August 10th, 1889 - Tyb's Rented Room
Elsie's apparated right in ya nosy Nancys
Tybalt Kirke

Three weeks was a long time to sit on this. She hadn't even thought it possible and honestly had expected to burst by now, but somehow she'd managed to keep everything under wraps. No word from Mr. Adlard either and Elsie still marveled at how she'd managed to get herself into such deep trouble- again. She was quiet and unassuming, mousy and bookish, how in the name of Merlin's had this even happened? Unfortunately the real question was, what could she do about it?

Talk to Tyb, that was obvious, but she was nervous to know how this was going to go. Last time she'd tried to make a decision she'd messed everything up and she wouldn't make that mistake twice. She'd sorted her feelings on it, quite easily, but hadn't any idea as to whether or not it would do her any good at this point.

The letter she'd sent was out of their usual correspondence; they'd been so good with casual outings, "running into" one another with just enough space between to keep it inconspicuous (she hoped). It was hard to tell with Mrs. Haynes sometimes, the woman was a professional at keeping her emotions hidden. This letter though, unlike their familiar, easy banter, had been an abrupt request to show up straight into the room at his boarding house, which they'd sworn they wouldn't do, lest they get caught again and by someone who wasn't her cousin.

Still, the night came and Elsie waited to make sure everyone was asleep before muffling her door and disapparating. She could feel her heart hammering in her chest for a myriad of reasons, but thankfully some of the uneasiness faded the moment she saw him. "Hello," She greeted, a bit breathless, smiling nevertheless.

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MJ always makes her so pretty

Something had happened. Tybalt was stupid, but he wasn’t that stupid. They had found a rhythm - a terrible rhythm, maybe, one in which they settled for living their lives in parallel, and any meetings they could construct were a rare bridge, but a rhythm nonetheless - but this was something different, and off-kilter.

He had resolved not to think about it and whatever it could be until Elsie arrived, but despite himself, Tybalt was worried. Worse and worse, the feeling had been getting, a whirl of tumult in the pit of his stomach that refused to settle. He had run through the worst possibilities in his mind here and there, at the oddest of moments (with his breakfast toast; mid-word on a piece of paperwork; freezing one foot into the Ministry fireplace), until the possibilities started getting better, and more ridiculous.

He had circled around to a happy delusion wherein Elsie had discovered she was a secret heiress and her mother had agreed she must obviously marry only for love - a great deal better than the scenario in which she’d only married him because he was dying prematurely of Dragon Pox, for one - and had been pottering restlessly about his room, sure that the other boarders would be sick of hearing his pacing through the night but too fidgety to stop himself. He had even started tidying, Tybalt noticed belatedly, as he caught himself re-folding another shirt for the fourth time in bewilderment.

The bed was made, corners neatly-tucked; the desk - desk! - was bare, papers and inkpots shifted into a drawer, shoes lined up at the bottom of his wardrobe with military precision. If not for the photographs stuck up on one wall, he could almost trick himself into thinking he didn’t live here. He had been fiddling earnestly with one of the lamps when Elsie arrived, and gave up that battle to gaze at her in the dim light. She was almost an apparition, here. “Hello yourself,” Tyb said, wiping his hands on his trousers and breaking into a grin. He paced over towards her to pull her into an embrace, but there was, beneath the relief to see her, a waver of nervousness in it.

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   Elladora Black, Elsie Kirke

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Despite the circumstances, Elsie found herself breathing out a little sigh of relief as she melted into him, wrapping her arms around him and simply holding on for a moment. It had been so long, far too long for her liking, since they'd even gotten to share a simple embrace and though she couldn't show it, it was starting to wear on her. These stolen moments were all she had to keep her going for the moment and sometimes it just wasn't enough.

"I've missed you," She mumbled into his shirt, eyes closed as she tried to stall the moment for as long as possible. This discussion had the potential to go a lot of ways and she just hoped it wasn't too sour of a note to leave off on. She would much rather moments like this to hold her over than any unpleasantness that may arise this evening. Els had been dreading what she had to tell him, had refused to tell her mother, and still couldn't even really fathom how it had happened, but she needed to tell him and holding it in much longer would cause her to burst.

Gently she eased back just enough to look at him, the news on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't yet bring herself to say it. "How're you?" It was a cop-out, but she was also genuinely curious. Letters weren't always enough for her to gauge what he was thinking. Elsie worried constantly how things were going for him at the ministry, if he was liking it at all, if he wasn't, was it her fault. The same things that had plagued her for well over a year now, only she could manage them a little better.

