April 3rd, 1891 — Black's

The word for how Ford was feeling was restless, he had decided, which made sitting at home with his siblings all night impossible. He might have managed chaperoning Verity somewhere if they'd had anywhere to go, but the social calendar was still a little lean despite the arrival of April. Half of high society was out on a cruise ship, and the other half had postponed their events until the ship was scheduled to return so that their guest lists weren't so terribly affected, which meant there was little to do either this weekend or the next weekend. Normally that wouldn't have bothered Ford in the slightest — he preferred quiet nights to big parties, anyway — but he'd lost his book to the Black Lake that morning, and he and Noble still weren't talking, so his two most frequent evening activities were unavailable. And he needed something to distract him after this week — after Dorian Fisk and after the not-very-helpful conversation with Leonid Fisk two days later. He couldn't just sit around replaying the moment in his head all night — or at least, if he was going to do that, he couldn't do it at home surrounded by his siblings, because if any of them noticed him daydreaming and asked what was on his mind he was probably just going to die rather than being able to answer them.

So he'd headed out to Black's because it was really the only place left to go. He hadn't had high hopes of seeing anyone familiar (the club was more useful on weekdays, he felt; people tended to come here to unwind after work on nights there were no events scheduled, so it was busiest in the middle of the week) but shortly after arriving he noted Macnair. Ford hadn't seen him since the boggart last week (could that really have been only last week? It seemed an age ago), and he might not have approached him now since they were hardly close. Macnair was the only person Ford could see right away that he was even passingly familiar with, though, and risking conversation with him (which might have been presumptuous, after sharing such an unexpectedly personal and intimate moment with him last week) was preferable to just sitting alone with his thoughts somewhere in a secluded corner.

There was already a bottle of red wine on Macnair's table, so Ford decided to head that way instead of the bar. That was certainly presumptuous, but they'd shared a bottle last time they'd seen each other in the club, so maybe Macnair would offer again. If he didn't, Ford could go buy himself a drink in a moment, and it would be easy to pass it off like he’d just wanted to greet the other man first. Actually, this was an excellent plan, Ford reflected, because if Macnair obviously didn't want to talk to him he had a built in escape route; he could go to the bar and not return to the table afterwards.

"You look pleased with yourself," he observed as he approached the table. "Good news this week? Or are you sleeping better without a boggart overhead?" Ford wouldn't have mentioned the boggart if Macnair hadn't looked to be in such high spirits, but as it was it was hard to reconcile the man sat before him with the one who'd trembled in his attic a week earlier.

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Valerian Macnair

  

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Set by Lady!

Nearly three glasses of wine in just over an hour into his time at the club and he was already feeling the effects. It was a sweet wine, and Valerian had always struggled not to indulge; the quality, compounded with the good news at the month's end, made it all more difficult not to indulge. He still had not heard from his cousin (although he supposed he ought to start calling her his fiancée now) about her meeting with Macmillan, he'd easily decided he had nothing to fear. She had kept her word to let him know before accepting Macmillan's proposal, and that had merely been a courtesy. He could not imagine her changing her mind after making an agreement to marry him, a more serious promise than the one she'd made before.

And so all was well in his little world. He'd won the duel, restored his honor, was owed a life debt to Macmillan (which might come in handy if the man reacted as poorly to the news as he expected), and now in his mother's eyes he could do no wrong. The club provided just the atmosphere he needed to celebrate; the bartender was always so jovial and the pianist provided the perfect ambience with its calming yet upbeat melodies.

"Another one down," he muttered to himself, sitting up from his laid-back position in his chair to place the glass on the table. He grabbed the neck of the bottle and held it out in front of him; it was a French wine, and one he hadn't seen before, and he took a mental note of the name that would surely be lost to him by the time he finished. Just as he moved to uncork the lid he caught sight of Greengrass approaching, and in his slightly inebriated state he couldn't help but stare a him for a second too long.

"You'd be pleased, too, if you had a glass of this," he said smoothly, lifting the bottle up slightly before he filled his glass again. He watched the glass (which - was it taller than the one he'd used last time? That would explain it.) fill up and then turned back to Greengrass as if ready to pour him one, too, only to realize the man wasn't carrying a glass of his own. He cocked a brow, a smile sliding a little too easy onto his lips, and he motioned with his head towards the bar. "You should probably grab one before I change my mind. Easier to talk when we've both got one." His smile widened ever so slightly, and Valerian might have added something else had another patron not walked into his field of view, reminding him that this was a very public place—and that Greengrass, as friendly and kind as he seemed, was still a stranger in many ways.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Ford had been right on both counts, it seemed: he was in an exceptionally good mood, and he was willing to share his wine. Ford had come to the club in hopes of conversation but had not felt assured of it, and he hasn't expected anyone to offer him free drinks, so this was a pleasant turn of events indeed. "I only just arrived," he explained with an easy smile, before heading towards the bar to retrieve an empty glass.

