Greengrass looked nervous suddenly, but his sympathy was gone—for now. The curse would provide protection in only certain situations, so the potion was necessary to ensure he was safe long enough to get himself under control and his story straight. Then of course he still needed to find his own ingredient and get his own potion dealt with, and if he was going to brew a potion for Greengrass he might as well brew his own.

"Nothing that will harm you," he said, letting go of the rope and motioning for Greengrass to follow him. He began making his way down the aisle, the two wands visible in his right hand and his eyes on the plants he passed. "It's more an insurance policy than anything."

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Darrow dropped the rope and turned around. The moment his back was turned, Ford had another fleeting impulse to flee, or to tackle him, or something — but that chances that that would work were only getting slimmer and more distant as time went on. Now he was without his wand, and his hands were tied together. His odds of overpowering Darrow like this weren't great, and there was no way he'd reached the door before the other man could react. So... he supposed there was nothing to do but follow him, with absolutely no idea what he was doing or where they were going. Like a duckling toddling after its mother — the analogy occurred to him and he immediately hated it, but that was how powerless he felt at the moment.

But Darrow said it wouldn't hurt him, so... that was something, anyway. He had no reason to believe him, but Darrow also didn't have a lot of reasons to lie about it, now that he had Ford entirely at his mercy.

"What does it do?" he asked, not because he really expected Darrow to tell him but rather because he thought if he could keep the other man talking, maybe he could pick up on a few clues here or there that would help him piece together a strategy to survive this. "What things are you looking for?"

  

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Set by Lady!

Billy stopped at one of the benches and began to shift through jars of ingredients, searching not only for his ingredients but a handful of others. He picked up one of the jars and scrunched his nose at it; all of the ingredients at the bench seemed so foreign or so specific in its uses that it wouldn't do any good for the potion Billy needed to brew. It was one of the downsides of looking for ingredients in an observatory: there was not a "common use" section.

"It won't affect your daily life," he promised. "It'll just provide me an extra layer of protection." That was the extent of the explanation he could give. Anymore hints and he might as well be able to find the name of the potion himself, which would give him clues for a workaround that Billy didn't want him to have.

"I need asphodel, to start. The some boomslang skin." He was tempted to try and find substitutes for some of the ingredients, but the last time he'd done that he'd ended up here.

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Ford had earned an OWL for herbology, but only just. He wasn't going to be a good deal of help spotting ingredients, particularly not with his hands still bound in front of him. It wasn't really about helping Darrow, though. It was about keeping Darrow talking, and trying to find clues. Asphodel, boomslang skin. These meant nothing to Ford, but if he could get through this alive they might mean something to Noble. If Darrow was going to make him drink a potion and he wasn't going to tell him what it was, at least Ford could remember some of the ingredients, the steps it took to brew, the scent and the color when it was ready. That would be enough for Noble to figure it out, wouldn't it? And if Noble could figure it out, he could tell Ford what to do about it — despite all Darrow's assurances, he doubted he was going to be alright with whatever the side effects were.

It was getting harder and harder to imagine what they might be, too, the more Darrow spoke. Nothing that would hurt him, nothing that would affect his daily life, but something that would protect Darrow. What the hell did that mean? The first thought that came to mind — the only thought that came to mind, really — was that it might have something to do with the relationship between the two of them — something that might engender attachment to Darrow, or something of the sort, so that Ford wouldn't want to turn him in.

He stopped walking abruptly, and a flash of panic went through him. He had to stop this.

"Don't," he said quickly, as Darrow reached for another jar of something. He hadn't come up with a reason yet, so was scrambling to think. He seized on something he’d already considered before: "If it's obvious you've been stealing things they're going to blame me. Because I was supposed to be here," he said quickly. He didn't know that Darrow would care, so this wasn't the ideal strategy, but it was the only one he had at the moment. "Don't take too much. You'll make it too obvious. I don't want to get arrested."

  

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Set by Lady!

Billy's gaze snapped up to Greengrass', his eyes narrowing at the sudden order. As if Greengrass was in any position to be telling him what to do. The concern was valid, but not exactly something he was going to worry about at the moment.

"I don't need much to make what I'm brewing," he said, placing the jar down so hard it a large crack appeared from the base of the jar to the lid. "Not that you should worry too much: some of this stuff looks like it's been left alone for a long time." Some of the jars were covered in dust, while others seemed to have a grimy layer of something over them.

