March 25th, 1891 - Ben's Garden

Art usually wasn't in Irvingly this early; Quidditch practices didn't start until later in the day, and he would much rather spend the mornings talking about the birds in the window with Gwenog than doing anything in the realm of productivity. But if he was going to shove everything he needed to do into today — practice, write to Selwyn, go to the casino, ensure that things were in order for getting to Ireland in the morning — then he was going to have to come here early, (for some definition of early) and ensure they had a plan for the duel tomorrow.

He still didn't think he was capable of this — Art would practically rather be dueling Macmillan himself than setting up the rules for it, because he was sure he would forget something and then they'd really be fucked — but it was too late to back out, now, unless he could get Ben to call it off. So he'd sent a quick letter that he was coming early and he'd made it over, apparating into Ben's backyard rather than dealing with the floo, because a minor crime felt pretty low-scale at this point. He was too tired to really be thinking about it; between the money he owed the boxing venue and the duel itself Art wasn't sleeping well, and he didn't think he'd be able to actually rest until, maybe, next week. And that was if he was actually able to make the money back.

"Hey," Art said; he was leaning against a tree in Ben's garden, having never even made an attempt at going in Melody's house today. "I talked to Emrys Selwyn last night, there's just a couple things before it's all — ready."

---

The following 1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post:1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post
   Reuben Crouch

---

set by MJ <3

Ben had the presence of mind to tell Jewell he couldn't work today, which was good. He'd been in a daze all day, more going through the motion of being a person than feeling it. He didn't know what had happened, or when exactly things had changed. This wasn't a big deal. This wasn't supposed to be a big deal. He'd told Aldous it wasn't, he'd told Elliott's mother it wasn't. Just a little blood, maybe some broken bones. Nothing he couldn't handle, and nothing he hadn't dealt with before. This wasn't a big deal, it wasn't going to be a big deal, and yet he was still... absent in his own body, for whatever reason.

He wandered out into the garden when he heard the crack of apparition, and was mildly surprised by Art's greeting. Obviously he'd known this had to be about the duel, but he hadn't really conceptualized what there would be to talk about. He should have known this, of course, because Ben had been a second before. He'd done this, and he knew the routine. Still.

"Uh, yeah, alright," he said, finding a tree near Art's and mimicking his stance. Mirroring someone else's body language felt easier than having to exist in his own right. "What things?"

The following 1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post:1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post
   Arthur Pettigrew

---

MJ made this <3

"We talked about, um — non-lethal spells, just to first blood, all that," Art said, like it was a checklist he was ticking off, that would get them to the conclusion of their Friday mornings where no one died or was, even, very injured. They were now close enough to the duel that things felt real, and Art felt so wrung-out by it already — the risk of it had all seemed fine a week and a half ago when Ben first mentioned it, but now...

"But Selwyn thought that we should limit the spells to a list of whatever, and I wanted to talk to you about it," Art said.

---

The following 1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post:1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post
   Reuben Crouch

---

set by MJ <3

Ben watched Art rather blankly, trying to make sense of what he was saying. It should have made sense; Ben had been a second before. He knew how these things went. There was nothing surprising in this, was there? Still, he couldn't seem to make his mind grab it.

"A list," he repeated, his voice sounding slow and dull even to his own ears. Trying to shake himself out of it, he pressed on, "Yeah. Yeah, alright. A list. Let's —"

Did Ben have to come up with this list? Did Art have a list he was just going to present to him? Why did this sound like something he'd never encountered before in his life when it must have been common practice, must have even been a thing that he had dealt with before?

He looked up at the clouds above them and tried to remember what spells he even knew that would draw first blood. Maybe it was good they were making a list, because if this was how his head was going to feel tomorrow for the duel, then fuck. Maybe victory over Macmillan wasn't quite as assured as he'd led everyone to believe.

The following 1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post:1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post
   Arthur Pettigrew

---

MJ made this <3

Ben's response was so slow that Art was shaken out of his own little cloud of mental exhaustion, and his gaze flashed to Ben's face. Art frowned; he should have come here earlier. Everything had seemed fine in the letters, like the duel would just happen and things would be okay after, but Ben wasn't a person who sounded like this, normally — Ben was a person who knew things, like offensive spells, and how to second, and all these things Art was currently fumbling with.

This wasn't good, if they were going to Ireland tomorrow.

"Ben," Art said, knowing the answer before he even asked, "Are you alright?"