He was a little pleased that Macnair was still interested in his company, after the boggart, but he probably shouldn't have been. They were in the club and Macnair was in a good mood and he’d already had part of a bottle of wine, which probably had more to do with it than anything intrinsic to Ford. It was just the atmosphere; it was the right moment to invite people in for conversations and drinks.

"Did you have something particular you wanted to talk about?" he asked lightly as he took a seat in a nearby armchair and offered Macnair his empty glass. He'd said it would be easier to talk if they were both drinking, and that was particularly true of certain conversational topics, though Ford could not imagine any of them were likely to come up during a casual night in the club. "Or do you only talk to people who are drinking as a general rule?"

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Set by Lady!

Valerian's eyed Greengrass' backside as the man went off in search of a glass, something he knew he shouldn't be doing but something that was also easy to dismiss as the smile remained on his face. Even three drinks in he was aware of how careful he had to be, but it wasn't like this was the first time he'd gotten tipsy around men—it was, however, the first time he'd gotten tipsy around Greengrass, and usually the men he drank with were one he'd known for so long that even under the influence he couldn't bring himself to view them in any way other than platonically.

His gaze dropped back to the wine bottle as Greengrass turned and began his walk back towards him, and he tried to think about what he wanted to say. 'Hey, I'm getting married,' wasn't the sort of thing he could just spring on someone, especially when half of his own family was not yet aware, and talking about Tatiana was not exactly something he wanted to do with a man whose attractiveness he'd considered on more than one occasion.

"Oh, certainly the latter," he teased as Greengrass fell into the chair beside him. Valerian leaned back and folded one leg over his lap, his head craned to the side so he could see his face. He poured his glass with care, balancing his own on the spot where his folded leg met his lap, and then passed it to him. "No, I jest—but I've never enjoyed drinking while talking to someone who isn't. I'm sure you know how that is."

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There was something in the way that he leaned back and crossed his legs that was so effortlessly confident, and it made Ford's stomach flip. He felt a little unworthy to even be sitting here in the presence of this other man, just as he had felt the first time they'd spoken. The tables had turned a bit in Macnair's attic, but now it seemed they were right back to where they'd been before. Maybe it was the club that brought this out in Macnair, or maybe he had gotten over whatever had spooked him so much about the boggart, or maybe he just didn't let things that bothered him linger on his shoulders. Whatever it was, there was certainly no trace of fear or hesitation in him now.

"Yeah, I do," Ford agreed as he took the glass from Macnair, though he suspected that they meant very different things by the sentiment. Ford had often found himself aware of and trying to correct a sort of conversational imbalance when it came to alcohol, but he was typically on the other side of the equation. Ford often found himself drinking only because others were, and he didn't want to stand out from the crowd in any meaningful way and draw unnecessary attention to himself — a relic of having been bullied during his earlier Hogwarts years. He couldn't imagine that Macnair would have any trouble being the center of attention, if he wanted to be. In fact, he seemed like the sort who would be so comfortable being looked at that he might not even notice he was the gravitational pull of the entire room.

"Mmm, that's good," Ford commented appreciatively as he took a sip from the glass. This was really good, which meant it was probably expensive. Certainly more expensive than anything that could regularly be found in the Greengrass family liquor cabinet at home, though that wasn't saying much. "Where did this come from?"

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Set by Lady!

He held the bottle by the neck in one hand and took a drink from his glass from the other, probably looking like more of an alcohol enthusiast than he actually was. It was unlike him to indulge in so much so fast, but once he passed a certain point it was difficult not to indulge. He watched as Greengrass tried his first sip, a smile wide on his lips. He felt a little less concerned about his drinking when his drinking slash conversational partner also though it was good enough to drink like juice—and from the look on his face Valerian thought Greengrass was thinking just that.

"From the Rhône Valley," he read from the bottle, turning it all the way around to get a look at most of the writing, which was written in French. He leaned over and offered it to Greengrass so he could have a look; Valerian knew he would be looking to get a bottle for his own personal collection, and if Greengrass liked it half as much as he did he didn't doubt he'd be thinking the same. "You know what the French say—La vie est trop courte pour boire du mauvais vin." Life is too short to drink bad wine, it meant, and it was a saying that Valerian had heard in the gentleman's club before but had not related to before this moment.

