April 5th, 1891 — Just After Working Hours — Dept of Magical Accidents & Catastrophies, Ministry of Magic

Ford had been trying to get his last interaction with Dorian Fisk out of his mind every since it had happened, with middling results. Sometimes he went hours together without thinking of it once; sometimes it seemed to be all that he could think about, no matter how hard he tried to distract himself. On more than one occasion since it had happened he'd gotten lost in a daydream, replaying it in his mind and trying to imagine what might have happened next if he hadn't stopped them. That was dangerous, though, because he couldn't think of it at all without it having an affect on him, physically, and then it took him a while to cool off enough to move around the office again without drawing attention to himself. He kept wondering if Fisk was dealing with the same sort of thing, but was sure he wouldn't have been. He'd seemed so much more sure of himself in their brief interaction, so much more confident. He probably did this all the time.

Which was a bit of an enticing thought, because it Fisk really did do this all the time, then maybe it wasn't as risky as Ford thought it was. Maybe it was possible to do these sorts of things and not have your life come crashing down around you, with your sisters' prospects ruined and your job gone and your brother feeling betrayed by your utter lack of self control. It wasn't a thought Ford would let himself entertain for long, because he knew he couldn't carry on with Fisk again, but when it did briefly flit into his mind he had to admit it was an appealing thought.

He'd spent too long daydreaming in his final hour of work and he hadn't finished his report, which was due tomorrow morning, so he had to stay behind a few extra minutes and complete it. As the Ministry offices started to empty, Ford's mind drifted to Fisk again. What if he was working late, too? Ford had no reason to suspect that he would be, but — what if? Ford could wander by his desk, in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, and maybe he could see him across the room, bent over his desk concentrating on something. Maybe he could even talk to him. Ford pictured himself wandering over and leaning against the edge of Fisk's desk, faux casual, just chatting. This vision continued until somehow (the transition was a little fuzzy) the two ended up somewhere cramped and dark, like a broom closet, with their hands and their mouths on each other...

And obviously that couldn't happen. Obviously Ford wasn't going to do that. If the Muggle home had been too risky, trying to do something in the Ministry was infinitely worse, and so of course he couldn't even entertain the thought — except — oh, he was already up the stairs and in the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes. He'd walked here on autopilot, but now that he was here he couldn't just leave, because that would look strange if anyone was still around to see. So he meandered through, as though he were looking for somewhere to drop of paperwork, maybe.

Before he knew it, he was at Fisk's desk, but it was empty. He'd already gone home for the day, which wasn't any surprise — it was already twenty past the hour, so most people had already left. It was probably the seclusion of the office that gave Ford the courage to linger for a moment by Fisk's desk, taking in his workspace. He didn't know the other man very well (in one respect, anyway — he knew the way his tongue tasted, which meant that in at least one regard Ford knew him better than he knew anyone else in the world), but he was curious. He wanted to learn everything about him, but he had no avenue to do that, and his desk was one small window to it. There was a grey scarf thrown over the back of the chair, and Ford tentatively reached out to brush his fingers against the knit, wondering if it would smell like Fisk's neck.

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   Dorian Fisk

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Zelda was — not surprisingly — in the middle of a work project, and she was so close to finishing the paperwork and shipping the no-longer-cursed lamp back to its owners that she could taste it. But it was after working hours — (apparently, she had not actually noticed until she looked up from her desk and no one was here) — and she probably ought to go home, because it wasn't like it was urgent.

Or maybe she could catch one of her brothers at work and talk them into waiting another twenty minutes for her. Safety in numbers, and all that. And if she talked Dory into coming home for dinner then haha, she was a hero, and Brannon couldn't be annoyed with her at all. (Nemo would have been easier, but Dory's desk was closer.)

Zelda walked through the halls of MA&C still in her work robes — no jacket, no real move to go home — until she rounded the corner to find Dory's empty desk, and her brother wasn't there, but someone was.

Her eyes caught on his hands on the scarf, which she recognized. She cleared her throat.

"Hello," Zelda announced. She recognized the man as a Hufflepuff from a year or two above her; so, more likely to know Nemo than he was to know her. She couldn't conjure his name, which likely meant that he didn't work for Magical Accidents & Catastrophes, which meant she could probably-maybe get away with being a little short with him. She was twitchy about the scarf. "Have you seen Dorian — Fisk around?"

If Dory wasn't here and it was after five that probably meant he just wasn't here, but she may as well check, since this guy was around.

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   Dorian Fisk

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At the sound of someone's voice Ford startled, and he grabbed the scarf on instinct. He sort of wished he hadn't, because now he was committed to this, but he hadn't had the time to think about it first. Holding a scarf was easier to explain than just tenderly running his fingers over a scarf in an abandoned office in the Ministry, though, wasn't it? He thought so, vaguely, but since no ready excuses were coming to mind for either scenario he couldn't be sure.

