October 18th, 1892 - Angie's Apartment

The next several days would involve a great deal of family, finally culminating in Cash's wedding to Miss Adrienne Selwyn. The date and the details were set, and all Cash really had to do was show up, be relatively personable at events, and eventually say some vows.

For now, though, he was sprawled on Angie's bed, with a rapidly-emptying bottle of bourbon between them. His head wasn't pleasantly empty, though — everything still clogged it, circling around, guilt and dread and all of it.

"Did I tell you I'm moving to Hogsmeade?" he said, tone slow.

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Angie Swan @"Daffodil Potts"

  

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MJ made this!

Ang knew this was something that would inevitably happen. Cash couldn't avoid playing the part his father wanted him to play forever; it was  deal on borrowed time and the sand had run out. Still it didn't help the overwhelming feeling of dread that welled up in her stomach every time she thought about it. She knew it wouldn't change anything between them. What was the worst someone could think, he had a mistress? That was laughable in and of itself, he didn't even want a wife, but she knew it would change him more than she would like to admit. It pained her to know she couldn't do anything for him except be there for him in times like this. Fuck, she couldn't even attend the wedding. Not that she particularly wanted to, but she couldn't keep an eye on him otherwise.

He'd seemed to even out a little after he started things with his boss there. Sex was good for that. Still, she had been worried about him more than usual over the last year, but he'd seemed to bounce back. Angie was always torn between her own need to get out and the love she had for Cash keeping her in. Without him, there would be no tie to this part of the world holding her here; she could find cursebreaker work anywhere, but she specifically kept London as her home base so she could check in on him every now and again.

Which was exactly how they ended up drinking bourbon straight from the bottle in her bed tonight. "Well that will make things difficult." She chuckled, as if that was the real problem here. She hadn't done the majority of the drinking here, watching him carefully from where she lay on her bed, head propped on her arms as she lounged next to him. "You can always crash here, even if I'm not home." Standing arrangement, after all.

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Cash shrugged. Hogsmeade wasn't his father's house, at least — and he knew he was welcome here even when Angie wasn't home. He wasn't even sure if Adrienne would notice. They would have separate bedrooms, after all, and he didn't know her well enough to know if she would notice her husband spending nights somewhere else or coming back smelling like bourbon and cigarette smoke.

He rolled onto his side and propped his head up, her mirror image. "I'm going to have to sleep with her," Cash said, unceremoniously.

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MJ made this!

Angie obviously knew that was going to happen, but had, in everything else that had happened recently, not really thought about it. She winced as he said it, thinking he would rather chew his own arm off than have to sleep with his soon-to-be wife. "Have a few drinks." Was really all Ang had in the way of advice. It would take more than a few, she thought, but he couldn't be sloppy. Angie was painfully aware that it wouldn't be Cash's first time with a woman, but clearly she also knew it was not what he preferred and that sort of sucked.

"Luckily, I'm sure she knows nothing about martial relations, so it doesn't have to be good." It was perfunctory at best. Though she had no idea how Cash would actually, get there, but he'd have to figure it out. All he had to do was produce an heir, maybe a second and that could be that. If he was lucky it wouldn't take that many tries. Angie could give him the ins and outs of when to best conceive, as she was using it for the exact opposite, but she doubted he wanted to hear that. "Maybe, at the very least, you will become friends." She took a sip of the bourbon idly, wondering just how this was going to go for him. She hated the thought of him having to marry at all, but she knew how his family operated. Expectations were to be followed, plain and simple. It was exactly why she'd excommunicated herself from her own family. Angie didn't do well with expectations outside of work.

"I could give you some tips." She teased. Being a woman after all, she did know what worked and if she were being honest, she had spent a night or two with another lady in her time.

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Cash had picked Adrienne because he thought they could be friends. It would be a long time until that was possibly true, but it was possible — they liked the same things, and they wanted similar things. They could be friends. But first — they were going to have to have sex.

He sighed, at Angie's mention of tips. "I don't want to hurt her," Cash admitted.

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MJ made this!

Angie smiled sympathetically. "Of course you won't," She knew that much. Whatever it was about Miss Selwyn that had given Cash the go ahead to finally fulfil his father's demands, Ang knew that in his own way, Cash had to care about her somehow.