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   Elladora Black

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MJ always makes her so pretty

I’ve missed you. Buoyed as he was to hear the feeling still went both ways, Tyb wasn’t fool enough to think the sheer ache of that separation was what had propelled her here tonight. He might’ve dreamt of it once or twice, Elsie arriving out of the blue and deciding she didn’t have the patience for this distance any more - but it was a fanciful one, and he well knew it. She hadn’t come in secret to indulge either of them, to pass some time together, to spend the night; she hadn’t come to run away from the world once and for all. No, the world was something one couldn’t run away from, and so this... this must be a problem that couldn’t wait.

But until she spelled it out, Tybalt would do his best to pretend that she had yearned to see him and nothing more, and held her tightly to convince himself of it. He let his arms loosen as she looked up at him. How’re you, she asked, and he didn’t want to talk about himself, would rather do anything else than talk about himself, but she had asked. “Oh, you know,” he said with a shrug and a small grin. “Getting by. Haven’t set any more desks on fire, so -” He added brightly, and then smiled at her more gently. “Better now I’m seeing you,” Tyb admitted, lifting a hand to unconsciously play with a loose strand of hair at her ear, maybe just to be sure she was really here. His eyes drifted across her face, trying to decipher her expression, trying to steel himself for the worst, feeling somehow like they had been transported back to their conversation in the library last year all over again. “...And you?”

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   Elladora Black, Elsie Kirke

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The chuckle in response to his answer was unavoidable; accidentally setting a desk on fire was so unequivocally Tybalt that when he'd told her the story she hadn't even been surprised. Sometimes she had to wonder if he would have ever gotten through OWLs or NEWTs without her constant pestering. It was one of her favorite qualities of his that never failed to amuse her.

The knot of worry in the pit of her stomach tightened when he turned the question back on her. How easy it would have been to tease him about the desk or to feign that everything was fine, but she knew it wasn't, he'd likely caught on that something was the matter and she could't bring herself to delay anymore even though that's all she wanted to do. Thinking about it on her own had gotten her nowhere and she was sure Mr. Adlard would want an answer of some kind- and soon and she just hoped she could come up with something reasonable, quickly so as to avoid the most drama. Hopefully one that left her parents out of the mix.

"Well, that's the question isn't it." She passed him a wry smile. "In the moment, wonderful." It had been so long since they'd dared to take a moment like this all to themselves. Their agreement not to take anymore chances was a struggle to say the least and so when she got these rare moments she hated to upset the feeling, but this time it was necessary. Sighing softly, she wondered where to even begin, but supposed the issue itself would be the best place. "I have- accidentally I swear," Elsie still had no idea how she'd even managed to catch Tyb, let alone unintentionally find herself with a courtship offer from Mr. Adlard. It baffled her to this day; she was mousy, shy, quiet, entirely unlike anything a respectable gentleman would want in a wife. Falling in love with Tyb had been easy, though not the plan, she supposed, friends first which grew into something more, but all she'd done was write to Mr. Adlard about books! She felt like she hardly knew him, aside from their shared love of literature and mutual dislike of social events.

"I ah, received an offer of courtship from an acquaintance from the library." It came out as a rushed sentence, hardly audible. She was dreading his response, but he had to know. All she wanted was for it to be out there so they could figure it out together, or at least if that was even possible.

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   Tybalt Kirke

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MJ always makes her so pretty

Ah, fuck.

No, really - fuck. Elsie was right. This news was not so wonderful. His head was bursting with about a million questions, but they were buzzing around like a hive of bees and all he could really isolate of them right now was white noise, which wasn’t helping.

An offer of courtship. An offer of courtship from someone who was not him. Someone not-him, and also undoubtedly better placed than him to ask that kind of question, which meant it would be madness to turn it down in favour of - well, whatever he had to offer. Which was not a great deal, as of yet.

“Right,” Tybalt said, blindsided and bewildered, stumbling a step or two away from her as if that would help him digest this. “Right. Obviously. Right.” What he supposed to say to something like that? What was he supposed to feel?

Not angry. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be angry with her. It had been accidental, after all, and he had leapt to the wrong conclusions before, and blamed her for things he wished he hadn’t. And this news did not mean Elsie had had a change of heart. This news was not a reflection on her - save that she was the best kind of person, and deserved to be noticed for it.

He didn’t even have a right to the frustration brimming up in him, because he’d known this would happen. He had known every day they waited was a risk, and that one day a man would fall in love with her who was actually right for her and it would all be over for them. See. It all came down to the library, didn’t it?

(In all his youth Tybalt had never imagined, when it came down to it, that his fatal flaw in life would turn out to be an insufficient love of libraries.)

Ah, fuck.