---

The following 1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post:1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post
   Reuben Crouch

---

set by MJ <3

Once again, Art's words seemed to sink in to his brain half a second after he'd actually said them. Ben looked at Art for a second, then shrugged the way he sometimes did when he was about to make a joke. "Yeah," he said, with a quick twist of his mouth to indicate a smile. It looked like all the right things, in short, except that it had come a second too late, and Art would have noticed. Probably anyone would have noticed, but especially Art, and it was stupid to try and lie to Art about this because he wanted to look confident and collected before the duel tomorrow when he wasn't going to be fooling his friend anyway.

So he let it slip. His expression fell, and he shook his head. "No."

The following 1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post:1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post
   Arthur Pettigrew

---

MJ made this <3

Art pushed himself away from the tree trunk and took a few steps towards Ben, closing the gap between them. He hesitated for a second, unsure if this was what Ben would want — he could not tell if this was the right thing to do and given how everything else was going it probably wasn't — but laid one hand on Ben's shoulder, gave it an experimental squeeze.

"We don't have to do this," Art said, because they didn't — they could back out and let Macmillan be a creep and move on, and if part of him was thinking about Selwyn's offer, well, that wasn't the only reason they had to call off the duel.

---

The following 1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post:1 user Likes Arthur Pettigrew's post
   Reuben Crouch

---

set by MJ <3

Art had grabbed his shoulder, and Ben was reminded of the way Elliott's mother had kept reaching out to touch him at critical moments during their interaction earlier that week. This was like that, sort of, like a grounding or calming touch, except Ben wasn't panicking now the way he had been on Tuesday night. Well, he was panicking, but it wasn't the same — a constant steady hum of background noise instead of the crescendo of an orchestra. Ben reached up and touched Art's wrist just briefly, as though acknowledging that he existed and was here, then ran his hand through his hair.

"I do," he replied, shaking his head. (I, not we, though he wasn't really thinking about the language shift). "I promised my sister. I told her I'd take care of it. If it was just — if it was just a thing he'd said then —" Ben left the sentence unfinished. If it had just been a throwaway comment meant to provoke him, he would have called it off already. He probably still would have challenged him, because he didn't want Macmillan thinking he could say that sort of thing about a respectable married woman without consequences — certainly not about Ben's sister without consequence — but they wouldn't have had to go through with it. Once he'd had his conversation with Nova yesterday, though, and he'd seen how panicked she was at just the mention of Elmer Macmillan's name, he'd known he couldn't back out.

"She's terrified," he admitted, looking up at Art for the first time since he'd closed the distance between them. "I don't know what happened with them, but — but it's not just a thing he said, there's something to it, and I can't — I can't let him ruin my sister."

The following 1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post:1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post
   Arthur Pettigrew

---

MJ made this <3

Art was hopeful, for a second, that Ben would let him call it off — but then Ben said he promised, and for all that Ben's sister did not really matter to Art in the scheme of things, that mattered, Ben had promised, it was about her honor. Fuck. Art should have taken Selwyn's bribe, should have promised to lie, should have — never brought up Macmillan to Ben in a letter in the first place.

He couldn't let Ben duel when Ben looked like this, but how the fuck was he supposed to stop him? He couldn't, not when November Crouch was at risk of ruin, not when there was something real to this stupid flirtation, not when he couldn't get his head on straight long enough to stop ruining his own life. There had to be a way out, but Art couldn't see it — or, what he was thinking of was nearly as terrifying as the duel itself.

"What do you need me to do?" Art asked, a little desperate; he was at the end of his rope but he could manage this, surely, whatever needed to happen, whatever Ben needed him to be. He could write to Valerian or he could find another healer or he could — he could find some way to prevent Macmillan from getting to Ireland, surely, for all that that was nearly as frightening of a prospect as the rest of it.

---

  

---

set by MJ <3

What did Ben need? A time turner, really. He needed to go back and prevent Macmillan from ever meeting this sister, or talk some sense into her before she'd married someone while apparently believing herself to be in love with someone else, or at the very least go back far enough to prevent himself from hearing about it. He needed to go back to a place and time when this duel wasn't an inevitability, because Ben wasn't okay and he couldn't handle this but he didn't have options now. All of that was all well beyond Art's capabilities, though. They were here, this was happening, and there was no future Ben could imagine where it didn't happen, regardless of whether or not he was prepared to deal with it, because November's whole future might be at stake. Ben wasn't going to let someone ruin his little sister when he could have stopped it.