He recognized the girl who'd interrupted him, he realized with a sinking feeling. This was Nemo Fisk's little sister, who was the same year as Noble in Hogwarts — and by extension she was also Dorian Fisk's younger sister, and she was looking for Dorian. Now he really regretted grabbing the scarf, but it would have been even more damning to drop it now like he'd just been caught doing something he shouldn't be.

"He's already left," Ford said just a touch too quickly, hoping this wasn't a lie. If Dorian Fisk rounded the corner in a moment on his way back from the bathroom or something, and Ford was standing here holding his scarf and telling his little sister he was gone for the day... well. It was best not to dwell on it, because there was no way out of that scenario. He'd just have to wither and die on the spot.

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   Dorian Fisk

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"Oh," Zelda said, frowning. She'd expected that, but she was disappointed anyways — the longer she was here the less she had to be in her empty bedroom later, and if she couldn't come up with an excuse to stay later, she probably was going to have to just go home and finish her paperwork tomorrow. Damn.

"Did you need him for something?" she asked. She might have puttered away, but there was the scarf in his hands, and she was hesitant to relinquish the man (and the scarf) under these circumstances. Also, he just seemed very jumpy, and that was very weird of him.

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Ford swallowed and shifted his weight. "No," he admitted, though he wasn't sure how else he was going to explain what he was doing at this desk. He couldn't have said yes and risked her conveying that message to her brother. He wouldn't have had any details he could have provided her, either, if she'd pressed him for any. I was hoping maybe we could take our clothes off in a supply cupboard, actually, could you let him know for me?

But he had to say something else, because this department was not on his way back to the atrium from the Spirit Division, so it would be obvious to anyone who gave the matter any thought that he'd come out of his way to get here, and presumably for a reason. But what sane, rational reason could he have had for wandering up to Dorian Fisk's desk and picking up his scarf, after he'd gone home for the day?

"I was just getting his scarf for him," Ford said hastily. He had briefly considered saying that it was his own scarf, but thought there was a chance Miss Fisk might know better, and he didn't want to push his luck with this lie too much. "He forgot it."

  

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Set by Lady!

So Dory had forgotten the scarf, but had asked someone to get it for him rather than leaving it here. Zelda couldn't decide if that was better or worse. Their last Hanukkah with their mother Zelda had been fifteen, still very much a child, and thei first winter in Hogsmeade. Delia's gift for her had been a copy of the muggle book Treasure Island, and it wasn't exactly the sort of thing Zelda could carry around with her on a daily basis — was not the sort of thing she could lose.

But it sat on her bookshelf and sometimes she opened the cover and looked at the To Zelda - Dec. 1883. Love, Mama scrawled on the inside cover and she knew that she was never going to lose it, that she'd let the binding fall apart if she had to. If Dory wore the scarf regularly then maybe it was the same — or maybe he didn't think of it at all, because he was leaving it behind and sending randoms to go get it.

"Oh, I didn't realize you were so close," Zelda asked, with a blank innocence that was largely manufactured. She didn't know most of Dory's friends personally if they were older than she was, but this man (Greengrass, maybe?) was certainly closer in age to Nemo, so there was a part of her question that wasn't entirely untrue.

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   Dorian Fisk

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"Oh, no," Ford said immediately (maybe too quickly, again — this was becoming a running theme of the conversation, he was vaguely aware, and he really needed to work on it if he was going to come out of this without making her think he was up to no good). "No, we're not — I wouldn't say we're close," he specified. Ford was not sure why it was particularly important to him that Miss Fisk not think Ford and her brother were close, but it felt like maybe the sort of thing that could get him into trouble if it came up later. And he and Dorian Fisk weren't close, not by any definition of the word, so it wasn't like he was lying.

"It's just..." he started, his brain working quickly to try and think up another lie. "We're meeting for drinks later, and he forgot it. So he asked me to grab it for him. That's all."

That sounded believable, right? At least on the surface of it. The timeline didn't quite work, because a quarter of an hour (or maybe twenty minutes, by now) wasn't really enough time for Dorian Fisk to have left work, reached a pub, and then sent an owl or something asking Ford to grab his scarf, unless he'd left early. Or — maybe he'd been out on an assignment all afternoon, and he realized he'd forgotten his scarf hours ago and had told Ford to grab it. That could work — but it was also making a lot of assumptions about Dorian Fisk's afternoon, assumptions that Miss Fisk, as someone who worked in the same department as him, might be able to easily verify (or might already know to be untrue). Best not to specify, then, and hope she didn't ask.

  

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Oh, he was jumpy. This probably meant that Zelda should leave him alone, if she was feeling charitable, but she was not feeling particularly charitable — because she was not going to have the evening she wanted, because she was not sleeping well, and because the scarf in Greengrass' hands had her feeling a little tightly-wound.

"So you're not close, but you are drinks friends," Zelda said, using a similarly distantly curious voice. She knew that she was being at least a little unfair. A year ago, she might have described Jo Smith similarly to how Greengrass was currently describing her brother — but poking fun at her brothers' friends was fair game, and she had a suspicion that Greengrass would make it easy.