"Women are fairly simple creatures anyway," Well sort of. "We say we're not, but I digress." She chuckled, thinking that as complicated as women could be, in the bedroom, especially the marital bedroom, it was pretty straightforward. "These," She gave her own chest a good squeeze with her free hand for comedic effect. "Are a good place to start." She felt like she could safely assume his fiancée had never ever been touched in such a manner, so everything would be new. "Just be gentle, very sensitive." Gentle really was the name of the game until they figured out whatever it was that would get the job done.

It wasn't like Cash had never had sex before, honestly she was a little more worried about him, than his bride-to-be. If he wasn't aroused it was going to go nowhere, fast. "Honestly just keep it simple, she just needs to be well, warmed up if you catch my drift." Otherwise it would hurt, unfortunately. This whole conversation was surreal and she didn't mean to laugh, because it certainly wasn't funny, but the irony of it all was ridiculous.

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Cash wrinkled his nose at her, feeling mildly grossed out by the whole thing — not by women, really, but by the extent to which he was going to have to play-act being a heterosexual man. "Right," he said; he sort of regretted having brought it up at all, although that wasn't Angie's fault either. This whole marriage just made him feel gross, and used, and like he was using her in turn.

"I wish you could come," he said, "To the wedding, not the wedding night."

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MJ made this!

Cash seemed done with the topic and Ang was not about to push. She was very well-versed in when she could and couldn't tease him. Unfortunately it was few and far between these days. Not like it had been when they were younger. It felt like another lifetime ago, their last couple of years at school and the freedom of the couple after. It had been easier, livelier, happier. Now she felt like work consumed her in her grief and he had quidditch, but not anymore. They were a pair.

"Me too," If it was one regret she had about no longer being upper class, she no longer made the cut for his guest list. Then again, even when she had been of a higher class, her family had been pretty auspicious, so likely wouldn't have gotten an invitation either. "You'll be fine, you'll have your other friends there." Ang was sure Gallivan and who was the other one, Greengrass? Would be in attendance.

"Just stick near your brother," Claudius was the other least offensive Lestrange she had ever met. He had even helped them retrieve Eli from Singapore with very few questions asked. He was married too, he knew how it went. "It'll go by fast." Then there would be the wedding night, but unfortunately it was all unavoidable. "I mean we could always run away together, I could make it so we would never be found." Ang teased lightly, only half-kidding. She could make them disappear without a trace that even his father couldn't find.

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He'd have friends there. None of his other friends understood this — none of them understood Cash in the way that Angie did, although he wasn't sure if that meant they knew him more or less than she did — but they would still be there. His family would be there, too. He could rely on Claude if he needed someone to help make sure he showed up at the right times.

He wished that Valeria wasn't dead. At least she would have understood the sense that he was being sold.

Cash smiled ruefully. "If I was going to run away with you," he said, "it would have had to have been a very long time ago." Before the Vow, although he did not think Angie knew about that. But — even if it wasn't for the Vow, what would the point of running away be now? It was already too late; Eli was already dead. This life was what Cash owed him.

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MJ made this!

Angie snuggled into him and sighed. A long time ago she wouldn't have had the skills to actually make them disappear. It wouldn't have done them any good. Now it was too late, but still, the thought was a pleasant daydream.

"Imagine, we could have absconded somewhere warm. Could have pretended to be some foreign aristocracy with a mysterious past. Of course, we would have had to be pretend married, but that's a minor detail." Angie could have fabricated entire lives for them, gotten the documentation to prove it. Hell she had a fake register of her own birth under the surname Swan. Angie didn't even know what her birth name really was. She could have been anyone and she could have tucked him very neatly into the lie.

It would have been a huge culture shock for him, just like dropping classes had been for her, but "We could curl up like this every night and read, enjoying the sea breeze coming in through the windows." At least it would have been with somebody they were comfortable with, somebody they loved in some capacity.

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It was soothing to hear Angie invent fake-lives for them, fantastical bubbles where she was able to save them and where Cash provided something of value outside of Quidditch. He draped one arm over her, the casual physical intimacy of people who had known each other since they were more children than adults. "Keep telling me about it," he said, closing his eyes.

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MJ made this!