Some part of him wanted to know who the man was and why she hadn't mentioned him before and how it had unfolded and if her parents knew and what she had said, but he still hadn’t gleaned quite how he was supposed to acknowledge this. “Some acquaintance,” Tyb offered faintly, his throat tight.

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   Ophelia Devine

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Oh she'd had every reason to worry this was going to go poorly. He looked as if she'd slapped him and as soon as he stepped back she moved forward, trying to keep him from either falling or spiraling or both at this point. Elsie worried, briefly, that he might be angry with her, but it didn't look that way. He looked completely blindsided of course, but thankfully not angry. This very situation had been a possibility he'd been the one to think of and bring up in the past, though she'd never imagined in a million years this would be an actual obstacle they'd face, here it was and they had to deal with it.

"Hey, hey," She moved to gently frame his face with her hands, forcing him to look at her. "It's only a problem if my parents find out, I haven't told them yet." She didn't plan to either if she could get away with it. Unfortunately she couldn't quite gauge if Mr. Adlard would get tired of waiting and try again at a time when her mother was available and she was not. "I didn't want to hide it from you though." Nope, no more secrets between them.

Still, it was a sticky situation, as she knew she had to let Mr. Adlard down gently. He was really very kind and he deserved somebody who could and would give him what he wanted, which was not Elsie. She'd come to that conclusion over the last couple weeks of pondering how to solve this. It wasn't fair to anyone in the situation really, but she wasn't sure if her parents would push the issue or not.

Here and now, however, Elsie needed Tyb to understand that she certainly had not changed her mind about him whatsoever and would hopefully be able to solve this quietly. "Nothing's changed," She promised him, blue eyes turned on his intently. "But yes, an acquaintance from the library, we exchanged a few letters on book recommendations. I don't really know anything else about him." Maybe more than a few, but never on anything much other than books! Elsie had poured over the exchanges trying to think of where she'd gone wrong, but wasn't much able to decipher anything without her own letters to reread. She was such a disaster and she didn't even know how.

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   Tybalt Kirke

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MJ always makes her so pretty

Elsie’s hands were soft and warm against his face, a steadying presence, but it was her gaze that really worked wonders. Her eyes were that familiar, endless blue: as clear as a glistening forest brook, the sky on a rare day without a cloud in it. It calmed the noise in his head somehow.

Which was enough to hear what else she said about the situation, including that she hadn’t wanted to hide it from him. He nodded at her fractionally, a show of gratitude, because it was better that she had, and the last thing he wanted was for Elsie to regret telling him.

He exhaled slowly, his chest aching a little with the effort of it, of silently fighting the anxious battering of his heartbeat. Nothing’s changed. That was enough of a relief that he nearly laughed at her explanation - didn’t really know anything about him?! Either that was an understatement and Elsie was just being oblivious - or her blue eyes were too enthralling for their own good. Whatever had done it, Tybalt didn’t blame the man.

Still, things were changing whether they liked it or not, and Elsie’s opinion might not be the only thing that mattered. Tyb squeezed her shoulder gently and then sank onto the side of his bed to better think it through, trying not to look prematurely defeated. He took it’s only a problem if my parents find out, though, to mean it was a good match for her (the best, even, if they shared a love of books like that), and her parents would likely think she was out of her mind if she turned down the courtship.

Merlin, but how had she broached that topic with her unexpected suitor? Surely she hadn’t said yes! But then what had she done, said nothing? Said no? Much as he believed her when she said nothing had changed between them, Tybalt wasn’t entirely unconvinced that Elsie might accidentally say yes just to be polite. She was... not very good at hurting people’s feelings.

“So what did he say to you?” He asked, with a little hesitance. “And what did you say to him?”

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Tyb seemed to settle a little, but Elsie was still apprehensive as she watched him further digest the news. She hadn't meant to just completely wallop him with it, but didn't know what else to do. The only way to figure this out was going to be together and so he had to know.

As he sunk down to the bed, Elsie managed a weak chuckle, following to sit next to him, perched carefully but close. She watched him intently, wondering what he was thinking, but not sure she really wanted to know. It had come as a complete shock to her, and must have been just as, if not more, of a surprise to Tyb.

"Well," She began, but wasn't excited to get into the details too much. But, no secrets. "He came round the house and just asked, out of the blue. I told him I'd need to speak to my parents and needed a little time." Which was decidedly running out at this point. Flat out telling him no, though she probably should have, felt a little harsh in the moment. Now she wasn't so sure.

"I can't let too much time go by without a response, lest my parents hear, but I'm afraid they might anyway and be mad I didn't include them in the decision to decline." Elsie honestly had no way to know how her parents would react as she'd never anticipated a situation like this in her wildest dreams. How did this even happen?!