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Ford frowned at her, less because of the actual words she was saying and more because he got the impression that she didn't believe him. It was perfectly plausible that the two of them might be friendly enough to get drinks together, wasn't it? In another universe, they might have been. They'd had a friendly enough chat at the art exhibition, friendly enough that Fisk had thought it appropriate to come over to Ford at the sonata and start chatting about — contortionists. If not for their interaction at the post office where Fisk had ended up on top of him (and, of course, if not for all the kissing in the Muggle house when they were both supposed to be working), maybe they could have settled into friendly-enough-for-drinks. They hadn't, and now Ford thought there was absolutely no future in which the two of them could ever just get casual drinks together, but there was no reason Miss Fisk ought to know that.

Unless she knew all of Dorian's friends? That seemed unlikely. Dorian Fisk was older than Ford, while Miss Fisk was younger, so the age gap between the two of them would have been as large or larger as the one between Ford and Grace, he suspected. Grace certainly didn't know everyone he considered a friend. Given what had happened the last time he'd tried to invite a friend over for dinner, she might remain quite blissfully unaware of them for the foreseeable future. But maybe the Fisks were different? Maybe Dorian and his sister were exceptionally close, and it was suspicious enough to her that she'd never heard Dorian mention anything about Ford before that she didn't believe him.

Or maybe she had heard Dorian say something about him, which contradicted the idea that they were casual friends. Ford's stomach flipped nervously at the idea that anyone might have been talking about him, but particularly that Dorian Fisk might have said anything. He didn't think it possible that Dorian might have told Miss Fisk everything — it was not the sort of thing you told siblings in general, in Ford's opinion, but it was certainly not the type of thing you told sisters — but he was filled with anxiety over what else, if anything, Fisk might have said. Would it have just been an offhand remark or would Fisk have actually talked about him? What context could it have come up in? Was it something bad? Was Fisk angry at him for having stopped things last week?

Oh no, what if he was angry? Ford thought things had ended relatively smoothly, all things considered, but it wasn't like he had any prior experience to base this assessment off of. And obviously Fisk would have preferred if they hadn't stopped, right? That was why he'd kissed Ford in the first place. Presumably he'd wanted to... do whatever the logical follow-through was when you started kissing someone, which Ford really had only the vaguest notions of (not that his inexperience in this department had slowed the pair of them down at all last week; his body seemed to know what it was doing, even if he didn't). But when Ford had protested Fisk had stepped back right away, and he'd taken over the rest of the assignment on his own and given Ford a chance to clean himself up in the washroom... really, everything had been quite — well, polite, he supposed, despite the lingering tension in the air.

And surely Fisk knew that Ford's backing out had nothing at all to do with wanting to kiss him. Surely he had made it abundantly clear, throughout that entire interaction since their lips had first met, that he did. Ford could understand if Fisk was disappointed, maybe, because he'd wanted to do more — Ford did, too, despite knowing it was impossible — but there was nothing for him to be angry about, was there? But if he wasn't angry, what could he have said to his sister that was making her act so strange about this?

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Fisk hadn't said anything, and his sister was just reacting to Ford himself — because he'd been answering too quickly and he was nervous, despite trying to hide it. Maybe he was panicking over nothing.

Or maybe Dorian Fisk was upset with him and never wanted to see him again and Miss Fisk knew that, to some degree, and Ford was standing here caught in the process of stealing his scarf.

"Yeah," he said eventually, and bit his lip hard to keep himself from accidentally saying anything else.

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   Dorian Fisk

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It took Mr. Greengrass so long to reply to Zelda's quip that she was starting to wonder if he was, despite his bookish appearance, a bit thick. The word he eventually did say did nothing to alleviate the notion, and Zelda raised an eyebrow at him, with Dory's dead mom scarf in his hands and his yeah and his lip biting.

It was unlike Dory to have friends who were stupid but she could not come up with another explanation for the very weird response, so maybe he was just trying to be more social in the workplace.

"Well," Zelda said, "I won't keep you from him, then."

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   Dorian Fisk

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AMAZING set by MJ

The hair on the back of Ford's neck stood up at the way she phrased that, but he had enough sense not to protest when she'd finally offered him a way out of the conversation. It was too personal, though, too possessive. I won't keep you from him. It implied that Dorian Fisk would be off pining for him each moment that he delayed... or was it only Ford's own insecurities about this exceptionally weird situation that made it seem like a strange way to phrase things? Was that a normal thing to say about people who were no more than friendly enough to get drinks after work on occasion?

But nevermind what he thought about it. He finally had an opportunity to leave (and he supposed he'd be taking the scarf with him, since he'd lied about it and she was still standing here and would notice if he seemed to 'forget' it now), and he wasn't going to pass it up.

"Yeah, sure," he said, aiming for an easy tone and not sure whether or not he'd managed it. "Take care, Miss Fisk."

  

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