28 November, 1892 — Ministry Break Room

This was not the first time Ford had seen Cassius Lestrange at the Ministry, but he was still surprised when he realized it was him in the break room. He hadn't gotten used to the idea of it yet, for one thing — and with his honeymoon travels, Cash probably hadn't actually been working at the Ministry that many days anyway. For another, he hadn't picked up on enough to Lestrange's habits to know where he would be or how to avoid him. It wasn't hard to avoid people in the Ministry, as long as they didn't work in your department, and while he wasn't sure where Lestrange worked he knew it wasn't within the DR&CMC — but you had to know what you were avoiding, and Ford didn't have any idea where Lestrange would be when. He wasn't even sure if they worked on the same floor or not. Maybe they did — that would explain Cash's presence in the breakroom. Maybe they didn't, which would explain why this hadn't happened before — though there were other explanations, too. Ford didn't tend to take many breaks this time of year, because the sooner he finished his work for the day the more extra work he could fit in afterwards, and money was always especially tight around Christmas.

He'd just wanted a cup of tea, which should have been no more than a five minute diversion. He only had to leave long enough to make the tea and he could bring it back to his desk, to finish up paperwork while he was drinking it. It shouldn't have been an ordeal, but Lestrange was in the breakroom and no one else was, which didn't even leave them the easy out of starting a conversation with someone else to look busy.

Ford glanced his way and offered him a look in greeting that was half a smile and half a grimace. They had not spoken since their fight; Ford had managed to get through the entire wedding without being stuck in conversation with Cash even once. Cash, for his part, had not seemed eager to talk with anyone at any point that Ford had seen him, during the wedding or otherwise, and Ford assumed that would remain the case now. Rather than saying something stupid, then, he merely ducked his head and moved past Lestrange to retrieve the kettle.

---

Cash hated the Ministry. He hated working at the Department of Magical Games & Sports. Whenever he spoke with Quidditch players, he violently missed flying. Whenever he bothered to take his broom out for a flight after work — an expensive Quidditch broom, the kind for a professional player — he found himself wondering what's the fucking point. He was a washed-up Quidditch player in a department full of washed-up Quidditch players, and all day he wished he was anywhere else.

Sometimes he went to the break room to see if that would help. It usually didn't, so today he went to a break room on a different floor — he doubted that anyone would notice his absence, and if they did, it was not as if they would say anything.

He hadn't realized which floor he was on until Ford walked in. Cash bit the inside of his lip. They hadn't talked since their fight in July — Ford hadn't shown up to Black's the next Monday, and Cash left shortly after their designated meeting time. He hadn't seen Ford in Black's since. And Ford had been at the wedding, but they hadn't talked then, and now they were at the Ministry and not talking, and maybe they could just get through this whole break room thing and never talk again —

and that thought was so dire that Cash moved to give Ford more space on his way to the kettle, but he still said, "Afternoon." His own tea was still steeping. They could at least have a few words, in the minutes they had in here together.

---

Ford hadn't expected Cash to acknowledge him at all, so even innocuous as this was he found himself with no response. There wasn't anyone else in the break room. There was no one for whom they needed to perform. Was Cash greeting him only out of habit, or did he actually want to talk?

"Yeah," Ford replied. One word in but already he was being stupid. Yeah, what? Yes, it was the afternoon? He focused on filling the kettle with water and congratulated himself for at least having had the fortitude not to turn around and flee the break room once he'd realized Lestrange was the one here.

If Cash actually wanted to talk, what about? They couldn't discuss anything real here. They might have been alone at the moment, but someone could walk in at any time. And it didn't seem like the sort of thing Cash would be eager to talk about, at any rate. When they'd fought he'd only seemed to bring things up begrudgingly, when there was nothing to say except the truth. It didn't make sense that he'd want to talk about it now. But then what? They were going to make small talk?

"Tutshill's new chaser is doing well," he blurted. Ford did not know if this was true. It was repeated verbatim from a conversation Ford had overheard in the lift that morning; his best attempt at Quidditch-related conversation.

---

A few months ago, running into Ford in the break room would have felt like a relief. Now, it felt like Cash was putting himself through a cheese grater.

"You like Tutshill?" Cash asked. Questioning Ford's Quidditch credentials wasn't the way to get back into his good graces, but Cash couldn't help himself. He didn't believe that Ford knew anything about Tutshill, because — well, what kind of friend was Cash if he hadn't known Ford was a Tutshill fan?

---

Cash sounded surprised, which made Ford want to defend himself. I could like Tutshill, he thought, but honestly he didn't know a thing about their team, and he couldn't even claim a geographical allegiance; Tutshill hadn't been near where they'd grown up, before moving to Hogsmeade.

"I guess not," he admitted, shooting a look at Cash that was both apologetic and strained — well, what did you expect me to talk about?

---

Cash twisted his mouth and nibbled, again, on the small injured spot on the inside of his lip. "Your break room's nice," he offered, although that was a nothing sentence. Why couldn't he say what he meant anymore? I miss you, I'm sorry, you were right.

---

That was an utterly ridiculous thing to say, but at least it provided Ford this consolation: Cash was having as much trouble coming up with something to say as he was. Maybe it had even been calculated that way, to cover Ford's stupid remark about Tutshill's chaser and even the playing field between them.

"It's a break room," he said, and shrugged, and thought immediately that he could have been kinder in his response; he could have pretended that this was in any way adequate small talk, as a peace offering. This was, obviously, working on the assumption that an olive branch was a desirable outcome here, and that they wouldn't both just be better off moving on and pretending they'd fallen out of touch for something approaching normal reasons.

