Cash swallowed. It took him a beat to admit: "I was afraid." This had always seemed incredibly obvious to him, but he had never actually explained why to Ford, and he wasn't sure he could manage to now. Still — he had been afraid. He was still afraid, but at least now he had his own house.

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MJ made this!

Ford bit his lower lip. Being afraid wasn't a good reason to cut people off; it was when you needed friends the most. But people who were scared didn't always make the best, most logical choices, so he didn't know if it was worth mentioning. Besides, Cash already knew. He'd said it a moment ago: I fucked up.

He exhaled. "Has it gotten any better?"

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Set by Lady!

Cash shrugged his shoulders. "I think so," he said, "It's — different." He no longer shared a house with his father and Belphoebe. But now he was afraid for her, and for the children they would someday have. Because — well, how was he supposed to be a good father anyways?*

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*mild succession spoilers

The following 1 user Likes Cassius Lestrange's post:1 user Likes Cassius Lestrange's post
   Elias Grimstone

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MJ made this!

That was frankly a more optimistic answer than Ford had been expecting, giving all the misgivings he'd had about this course of action when Cash had first broken the news to him. Different could have meant many things, but scratching below the surface of it would have taken more time and attention than either of them could spare in the powder room at the ballet, in the middle of the first act. Time, attention, and willingness — they had not entirely established the last bit yet, though all the anger between them seemed to have fizzled out.

"I have missed you," Ford admitted.

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Set by Lady!

Cash shrugged his shoulders and managed a crooked smile at Ford. "I miss you too," he said, "Of course." He'd gone to the club at their designated time on Mondays for longer than he was ready to add it.

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MJ made this!

Ford returned the smile before he could think about it, and by the time his brain had caught up he decided he'd already committed to unguarded happiness. It was nice to hear that he had been missed, even if Cash had tagged on of course as though Ford was already supposed to have known. For a second he just smiled, and then he felt he needed to say something, because if he just kept smiling quietly he was going to look like an idiot.

"Promise you haven't given up," he said. He wanted to be on good terms with Cash again — of course he did, and had since immediately after their fight — but if being Cash's friend meant standing by and watching while his life fell apart, Ford didn't think he could stomach it.

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Set by Lady!

"I haven't given up," Cash said, and found it came easier than he would have expected. He hadn't given up. Things weren't perfect, but — they were certainly better than they had been when a dementor manifested in his bedroom. And he was still trying. If he wasn't trying, then Cash knew he was doomed.

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The following 1 user Likes Cassius Lestrange's post:1 user Likes Cassius Lestrange's post
   Fortitude Greengrass

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MJ made this!

Ford bit his lip to keep from smiling too wide, but found himself grinning hard in spite of this. "Okay," he said, with a nod. "I, ah — I don't have a membership at Black's anymore. But if you wanted to meet up after work one day — I mean we do sort of work together," he joked. It was sort of a joke, anyway, because he chuckled, though there was a little awkwardness in his tone carrying through from the admission that he'd let his club membership lapse. "So we could do that. But, uhm — I should probably get back to my seat," he said with a slightly embarrassed look. "Or Miss Chang will be wondering what's happened to me."

Miss Chang was probably too busy watching the ballerinas to have even noticed he was gone, but it was still a bit rude to completely abandon her. And someone might notice if he disappeared for the entire first act.

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Set by Lady!

"I'll see you after work," Cash said. There were lots of things that he wanted to tell Ford about, and lots of things he wanted to know about — like, Miss Chang. Adrienne and Miss Chang were friends. Cash was, perhaps, obligated to investigate this. But that didn't mean that he had to right now.

He inhaled, steeling himself to go back to his own seat. "Wait," Cash said, "Can you — actually help me with this stain?"

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MJ made this!

"Is that a real question?" Ford returned, properly cheeky now. He was in considerably higher spirits than he'd been even on arrival at the ballet. He didn't wait for Cash to respond before he crossed the room towards him and reached for the nearest sink. "I've got a good spell for it, but it works better if it's wet first," he explained. "D'you have a handkerchief or should I use mine?"

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Set by Lady!

"I have a handkerchief," Cash said, pulling the neatly-folded square out of his pocket as an offering. He settled against the counter-top by the sink. He felt a little self-conscious about the stain. Was Ford always doomed to be helping him? "Was the ballet your idea or Miss Chang's?" Cash asked. "My sister invited Adrienne and I."

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MJ made this!

"Miss Chang's," Ford answered as he took Cash's handkerchief. In another conversation it might have occurred to him to be self-conscious about Miss Chang and his supposed connection to her, but he could not possibly feel self-conscious about this around Cash. He assumed Cash knew him well enough to have already figured the whole matter out, despite the fact that they hadn't really talked about anything in nine months.

"Though this is the first one she's been to, as well. But she's the one who got us the tickets. She met the main ballerina at that Sugarplum thing," he explained. He was mostly focused on dampening Cash's handkerchief in the sink, but paused to wave his hand dismissively at the air between them. "You know, the one with all the — powdered sugar, and everything." The Sugarplum Gala had certainly been memorable in many ways, but even taking out the strange compulsion he'd felt to follow Miss Chang around like a puppy, it was memorable in all the wrong ways as far as Ford was concerned.

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Set by Lady!

"Right, the New Year's Eve thing," Cash said. He hadn't gone — he hadn't been in any sort of mood for a party around New Year's, and he'd been coming right off of seeing Theo at his house, and any added excitement had seemed... ill-advised.

"I forgot the ballerina was there, though," he added, "Has she had the tickets for a while?" This was Miss Chang's idea, she'd met the ballerina, she'd invited Ford — this all seemed rather complicated to him.

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MJ made this!

Ford shrugged. He'd asked Miss Chang about the whole correspondence with the ballerina, because it seemed to have been a whole thing... the sort of thing people were dying to talk about but couldn't talk about with most people, and he had already established himself as a safe person to confide those sorts of things in. That didn't mean that he'd gotten much in the way of actual details, though, so when and how the tickets had come up was still a little fuzzy. He'd finished wetting the handkerchief and moved closer to Cash so that he could start blotting it over and around the stained part of his sleeve.

"She's in — school, sort of. I don't know if it's really a school," he admitted. "The Flint thing. It's sort of a school? But I think it keeps her busy in the spring and fall, so maybe she had them before and just couldn't find a good day to go. She's studying transfiguration," he added, because he thought vaguely that Cash might have been interested in transfiguration, or at least better at it than Ford was (which was admittedly not saying much).

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Set by Lady!

"I think Adrienne's mentioned that," Cash said, because he had a vague memory of the Flint Institute thing and tended to accumulate some information about his friends. Mostly he had retained that as Miss Chang being better at Transfiguration than he'd ever been, and a vague note that maybe someday she'd want to be an animagus. "They're friends."

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MJ made this!

"Oh," Ford said, wrinkling his brow. He had not realized that Miss Chang and Cash's wife could have been friends, though he probably should have given their proximity in age. While ostensibly that was fine, it did worry him somewhat. Connections complicated things, and when things were complicated it was harder to stick to a lie, and the whole premise of his acquaintance with Miss Chang in the first place was a lie. Not that he was worried about Cash finding out anything about him, obviously, but it just made the whole thing seem a little more tenuous.

"I should have guessed that, probably," he admitted, and frowned at the stain on Cash's elbow. "They would've been at Hogwarts together, too. Same year as my sister." Why had Clementine's peers suddenly become the most relevant people in society? That was properly disorienting.

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Set by Lady!