June xxth, 1893 - the Ballet

Cash would much rather be at a Quidditch game than the ballet, but Cornelia and William had invited him and Adrienne to join the pair in their box, and he hadn't been able to come up with an excuse to avoid it. Even if he didn't want to go, there were worse things he could do with his time. Ballerinas, dancers, were athletes, right? That gave him something to look at all night, at least.

But staying in a box meant that Cash had gotten here early, and Cornelia had sent him on a quest outside of the box to find a bottle of red wine, probably so that she could interrogate Adrienne. Cash took his time picking through the theater, and by the time he was back on the main floor, more people were there. He'd just acquired the bottle when he saw Ford, and was going to turn away and feel awkward about it when he noted that Ford was escorting someone.

Cash flushed and turned away, going back to the box while he picked through it in his brain. Ford escorting a woman who clearly wasn't his sister stuck in his brain, and he returned to it off and on through the first few dances of the ballet.

The unfortunate thing about red wine was that he got a significant spot on his jacket only a few dances in. Cash squeezed Adrienne's hand, excused himself, and picked his way back down to the theater. It was luck, or a lack of it, that had him finding Ford Greengrass as the only other man in the powder room.

Cash pressed his lips into a thin line and nodded once at his former friend. He turned to face himself and his stain in the mirror, and frowned at it as well.

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Ford liked the ballet, as it turned out. This was his first time, so he hadn't been sure that he would. It was also his first time being out with someone (someone female, anyway) and he was finding he liked that significantly less. Miss Chang was good company per usual, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched the whole night. It was probably all in his head, but it was still wearing on him, so much so that he found himself slipping out of the audience and to the powder room midway through the first act.

Which was where he met Cash. Ford hadn't seen him before the performance — but then, he wouldn't have; Cash surely had a box high above the seats Ford and Ida had on the floor.

Cash (Lestrange, maybe — it was coming up on a year since they'd been proper friends, so maybe Ford ought to break the mental habit) didn't seem inclined to acknowledge him. Ford briefly considered following his lead and going about his business, except that he didn't have any business. He'd only come here at all to be away from people. He could have pretended to go use the lavatory, but — well.

"Tough stain," he remarked.

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Cash looked at the dark red stain on his jacket, as if he was not aware enough of it already. "Yeah," he acknowledged. He could use a charm on it, but he wasn't entirely confident in his ability to use a vanishing spell without accidentally vanishing the jacket. It had been a while since he had to be that careful with his wand, and vanishing the jacket would cause other problems.

He didn't want to talk to Ford. Or — he wanted to talk to Ford, but the things he wanted to say were not polite for a powder room conversation. "What do you think of the show?" he asked, a vague edge in his voice.

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Lestrange's question was banal, but the tone he used to ask it caught Ford's ear. He seemed annoyed — or was Ford imagining that, too? He kept telling himself that anyone paying special attention to either him or Miss Chang during the show was only in his head. Maybe he was assuming everyone cared more about him than they did. That seemed likely, honestly. Or perhaps Cash was annoyed, but not with him specifically; maybe he just didn't want to be bombarded with small talk while he was dealing with a wine stain in the powder room. Ford could understand that, and he could brave the audience again to give Lestrange his space... at the next easy off-route of the conversation, because now Lestrange had asked him a question and it would have been rude to have just walked off without answering it.

"It's nice. I've never been before, so I can't really make any comments about the show, but it's a nice theater," he said, which in hindsight made it sound like he especially didn't like the show. "And the performers are talented."

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And now they were talking. Cash's frown at the stain deepened, and his reflection in the mirror reminded him of Lucius, so he wiped it into flat neutrality. Should he just use water? "It's athleticism," he muttered, "The way they bend. Not that I could ever stretch like that." He could see the muscles they used, though — the ballerinas were just as strong as some Quidditch players.

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The flexibility was indeed impressive, and Cash's comment reminded Ford of the contortionists from ages ago — but of course he wasn't going to bring it up. "Me, either," he agreed, though this was mostly a nothing comment. No one would have ever accused Ford of being that flexible, just to look at him. Lestrange, at least, had a claim to athleticism that Ford did not.

"Do you — want help?" he asked, regarding the stain. He was almost entirely sure that Cash didn't want his help, in this or anything, but Ford knew a charm for this, so it seemed rude not to offer. Ford wasn't the best with charmwork in general, but this was one he'd practiced often over the past few years. Having things laundered on a quick turn-around was expensive, and having clothing replaced was even more expensive. They couldn't afford either, if it could be avoided.

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Cash turned towards Ford, and arched an eyebrow at him. "Is that a real question?" he asked, forcing the neutrality into his voice. He knew that his tone sounded affected, not like him — but the alternative was snapping, and he was trying not to do that.

