The first night they'd spent together after Ford had found out Macnair was engaged, Macnair had fallen asleep first. They were upstairs on the same bed, the thought of which had made Ford feel physically ill only a few hours before. Aside from their jackets and shoes, they were still fully clothed. A few buttons had been undone, but more for comfort than for the sake of trying to get each other undressed. Macnair's head was leaning on his shoulder and Ford's arm was wrapped around his chest and they'd been in that position for a few minutes before he'd realized that Macnair's breathing had slowed and deepened. It had taken his mind a minute to catch up to what that meant: that they weren't going to get each other off that night. Ford had decided after their conversation that he wasn't going to think too hard about any of it tonight, that he was just going to let tonight happen and enjoy it, even if it was the last time. He'd just been going along with it all, kissing and cuddling and following Macnair's lead, and then Macnair was asleep and Ford was suddenly realizing that Macnair had kept him around tonight not because he wanted him, in the physical sense, but because he wanted to be with him tonight. With Macnair's head on his shoulder and Macnair's slow, steady breathing in his ear, Ford had thought oh no. His stomach had sunk and he'd thought what am I going to do about this?
But he didn't know, and he'd already given himself permission not to think about it, at least for one night. So after a few minutes he'd let himself focus on the things that were easier: Macnair's breathing, the warmth of his body against Ford's. He'd focused on these things and he'd drifted off to sleep, and the next morning he'd kissed Macnair goodbye and neither of them had said anything about it. And when he got the next letter inviting him over to Macnair's house in London it was easier to pretend that had never happened. Every time he tried to look at that night he couldn't reconcile it. He couldn't make it fit within this tapestry he'd woven that explained this whole thing, especially given that Macnair had gotten engaged and published details of it in the paper without even a courtesy nod in Ford's direction. So he didn't look at it; he ignored it and he continued to act as though this was just sex, that it was simple, and that it was something he understood and didn't need to figure out.
It was the yours at the end of Macnair’s letter that had pushed Ford to the conclusion that they should talk. If it had just been Macnair laying his hand on his the other night, Ford could have attributed it to either the nervousness caused by the ghost’s interruption or the craving for physical touch that seemed to settle on them both in the immediate aftermath of an orgasm. Ford had done things like that without thinking about them, on every occasion that they’d interacted so far. He’d nestled into Macnair’s arms and left soft kisses on his arms and shoulders. None of that meant anything, not necessarily, and Ford wouldn’t have put any more thought into it — he probably wouldn’t have even thought Macnair taking his hand was noteworthy at all if the spell hadn’t already been broken by the interruption. But the spell was broken, and Macnair had taken Ford’s hand in his and twined their fingers together and squeezed, which meant he’d done all that intentionally, not just on instinct. Even knowing it had been intentional, though, Ford might have still ignored it — at least ignored it until he could figure out how he felt about it — except for that letter. Yours, V. Macnair.
That complicated things. It broke the narrative that Ford had constructed in the same way Macnair falling asleep with him last Monday night had done, except now he couldn't ignore it, because he'd told Noble last night that this was going to be over. If it had just been sex, if it had been simple, he could have just put it in a letter. This is too risky. We need to stop. Sorry. Macnair would understand. Maybe he'd be annoyed, but if it was just sex he could go find someone else to mess around with. Someone who didn't have a whole family waiting at home for them every night, someone who had less to lose by getting mixed up in something like this. Someone who wouldn't get feelings tangled up in it. Someone who could keep things simple.
But if things were already complicated, Ford couldn't just put it in a letter. So he’d worked up the courage to write maybe we should talk, and he’d regretted it immediately. He was anxious about it as soon as he’d sent it, but when he received Macnair’s response — two sentences, no yours — he really wished he had a time turner. Macnair was upset, or at least disappointed. Ford had disappointed him, and he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t know what to do about it, though. He didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what to write, he didn’t even know exactly what he was going to say if they did talk after he dealt with the ghost. More than anything, he wished he could have gone back and not said that at all — Ford might still have not known what to do about all of this but at least he wouldn’t be struggling to figure it out while also dealing with Macnair’s disappointment. Failing that, he supposed he was hoping that maybe if he didn’t bring it up, Macnair wouldn’t either, and they could just pretend Ford had never asked to talk in the first place, and he'd at least buy himself a few more days to figure out what to say.
Needless to say, he was distracted in dealing with this ghost. It shouldn’t have taken this long, under normal circumstances, but nothing about these circumstances were normal. He would have felt awkward about talking to this ghost even without the impending conversation with Macnair lingering over his head like a storm cloud. Between the two, he was lucky to have managed it at all, even though this really wasn’t difficult. By the time Ford returned to the parlor he was exhausted — not physically, but emotionally. And they hadn’t even started yet.
“Yeah,” he said, glancing at one of the arm chairs. He wanted to sit, but Macnair had just stood up, so it would have been strange to let himself go collapse in a chair for a minute. “He’s going to stick to the first floors from now on, for all the properties. I did promise him no one would be wandering around downstairs undressed,” he added. His tone was wry, but his cheeks were flushed red, belying how embarrassed he still felt about this. “So, you know. It’s a compromise.”
Set by Lady!
