Finally, finally Theo met his eyes. Cash's breath caught and froze there. He usually stayed away from eye contact, but not with Theo — never with Theo — and it was just a relief to see his eyes again.

"It's up to you," he said, earnest. That was the troubling thing about this whole situation, this whole conversation: really, it was up to Theo. Cash could ask, but he couldn't make him stay. "I still — I still care about you. Of course. But it's up to you."

If Theo was going to leave, that was up to him — Cash couldn't tell Theo that he loved him with the wedding hanging over them both. It was going to be his secret.

---

“If it were up to me –” Theo protested, but broke off before we wouldn’t be here, because you wouldn’t get married and just looked at him instead. His face contorted; the problem felt like a physical pain. If it were just a question of caring, it would be easy, but...

Once his father had left and he’d let any other plans for his future fall apart, Theo hadn’t spent much time trying to envision what his life would be – what the future could look like – but he had still, to some extent, known who he was. Maybe that wasn’t as true as he thought, though: because he had never expected to find himself in a situation like this, and never imagined he would be this torn about what to do. There shouldn’t be any question in it. He didn’t believe in being unfaithful; he didn’t want to play any part in destroying a marriage, however arranged or superficial it was; he knew right from wrong, and that should be an easy choice, too.

(But it was difficult to find any weight in that logic when there was nothing else stopping him from caving to Cash’s argument that he cared about Theo and apparently not about the rest of it. It would be selfish to stay, the most selfish thing he could choose, to keep what he wanted no matter the cost... but he cared about Cash in a way he hadn’t felt for anyone else before – he loved him, he thought; if this wasn’t love he didn’t know what was – and now he was supposed to look him in the eye and be a good person and give it up?)

“Cash, I can’t –” he started, struggling to find words, distress pitching in his chest. He worried his bottom lip and tried to picture it again, carrying on being with him and feeling so happy and ignoring everything else. He curled a hand into the front of Cash’s shirt, clutched at the fabric and begged him to understand. “How am I going to sit there and watch your matches next to your wife?” He almost wanted to laugh, because it was going to be unbearable even if they ended it – but, in the long run, he thought the guilt might be worse.

“And even if I could –” Theo said, suddenly strained, remembering something else that made the whole point moot. His jaw hardened. “You said it yourself: you can’t risk getting caught again.” There it was. It didn’t even matter whether he could move past the dubious morals of it. Forget what he might actually have been capable of living with if he tried: they should never have been together in the first place. (Maybe they wouldn’t have been, if Cash had told him all this plainly from the start.)

Because Cash’s father knew about him, couldn’t catch him again without dire consequence – and then there was the vow and the ruinous, unspoken repercussion of how things ended if Cash was ever publicly disgraced.

Theo couldn’t be the reason he was. Something in him was crumbling now; but at least that meant there was really no choice to be made.

---

Lestranges didn't beg.

Cash knew this in his bones. Lestranges didn't beg. They especially did not beg halfbloods. If they begged anyone, it was each other — (years ago, begging Belphoebe, please) — but they did not beg others. Cash was not a very good Lestrange. He was too emotive, or had been; he cared too much about frivolous things like Quidditch; he was an invert; he was known to associate with halfbloods. He was not a very good Lestrange, had been a disappointment for most of his life, but he was still a Lestrange. He was proud. This was what had led him to become less of a blood purist in the first place; Cash was proud, so anyone who was worth his time had to be worth something.

Cash didn't beg. Or — Cash only begged when he was desperate.

He hadn't expected to be desperate; he thought that he'd had enough time to make peace with this. He was shackling himself to the responsibility of marriage. He was losing Ford's respect, and maybe his friendship. He was losing Quidditch, and the thing he loved the most — the only thing he'd ever really been good at.

He'd expected to lose Theo.

He was gaining — whatever he gained when he had less time under his father's roof.

His heart rate was high. He wanted. He wanted — to be understood, but he did not know how to articulate. He didn't want to lose Theo.

"Theo," Cash begged, "Please."

---

He wanted – to undo this whole conversation, to go back, to continue to exist in the reality of before. He wanted, just as badly, to lean into him and stop him talking long enough to forget everything he’d said today. He wanted to believe that if he tried hard enough, if he was desperate enough, that he might convince Cash that there was some way out of his circumstances he just hadn’t seen.

But that – that wasn’t happening – and instead there was a sick, heavy feeling in his stomach and the sense that this wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair, and he hated all his options, and he hated even more that Cash had seen this coming, had had all the time in the world to think it through, and had still chosen to lay the decision at his feet.

“No,” Theo protested, shaking his head as the nausea rose higher in his chest. “No.” He didn’t know which part he was protesting – but he let go, roughly, of Cash’s shirt. Taking a step backwards, he stared at him incredulously, sounding a little manic when he spoke. “Are you even listening to yourself?”

Was he fucking serious? He had explained it all himself. The vow, his father. It wasn’t as if Theo had heard that wrong. And there had been enough danger and enough stupidity in this already with only reputations at stake, but now if he stayed in his life and Cash’s wife or his father or someone else found out, it would be Theo’s fault if anything happened to him. And what if Theo lost him, if Cash got killed for it? How could Cash just expect him to live with that?

Theo took another step away, flinging the words across the room. “We can’t do this –”

If he’d wanted clarity from the distance, there wasn’t any – just the anger spilling back in. But anger was easy. Easier than grief. Theo bit down on his tongue, turned away from Cash and moved for the door, his heart pounding too loud to think properly. (This was probably going to be the last time he saw him like this, if he left now – this wasn’t how it was supposed to end – but if he didn’t leave now, he didn’t trust himself not to stay –)

He pulled at his office door, swore under his breath when it wouldn’t open – it was locked, he’d forgotten – and fumbled for a moment with it in frustration instead. A click; Theo let out a breath. Before he opened the door – he glanced back and finished the thought. “We should never have done this, Cash.”

You should never have let me fall for you.

---