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MJ always makes her so pretty

As she came to sit next to him, Tyb inclined his head towards her. Better to survey her than stare blankly, dumbfoundedly, at the wall.

Besides, he expected this conversation was no easier for her than it was for him, painfully necessary as it was. The sooner they got it out into the open, though, the sooner they might solve this gaping issue, this dangerous pothole in the road. Solve it before it derailed them completely.

He nodded again as she explained how she’d bought them some time. He knew how stalling worked. (He’d tried it plenty of times to the professors at Hogwarts. This situation was... probably... a bit different. There was another man who wanted to marry her, was waiting on tenterhooks to hear if she would. Merlin. Merrrrlin.) “Well,” he said, trailing off to run a hand distractedly through his hair, wishing he had any answers or simple solutions. “You’ll have to give him a real answer, then,” Tybalt acknowledged, with a frown. “And hope they don’t hear about it.”

How she’d manage that, he wasn’t sure. She could turn him down in a letter, he supposed, but he didn’t think that was how such things were done; and the more times Mr. Library Acquaintance showed up at her house, the more opportunity there was for Elsie’s mother to put two and two together. And what if the gentleman asked what Elsie’s parents had said? How was she going to manage lying about it? He didn’t know how bad it would be if Elsie’s parents heard - she said they might be vexed that they hadn’t been included in her decision - but would they be vexed if she declined at all? How would she explain herself to them, if she had to? Would she pretend, again, that she had no interest in marriage, like she had after Lucinda’s; or would their whole history come out in the wash? Tybalt couldn’t imagine that would be good.

His eyes darted away and back to Elsie with a flicker of apprehension, his tone uncharacteristically quiet. “What - happens if your parents find out?”

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For a moment, all Elsie could focus on was the quiet of the room, the only sound their steady breathing in the air of unasked questions and their missing answers. It seemed ridiculous, their entire situation and maybe they were trying to run a fool's errand, but she had to keep trying. Elsie really would rather not marry at all than to wed anyone other than Tyb. It wouldn't be easy and may have seemed unlikely, but she had to have some faith they could manage to work this out.

She'd been so lost in her thoughts that when he spoke again, it took her a moment to register what it was he said. The real answer, of course was no, but expressing it correctly was key and she had yet to figure out how to do that. Turning Mr. Adlard down and hoping her parents didn't hear was the plan, but she hadn't any idea how solid or realistic it was.

Nodding in agreement, Elsie leaned her head to rest on his shoulder. She sighed softly and mulled over his last question. Truthfully she didn't know how her parents would react, but she suspected her mother would be... displeased, though her father was harder to tell. Would they really be surprised? Would they be legitimately angry? Would they try to change her mind? What could she possibly say to them without giving everything away?

"I don't know. Mother might be angry... I can't tell about Father. He's not home right now anyway..." But if her mother found out, he certainly would too. "If I say no though, it's not like they'll be able to make me change my mind." Of that she was certain. Not to mention Mr. Adlard would hardly want to pursue the offer after she'd already declined...

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MJ always makes her so pretty

He tucked his head in over hers as she leaned in beside him, feeling her sigh echo in his own chest, trapped somewhere in his ribs at this situation. So much had changed already and yet it felt that nothing had, that they were barely any closer than before. (At least this kind of closeness was a comforting change.)

Her mother might not be pleased with her, but that wouldn’t be enough to change Elsie’s mind. She was more stubborn than he often gave her credit for, Tybalt allowed. As determined as he was. “Mmm,” he hummed, in murmured appreciation for it.

He kept quiet after that, wishing he had more ideas of use to offer her, but having no better answers than her. Perhaps she might tell her suitor the truth, that there was someone else? But then if that got back to her parents, she would have to explain who and then it would be down to what her parents thought of him. Which was what it would always be down to, in the end. Because if her parents didn’t approve, there was nothing left. Elsie had said it once, herself. How could she walk away from her family? (The answer was of course she couldn’t, and shouldn’t, and Tybalt wouldn’t let her in any case.)

So that was why he was following Lucinda’s advice, making sacrifices, having plans. That was a start, surely, it must guarantee him some credit, but it was not enough, and it would be too soon to even ask, he knew that. Give it a couple more years, when he’d shed the last of his youthful idiocy, and owned more than a rented room in a boarding house, and could stand there and look like a man one could admire and respect.

