All of my emotions ain't technically right
But I don't wanna go there and fuck up your night
No, nothing's wrong, I just want to take a walk
Feels like you ask me every time we talk
Do you really wanna know what I'd change about myself?
Do you really wanna know who's been messing with my health?

1st November, 1894 — Lestrange residence, Wellingtonshire

He hadn’t seen the notice in the Prophet until late in the day yesterday, once he’d gotten home and Cee had said something like I didn’t know that.... She wasn’t alone; the news had thrown Theo completely. He had shut himself in his room, his head reeling. Nothing. His owl had come home the night before with nothing in return. (Nothing since the flowers – Christ, had those even been him?)

The newspaper notice had said very little, besides that it was a boy, and he had been born nearly a fortnight ago. Theo hadn’t made up his mind yet whether to be hurt and infuriated by the silence, or just extremely worried about what this must mean for Cash’s state – he had been swinging between both extremes all day, to no resolution yet.

He had stopped by their house first thing that morning, restless and impatient, but the staff at the door had coolly reiterated the line about not accepting calls. Had they actually gone to tell Cash there was someone to see him, or not bothered? Was Cash in no fit state to see anyone, or was he just ignoring him? Theo wished he even knew.

The fears and the restlessness kept climbing in him, so later that day he scrawled out a note and sent his owl back with it, to Cash directly. Ten minutes came and went: he was waiting at the front door. If Cash didn’t let him in now – well, he would just have to figure something else out, because he wasn’t leaving until he saw him.

---

Cassius Lestrange

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   Adrienne Lestrange

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The note, he thought, was inevitable.

Cash watched the minutes tick down on Eli's pocket watch, and when ten passed, he shut it in a drawer in his desk. He tried to smooth his hair. There wasn't much to be done for it, as the look he had these days was best described as overdrawn — not shaky, like he'd been when he visited Ford, but with shadows under his eyes and slightly more stubble than he'd tolerated before Perseus' birth. He started the days buttoned-up, but didn't always end them that way, and now was no exception — he'd left his jacket on the back of his desk chair, and while his suspenders remained in place, he'd unbuttoned his shirt-sleeves several hours ago and pushed them up. He was mostly making it to work, but also taking one to two days a week off to, he said, be present for his wife. This had been one of those days. He'd been present for her, the hours she'd been awake, but other hours he'd spent reading, and smoking a cigarette out the window of his office.

He left the jacket on the back of his chair and took the stairs down. It wasn't particularly common for Cash to open his own front door, but he did anyways, and blinked at Theo, who was silhouetted in the early-evening light from the streetlamps. He hadn't seen Theo since — well. He had not seen Theo since.

"Come in," Cash said, and stepped back to let Theo inside.

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---

MJ made this!

“Thanks,” he said at the invite in, pure reflex; in his head the sentiment was more thank fuck he’s here, thank fuck he actually opened the door. Theo hadn’t let himself consider why he was as worried as he was, but his head swam with relief just from that.

He also tried not to scrutinise Cash for too long from the doorway, so he filtered through that first glance of him as he brushed past. He’d been at home for some time already, probably, dressed like that; he was a little unkempt (which, er, might have looked good if it wasn’t a sign of his mood); he smelled of cigarette smoke. He hadn’t told Theo anything, hadn’t been in contact, but he was here, and he had let him in.

“So,” Theo started, loitering a couple paces past him in the hallway, unsure where they could go. He had only been at Cash’s house once or twice before, didn’t know his way around; he didn’t know where Adrienne was, or the baby (Perseus, the newspaper had said), or who else might be here.

Mostly Theo wanted to hug him. He felt like if he started with that, though, he wouldn’t do anything else all night – wouldn’t be able to talk, or even to let go. He just looked at Cash instead, slightly pleading.

---

  

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Cash closed the front door, turned the deadbolt behind him. His mind was already turning, trying to figure out places they would go — the second floor felt off-limits, with the nursery and Adrienne’s room, even if Cash’s office and bedroom were up there. The parlor door bore a small window, and Cash did not want to feel observed. The third floor required passing the second floor, and the rooms there were largely shuttered and unused — they hadn’t decided what to put there, or Cash did not much care.

There was, away from the parlor but before the dining room and therefor before the staff rooms, a furnished guest room. Cash liked it because it was near the sun room, and the sun room was shut up for Autumn and Winter but that didn’t matter much. He inclined his head and led Theo down the hall, turned where it forked, and opened the door to the bedroom.

He locked it behind himself when he entered. ”I’m sorry,” Cash said, voice soft — he leaned his back against the wood of the door.

  

---

MJ made this!

