TW: suicide, but in a dark humor way?

Ford had watched someone trying to drown themselves in the Black Lake before, was the thing, and that had looked nothing like this. Savino Zabini had approached the shore calmly, as though serene about the whole ordeal, not trying to attract any attention, and then when Ford had interrupted his evident suicide attempt he'd at least had the grace to act abashed and deny that was what he'd been doing. (There were not an abundance of good reasons to dive into the Black Lake fully clothed in winter, so it was little surprise that his excuses had left Ford feeling unconvinced). And he'd been here in the morning, when hardly anyone else was here and the lake was foggy enough that you couldn't see shore to shore, which helped the whole aesthetic rather more than a brisk but sunny October day. So Ford was surprised when Cash sprinted towards the lake, and not entirely sure what he was seeing, but he did not have the luxury to linger in the grass trying to parse it. Ford swore, dropped the stone in his hand, and sprinted after him.

He was making a scene, which was weird; did Cash want to be interrupted? Surely so, because otherwise he'd chosen the weirdest time and scenario in which to try and kill himself. So this was some sort of bizarre cry for help, or something, but what was he trying to accomplish? Ford was a few steps behind Cash most of the way down — Cash was, unsurprisingly, in better shape than Ford was, and he'd also gotten a bit of a head start darting off so unexpectedly — but the water's edge slowed him down enough that Ford nearly collided with him at the shoreline. "What the hell," he managed — he was too out of breathe for more, but did grab Cash's arm so that he couldn't dart away quite so easily again.

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♡ Set by Lady ♡

Cash didn't run as fast as he had when he played Quidditch; otherwise, he was sure, Ford would never have been able to catch him. He wanted to wrench his arm out of the other man's grasp, but his feet were getting wet in his shoes at the shoreline, and he was still trapped in this scene-on-repeat. He blinked at Ford. "This isn't real," Cash said, with a gesture at the bazaar. "None of it." Otherwise, what explanation did they have?

  

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MJ made this!

Cash sprinting for the lake couldn't have boded well in any respect, but Ford hadn't been expecting a full-blown dissociative episode, which was what he interpreted from Cash's response. None of this is real was crazy talk, like put someone in an asylum kind of talk, and the Lestranges were the sort of family who actually would. They had plenty of money to have someone locked away, and (Ford could guess) not much patience for inconvenient relations.

"Fuck," he said, at an utter loss for how to respond. He felt utterly unqualified for the position this had put him in, but nonetheless was seized with a conviction that it was up to him to fix it. He had to figure out how to fix Cash before any of his family caught wind of this, and since they were splashing around in the edge of the Black Lake they were not off to an auspicious start.

"I'm going to apparate us out of here," Ford decided, trying to maintain his grip on Cash's arm while he fumbled to retrieve his wand.

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♡ Set by Lady ♡

"You're the one who keeps forgetting," Cash warned. He sounded crazy, he knew he sounded crazy — but he was sure he was right. "It's not going to work." Hell, if something was wrong here — or if he was right, and none of it was real — then apparating was probably dangerous.

The thought struck him. Cash wrenched his arm out of Ford's grasp and took a step back, into the cool lake water.

  

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MJ made this!

Forgetting what, Ford had to wonder, but he didn't have time to ask. He probably wouldn't have asked anyway, since he had slipped into crisis control mode; anything he said to Cash at this point had to be calculated and calm, carving out the path of least resistance and ushering his friend down it and doing or saying nothing at all that could make him act unpredictably. But he had to wonder, because this was a weird thing to say and because whatever Cash thought he was forgetting must have been important if it had triggered all of this. They didn't have big things between them these days, though — there was nothing Ford could think of that would even approach triggering a throw yourself into the lake because none of this is real sort of breakdown.

Was it possible he was forgetting something? The thought brought a spike of panic with it, because Ford didn't like to think he couldn't trust his own brain. But before he'd had the chance to consider that or even to properly dismiss it, Cash had wrenched his arm away and Ford was wobbling on his feet, trying to keep his balance as the water from the lake soaked through his socks. Fuck — where the hell was Cash trying to go? He'd moved farther in towards the lake; Ford had hoped that stopping his momentum in that direction would have been enough to deter him, coupled with the shock of the cold water, but apparently not.

"Stop," he pleaded. He'd gotten a grip on his wand just before Cash pulled away, but now he tossed it over towards the muddy shore and put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "No apparition, no wand, okay? Just — let me take you somewhere else, Cash, people are going to..." He didn't know how to finish the sentence, but surely he didn't need to; Cash was the one who had pulled him into a private room at Black's once and told him to be careful. He knew what people were capable of.