He was so focused on his wine that Valerian had forgotten that he'd intended to have an actual conversation—and probably one about life rather than alcohol. He put his glass down reluctantly and angled himself in his chair so he could better look at Greengrass.

"How's the last week treated you?" he asked. Had it really been only a week since they'd last spoke? So much had happened between then and now, and so much had happened the last time they were in the same room together. "No witch's ganglion giving you a hard time, I hope?" He only felt it was fair to comment on it; Greengrass had mentioned boggarts when he'd first approached.

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Ford leaned in to see the label when Macnair offered, but it was only on pretense. He wasn't going to buy a bottle of this for himself, and he wasn't going to visit the Rhône valley anytime soon, but that was the sort of thing men at Black's might interest themselves in, and if Macnair was inclined to include him in those sorts of comments (either out of good will or genuine ignorance of their difference in social standing), Ford wasn't going to disrupt the illusion. "Nous sommes d'accord," he responded easily — we agree on that — not necessarily because it was true, but because the whole point of speaking French was being able to bandy it about with rich people to pretend he belonged. At any rate, trading superficial remarks in French was easier than tackling Macnair's questions.

The last week had been... interesting. It was dominated, in Ford's mind, by kissing Dorian Fisk, although that hadn't even happened until Wednesday. The last week included Easter, having Clem home through the holiday, and (on the subject of witch's ganglion) his weird conversation with Noble in his workshop. All of that had been before Dorian Fisk; after, he'd thought of almost nothing else. Obviously he was not going to talk about that (any of it, not just the bit with Fisk) to Macnair, so what was he supposed to say to describe his week? And how to respond to the jibe about witch's ganglion? Obviously Ford was not afraid of a plant, and he very briefly considered pointing out to Macnair that it was almost never what the boggart actually showed you that was a problem; it was what it represented, and the mental spiral it could send you down. Saying that, however, would open him up to questions about what witch's ganglion represented, and he couldn't share any of that with Macnair. Maybe he literally couldn't, given how things had gone with Noble... and he wasn't eager to try it out, if that meant risking having to stare at Macnair dumbly, like a fish out of water as he struggled to find words his tongue would form.

He had to say something, though. Maybe if he deflected a bit and kept his tone casual enough, Macnair would lose interest and change the subject before Ford ran into any trouble with things he couldn't say (and witch's ganglion still felt, weirdly, like a safer topic than how his week had gone).

"Your boggart was a resourceful one," he responded, tone light. "I deal with them a lot, for work, and that's the first time one ever turned into a plant. Caught me off guard," he admitted, sitting back slightly in his chair (not because he was comfortable but rather because he wanted to give the illusion of it). "But no, I've not run afoul of any malicious gardens this week, I'm happy to report."

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Set by Lady!

Valerian remembered the boggart encounter better than he would have liked—the initial uncertainty in the attic, the surprise in watching the boggart take on a variety of forms in its attempt to spook Greengrass, and then the plant being the one that stopped him in his tracks the longest. Not to mention his own boggart, which he wasn't sure still existed after the duel's end.

"If you'd like to change that you could always come see my mother's greenhouse. She keeps the most... fascinating plants inside." As the words left his mouth he hoped that Greengrass took that as my mom is a weird, rich old woman who likes to collect strange plants rather than a my mother is probably harboring all your worst nightmares, because both were true in some sense but the latter is something he'd rather not share with someone he was just beginning a friendly acquaintanceship with. "But I'm just teasing you, although the offer stills stands." The corner of his lip slid up again, and he raised a brow—maybe in challenge, maybe because he was just in the mood to smile, or maybe because the alcohol was making him a bit too flirty for his own good. The only upside to that is that most men didn't tend to be very receptive to that.

He took a breath, trying to calm himself down. He suddenly felt a little warm, surely an effect of the liquid in his glass.