"You don't... I mean, which floor do you work on?" he asked, with a sidelong glance. If Cash had migrated a very long way from his usual office to visit this one, that would change things, Ford thought. If Cash had come here hoping to run into him, then that... meant something.

---

Cash shook his head. "I'm on the seventh floor," he said, using one hand to gesture vaguely downwards. "Um, Magical Games & Sports." He didn't bother to inject enthusiasm into the sentence, because Ford could tell when he was lying — and it wasn't worth it, anyways, it wasn't like Prewett was up here often or like Prewett cared about Cash's enthusiasm level.

---

Seventh floor, Games and Sports. Ford should have guessed that, maybe. On the other hand, it wasn't as though Lestrange had gotten that particular job because he was any good at it, necessarily; his last name was Lestrange, so barring Minster for Magic, he could have whatever job he wanted. Or whatever job his father wanted, more like. He might just as easily have ended up an Unspeakable as anywhere else. Ford imagined Games and Sports had been offered as a concession: stop Quidditch, but still get to hang around with Quidditch players. If Cash's tone was any indication, it wasn't a concession he had much enthusiasm for.

The seventh floor was far enough away that Ford could have read something into Cash's being up here. But even if that was true, what should he do with that information?

"What've they got you doing down there?" he asked, while he pondered whether he wanted to push a little and see if the conversation would go deeper, or if he'd rather skate back out as soon as his tea finished.

---

Cash didn't really understand what it was the Ministry paid him to do; he knew this probably meant they did not trust him with anything important yet, on account of he was a Nepotism Hire. (He hadn't had to apply, although maybe someone had for him — Lucius had just told him where to be, and when.)

"I've mostly been processing permit requests so far," he said. That sentence felt lame, and Cash frowned down at his hands. "No casework so far, although I suppose it would be different from yours anyways."

---

Ford had no conception of what field work could possibly be involved in the Department of Magical Games and Sports, much less any Quidditch-specific office (which he had assumed without clarifying that Cash was a part of). What would they do, just go watch matches? Spot-check the enchantments on player's broomsticks to make sure they were all within regulations? (Were there even regulations on broomstick charms? He was making this up as he went along; aside from the names of the positions on a Quidditch team, the entire sport was more or less a black box to Ford).

"Less interesting than mine, definitely," he said, lightly teasing. This was — fine, making jokes that didn't mean anything. If one ignored all the stiff dead air in the first half of the conversation, a passerby might still have mistaken them for friends, hearing this. The kettle whistled and Ford turned his attention to pouring the water so that his tea could steep. "You could murder someone on a Quidditch pitch. Then maybe we'd get sent out together. If you weren't in jail already, anyway."

---

"That sounds like something out of a penny dreadful," Cash said, shifting where he stood.Could he get away with reading mystery novels at work? He wasn't sure Prewett would actually care. "But investigating my own crime would be the perfect cover." (Like marrying an extremely pretty young debutante, or hopefully getting her pregnant, or or or —)

His tea was over-steeped now. Ford would probably leave once his was steeped, but despite the awkwardness of this conversation Cash was — enjoying himself? Evidently he missed Ford, which he'd known, but.

---

"Especially if you picked a particularly dreadful murder method," Ford pointed out. Penny dreadfuls were always gruesome, it seemed; anyone who died had a bloody death, whether it was a monster or a madman who had caused it. Even the lunacy-inspired suicides were always violent in penny dreadfuls. Was there much opportunity for that on the Quidditch pitch? As much as anywhere else, Ford supposed; one could be stabbed anywhere. Not that he thought Cash had it in him to stab someone.

"I'd give you a recommendation but there's no evidence any particular method of death is more likely to produce a spirit than any other," he continued in an offhand tone. This was true, and intensely interesting to Ford though his tone did not imply it. If the method didn't matter, as indeed seemed to be the case, that implied that what determined who lingered and who didn't had something to do with the person themselves, something intrinsic. He didn't seriously believe any of the anecdotes that were sometimes bandied about with regards to choosing to go towards the light or stay behind, or anything like that — mostly because he'd only heard living people talk about such things, and clearly they had no firsthand experience of it. "Be a shame if you went through the hassle of murdering someone and then they just died. You might have to off ten or twelve people before we hit on the right conditions for joint fieldwork."

---

This was the sort of conversation that would have hurt Cash, a few years ago — someone could die in sudden violence and still choose to leave. He didn't think about Eli leaving him here as often as he used to, because — why would Eli want to stay, when he could be somewhere else, even if there was no guarantee that place would be better?

Cash grinned. "Unless I come up with a way to fake a ghost, like one of those muggle mediums," he offered. And maybe it was an olive branch — see, we used to hang out, I remember.

---

"That wouldn't fool me," Ford pointed out. He'd glanced over at Cash and grinned before he'd had time to think better of it, but then he wondered if that was too earnest or too eager and turned his attention back to his tea. The leaves floated slowly over the water's surface as he wrangled his expression back down to pleasant but subdued; a small talk smile. "You might be able to get it past my boss, though, if you catch him on one of his I can't really be bothered days."

---

The grin, a flash of their old reality, made Cash's chest tighten. "Oh, yours too?" he said. There was an edge of something in his voice, maybe desperation — he wanted Ford to grin again. "I thought it was just my boss who had those."

---