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♡ Set by Lady ♡

Ford tossing his wand and putting his hands up caught Cash in a bind — he understood that this was concerning, but he'd hoped that the shock of the cold water would jostle him out of whatever was happening. But it had not worked — he was stuck in the water and it had already soaked his shoes and ankles. His toes were going numb. Ford still did not remember. And Ford was right, if anyone else remembered this, if this was real, they might talk — and Cash could not disgrace the Lestrange family.

He stood, simmering, for a beat — trying to figure out what the fuck he was supposed to do. People could talk. He took a step out of the lake, feeling resentful. "I haven't gone mad," Cash muttered, over his shoulder. Ford always acted like Cash was on the verge of going mad, and sure, there were valid reasons for that — but he wasn't going mad.

Something was just — going extremely wrong, here, and he did not know how to stop it.

  

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MJ made this!

Ford did not point out how this looked, Cash saying weird things and running full-tilt at the lake and not bothering to explain himself, because he thought Cash already knew exactly how it looked. That was why he was begrudgingly getting out of the lake, and why he sounded so irritated about it when he said he wasn't going mad.

Ford hesitated, wanting to get out of the water at the edge of the lake and to retrieve his wand but not wanting to move away just yet, in case Cash was only waiting for a window for him to be distracted before doing something unpredictable again.

"What am I forgetting?" he asked, and though he was making an effort to keep his tone calm his voice had a plaintive undercurrent to it.

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♡ Set by Lady ♡

He looked at Ford, a little helplessly, and gave a shrug. He was worried that Ford would not believe him — but Cash was sure.

"We don't have to talk about it, but we should talk about something," Cash said, mimicking Ford — down to moving his hand as if he was tossing a stone. "You've said that — five times now, every ten or so minutes. And you keep forgetting what we just talked about." Miss Chang, and Cash being insensitive, and masquerades, and something that came close to admitting what Ellory meant to him — Ford had forgotten all of it. And Cash didn't think that he was dreaming.

  

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MJ made this!

Ford's blood went icy, and not because of his damp feet. He remembered saying that, doing that, but obviously not five times. And the easiest thing to do would be to assume Cash was wrong, or crazy, but people who were crazy typically didn't have perfect recollection of throwaway bits of dialogue. It felt like there was something going on, whether or not it was exactly what Cash said.

"We've been — doing this for an hour?" he asked. The idea of having lost nearly an hour's worth of memories made him feel as though the floor were falling away beneath him. With a note of genuine panic now: "Why do you remember if I don't?"

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♡ Set by Lady ♡

There, he finally got through to Ford — except now Ford seemed like he was going to panic. Cash sighed and stepped towards the shore. "I don't know that," he said, tone frustrated. "If I knew that I think I could — stop it." Maybe, probably not — he was not on the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad, he worked for a department of washed up Quidditch players. He took another step towards the shore, standing on the dampened rocks now.

  

Ford swallowed and shifted his weight. He felt wildly uncomfortable with the direction this conversation had turned, and he didn't know what to do next. He flexed his hand, ran it through his hair, then rubbed his opposite arm — a series of gestures that came together to telegraph how uncomfortable he felt in his own skin at the moment.

"Is it happening to everyone else, or just us?" he asked, with a glance back towards the market. As soon as the question had left his mouth, though, he decided he didn't care; whatever magical thing was going on that had them trapped in the same ten minutes concerned him far less than the idea that it was all happening without his being aware of it. He could deal with it if he could still think through it — if he couldn't trust his thoughts and memories, he had nothing.

"Make me remember," he said desperately. "Do something to me I'll remember."

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♡ Set by Lady ♡

Ford's request gave Cash two ideas: hit him, or kiss him. Neither felt particularly good to him. He didn't want to hit Ford — and he mostly didn't want to kiss him, either. (And — well, what if anyone else here was remembering these little restarts? Cash couldn't risk it.)

But he couldn't do nothing; even if this all restarted again, he didn't like seeing Ford so desperate.

So an awkward beat passed before he stood on his toes to reach up and ruffle Ford's hair, until it was significantly mussed up. "There," he said, sounding uncertain.

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MJ made this!

Ford frowned and tried (unsuccessfully) to look at his own forehead. This did not feel significant enough to him, even though it had caught him off guard when Cash had done it. Mildly weird behavior probably wouldn't be enough to jog him out of this if they'd been doing it for an hour — and if it was, sprinting at the lake would do more than mussing his hair.

"It'd be better if it was something I could see," he decided. Something visual might make him pause and think long enough to muddle his way through whatever it was that was making him forget, he thought. He glanced down at his hand and flexed it experimentally. Did he know a color changing charm? Or he could ask Cash to cut him — but Cash would refuse, probably, even if he said to make it shallow, and Ford couldn't cast a severing charm on his own wand hand.

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♡ Set by Lady ♡