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Ford winced as Darrow slammed the jar down on the counter hard enough to crack it, but if Darrow had even noticed it happen, he didn't react. This was going to hinder his chances of being able to get out of here without it being obvious that someone had gone searching through everything in the observatory... but maybe it could be useful, in another vein. If Darrow really hadn't noticed, maybe this was a sign that his nerves were a little thinner than they ought to be. Maybe Ford could provoke him into making some critical mistakes, and nullify whatever potion it was he intended to brew for Ford to consume.

Unfortunately, he didn't really know enough about potions to know what sort of mistakes would help neutralize whatever it was, and what might only make it worse. He didn't want Darrow's hand to waver at the wrong moment and for the potion to blow them both up, or turn poisonous (assuming that it wasn't already poisonous). He'd only taken potions up through fifth year, and honestly he may have learned more about the subject just listening to Noble talk than he had from school, so he was hardly well suited to this. He'd have to revisit this strategy before he could decide if it was worth it or not. In the meantime, he pressed on with the same tactic as before.

"And the rare ingredient you said you were looking for?" he asked. "Is that something they won't miss?"

  

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Set by Lady!

The ingredient. Every single reminder of the potion caused his chest to tighten, as if his body was telling him that his time was running out. Was it possible to die from now having his potion? He'd never been in a position where that was a worry, but his heart was thrumming against his chest and not in a way that felt normal. He took in a shaky breath and looked around like the ingredient would be right there, but obviously it wasn't.

"It might be," he admitted. But who knew how frequently Mr. Brownhill had his stock reevaluated? He was a record-holder, which meant his stock was checked with at least some frequency, but he didn't know the specifics. "But they might not see it for some time, so I wouldn't worry about it."

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Ford bit his lip. He wasn't sure if this was working, but he didn't know what else to do. Darrow didn't seem to have found anything he was looking for yet, and he definitely seemed... distractable, to say the least. Maybe if Ford could keep him talking, he could prevent him from finding things for long enough that he'd run out of time for whatever he was going to do. Maybe they could just wait it out, and someone would show up sooner or later and interrupt this and rescue him. His hands were tied, but Ford could yell to warn them if he saw anyone approaching or heard a door open, so he could prevent them from falling into the same pitfall he had. He glanced at the nearest window hopefully, but his heart sank when he saw the snow piling up outside. Would the snow mean people were home earlier than anticipated, or later? He wasn't sure. He didn't really know anything about Mr. Brownhill, or the schedule he and his household typically kept. And what if the snow got too deep, and they were stuck here together?

"What's the ingredient?" he asked. "What do you need it for? Really. Not for your dying patient."

  

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Set by Lady!

Billy continued to search through the ingredients, emitting noises of frustration that grew increasingly more aggravated with each bottle that wasn't his ingredient. He paused at Greengrass' question, but then continued his search as if he'd hadn't heard. As he picked up each jar, his eyes scanned the label, but his mind was still stuck on the question.

His affliction was not one he mentioned out loud—in fact, he wasn't sure he'd ever mentioned it out loud to another person, and the elder Greengrass was not the person he once might have thought would be the first person to find out. But Greengrass' tongue would be tied once the potion was complete, and it was probably safe—safe enough, at least—to elaborate a little.

"A potion," he said casually, as if the answer wasn't tearing him apart inside. "I need it for my potion."

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If this had been a casual conversation and not a life-or-death hostage situation, Ford might have rolled his eyes. That answer couldn't possibly have been any more vague. He'd already expected that it was an ingredient of some kind, both because of where Darrow had chosen to search for it and because of his thin lie earlier about needing it for a patient. In theory it could have been something Darrow wanted to sell, so knowing that he was planning to use it to brew a potion did narrow things down a little bit, but not much. His questions in general weren't getting much information from Darrow, but they did seem to be frustrating him — if the noises he was making and the fact that he still hadn't found anything was any indication, anyway.

This might or might not have been a wise strategy, but it was the only one that seemed to be having any effect, and it wasn't like Ford could just wait for Darrow to force feed him a potentially mind-altering potion without doing anything to stop it. So: time to commit, he supposed.

"Do you even know what it looks like?" he asked derisively.

  

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Set by Lady!

What kind of fucking question was that? Would he go through the trouble of sneaking into a stranger's house to sift through their apparently unending supply of potion ingredients in search of an ingredient he'd never used before? He shot Greengrass a dirty look.