"I must say, though, I was surprised by the form the boggart took for me," he said, feeling much more comfortable talking about it now that he was sure his boggart took the form of something else now... say, Tatiana deciding not to marry him after all, just as she had Macmillan. Maybe not, even that, though; there were probably other darker fears hidden deep in the back of his mind that the boggart had not thought to seek out when there was such a glaring one to scare him with. "Seeing myself in a mirror is one thing, but to see a physical manifestation is... something else." She still smiled as he spoke, an indicator that the boggart was not as much a source of fear now than it was the last time they were together.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Ford wasn't actually interested much in plants one way or another, so the comment about the greenhouse might have gone without reaction from him except for the look that followed it. The raised eyebrow, the smile that was almost a smirk — Ford's throat drew tighter and his stomach flipped again. He wasn't sure what it was about that look on Macnair's face, but it certainly made him feel a certain way. Except that wasn't exactly true, was it? Ford did have an inkling of what it was — he just wasn't sure how to put it in words, even internally. But: the offer still stands, with a look like that. They weren't really talking about his mother's greenhouse, were they? Ford moved his wine glass to his mouth less because he wanted a drink and more because he wasn't sure what expression was on his face, and thought it might serve him well to hide behind the glass for a minute while he wrestled with that idea.

One thing popped into his mind, before anything else: if he'd found himself in the exact same situation with Macnair as he had with Fisk this week, where they were alone and had their hands on each other and clothing starting to come off, and Ford said we shouldn't, he didn't think Macnair would have stopped. He didn't seem like the sort to do things by halves; if he wanted something, and it was within his grasp, he would take it. The idea should have made Ford uneasy, he knew, but — it was a little exhilarating, too. Just thinking about it made goosebumps go down his arms.

Macnair had moved on, so Ford didn't have to actually respond to the offer, which was probably for the best. Even now, recognizing it for what it was, he didn't know what he would have said. He knew what he should have said: no. He couldn't be sneaking off to meet attractive men and get into mischief with them, when he really needed to be devoting his attention, time, and energy to his family. He particularly couldn't agree to anything if he wasn't sure Macnair would pull back if Ford had second thoughts. Showing up for something like that would be surrendering himself the moment he arrived, because from that point on it would be up to Macnair how far and how quickly things progressed. That level of uncertainty was dangerous. Ford couldn't have agreed to it, shouldn't have agreed to it — but he also wasn't sure he would have been capable of telling Macnair no if he was looking at him like that when he asked, so he wasn't sure what he would have said.

Boggarts. They were talking about boggarts. Or Macnair was, anyway, and Ford was swallowing to try and clear the dryness in his throat and hoping that he didn't look as distracted as he felt. Macnair spoke rather casually of the boggart, given how much it had shaken him in the moment, but perhaps that shouldn't have been surprising. That same effortless confidence that Ford had noted in him so many times already was showing through again. But — boggarts. Ford could talk about boggarts; he was good at this, and it was a comfortable conversation topic, so he could get through this without making a fool of himself.

"I can only imagine," he agreed, and was pleased to hear that his tone sounded entirely normal despite the fact that he felt hyper-sensitive to every physical sensation at the moment. "It's fairly common for people to see themselves in boggarts, but it's never happened to me."

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   Valerian Macnair

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Set by Lady!

There was a look that crossed Greengrass' face that he was nearly certain he recognized, but without knowing the man well enough and the added haze of his wine making it difficult to make a decision about what to do with it, Valerian was left holding his gaze for another second longer before he recluctantly pulled it away.

And when he did... Merlin he swore he could feel the tingling in the fingertips. That wasn't from the wine, he knew—it was the same sensation he'd felt while wrestling with Macmillan on the floor and after seeing the man's bare chest. He'd even had a similar feeling in his home with Greengrass before the boggart had come out of its hiding spot. It was exciting—and a little scary, but more of the former than the latter, because the look in Greengrass' eyes was not one of unease but of... intrigue. Maybe a little uncertainty. But Valerian had said things in the past to men he'd ended up breaking off an acquaintanceship with solely because of the look in their eyes when he'd pushed the flirting a bit too far, but the look in Greengrass' eyes wasn't the same.

But now there was a bigger question: where to direct that knowledge? What could he do about it, sitting in the club with a full glass of wine that he was not about to waste, even if it meant pushing a little more?

The subject of boggarts was, at the very least, a good distraction while he tried to figure it out.

"Is there some deep, philosophical reason behind that, do you think? You are to boggart expert, if I remember," he said, finding it increasingly more difficult to subdue his smiles—and his flirting. He was itching to get another look out of Greengrass, maybe a blush or a shift. Anything that would give him a sign of where to go with the feelings he wasn't yet sure how to handle.

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   Tatiana Macnair

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Macnair had given Ford the sort of look that he could feel rather than just see, and it sent a little shiver down his spine (though thankfully small enough not to give away how he was feeling, or what he was thinking). He wondered if this was how prey animals felt when they froze at the sight of a predator. He sensed that he was in danger, but was incapable of looking away. When Macnair finally pulled his gaze away Ford was both relieved and a little disappointed — it was dangerous, he supposed, but thrilling too.