"I don't —" he started, but caught himself. He'd almost said I don't know, but that wasn't something he could say — that wasn't fair to put on Art, because this wasn't Art's shit to deal with. It was Ben's duel, it was Ben's sister, and he needed to pull himself together enough to get through it. Art was his best friend and he could ask him for a lot, but he couldn't ask him to do that part on Ben's behalf — he just had to pull his shit together.

"Just — give me a second," Ben said, before forcing himself to take a deep breath. He closed his eyes briefly and pressed his hand to his forehead, as though the physical pressure might help jog him back to functionality. "It's alright," he said, with his eyes still closed, then opened them as he continued. "I'm alright. I can do this. It'll be fine." Was he trying to convince Art, or himself? It didn't matter; his voice had the clarity and certainty it had lacked a moment ago. He had pushed the constant tide of panic down to a manageable level, to the point where he almost didn't notice it ringing in the back of his brain for a moment.

"To first blood, right?" he said, trying to ride this wave of pseudo-confidence through as long as he could without knowing how long it would last. "That's easy. I can do that. How many do we need, for this list? Blasting curse, that's one," he continued, without waiting for an answer. "Arrow jinx. A slasher spell. I can do this. And those are all — just a shield charm in response, all of those would be fine with just a shield charm. That's no big deal. I can do this."

The following 2 users Like Reuben Crouch's post:2 users Like Reuben Crouch's post
   Arthur Pettigrew, Melody Crouch

---

MJ made this <3

Ben sounded confident, but it was hard for Art to believe him when he'd sounded so fucked up just a moment before — Art took a step back anyways, as if to give Ben space for the first time since he'd admitted that things weren't alright. Ben couldn't just be fine now, because — well, Arthur didn't feel fine, and he wasn't sure he believed that Ben could just feel fine again right away, because if he could then, well, what the fuck was wrong with Arthur.

"Five, but - none of those are going to kill anyone, right?" Art said, audibly nervous - he and Selwyn had very much decided that no one was going to die. And no one was going to die; the thread Art was hanging on by would definitely snap if Ben died, he would have to find a way to get them out of this if it was an actual risk. But — was there a way out of this? Or had they all just committed to it, and now they were pulled along by the magnetism of the choices they'd made, in the same way that the casino's gravity kept dragging Arthur towards it.

---

The following 2 users Like Arthur Pettigrew's post:2 users Like Arthur Pettigrew's post
   Melody Crouch, Reuben Crouch

---

set by MJ <3

"Five," Ben repeated, because he was thinking out loud now. He had pushed this panic down but it was as though doing that had taken all of his internal mental capacity, so anything else he was processing had to be done verbally or it wouldn't happen at all. "Five, and we've got three already, so — yeah, we can do that. And no, they're — they're not going to kill anyone," he agreed. "First blood. You said first blood. And I mean — maybe you could kill someone with a slasher or an arrow if you were trying, but if we're just — if it's just first blood, that'll be fine. We'll just — you know, we'll aim for stuff that's not essential," he said vaguely. "And there'll be shield charms, so it's not like — yeah, it'll be fine. We'll be fine. Just first blood."

Would a bit of blood be enough to dissuade Macmillan from whatever was going on with Ben's sister, if it had already been going on for years? Maybe, or maybe not, but Ben couldn't stop to examine that at the moment. He couldn't kill someone tomorrow, and he certainly couldn't die. He just wanted to scare him off — if not forever than at least long enough for Nova to come to her senses and put an end to this, to work through her infatuation with him and see that this was reckless and stupid. Blood was good enough for that, surely.

"He might not even hit me," Ben pointed out. "He's probably a terrible shot. So I'll throw a few hexes, he'll block a few, he'll bleed a bit. That's all. I can do this."

  

---

MJ made this <3

There was some version of himself, Art thought, that would know exactly what to say to get them out of this: some version of Arthur that would have been able to lie convincingly about Macmillan's promises, or some version which would know what to say to talk Ben out of this, to convince him that November would be fine regardless. Art knew this version existed but could not conjure it.

"You can do this," Art echoed, although it was more to bolster his own nerves than it was to bolster Ben's, "Honestly, he might not even show up. There's that curse that makes objects attack people, oppugno, maybe?" Macmillan wouldn't show up or he would and Ben would win, and Arthur would show up and be on time and get Ben there and would not have to do any real seconding, and maybe they would be able to get drinks before they came home.

"I can ask my cousin, about healing," he added, the opportunity to be useful popping into his head like a salve.

---

  

---

set by MJ <3

Ben nodded at the suggestion, though attacking objects was more than he really wanted to deal with on the flip side. The first three spells were easy to counter, but a well-cast oppugno could be problematic — but it probably wouldn't be well-cast. They were banking on Macmillan not being much good at offensive magic, or at least not half as good as Ben was at defense. This was going to be fine, they could do this. Ben could do this.

