27 May 1894 — Tycho's House, Wellingtonshire

Somewhere past three in the morning, after the family had returned from the Hogwarts Coming Out Ball and various stories had been exchanged with Mama and Grace, after the final nightcap with Noble, after Ford was confident his wife and the rest of the family had retired to their rooms for good, he stole out to the garden. He was still dressed from the ball, except for having loosened some things that would have been suspicious otherwise; he didn't want anyone to know he was planning on going out tonight, but he'd been planning it for the better part of six hours, ever since Tycho had purposefully brushed past him at the ball. He didn't have much to say, but what he did want to say couldn't be appropriately conveyed in a letter, he didn't think — at any rate, he thought Tycho would take him more seriously in person. So he apparated to Ty's bedroom. The curtains were open and it was a clear night, so the room was bathed in moonlight; it took only a second for his eyes to adjust and land on Tycho's figure on the bed.

"Hey," Ford started. His tone was abrupt; he crossed his arms over his chest. "Stop it."

Tycho didn't respond. Ford glowered at him a moment before his eyes further adjusted to the light level in the room and he realized Tycho hadn't responded because he was very definitely asleep. This made Ford pause, posture deflating and frown softening. He had been imagining this conversation for several hours and he had never imagined a version of it where Tycho was... sleeping. He didn't want to wake him — that seemed invasive in a way that apparating directly into his bedroom, somehow, did not. But he also didn't want to go home without having communicated something. Maybe he ought to leave a note...? Perhaps the fact that he had been here in person, had hand-delivered the missive as it were, would lend it some of the gravitas of an in-person communication, compared to a letter sent by post?

Uncertainly, Ford started across the room towards Tycho's writing desk. The room was more untidy than usual — Ty had servants, but if he'd been spending more time locked away in his room than usual it made sense that they wouldn't have intruded to clean around him. He wasn't taking care of himself, Ford surmised — little surprise there. He glanced back at Tycho on the bed, eyes lingering on his close-cropped hair (what possessed him?) — a beat too long, evidently, because he'd been looking at Ty and not at where he was placing his feet and was sent sprawling when his toe caught on a discarded piece of clothing. His knee knocked into a piece of furniture on his way down and Ford sucked in a breath, then swore.

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Tycho Dodonus

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   Elias Grimstone

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Set by Lady!

Tycho had danced a few times at the Coming Out Ball and had partaken in the refreshments made available to them. He had then come home and drunk some more which led to him passing out in his own bed. So by three in the morning, he was dead asleep, his suit jacket on the floor and his dress shirt undone. He had abandoned his trousers on the floor as well but still had the silk stockings he had been wearing underneath them on. His silky secret from the rest of the world. He was covered with a blanket.

He woke with a start when he heard a sort of thud and swearing. "What the," he mumbled as he sat up and let his blanket fall to the floor as he stared at Ford. Who was also on his floor. "Oh, I must be hallucinating again," he muttered to himself as he pushed some things that were on the side of his bed aside to fish out a half-emptied bottle of scotch.

He took a chug of it as he waited for what must surely be a figment of his imagination to fade away like it usually did once he fully woke up.

  

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

Ford was trying to kick a pair of trousers off the toe of his shoe when he heard Ty stir from the bed. He froze — reflex from robbing houses, maybe, but a poorly placed one here as there was no way staying still was going to make Tycho not notice him... and he'd been coming over expressly to confront him, anyway, so there was no reason to try and avoid being noticed. Still, he felt sheepish at being found in Ty's room while he was asleep, and at having fallen to the floor and being tangled up in a pair of trousers.

He felt sheepish for a second, anyway; the feeling could not survive the experience of watching Tycho dig through clutter by his bed to produce a half-finished bottle of alcohol. "Not a hallucination," he said in a clipped tone, finally freeing himself of the pants and tossing them aside so he could climb to his feet. "I wish. Are you drinking in bed?" He asked, tone at first incredulous — but it did fit the scene, didn't it? The room a mess, his curls cut off, loitering over Ford's shoulder at balls to hear what he was saying to his wife. He had probably been drunk when he fell asleep; he was wearing half his clothes and no nightshirt. What a mess.