He swallowed for the second time in a minute and focused his attention on the sheen of the light on the top of his wine, just to have something else to look at. He should go — this could go nowhere very good, and it could certainly end very poorly — but there was no polite way to make an escape while he still had a full glass of wine in hand. He had to survive that long at the very least, then; once glass of wine. He could manage that. They were still talking about boggarts, which Ford could talk about — although he was a little worried that perhaps this was the same sort of double-speak that he'd engaged in with Fisk and the Quidditch conversation, or a moment ago when Macnair had invited him for a tour of a greenhouse. If there was a double meaning to Macnair's question, Ford hadn't caught on to it yet, but that didn't mean it wasn't there. It had taken hours and a whole separate conversation with Noble for him to realize what Fisk had been getting at when he'd offered to give him Quidditch lessons.

"Well," Ford said deliberately, still looking at his wine. He briefly glanced towards Macnair but was a little afraid to meet his eyes — as thought he expected to be trapped again. Macnair was smiling at him, but Ford didn't let his eyes linger on the other man long enough to know what sort of a smile it was — whether it meant this was a joke Ford was in on or a joke at Ford's expense or genuine curiosity or something else entirely. "I suppose that depends what you mean by deep and philosophical. Everything a boggart does is calculated to get a reaction," he pointed out. "But I think it pulls images from our heads, rather than making them up. Because the manifestations are consistent across different boggarts, a lot of the times. They don't have the variety you'd expect if each boggart was creating it from scratch."

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   Valerian Macnair

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Set by Lady!

Valerian was interested in the boggart, if only because he was still wondering whether or not it would shift into the same image or not, but really he was more interested in listening to Greengrass talk about something he was interested about (and something that Valerian couldn't dream of grasping in his inebriated state). His gaze was directed somewhere off near the bar, but his eyes were glazed over and not focused on anything particular. He listened to the words, but even more than that he listened to Greengrass' voice, soaking up the sound of it to replay in his mind at a later date.

"It would make sense why some boggarts are more detailed than others," he said, considering it but not considering it that deeply. His own boggart was a mere reflection of his own image—an imagine he looked at every day, multiple times a day, in his mirror at home while he got ready for work, dinner, other social commitments, and eventually bed.

Bed. He wondered what Greengrass would be like in bed. It was such a lewd thought to have, but an unavoidable one now that the look Greengrass had worn just moments ago was embedded in his mind. It had been so long since Valerian had company in bed—when he thought of it like that it made sense why he'd shown such a physical reaction to Macmillan even in the middle of a scuffle. His gaze found its way back to Greengrass, his gaze still glazed over with something, but he was not mindlessly staring off into space. He was looking at Greengrass—his eyes, the shape of his nose, the curve of his jaw, and his full lips. He'd always had a bookish sort of look to him—not the type who was too promiscuous. He certainly didn't act like that. Valerian decided he liked that.

Finally he caught Greengrass' eye, and this time to smile did not come too easily, but instead a lone eyebrow slid up and his gaze remained fixated on him, following his every shift in his seat. "I wonder what the boggart would take the form of if it saw me now. I've always had a good imagination." He brought his glass to his lips, but didn't break eye contact. He wanted to see Greengrass' reaction, to make sure this wasn't some wine-induced hallucination of his. Tatiana's acceptance of his proposal even when it seemed an impossibility had given him hope—given him confidence.

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   Cassius Lestrange, Fortitude Greengrass

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"That's —" Ford started, because he did have things to say in response to that. He had a whole litany of things he could have said about boggarts, and he had been going somewhere a moment ago, not just idly rambling on. He had things in his mind that he'd been about to say, but now all of the sudden he didn't think he could manage it. Macnair was looking at him in that way again, and Ford's mouth had gone too dry to speak. Macnair raised an eyebrow just slightly, as though he was about to ask a question, and Ford knew his answer even though he couldn't have said what it was Macnair was asking: yes, I would.

This was dangerous. He couldn't do this. There were a million other things he needed to devote his attention to, and he was already too restless to pay proper mind to half of them, which was what had seen him wandering down to the club tonight in the first place. He'd been looking for a distraction from daydreaming about Fisk; the last thing that he needed was this. Ford felt his cheeks flush and he took a quick, slightly-too-large gulp of his wine. He'd intended to savor it, since it was such an expensive drink, but now any thought of that was pushed out by the idea that he really needed to find a way to get out of here sooner rather than later.

