May 13th, 1893 - ANNUAL POTTS FLOWER SHOW

Tycho had been having the time of his life as he looked around the flower show. He had dipped in and out of various sections and had been stopped from his attempt to adopt one of the venomous tentaculas. He made a mental note to get himself from a shop later or maybe he would scour the Forbidden Forest.

He was considering this as he went off in search of something else to occupy his time. And happily enough, there was quite a lot to keep even Tycho interested. He had been harrassing some puffapods when he was hit with a vision. Fords face was clear enough.. and a ghost? And a blonde woman that Tycho recognized. A torn dress and shapely legs. And then the vision was gone. What the heck? Tycho shook his head a little since coming back to reality from a waking vision always left him feeling rather befuddled.

Tycho didn't know where Ford had gone but he figured he would find him eventually if he kept looking. "I had the most interesting vision about you earlier," Tycho remarked when he noticed the familiar back of his lover in front of him when he hit one of the other paths in the gardens. He would know Fords figure anywhere despite still being a bit disoriented from his vision.

---

  

---

Can we dance like we're all alone
Stop the time and make it still
Hold you like I always will

Ford had not been having the time of his life at the flower show, to say the least.

He'd been lingering at the event, trailing after his younger sisters and trying to be casual so that he didn't make the incident earlier any more of a thing than it necessarily had to be, but his nerves hadn't entirely stabilized yet. He jumped slightly when someone addressed him from behind, before he recognized the voice as Tycho's and forced himself to relax slightly. It was a relief that it was Ty, anyway — what he was saying, not so much. Ford had (begrudgingly) accepted that Tycho's visions were real and at least occasionally accurate, but he had never yet encountered one that provided good news. At least, not comprehensible or actionable good news. Ty's visions were either useless or unwanted, and often both.

"And here I was, trying to keep out of the limelight," Ford joked wearily. "Dare I ask?"

---

  

---

Set by Lady!

He eyed Ford for a moment, pondering how to phrase what he had Seen. "You, the magnanimous Barnaby Wye, a woman I know from school," he listed off, keeping an eye on Fords face for his reactions. "I'm assuming you have not taken up a hobby of tearing skirts to peek at shapely legs?"

---

  

---

Can we dance like we're all alone
Stop the time and make it still
Hold you like I always will

Ford couldn't help the face he made at Tycho's explanation, which could be best described by a single syllable: ugh. The first sentence technically could have been describing anything, but the incident was still fresh enough that of course it was what immediately came to mind, and as Ty continued he confirmed it.

"You should've told me an hour ago," he remarked peevishly. It wasn't as though Ty having Seen something about it did Ford a bit of good if he only heard about it after the fact. It was all over now, and he was quite sure there would be no repeat performance in his future that Ty could warn him about. Of course it didn't make sense to be irritated at Tycho for the timing of the vision, but Ford did wonder how long he'd have to hang around before Ty Saw something that was actually useful.

"Is this a real vision?" he asked as a thought occurred which made him suddenly suspicious. "Wye didn't write a song about it, or anything, did he? You would tell me if he was off starting rumors via serenade."

---

  

---

Set by Lady!

"I couldn't find you an hour ago. This place has so many things going on," Tycho said. If he had it his way, he would stick to Ford like glue but Ford had brotherly responsibilities or something. Plus he tended to have thoughts on whether Tycho should own carnivorous plants or not.

"It was a real vision," Tycho assured with a chuckle. "I take it from your less than delighted countenance that it already all came to pass?"

---

  

---

Can we dance like we're all alone
Stop the time and make it still
Hold you like I always will

Ford didn't bother to answer the question directly, but he assumed from the dark look that crossed his face the answer was obvious.

"I felt like such an idiot the whole time," he complained. He had been stewing in this sentiment since it had happened, but hadn't wanted to bring the incident back up with anyone in order to talk about it. Now that Tycho had (perhaps unwittingly) offered him an outlet, the frustration he'd been feeling gushed out of him like water from a broken dam. "Not like I'm usually — suave and charming, or whatever, but I'm also not utterly useless. But it was like the second I tripped on that gnome my brain went home without me. I made everything worse every time I opened my mouth," he said, which, while an exaggeration, did not feel like one at the moment. "And when I wasn't making everything worse I was just staring at her like a fool. I'm sure she thinks I'm a moron — or a cad. I'd think that."

---

  

---

Set by Lady!

Tycho hummed in sympathy as Ford complained. He could remember well the feeling that could overtake you when one was around Miss Chevalier. Usually through no fault of her own either. They had been in different houses but shared the same year and thus, some classes. He remembered her as being rather soft-spoken and kind.

"Even if she thought so, if she is still like I remember, Miss Chevalier would not outright say so to anybody," he assured. "Boys always did fall over themselves for her." Not that the poor woman had ever seemed to enjoy the fact, of course.

---

  

---

Can we dance like we're all alone
Stop the time and make it still
Hold you like I always will

Ford was not particularly comforted by the revelation that Tycho already knew the woman in question, or that boys always did anything in her presence. He could understand why they would, of course. She was stunning, and even in these obviously far from ideal circumstances she'd managed to impress him with her bearing and elegance. He could only imagine the effect she would have on people in a normal setting... but he didn't like to think that he was just like everyone else, or that Tycho supposed he was.

