better than making eye contact from less than a foot away, but only barely. Ford's palm itched from how badly he wanted to touch Ty's hip tattoo.
Touching Tycho would be bad for him. Sitting here and allowing Tycho to keep playing with his hair and caressing his cheek would be a recipe for disaster. Having to make eye contact again would be crushing. But the worst by far would be having to talk about anything that was happening. Right now, Ford was panicked by the mere possibilities of any future conversations. He wasn't ready to start actually having them.
When Ty tipped his chin up Ford felt a rush of panic and dread, sure that his friend was going to say something. When he didn't, Ford could hardly process the fact that Tycho had kissed him, only that he hadn't said anything that Ford now needed to respond to.
Oh, thank Merlin, Ford thought in a rush. He returned the kiss and then some. He shifted his position to a slightly more intentional one, so that he was straddling Tycho, and moved one hand up to tangle in Ty's hair. He was prepared to kiss Tycho forever if it meant never having to actually unpack what was happening.
As the initial rush of panic ebbed Ford had to confront the feelings that replaced it. This felt nice. He was kissing someone, and that hadn't happened in months. His insides were warm, his skin flushed with adrenaline, and his heart was racing. He was kissing Ty, and that had its own flurry of nerves associated with it. He didn't want to mess this up.
Ford felt Tycho's arm on his waist and untucked his shirt so that Ty's hand could rest beneath it. It felt important that Tycho was able to touch him skin to skin. He bit Tycho's lower lip and put his free hand against Tycho's bare chest, where it began to gravitate lower as they continued to kiss.
I'm going to touch him, Ford thought with a giddy thrill.
Then, half a beat later, with a panic that ground everything else in his head to a halt: We can't sleep together in my bedroom.
Ford broke off so abruptly that he nearly fell backwards in his haste to put some space between the two of them.
On hearing that, Ford's heart lifted and his stomach fluttered. He opened his mouth to ask You have? but held off. He had to remember that Tycho did this (things like this) all the time. He'd had Cleon Broadmoor staying the night and the pair of them weren't even close enough that Tycho talked about him often (at least not to Ford), so it wasn't like Tycho wanting to kiss him made him special, or anything. In fact, maybe this made their relationship less special. Had there ever been days where Ford thought they were spending time together because they were good friends, when Ty had only invited him hoping they might fall into bed together?
It wasn't something that Ford had any rights to be upset about; Tycho just led a very different life than he did. Ford had to be careful not to project, though. He could not assume that when Tycho said something like he'd wanted to kiss Ford for a long time that it meant the same thing as it would have coming from Ford.
"Well, you picked a hell of a way to do it," Ford said. He was trying to replicate their familiar cadence of conversation even though the kiss still had him feeling dizzy. He scooted back along the floor, hoping that increasing the space enough that their legs were no longer tangled together would help.
"You can't stay here. My whole family lives here and I'm not — going to try to explain this to them," he said, waving his hand vaguely between the pair of them when he said this.