Ford sighed. He shook his head but wasn't sure what to say, so he said nothing. Instead he turned his attention to the room and started to gather up discarded clothes in his arms from the floor.

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Set by Lady!

The apparition spoke and Tycho blinked at him for a moment. "No, I'm drinking on the edge of my bed," Tycho snarked as he took another healthy swig. He watched in mild bemusement as Ford started gathering up his discarded clothes from the floor.

"For the love of Hades, what are you doing?" Tycho asked, very much not thinking Ford had come to his room in the dead of night just to tidy up his room and he didn't look like he had come to fall into his bed either (much as that would be preferred). Remembering what else was probably discarded on the floor, he grabbed his wand and non-verbally summoned some of his discarded half written poetry that were in clumped balls of parchment on the floor. Given his state, he didn't get all of them.

  

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

"Cleaning," Ford snapped, though this was probably obvious. Probably when Tycho asked what he was doing what he meant to ask was why. Because I care about you too much to see you like this, he could have said. Because I don't want this to be my fault. Because you're hurt and I want to take care of you. That was really the crux of it; even when he'd been imagining this conversation before he arrived, before he'd seen the state of the room. He'd been planning to come over here and tell Tycho he couldn't stand within earshot of Ford at parties anymore, not for Ford's sake but for Ty's; it wasn't going to help anything or make him feel any better and it wouldn't lead him to heal.

Ford tossed the clothing into the corner and turned his attention towards the litter of balled up papers that had swirled around his feet (Tycho's half hearted attempt at helping?). He assumed these were probably meant to be discarded (the wastebasket is only five feet away, Ty, honestly) but he recognized the scribble of Ty's handwriting on one as he picked it up. "You're writing again?"

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Set by Lady!

This was starting to feel bizarrely surreal, even for him. Which honestly was saying something. "No, I mean. I doubt you came here to wake me up just to do my housekeeping." Even so, now that it was more obvious that Ford was really here, Tycho drank in the sight of him like a dying man coming across an oasis in the desert.

At least until Ford picked one of the discarded balled up papers.

He unsteadily got to his feet and lurched forward in an attempt to stop the other from reading. "What do you mean 'again'? I'm always writing, it is to me what breathing is to you." Using his feet, he moved the rest that was on the floor away from Fords reach. He didn't see the point in Ford seeing the poetry full of confusion, love, heartbreak and longing - and with random unrelated visions mixed in. For the first time in probably their entire acquaintance, he did not want Ford seeing his lyrically expressed emotions and thoughts.

  

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

Ty staggered to his feet and Ford instinctively took half a step closer to him, in case Ty stumbled and needed someone to catch him. "I thought you said you stopped after I..." he started, then shrugged instead of finishing the sentence. Maybe he was misremembering; he knew he had told Tycho he couldn't read poetry anymore, but now he didn't actually remember exactly what Tycho had said in response. He supposed it didn't matter; he couldn't really take Tycho writing poetry as a sign of stability if the only evidence he had of it were discarded scraps of paper. Scraps he clearly didn't want Ford to see, if his haphazard attempt to scoop them away with his foot was any indication. Ford frowned.

"Sit down," he said, tone gentler but still firm. Less a suggestion than a directive. He reached out for Ty's elbow so that he could try to guide him back down towards the bed. "I won't read them. Just tell me if you want them on your desk or in the bin."

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Set by Lady!

"Huh?" He mumbled as Ford cut himself off from whatever he had been about to say. Ford was frowning. Why was everything Ford did so cute? But he also did not want Ford to frown, it always felt like a gut punch when he saw that expression on Fords face.

He eyed Ford suspiciously for a moment before doing as told. "On the desk. No, wait. Why are you here playing at being my maid?" He asked as he began rolling one stocking down his leg with the errant thought that he should get into some actual pajamas.

  

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

Ford shrugged emphatically at the question. "Your maid doesn't seem to be doing a very good job of it," he pointed out, though he suspected the state of the room was far more Tycho's fault than any of his staff's. Ford bent to collect the balls of paper, wondering how he was going to flatten them out into a stack while keeping his promise not to read them, until he noticed movement from the bed out of the corner of his eye. He hesitated, feeling the hair on the back of his arms and neck stand on edge. He didn't look over at Ty directly, but he was very much aware of the progress of Ty's hand on the stocking.