Then Art mentioned the healer, and it was like Ben's brain skipped for a second. This was just what people did when arranging duels, and he knew that. It didn't mean anything, having a healer around. It was just a formality, just in case, and nothing was going to happen. Still.

"That's good," he said, which it was. Someone they knew would have been ideal, because they needed someone who wouldn't turn them in to the authorities no matter what the outcome of the duel was, and if they just hired someone with vague healing credentials they found on the street there was no guarantee of that. If Art thought they'd be game for it, that was good, too, because this was a little too far beyond general harmless mischief for Ben to feel comfortable asking Farley to do it, since he was the head of a ward and everything and presumably would get into a whole mess of trouble if anyone found out. So this was objectively a good idea, and suggesting things like this was Art's job — he was Ben's second and he was being a good second, making sure things like this were taken care of — but still.

"If, ah —" he started, glancing at Art almost sheepishly and then looking down at a patch of grass in the garden. "If it doesn't go well — uhm, I'm going to leave a note here at the house, for Aldous, just in case, but — but if you could —" he hesitated, bit the inside of his lip briefly, then continued. "— Aldous doesn't know about Elliott, so if you could... if you could tell Elliott's mother. She doesn't need anything from me, he doesn't, but — but I just — I think it'd be better if she didn't hear it through the paper."

The following 1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post:1 user Likes Reuben Crouch's post
   Dionisia Fisk

---

MJ made this <3

No, no Art could not do that, because if Ben died he would not be coming back to Scotland tomorrow. The realization struck him right in the chest, more a fact than a decision — he had been close to it for months, now, cut and run, and it was only Desdemona and Gwenog that kept him in Hogsmeade. But. But if Ben died, Art was going to leave — anything else felt unthinkable. He could not create the illusion of being a decent husband and father if that happened. The illusion would crumple like a puppet with the strings cut; it would be better for them both if they did not have to deal with him in that reality.

(Would it be better if they didn't have to deal with him at all? Art knew he was ruining his own life, with everything, but he was ruining theirs, too. Maybe it was better if he just ran now, regardless.)

He swallowed before replying, looked down at Ben's shoes. "Yeah, of course," he said, because what was he going to do, let everything spill out of him the day before a duel? "Yeah, how do I — how do I get in touch with her?"

---

The following 2 users Like Arthur Pettigrew's post:2 users Like Arthur Pettigrew's post
   Dionisia Fisk, Reuben Crouch

---

set by MJ <3

Relief seeped through him at Art's answer. He hadn't really expected him to say no, but it was something to have gotten it out there, all the same. One more thing that he could push off of the pile of things he had to think about. It wouldn't go away, of course, not really, but it could become part of that background noise that he was holding back instead of something he had to consciously think about and worry about. It could just wait, until the next time it swelled up and overwhelmed him along with everything else.

"Her name's Dionisia Fisk," he said, which was maybe not something he ought to share with Art — he hadn't cleared it with her, anyway, and it was a little incriminating for a stranger to know that sort of thing about her. Art would need to know if he was going to tell her, though, and Ben was sure she would have wanted to hear about it from a real person instead of from the newspaper. "You could just write her. That's probably easier. She — ah, she already knows about the duel," he admitted, a little sheepish. Dionisia knew, but Melody didn't, which was probably wrong. He hadn't been planning to tell Dionisia, though; it had just sort of come out in the hallway because he couldn't think of any way to get out of the conversation without telling her, and he — hadn't exactly been in the best state of mind that night, anyway. Melody, on the other hand, he'd been intentionally avoiding since this issue of the duel had come up. Even weak as she was, he thought she would guess that something was wrong with him, and if she questioned him the same way Dionisia had and it just came out he didn't know how she would react. And if she asked him, the way Dionisia had asked him, not to do it... he didn't know what he would do. Because he couldn't let Macmillan ruin his sister's life, and he couldn't trust that November would protect herself when she was so fragile and naive, but he also didn't think that he could look Melody in the eyes and tell her that yes, he was going through with this even though there was a chance their child might grow up fatherless because of it.

That wasn't going to happen. He was going to be fine. No one was dying at this duel tomorrow. Ben, especially, was not dying at this duel tomorrow.

"Is he a good healer?" he asked, his voice sounding like it was coming from somewhere far away instead of from him. "Your cousin?"

  

---

MJ made this <3