Theo followed him docilely, wherever they were going. He had never been in this room before but, as he turned back to face him, there was something familiar in the way Cash locked the door after them and leant against it. An old comfort, from the countless days of Cash letting himself into the sponsor’s office. It felt like a long time ago – it had been a long time ago – but it unburied odd instincts in him, some urge to smile.

The ghost of the urge faded at the apology; the apology itself a reminder of the present situation, and whatever was going on with Cash right now, with him, with his wife, with the baby. Theo wanted to ask him, but still didn’t know how to start – he discarded a whole series of questions before they left his tongue as not right, too much. He didn’t want to launch thoughtlessly into an interrogation, and he didn’t know if Cash was actually inclined to talk to him about this at all.

“Was it something I did?” Theo tried tentatively, his brow creased. Something he had said that evening at the park, or some other time, that had made Cash cut him off. Surely he must have told other people the news, his family, his friends, before the paper – surely it couldn’t have been so hard to write? Maybe he was the issue; Cash could be angry. The flowers had seemed to say otherwise – but if Theo at least eliminated the option that it was something to do with him, maybe it would give Cash an opening to tell him what was happening instead.

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”No,” Cash said, expression stricken — Theo hadn’t done anything. The flowers had been an attempt to make that clear, but Cash could not send a message like that with attribution — and neither of them knew enough about flower language for his full meaning to be clear. Cash pressed his hands into his abdomen, fingers splayed.

He swallowed and said, ”I couldn’t find the words.”

  

---

MJ made this!

“Okay,” Theo exhaled, because Cash’s expression now had confirmed it, if the sorry hadn’t. The explanation mostly made sense, too – it felt like words would never be enough to cover it, what Cash was going through. And Theo was concerned about him, from his silence and especially the line about their not accepting calls in the announcement, but he still felt the relief just from being here. Being able to see him was almost worth as much as the words would be.

He sank onto the nearest side of the bed to sit – there was a chair in this room, but it was across by the opposite wall, too far from him and the door. “I don’t need much,” Theo said quietly, gnawing on the inside of his cheek and having to glance up at the ceiling briefly before he could look Cash’s way again. “I’d just like to know how you are.” He might not be owed it anymore, and it wouldn’t change the situation – and there wasn’t going to be anything Theo could ever do to help – but nevertheless. He had to know.

---

  

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Cash kept his hands where they were on his abdomen, but ran his thumb over the edge of one of his suspenders. He’d told Angie, and he’d told Ford more explicitly — but it was something else, to tell Theo, who had been angry last time, who loved him in a way that Angie and Ford didn’t.

”Adrienne almost died, when the baby was born,” Cash said quietly, looking at Theo’s hands where he sat on the never-used guest bed. Cash almost felt like he should join him, sit next to him, but he felt pinned to the door until he’d gotten it out. ”And so I almost —” he worked it out, used the same phrase he had with Angie ”— did something drastic.”

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   Adrienne Lestrange

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MJ made this!

Theo’s mouth twisted about the news about Adrienne; he had been worried something dire had happened. And that was bad enough already, but then Cash intimated – something else. It sank in like cold water rising around him, a shock to the system, a tightening around his ribs. For a moment, he didn’t think he could breathe... but the breath must have come out after all, because he heard the hitched sound of it, the choked “Oh.”

He had been watching Cash until then, but – he glanced up at the ceiling again, but it was too late – his cheeks were already wet. He tried not to move, tried not to draw any attention to himself, hoping it would pass. But Cash had told him what he was afraid he’d resent the baby for (worse without Adrienne; worse with a boy), and in answer Theo had –

And Cash hadn’t done it, he had said almost, he was still here, but – it was like the world had gone dark for a second anyway, knowing that he might have. Theo’s head bowed, too ashamed to even look his way in the face of this. Instead, he hunched into himself in guilt, his hands twisting together, his shoulders straining with the effort of staying silent while he cried.

---

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Sometimes in the weeks since, Cash had wondered why he'd gone to Ford instead of to Theo or Angie — some of their reaction helped illuminate it for him. He was suspecting that a part of him, right or wrong, thought that Ford would be alright if Cash died. Angie, Theo — he could not pretend to think the same for them.

He'd never seen Theo cry before. Cash's motion, in response, was almost instant.

Cash left his post by the door, and sat next to Theo. He put an arm around his side, and tucked his head against Theo's arm. "I'm sorry," Cash said again, a whisper into the fabric of Theo's shirt. "I don't — I don't want to leave you like that."

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---

MJ made this!

