It wasn’t going to be alright because Eli would still be dead, was the thing, and — people died but not healthy twenty-one year olds, not suddenly, not like that. And he didn’t feel as numb as he had when they got here, less like he’d been in a room with something chewing on his emotions all day — but it was almost worse to have things coming back, like a flood.

Eli was dead but maybe Cash was the ghost here, just going through the motions of being alive.

And now Ford was trying to pull his arms away, Cash knew — and he ought to be allowed to, he’d really gone above what anyone could expect today. Still, he could not stop the word “Wait” from coming out of his mouth. If Ford was going to let go of him then he needed to prepare himself a little bit better.

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MJ made this!

Ford waited. He still had his arm around Cash but he'd raised his head up again, and when the other man spoke he glanced up at the sky and chewed his lower lip. Of course he was going to wait, because Cash had asked him to and this whole night was about doing what Cash needed, giving Cash the support he needed to pull himself together again, and waiting was a small ask. Waiting was small, but he had the sense that whatever followed might be big, so Ford chewed his lower lip and tried to steel himself.

I'm not this guy, Ford thought. He was here as a matter of convenience — here because he worked with spirits as his day job — not because he was the person who ought to be here. He didn't know if Lestrange knew that, was the thing; he didn't know if Cash was in the right mental state to draw those kind of distinctions. And if that was what Cash needed... he could be that person, tonight, but then where did it end?

  

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Set by Lady!

The weight of Ford's arms around him remained, and Cash tried to prepare himself to face whatever was coming — the noise of London and people, the way he might have to make decisions again tonight, the dementor still in the wardrobe, or even just the fact that he was not sure he'd ever been less interested in eating. And Ford's arm remained and all of those things remained, and he swallowed and knew he could not just — stay here forever. At some point he was going to have to face all of it, or at least to face some of it.

"Okay," Cash said, although he did not think he was, and did not move, "Okay. We can go."

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MJ made this!

The silence after wait stretched on long enough that eventually Ford's eyes slid back to Cash, watching his expression and trying to guess what he was thinking. When he did respond, Ford frowned, though he couldn't have said exactly why.

"Okay," he echoed. He waited a moment, his arm still around Cash. He chewed the inside of his lower lip, thinking. "Do you want to get out of London?" he asked after a moment.

  

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Set by Lady!

"Oh," Cash said, like he had not conceptualized at any point in this that there was somewhere other than London, and they could go there. That would be better — it had to be better, because as long as they were in London everything was going to remind him of Eli, of the Lestrange family, of the places he wandered when he couldn't stand to be at home. He pulled back, just a little, so that he could look at Ford. The sudden light — it was not light anymore but the world with its gas lamps was brighter than when Cash had his head tucked and his eyes closed — made him blink, and he said, "Yes, I'd like that."

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MJ made this!

Ford nodded. He'd had a feeling, which was why he'd asked, though he didn't really know where the feeling had come from. Something about Lestrange's body language, he supposed, but he couldn't have pinpointed it or explained it if anyone had asked him. Ford didn't really know where to take him, but he could think of something. It was probably better at this point to just decide on a place and go rather than trying to ask Cash to choose. He was still — fragile. Best not to waste any of his mental energy on unnecessary decisions, Ford thought.

"There's a pub a few blocks away that has a floo in the back," he suggested. He briefly considered suggesting they just go to Ford's house, because he knew for a fact there was food available there, but he wasn't sure there was privacy, since that was a scarce commodity in the Greengrass home. Cash probably wasn't up for interacting with other people at the moment, and Ford wouldn't have been able to explain in any logical way why the two of them needed to be left alone. That, and if he showed up unannounced in the evening hours with Cash Lestrange trailing behind him, once again without announcing anything, Verity was going to kill him.

Oh — Verity. That was sort of funny, Ford thought vaguely. Not that Ford had ever thought his sister had much of a chance of marrying Lestrange, her comments about magical royalty aside, but given what had transpired tonight the fact that she'd ever even considered it seemed patently ridiculous. He found himself fighting to hold back a chuckle, despite how wildly inappropriate that was, and he let out a huff of air that approximated laughter all the same.

"Sorry," he said, shaking his head and taking his arm off of Cash's shoulders. "Don't mind me. Let's go."

  

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Set by Lady!