"Of course I do," he hissed. He was going back and forth between casual and calm to outright aggression and he was vaguely aware of it, but he was too focused on his task to really care. Greengrass needed to shut up before he got anymore distracted.

"It goes in my potion, and - I didn't realize I would need it again." It wasn't every day he changed the recipe to potions despite knowing of the ingredient's intensifying nature, but he hadn't known it would be this intense.

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The phrasing on that was strange, and it caught Ford's ear. My potion. One of his own invention? That didn't bode well for Ford's chances of being able to figure this all out after the fact from describing it to Noble, but he wasn't giving up on that possibility just yet. Darrow was... not a reliable narrator at the moment, Ford suspected. He couldn't imagine that Darrow was always this way, because he didn't know how Noble and he could have been friends if he was, but at the moment he was certainly a little less than sane.

"You don't know what you're doing at all," Ford pushed. Darrow had hinted at that, with what he'd said next: he didn't realize he would need it again so soon. Ford was speculating a bit, but he thought he was working from some degree of truth as he continued: "You're messing around, and you got in way over your head."

Hopefully that hit home — it would frustrated Darrow more if it was just a verbalization of something that he'd already been thinking. And frustrating Darrow was currently Ford's only viable strategy when it came to distracting him from making this mystery potion.

  

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Set by Lady!

Greengrass managed to be so right and so wrong at the same time, and it struck a cord that left Billy feeling half-annoyed and half-angry. He had no reason to be interested anyways, and questioning him when he didn't want to give answers didn't seem like the kind of strategy he would have tried if held at wandpoint. He tried to hold it tongue, but his anger managed to manifest anyways, except in the form of hasty movements instead of snippy comments; he grabbed for another bottle, knocked it into another, and then caused a small domino effect with a number of smaller bottles, which in turn caused him to shove a piece of parchment—a recipe, maybe?—to the floor with a frustrated grunt.

"I know perfectly well what I'm doing," he finally broke, turning his entire body to face Greengrass. "Don't act like you know anything, because you don't. I'm not a - a - a bad person. I got sick, and I need this ingredient."

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The following 1 user Likes Billy Darrow's post:1 user Likes Billy Darrow's post
   Fortitude Greengrass

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He'd pushed hard enough, it seemed, because Darrow was really losing it now. As he turned around, Ford felt a simultaneous flicker of satisfaction at having guessed at the right thing to say and trepidation over whatever Darrow might do next. All he'd known was that he wanted to do whatever he could to prevent Darrow from making his potion, but he hadn't actually thought through what the alternatives might have been. Was he going to pull his wand again? Hit him?

Neither of those things, it seemed, at least for the moment. Ford felt a slight rush of adrenaline as he heard Darrow stutter, and he decided to push farther.

"You don't look sick," he goaded. Not physically sick, anyway.

The following 1 user Likes Fortitude Greengrass's post:1 user Likes Fortitude Greengrass's post
   Billy Darrow

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Set by Lady!

Arm flying up, he poked his wand into Greengrass' sternly. His breathing was quick and deep, and if he hadn't been so laser focused on Greengrass' actions he might have been seeing red. He couldn't screw this up, couldn't let anything happen that would let Greengrass escape. But then he wasn't sure what he could do, because he certainly couldn't leave Greengrass permanently cursed or injured or anything, because that would make it easier to be caught.

"I was sick," he corrected, pushing his wand a little harder against the man's coat. "And if I don't get my ingredient, I'm going to be sick again." Maybe not in the same way—the magical bug was not going to return from the lack of his potion—but he knew the symptoms of withdrawal, knew he was suffering from them, and knew it would only get worse. "So shut your mouth or I'll shut it for you."

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"Will you?" Ford challenged, because he had come this far and it didn't seem like the moment to stop. Darrow had pulled his wand out and had it pressed against Ford's chest, but there was a part of Ford that didn't feel as though he was in danger. Not the way he'd felt in danger when they'd been circling each other in the room, out of sight, anyway. Because if Darrow had pulled his wand and poked Ford in the chest with it, that meant that at least for the moment he had opted not to use it. Given how worked up he was getting over Ford's remarks, he might not even be capable of thinking of a spell at the moment. Ford may have had his hands tied in front of him and Darrow may have had both wands, but Ford felt as though he'd gained the upper hand in this situation, at least for the moment.

"Poor, sick Billy Darrow," he continued, eyes alight. "Is going to... do what? How are you going to shut me up?"

  

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Set by Lady!