Evening, April 20th, 1892 — Greengrass Garden, Bartonburg

Noble hadn't been amused when Ford had asked him to please stay conscious through dinner tonight, but Ford would apologize to him later. The important thing was that Noble had stayed conscious, and the dinner had been incident-free, and had gone relatively well, all things considered. Ford had never expected it to be entirely smooth, given that Tycho was Tycho and the Greengrass family was traditional in some ways. Mama had been polite, though, and Grace had only been shocked enough to drop her spoon into her soup with a splash one time, and Noble and Tycho had actually had conversations based on their shared connections from school. It had gone as well as Ford could have hoped, and now they had left the dinner table behind and absconded to the garden with the extra bottle of wine Ty had brought.

"Unfortunately us peasants don't have a whole magical observatory in our attic," Ford joked as he threw the door open wide and led the way outside. "So if you want to drink wine and look at the stars we'll have to contend with gaslights from the street." The garden here wasn't half as good as the garden in the home they'd grown up in, out in the country, but — well, there was no use dwelling on things that were firmly in the past.

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Clarissa Cosgrove Tycho Dodonus

  

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Set by Lady!

Tycho had not expected to be invited to a family dinner at Fords. That did not happen much as it wasn't typical among his usual friends to invite one another over to meet their families. Any dinners they had tended to be among themselves or other friends. Luckily, he was familiar with Noble Greengrass enough that it had not been entirely awkward. Not that Tycho would have noticed much if it had been. He had tempered it down a bit somewhat. He had a mother so he generally knew what things he should not say in front of someone elses mother. Or sister.

They had made it through it though and now they were tucked away in the garden with the bottle of wine that he had brought. "Anywhere that I can be with you is finer than even my attic," Tycho said as he raised his wine glass in salute to his friend.

  

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Ford thought Tycho was probably making a joke and not offering a serious compliment, but it made his chest puff a little all the same. He bit his lip to hold back the full force of his smile, but his mouth curled up at the edges. He walked farther into the garden and deposited the unopened wine bottle at the base of a bush, nestled between the roots and the edge of the sculpted pot that contained it, so that it wouldn't be accidentally knocked over while they were drinking their current glasses and so that his hand wouldn't warm the wine too much — it was a relatively warm night as it was, almost summerish. Tomorrow it would likely cloud over and rain again, but for tonight the air was still and close. Ford half expected to see fireflies once the light faded, though they were still months away from that.

Ford sat on one of the benches and draped his arm over the back. He raised his wine glass but paused to speak before drinking. "Hope you're not too bitter at me for inflicting my family on you for a whole evening." This was couched like a self-deprecating joke (or something like it — deprecating to his family, if not exactly to him) but it was actually a thin cover for a question, one that Ford had been desperate to ask all night: what do you think of my family?

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Tycho followed Ford into the garden. The night was warm and he could practically smell the slowly approaching summer in the air. All in all, it was a lovely night and he was with his favorite person. There was nowhere else that he would rather me in this moment.

He sat on the same bench as Ford and chuckled in response to Ford's words. "I didn't mind. I was already friendly with your brother and your mother and sister were lovely." At the very least, if they had been put off by him, he had not noticed it. "I have to say though, I don't think I have really had a friend invite me to a family dinner so I hope I did not offend any of them."

  

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"You were fine," Ford said immediately, with a reassuring smile. Tycho may or may not have offended Ford's mother (Ford would not presume to say he understood her mind on this when she was incomprehensible to him in so many other areas), but his behavior throughout dinner had been nothing more than what Ford had anticipated when he'd issued the invitation. He hadn't been expecting Tycho to stop being Tycho for a night because there were mothers and sisters around. In any case, he'd been much more eager to see what Tycho thought of his family than the other way around.

"You liked Grace?" he asked hopefully. "She can be — she takes a while to warm up to people," he explained, which was putting it mildly. "But it's probably better to meet her at a thing like this than in a ballroom."