"Could you — not undress while I'm here, please?" he asked, for the first time since arrival not sounding annoyed. Undress any more, he should have said, because Tycho was already at least half undressed — but seeing his skin as a static object and watching him slowly revealing more of it felt qualitatively different.

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Set by Lady!

"She does her best," he responded automatically in defense of his household staff. They were discreet and loyal which sometimes was more important than if they dusted his room. Tycho kept taking his one stocking off and tossed it aside.

He snorted at his ex-lovers request. "Why? Am I too sexy to resist?" He asked in a purposely sultry tone as he lay back in a seductive manner and began taking the other one off in a much more sensual manner than he had the first. If he had been sober, he might have obeyed but he was not. So here he was, Tycho-ing it up.

  

Ford flushed. This was too familiar of a position to find himself in. In fact, he had probably been in this exact position before — on his knees at the foot of Tycho's bed, Ty leaning back with his legs spread. The memory made it hard to breath. Ford forced his attention back down to the ground and swept the papers up quickly, carelessly, and sprung back to his feet. He couldn't — they couldn't. He'd told Tycho that the last time, and he had even more conviction now — because when they'd given in before it hadn't helped anything, it had only left him feeling worse once it was over. And from the look of things he was fairly certain Tycho felt the same — he'd cut his hair and was keeping a bottle of scotch within arm's reach of his bed, he wasn't doing well.

He dumped the crumpled papers on the desk but didn't bother to straighten them out like he'd been planning to. Instead he spun on his heel, facing Tycho just long enough to pluck the bottle of scotch off the bedside table. "I'm going to put this in your kitchen," he announced, and headed — without looking at Ty — for the door.

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Set by Lady!

Tycho could not see Fords flush with just the moonlight as lighting which was probably a good thing. He definitely would not have left it alone otherwise. He cast the last of his stockings aside and watched as Ford sprung up to his feet. He smirked as it became obvious that ford was not unaffected.

He stood and pulled his nightrobe around his shoulders before following after Ford. He sped up to catch up to the other as Ford headed for his kitchen, wrapping his arms around the other from behind. "In the next life, in the future I have seen will happen for people like us someday, promise that I will be the one you marry."

  

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

Ford had been expecting that leaving the room would give him at least a moment of respite, time to compose himself before he faced off with Tycho again. He honestly hadn't been expecting that Tycho would be agile enough to follow him, given how he'd swayed when he stood up the last time — but maybe that had been a mix of intoxication and lingering sleep, and he'd shaken off the later by now. Ford let out a heavy breath as he heard Tycho coming up behind him in the hallway, bracing himself — he seemed to know that Ty was planning to throw himself around Ford's shoulders even before it happened.

He stopped walking and took a breath in. He couldn't keep moving with Ty wrapped around him, at least not without causing one or both of them to end up on the floor. "People only get one life, Ty." And this was the one he was stuck with.

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Set by Lady!

Tycho was hurt deeply by Fords words. In a deep, visceral way that even he didn't understand. Even so, he kept his hold on Ford though involuntarily loosened it a bit. "How about you don't immediately shoot down my deepest personal beliefs and just listen? It will be a world where we can dance publicly instead of in secret - it won't be perfect but life never is. It would be better than this."

  

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

Ford could tell Tycho was upset by his tone, but what did Ty want from him? Pretending they lived in some future that might or might not ever exist wasn't going to change anything they were going through now. They'd done their share of wishful thinking during the weeks between when Ford had become engaged and when he'd married: if only this, what if that, if we could... but none of it was real. They couldn't do any of the things they'd talked about, no matter what they said, no matter what they wanted. And yes, Tycho saw the future sometimes, but he was also tired and drunk and obviously hurting — Ford was disinclined to take his words as gospel truth.

"Okay, fine, it would be better than this," he said; offered like an olive branch. "But this is what we have. We live here. Now. We're neck-deep in shit, but we've just got to make the best of it."

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Set by Lady!

"And how are we supposed to make the best of it? By you trying to find some semblance of happiness with your wife and trying to forget I exist?" Tycho asked. He was picking a fight but he couldn't help it. Any passion was good, any reason for Ford to be here even if it was just to glare at him.

  

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