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Cash's response startled him. He hadn't expected pushback — which was what this was, forcibly neutral tone or not. He'd expected Lestrange not to want his help, but he could have just said No, I've got it and kept their conversation in the realm of bland civility. But this — eyebrow raised, turned straight towards him, flat inflection — was an escalation, and Ford felt it as such.

"I — I was —" he fumbled, before the irritation kicked in. "I didn't decide to stop being friends."

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This time, Cash couldn't control his reaction. Confusion crossed his face, clear as day. "You didn't show up," he said. He'd gone to Black's, and Ford hadn't been there. "You called me a bad person and then you didn't show up." So much for not snapping, because he hadn't raised his voice but the hiss in his tone made his anger clear.

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Ford's brows wrinkled in confusion, because the first event he thought of was Cash's wedding, and he'd certainly showed up to that, much as he would have preferred to skip it. It only took him a second to realize they were talking about Black's, though, and he frowned. He felt a surge of guilt, but he was also still confused — because he had come, well before the end of their usual meeting window, and Cash hadn't been there either. He'd always assumed Cash had written him off at that point, but if he knew that Ford hadn't come then that meant at the very least he had still been paying attention enough to ask someone at the club who was there at five o'clock.

"I was late," he said, half defensive and half embarrassed. "But I didn't think you wanted to see me." At the end of the day it didn't just come down to which one of them hadn't shown up at Black's on Monday night; there were very serious things that Cash hadn't told Ford about, when Ford thought they talked about everything. The argument last year had driven a wedge into their friendship, but there had already been cracks in the foundation — Ford just hadn't seen them before that.

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"Of course I wanted to see you!" Cash protested. Ford had saved his life. Cash had never stopped wanting to see him — but that was too pathetic to admit. He'd wanted Ford to forgive him. He didn't even know if forgiveness was possible, for this, but — if it was, Cash wanted it desperately. Except that now Ford was doing the same thing.

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Ford chewed his lower lip. He wanted to believe Cash, but he wasn't sure if he could. The hurt of realizing Cash had been keeping so many things from him was still there, apparently — time had let it stagnate, rather than healed it. He shifted his weight on his feet, then sighed.

"I guess it doesn't really matter now," he said eventually. Who had or hadn't come to Black's on Monday night certainly didn't matter; it was too small and petty for Ford to even pretend to be angry about. The depths of what Cash hadn't told him didn't matter, because Ford didn't think he would ever be able to look past it, whatever it was.

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Cash experienced a flash of irritation that was not, he knew, entirely reasonable. "Right, you were only going to be my friend as long as I did what you wanted," he snapped. Ford had never even tried to understand the marriage, had given Cash no benefit of the doubt — and had never tried to understand why Cash kept Theo secret. And maybe it was fair for Cash to operate under so many conditions, because Ford had saved his life — but finally, with the mirror reflecting the both of them and the stain on Cash's jacket finally, Cash was angry about it.

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Ford sucked in a breath as though Cash had tried to hit him. "Wha — that's not fair," he responded, and he was either too angry to be hurt or too hurt to be angry but in either case his expression and his voice were full of emotion. "I didn't want anything — I just wanted you to trust me. I wanted to be your friend — I mean, come on, Cash. We saw each other every week and how many times did you ever tell me anything that mattered? Just the once, and only 'cause you had to."

The crux of it, really, from Ford's end: if Cash didn't trust him enough to tell him anything, then the night with the dementor and all the subsequent work hadn't meant anything, either.

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Cash took a step back, like the proximity made it worse. "I told you things I never told anyone," he hissed. Was it really so terrible that it hadn't been everything, when he had not been able to stand thinking about Lucius or the marriage? He knew it was terrible, in his bones, but — he had not wanted to tell Ford the things he hated about himself. There was something whirring in his mind, a kickstart of adrenaline, and Cash pressed one hand to the edge of the vanity to keep it from shaking. "Do you have any idea how hard that was? I know — I know I fucked up," he said, voice quiet, "— but I was trying." He told Ford about Adrienne before he told Theo. Neither had gone well, obviously, but it had been before.

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Ford frowned, but he could tell Cash was being sincere. It was the quietness that convinced him. Trusting your best friends wasn't supposed to be that hard, but Cash had a bit more baggage than most in that department.

"I could've helped," he said. "I —" He left off with a frustrated sigh. He didn't know how to express why he'd been so upset during their conversation last summer, because it wasn't really that he wanted Cash to tell him everything. Ford certainly had things he kept from Cash. But not life-threatening things.

"It just felt like you'd already given up," he said eventually.

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