Theo didn’t remember the last time he’d cried. He barely knew how it had happened now, let alone had any idea how to curb the emotion as it kept welling up from his chest. As if it had all been pent up inside him for years, fear mingled with sorrow, with grief and anger and guilt and love – and he hadn’t even seen Cash move, but then Cash was there beside him.

The touch was calming; the words ruined him all over again. Abruptly, he needed something more solid than just that weight against his arm – Theo turned in towards him, curling both arms around him and holding tight. “I’m sorry,” he protested, struggling to steady himself against the growing urge to sob. Because clearly he should be the one who was calm, the one who ought to be comforting Cash, not the other way round – he didn’t know what was wrong with him –

“Cash, I’m sorry,” he murmured again – sorry for crying on him, or for what he had said before that he didn’t mean, or for not being here sooner. For not understanding the depths of what Cash was struggling with, or knowing how to help him. His face was close to buried into Cash’s shoulder now; he breathed in, and beneath the tobacco and traces of smoke on his clothes, he could smell the faint familiar scent of citrus – he could feel the warmth of him again. He’s still here, Theo thought. He exhaled. “You won’t,” he breathed, only managing to get out half the question aloud – will you?

---

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Theo was holding tight to him, and Cash held back, trying to keep his own breathing steady so that it would spill over into Theo's chest. He loved Theo. He really loved Theo, and Cash did not know how to articulate that Theo's request — that Cash tell someone if he felt like that again — was probably why Cash was still alive. Inhale, exhale.

"I won't," Cash said, with a swallow. His throat felt thick. One of his hands was rubbing Theo's back in circles.

"Theo," he said, quiet, "Do you remember Eli Swan?"

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MJ made this!

He was trying not to think about it – if Cash had left like that – but the idea kept creeping back into his head. If Cash hadn’t been solid against him now, the panic might have got the best of him. But he had Cash’s hand on his back to reassure him, and the rhythm of his heartbeat, audible through his chest. And if he took the words I won’t as a promise, a certainty, Theo could just about remember how to breathe.

He had left the shoulder of Cash’s shirt damp with tears by the time he felt clear-eyed again, close enough to calm to relax his embrace a fraction. He would have been embarrassed; but Cash spoke again, and he stilled to listen. Eli Swan. “From school,” he said, with a hesitant murmur of assent. Only a little, but he could picture him. And he had met Cash’s other friend again this year, and Angie went by Swan now – so this must be the same person she had talked about, the person they had lost. This was – important. “Your friend.” More than a friend, he imagined – but he waited, quiet too, for Cash to continue.

---

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His friend. His first love. Cash tucked his head against Theo's shoulder, now that Theo's grip was looser — he looked up at him, with the side of his face pressed to Theo's shoulder. How did he begin to explain Eli? "Until I met him, I believed everything I'd been taught," Cash said. He had believed that muggleborns were bad, that class was a signifier of worth, that the way the Lestranges operated was the way that everyone did. Obviously, obviously — he did not believe that anymore. He hadn't, for a while.

Cash sighed. "And he — broke all that down for me," he said.

He thought that Theo may have guessed, either today or before — Cash had loved Eli. Eli loved him, too — but in the absence of Eli's life, that sometimes felt less relevant. "But I loved him. I was — in love with him. And then he died."

  

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MJ made this!

If Cash’s first admission had knocked him off-kilter, Theo almost felt steadier as he listened to him now. Maybe because he was aware of wanting to treat this with the gravity it deserved.

He didn’t know exactly where this was going, but it all seemed to fit – Eli Swan might be the context he had been missing. Because there had always been certain untranslatable things about Cash and his past. Theo remembered the Cassius Lestrange of school, who hadn’t stood out as any different from the other purebloods of his ilk (even if he had been affable enough, and had played quidditch). And then there was the Cash he knew – the Cash he loved – who was, in spite of his melancholy and in spite of his hurting, affectionate and open-minded and somehow nothing like his family. But Theo had never managed to reconcile the change exactly, to work out how it had happened.

His shoulder softened against Cash’s sigh, although his mouth was dry. Cash had loved him. Of course he had. “You lost him,” Theo managed, casting him a sorry look. “And then... nothing was the same.”

---

  

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Cash nodded. "We weren't even together for most of our adulthood, although we were when he died," he said, quiet. He wasn't sure of what he was trying to say, just that he wanted to tell Theo about Eli. Cash was not even sure if the two would like each other. It was strange to think of Eli and Theo as coexisting; the version of Cash that had been with Eli was so different than the one that had been with Theo.

He wished he had not already pushed up his sleeves. He wanted to worry with something, and all he could do was rub the pads of his fingers against each other.

"It felt as if — it feels as if — he deserved to live more than I did," Cash admitted, studying the wall past Theo.

  

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MJ made this!