"Can we talk about something else?" he said. His tone was abrupt and a little annoyed, and he hadn't done a very good job of ensuring neither of those was directed at Tycho.

---

  

---

Set by Lady!

Tycho regarded his lover with a raised brow. "Encountering a part veela has certainly done wonders for your temperament, I see," Tycho couldn't help but snark before immediately moving on. "Which of my rooms do you suppose a Devils Snare would love? They love damp, dark places so should I put it into a cellar?" Would he need to do some renovations? Preferably not but now he was attached to the idea of nurturing his own Devils Snare plant.

---

  

---

Can we dance like we're all alone
Stop the time and make it still
Hold you like I always will

Half-veela. Ford felt as though a metaphorical bubble around his head had just burst; suddenly his thoughts were clearer and all of his memories of the event made more sense. He blushed, but wasn't sure what to say. They were still in semi-public, so he didn't want to delve too much into how frustrating the event had been for him... and her being a half-veela didn't actually change anything that he'd said so far, or his willingness to keep talking through the event.

"Don't buy a devil's snare," he said wearily. "It'd be a death sentence for that one girl — what's her name? The high-strung maid." Tycho's staff were mostly laid back, for obvious reasons, but that one (who may not have even been full time, he wasn't sure) had always struck Ford as a touch excitable.

---

  

---

Set by Lady!

Tychos lips formed a pout as Ford told him not to buy a devil's snare. "Carlotta would be fine," he insisted. It wasn't like the women of his staff were live-in. A majority of his staff weren't. Not that he had many as a bachelor living alone. "What about a darling little venomous tentacula then?"

---

  

---

Can we dance like we're all alone
Stop the time and make it still
Hold you like I always will

Ford did not think Carlotta would be fine — even the name Carlotta was high-strung — but was not inclined to argue the point when Tycho had apparently moved on to the next ill-advised purchase. This was at least a little better than devil's snare, if only because it was more portable, but it was hardly the sort of plant Ford would have called darling. What was with Ty trying to buy things that were better left to experts? This was a recurring theme, though not always with plants — hadn't there been a door with ominous growling behind it at one point when Ford had come to visit early on, back when they'd just been friends? He wasn't sure Tycho actually wanted any of these things — maybe what Tycho actually wanted was to demonstrate that he was the sort of person who had these things. Maybe that distinction didn't matter, though; it was hard to tell where Tycho ended and his persona began, sometimes.

"Should I be reading into this?" Ford said, and raised an eyebrow suggestively. The garden was too public a venue for Ford to get away with saying If you want to be restrained and bitten you only had to ask, so this was the best he could do. In Ford's experience the best way to keep Tycho from buying something dangerous was not to talk him out of it with logic, but rather to redirect him — and nothing was quite so effective at redirecting attention as sex.

---

The following 1 user Likes Fortitude Greengrass's post:1 user Likes Fortitude Greengrass's post
   Tycho Dodonus

---

Set by Lady!

"Reading into..?" Tycho parroted, turning to look at the other as his lover raised his eyebrow suggestively. Well, whatever was causing this was likely not the reason why he had wanted the plant. He was not adverse to finding out what Ford had in mind though. "Unlikely but I wouldn't mind finding out what exactly is on your mind."

---

  

---

Can we dance like we're all alone
Stop the time and make it still
Hold you like I always will

Ford grinned, pleased to have apparently beaten Tycho to the punchline here (though whether this was something to be pleased about was... rather questionable. Probably it just meant he was well and truly corrupted by now, but since that was mostly Ty's fault he couldn't help but feel a touch proud of himself all the same).

"I can't get away," he said, after a glance around as though assessing the space for the nearest exit. "Still chaperoning. And I don't know where my brother's gotten off to."

---

  

---

Set by Lady!

Tycho barely stifled a groan of frustration. "Are you able to later tonight?" He inquired. Had he any less control, he would have been dragging Ford into some abandoned alcove. He doubted his lover would appreciate that when his sisters were so nearby. And he imagined his lover had a strong opposition against being part of a public sex scandal with another man.

---

  

---

Can we dance like we're all alone
Stop the time and make it still
Hold you like I always will

Ford hesitated. If he had his way, he'd be practically living at Tycho's by now, but there were some very obvious barriers to his sneaking over any time he pleased. "Maybe," he allowed. No one had any evening plans that he knew of, which in theory meant that he was free from responsibilities — but in practice that sometimes meant that he was far from free of scrutiny. If Clem decided to sit up in the parlor until midnight reading some political pamphlet she'd picked up on the street, he was hardly going to use the floo to conduct a late night visit. This all would have been much easier to arrange if Ford had been the one to become an animagus (not that he thought he'd have the talent for it in a million years) — or if Ford could be reasonably assured of privacy in his bedroom, but the walls were too thin and the lock was too cheap for him to risk that.

"I can write and let you know how it's looking," he suggested. "You know I want to."

---

  

---

Set by Lady!