Noble shook his head. Everything Ford was saying made sense. Ford had wanted to be with someone because he wanted to be loved; this was perfectly logical to Noble. Noble wanted to be loved. He wanted someone to touch him, without baggage — and he could not get that, and he couldn't verbalize it.

"I just — I don't understand how you were with a man," he said, "I'm — obviously I'm glad you kept it secret. But I don't understand." There were other things to be said, about how Noble probably wasn't the only Greengrass who snooped, but he was still stuck on the basics here.

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set by Bee

Noble repeating that he didn't understand simply made no sense to Ford. It hadn't made sense the first time, but he'd done his best to try and explain anyway. Apparently that hadn't been what his brother was after, but then what did he want to hear? It was unfathomable to imagine that Noble actually wanted to hear about the logistics of intimate encounters between men, at least not from Ford.

"You want to know how?" Ford echoed, incredulous, then took a sizeable gulp of his gin. "I don't really — I mean I'm not —" He wasn't going to explain it. Noble may have been entitled to some answers, given that he'd uncovered Ford's secret — he was not entitled to that.

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Set by Lady!

Noble shook his head with a fervency that bordered on violent. "I didn't mean that," he offered, again. How was he the one who kept being misunderstood in this conversation? Ford was the weird one; Noble hadn't allowed himself to think it that directly yet, but it was true. Ford was the weird one, Ford was the one with the love letters — for once, Noble was in the right.

"I meant — you can be in relationships with men?"

Noble couldn't imagine it for himself; the skepticism in his tone made this obvious. If it was just the sex it may have made more sense to him. But Ford had wanted to be in love, and he'd picked a man for it.

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set by Bee

Ford's relief was so palpable at Noble shaking his head that he wondered if it had distracted him from some crucial piece of information that followed, because Noble's follow-on question simply didn't make sense. Ford blinked at him a moment, unsure of what to say in response. The answer was obvious, so he had to be misunderstanding the question. Noble had confronted him with the evidence of the answer already, so he knew. It wasn't... what was Noble actually asking here? There had to be some subtext Ford was missing. It couldn't just be that.

"I — yeah," he said finally, at a loss as to what else he could add. "Small sample size, I guess, but... yeah. I mean it's... you have friends who are men," he pointed out. "I don't get how it's hard to understand."

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Set by Lady!

Noble frowned. "But I don't love them," he pointed out. He didn't understand this, and wished that he could wrap his head around it. If he could wrap his head around it, then he could distinctly tell Ford whether or not it was weird, and maybe Ford wouldn't do it again. (He didn't know if Ford was still doing this, with someone other than Macnair. He didn't want to ask, but more because he didn't want to know about his brother's sex life than because he thought it was weird.) Noble shook his head. "You didn't get caught," he said. They would, of course, know if Ford had gotten caught.

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The following 1 user Likes Noble Greengrass's post:1 user Likes Noble Greengrass's post
   Fortitude Greengrass

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set by Bee

Ford bristled. "Of course I didn't get caught," he said, as though it hadn't been possible — as though Cash hadn't had to pull him into a private room at Black's last year and say be careful, as though he hadn't admitted it all to Tycho before he'd known that Tycho shared his persuasions, as though he hadn't ended up wearing the wrong pair of pants home one day or been in foul moods for a week at a time because of something Macnair had written (or failed to write). As though he had not, right now, tonight, been caught.

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The following 2 users Like Fortitude Greengrass's post:2 users Like Fortitude Greengrass's post
   Noble Greengrass, Tycho Dodonus

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Set by Lady!

Noble frowned, a muted irritation. He could keep secrets — he didn't keep little nostalgic pieces, and he wasn't involved with anyone married. "Well," he said, standing up, "Don't get caught next time, either."

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set by Bee

Ford opened his mouth to respond, but couldn't come up with the right words. If he'd said I won't that would be tantamount to admitting that he was already with someone, wouldn't it? But if he instead tried to come up with some response that implied he wasn't seeing anyone and never planned to again, he was sure it would ring hollow and that would be just as bad. Noble could tell when he was lying. The conversation didn't feel finished yet, certainly didn't feel resolved — but Noble had stood up as though he was going to leave, and Ford wasn't going to stop him. It wasn't as though he wanted to be talking about this, any more than his brother probably did.

Noble didn't understand and Ford's attempts at explanations had not changed that. Hopefully he understood enough that he wouldn't hate Ford after this — or at least, that someday he would not hate Ford.

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Set by Lady!