The wine bolstered him somewhat — or at least it made his mouth less dry. "That's part of it, I think. Imagination. But not — not in the way you're saying." His cheeks flushed again — he hoped Macnair didn't take this as some strange underhanded insult, because that wasn't what Ford had been trying to say. He felt a little incapable of poise and grace at the moment, though, so Macnair was just going to have to make do with whatever words Ford managed to get out and try to piece together his meaning from there. Hopefully Ford would manage not to offend him. "I think boggarts never show me myself because I don't spend much time thinking about the things I'm afraid of."

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   Valerian Macnair

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Set by Lady!

There it was, the reaction he was looking for. If they hadn't been in the middle of the (albeit quiet) club, this would have been the moment he downed the rest of his glass before pulling himself out his chair to climb on top of Greengrass' lap. He felt the urge in the tingling of his lips and he sudden itching in his leg. He could have—would have, too—if they just had the one very important variable of privacy.

But they didn't, and he couldn't, and although he would have liked nothing more to lead Greengrass to one of the empty rooms in the club he knew it wasn't just that easy. It was easy to daydream about—and he was sure he would once he returned to the privacy of his bedroom, but for now he would have to settle for the little expressions and Greengrass' stumbling of words that made his heartbeat quicken. The pink flush in Greengrass' cheeks was especially damning, and it was the first moment Valerian felt the crotch of his pants tighten. It helped that he had his legs crossed; it helped hide the evidence, but it also made it difficult to shift in his seat without making it all the more apparent. Instead he shifted his upper body, turning slightly towards Greengrass and holding his eyes.

This time both of his brows quirked up at Greengrass' words, notably at the not in the way you're saying, and if he hadn't been blushing just a moment before he might have taken it as an objection. But he was not so easily swayed, not now. "And here I was thinking the boggart took the form of myself because I wasn't afraid of anything else." The words left his lips with a smooth confidence, the corner of his lips twitching in amusement, not because he didn't think he wasn't afraid of anything else, but because of the underlying meaning to his response: I'm not afraid of this.

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   Fortitude Greengrass

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Macnair was angling his body towards him, and he was still smiling, and he had a hungry look in his eyes. On one level, these facts consumed Ford. He didn't even have to take them in and process them before his body reacted to them. He was shifting in his chair just slightly to match Macnair's body language. He was letting his eyes linger on the other man's despite the intensity of Macnair's gaze (it wouldn't have been any more comfortable to have looked away, anyway, because he still would have felt the other man's eyes; he would have felt him looking). His mouth was dry and he was running his tongue over the back of his teeth in an effort to keep some level of moisture there, without allowing himself to lick his lips — because as much as he wanted to, he knew Macnair would see if he did, and he knew more instinctively than cerebrally that that would push them further down this path Ford had not expected to find himself walking down tonight.

Beneath that, though, there was a niggling thought working through his brain. It had started a moment ago, when Macnair had said he wondered if the boggart might take a different form if he saw it now — because that was a ridiculous thing to say, wasn't it? What could have changed in a week? And then with this latest comment...

"Does that mean you're afraid of yourself?" he asked quickly. As soon as the words left him he bit the inside of his lower lip, surprised at his own temerity.

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Set by Lady!

Valerian was all too aware of the way Greengrass was mirroring him, and he briefly wondered if the other man was as transfixed by him as Valerian wanted to believe he was. The last time he'd held a man's eye this long, with this look in his eye was... too long ago, even on the rare occasions he went to visit a rent boy after a particularly rough day at work. He wanted to push the boundaries, see how farther he could get—and yet, once again, the fact that they were in the middle of the club was proving a source of annoyance.

The question caught him off guard, though, but not long enough to force a break the eye contact or even a change of demeanor. He didn't want to think about boggarts, even if it was cute to watch Greengrass theorize about the things he enjoyed. He wanted to think about Greengrass, and more specifically what it would take to get him out of the main sitting area of the club. "Not anymore, I think," he answered, an intensity to his words that hadn't been there before. The words had an underlying meaning, of course, just as all his previous answers had, but there was also truth: the fear of being a killer—of killing Macmillan—or being killed himself had dissipated once he'd patched up Macmillan.

He finally broke his gaze away from the other man's gaze, bringing the glass of wine to his lips. He'd meant to make it seem like he was deep in contemplation about Greengrass' question, but really he was just thinking about how obvious the dent in his pants would be if he tried to stand up now, and if it would scare Greengrass off. Hm.

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