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"I'm glad for that. I wouldn't want you getting forbidden from interacting with me," Tycho teased. Not that such a situation would really stop him. He would shimmy up a lattice if he had to, really tap into his inner Romeo minus the poison.

"I liked her. She seems sweet.. shy," Tycho said, sharing his current impression of the young woman. "Not trying to matchmake, are you? I do believe we've discussed what a horrid brother in law I would be." He hoped that was not the case and he doubted that it was. Even so, he couldn't pass up the chance to tease Ford a little.

  

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"They can't forbid me from anything. I'm not twelve. I'm the head of the family," Ford pointed out, as though he did not regularly base all of his decision-making process on what would make his family happiest. He'd ended an entire relationship over the summer based on what he thought his family needed from him in the moment, but fortunately that was unlikely to ever come up again. Things with Tycho weren't like that; Ford couldn't imagine any situation in which he would actually need to cut back on spending time with Ty, regardless of what his family actually thought of the other man.

At Tycho's remark about matchmaking, Ford picked a leaf off of the nearest plant and threw it (entirely ineffectively) at Tycho's face. It swooshed through the air and towards the ground only a few inches from where Ford had let go of it, but the gesture was the point, not the impact. "I don't want you for a brother-in-law," he replied with a wry smile. "I just wanted to know what you thought. Besides, she's got a beau... I think." The end of this sentence drifted towards uncertainty. He had not seen much of Mr. Echelon-Arnost recently, and it was possible they had entirely scared him away in January.

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Set by Lady!

"I suppose some perks must come with that," Tycho said, as if he wasn't now technically head of his own family. It was just him and his mother though and it was a laugh to think he could boss her about anything.

He chuckled as Ford tossed a leaf at him though it just swooshed down to the ground. "That's nice. If this bloke follows through then both your sisters will be taken care of," Tycho said as he let his curls out of the somewhat tidy ponytail he had tied them back in. He had done so to look presentable but it felt a little unnatural not to just let his hair fall freely. "What will you do with your life then?"

  

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Ford rolled his eyes at the question. For one, he didn't think it was very likely that anything would be wrapped up quickly with Mr. Echelon-Arnost, if things were even still headed in that direction. He hadn't struck Ford as the most decisive of people, and even if he had been ready to move ahead with things right away, these things still took time. Verity's courtship, engagement, and wedding had all happened in a bit of a whirlwind — or at least it had felt that way at the time — but even that was three months.

"All two months of it before Clementine graduates Hogwarts and debuts?" Ford swirled his wine in his glass as though actually considering his options. "Might have time to squeeze in a European tour, if I'm lucky." This was obviously sarcasm. A European tour was about as far removed from Ford's potential futures as anything could be, and one didn't have to be a Seer to know that.

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Set by Lady!

He laughed in response to Fords sarcasm. "Maybe not Europe but we could take off to Italy. Ride a gondola," Tycho said with a grin. He could hardly believe that yet another Coming Out Ball was approaching. Soon society would be flooded with debutantes once more. "Have you considered if you will soon find yourself a wife?" He ignored the way that the very idea twisted his stomach.

  

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As enticing as the idea of taking a gondola ride around Italy with Tycho might be, Ford knew he'd have to be content with occasional solo trips around the Black Lake in the little row-boats docked in Padmore Park. Even if there weren't too many things to plan for the upcoming season, he never would have been able to take that much time off of work. Not that Morgan wouldn't let him — he probably wouldn't have minded much, as long as Ford didn't try to take off the day after some mass death event with a big influx of new spirits, or something. Financially, though, his family was barely treading water, keeping their nose poked up above the rising tide of debts. A week without pay would see them drowning for certain.

"I won't marry." The words had come immediately, because he was sure they were true and he didn't need to think them through. After he'd said them, though, Ford realized that he shouldn't have been so frank about something like that, even with Tycho. It was risky, because it begged the question why not? "I'm too young," Ford added, as though that was all he'd meant — as though the implied word at the end of his sentence had been yet and not ever.

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Set by Lady!

