Ford's eyes were wild and desperate. "I —" he stammered. The question had caught him off guard, and so had the statement that followed it. Not the content, but the timing and the tone. After the first few months of their relationship where Ford had been stubbornly clinging to the idea that Tycho treated everyone the way he treated Ford, he'd eventually come to terms with the reality that Ty had loved him first... but that didn't mean that Ford loved him any less. Paired with this question, said in this moment, what might otherwise have been a declaration of love felt like a targeted barb — like an accusation.
"My family," he said. "I — My family needs me, and they need me not — not dead in a duel, not arrested, not banished from society. I — I didn't have a choice, Ty," he insisted, and while this still wasn't technically true he hoped Tycho would read into it what he was really saying — whatever options technically existed, for him, for Ford, there had be no alternatives.
"My family," he said. "I — My family needs me, and they need me not — not dead in a duel, not arrested, not banished from society. I — I didn't have a choice, Ty," he insisted, and while this still wasn't technically true he hoped Tycho would read into it what he was really saying — whatever options technically existed, for him, for Ford, there had be no alternatives.
Set by Lady!