Tycho had to admit that he was a little taken aback by the immediate response. He did remember from their conversation some time ago that Ford had been in a romance with a man who ended up getting married. He had not thought that Ford was entirely off the idea of being married himself though.

He used his foot to lightly nudge at Fords foot. "That's not all there is to it, is there?" He asked softly. After all, Ford wasn't actually so young as to be considered 'too young'. Most men Fords age began to consider things, at the very least.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Tycho's eyes on him were a little too discerning, and Ford found himself looking down at his glass almost immediately after speaking. He kept his eyes there, watching the quivering reflection of the nearest lamp on the surface of the wine, until Tycho nudged his foot. He let out a long breath before he met Ty's eyes again, then leaned his elbow on the back of the bench and his head against his hand as though he would have preferred to hide behind his fingers.

Of course that wasn't all there was to it, and Tycho knew it despite Ford's attempted deflection. If the answer to Ty's question hadn't already been obvious, it would have been from the pained expression on Ford's face now. Don't make me explain, Ford pleaded silently. If Tycho asked again he would tell him, Ford thought. He couldn't imagine lying to Tycho about something like this, and he couldn't think of any way to avoid answering the question entirely, but he really didn't want to talk about it. He didn't want it to change things, and he had the impression that it would change things, even if neither of them wanted it to.

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Set by Lady!

Fords silence answered the question for him. As did that look on Fords face.

"You aren't alone in that, I feel you should know," Tycho said. Tycho knew that there were at least a few men in Hogsmeade alone that were not inclined towards women. Nor did they have any desire to marry and had the fortune of it not being fully expected from them. Other man weren't so lucky, especially first born and only sons.

  

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Tycho's response made something inside Ford twinge. There was nothing in the words themselves that should have caused that — he was probably right, in any case — but there was something either in Tycho's tone or his expression or his body language that suggested he was speaking from more than just a place of sympathy. The implication was that they had some common ground here, and — they didn't. Tycho had that wrong, and as a result Ford was left feeling vaguely guilty, as though he'd just lied to his best friend without having even said a word.

Tycho thought they were talking about being attracted to men. That was something they had in common, Ford was almost certain. Ford had admitted that after their fight on New Year's, and though Ty had never actually stated it plainly Ford had more than suspected as much after his run-in with Cleon Broadmoor. On its own, though, that wouldn't have prevented him from marrying (— it had not prevented Macnair, Ford thought venomously, and was somewhat surprised to find he was still bitter about it after all this time). What sealed his fate as a single man for life were the debts — his inability to provide for anyone, even his siblings. The girls with their lack of dowries. Everyone in the cramped Bartonburg house and their family home sold in haste. Noble feeling so pressured to turn a profit on his career he used himself as a test subject. Ford could never invite someone to share his life when it was in shambles. That was not a problem that Tycho had. Tycho lived alone in a house twice the size of his. Tycho bought things on a whim because they amused him and forgot about them a week later.

Ford wasn't sure he could explain what his real reason was — he wasn't sure Tycho would understand, living the sort of life he did — and what was more, he was sure he didn't want to. He didn't want Tycho to think differently of him, or think less of him, and most people would. Men without the capacity to provide for their loved ones weren't viewed kindly by most. Sometimes, Ford thought less of himself.

There was an out here, Ford realized. He didn't have to correct Tycho's unspoken assumption, and he didn't have to lie. He could just leave it all unspoken and they could glide right past this conversation and hopefully never bring it up again. Ford moved his hand down from his face to rub his neck and let out a nervous laugh. "The possibility of getting caught alone with a girl somewhere and having to marry her as a result is like, an actual nightmare for me," he admitted. Not a lie — just also not for the reasons Tycho would probably assume.

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Set by Lady!

Tycho couldn't help but chuckle a bit in response to Fords words. "Do you tend to do things that merit you being alone with a lady?" Tycho asked teasingly. Then again, he could see Ford being tricked by some ambitious young lass who thought he was a catch. And honestly who wouldn't? Tycho personally thought the world of Ford.

  

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