It felt like a reach, even thinking it. But he couldn’t say that and wouldn’t let on if he felt it, and he was grateful that Elsie seemed to be surer of their chances than he did, even now. But the longer Tybalt took to turn himself into the person he was trying to be, the more chance there was of Elsie having to turn down other options. Oh, he knew he’d made sacrifices for her sake, he didn’t argue that, but suddenly this situation seemed less like a difficulty, and more like a sacrifice. This would be Elsie sacrificing a whole other life for the flimsy potential of one. (This way round, it was more than he deserved, and it terrified him.)

With his thoughts still far away, Tyb’s next question was absent-minded, and not entirely sequential to the conversation. Still. “Do you like him?” She didn’t know him well, she’d already said. But the question remained. Did she?

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Elsie was keenly aware of his silence, probably quieter than she'd ever actually seen him and though her own thoughts were a mix of jumbled emotions and worries, she couldn't help but to wonder what it was he was thinking too. As upsetting as it was to her, it had to be even more so for him. The pressure on him was much higher, he'd already had to give up so much and it pained her more than she would care to admit. Why did this have to be so difficult?

Closing her eyes for a moment, Elsie willed herself to come to a reasonable conclusion, but the only thing she could rationalize was that this wasn't reasonable. There were just so many outside factors working against them that it seemed like a mountain they couldn't climb without a great deal of hardship. This situation was near impossible and yet she would still fight for it for as long as she could. It wasn't- wouldn't be easy on either of them, but they had to make it work if they wanted to be together in the long run.

His question caught her so off guard that she actually started, straightening up to look at him, confusion clear on her features. She certainly hadn't been expecting that, and her initial reaction was frustration- how could he even ask that of her? Of course she didn't, he had to know that right? She forced herself to think about it for a moment before responding, so as not to say anything hasty; Elsie always did better with a moment to think.

As she thought about where he might be coming from, she supposed it wasn't quite the stretch she'd initially thought. After everything that had happened last year in the library, she supposed he had to have some residual doubt, but she didn't, not at all. She scanned his face for a moment, the indignant reaction fading away as she studied him. Gently she brought one hand back up to his cheek and shook her head softly before she leaned in to press her lips to his.

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   Melody Crouch, Tybalt Kirke

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MJ always makes her so pretty

He’d regretted asking it before he even saw her face, had not thought through what she would take from it - that he didn’t believe her feelings. That wasn’t it, of course; how could he doubt her, after all this time? But all the same Tybalt didn’t want her to have to give things up. All the same, the complexity of their situation was suffocating, and the question had felt like a way to provoke... something. Anything. A way to release some of the pent-up frustration, maybe.

A bad way, he realised, but only as Elsie halted him in his tracks before he spiralled too far. She might’ve managed it in a million different ways, with a hundred different words, but a shake of her head worked just as well to convince him. And the kiss: well, it might be the most efficient way to stop him thinking.

(Thinking seemed to do him very little good. The more he thought, the worse he felt.)

And it had been so very long that he had almost forgotten how good this felt, being in her company, being at total liberty for a moment to feel how they did, and even act on it for once. Her news had plummeted him into such pensive gloominess - toeing the line of a dangerous sort of desperation - that he had nearly forgotten to revel in the miracle of it.

“Sorry,” Tyb breathed, still close enough after she had kissed him to whisper it and feel his breath exhaled against her cheek. Sorry for the question and his quietness, sorry that she might even think he doubted her, or that this wasn’t worth it. Because it was, and would be, and even if it all turned out terribly at least he could kiss her again now, lean in and try to make up for the rest of it, to find a bright side here. He wrapped his hands around her waist to pull her in close, hoping, as she just had, that he could explain all those pent-up feelings more fervently without words.

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   Elsie Kirke

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It was far too easy to forget their problems when it was just the two of them like this. Outside the four walls of Tyb's room was a host of things out to get them, or at least that's what it felt like. Keeping this a secret, waiting it out, dealing with situations like this; it all felt like like one hurdle after the other and they just had to keep pushing on and hope they got no push back.

Despite the reason that propelled her here tonight, she'd done what she needed to do, they'd discussed it and now it was time to move on. Only Elsie really had no intention of moving at this very moment in time. The risk had already been taken, she was already here, and perhaps staying for a little while longer was just elongating the potential for problems, but she highly doubted Tyb was expecting any other company this evening. The risk was on her end, somebody looking for her in her room, but it was late and it wasn't like her family had any reason to randomly check in on her in the middle of the night.

She smiled at him softly when he pulled back, shaking off his apology with a fractional move of her head. There was no need for sorry, emotions were running high, they were in uncharted territory, she understood. She too was in the mood for something less complicated, to let everything else fade away and fall into him. Which was why, when he pulled her in, she was more than content to let it happen, meeting him with just a hint of desperation herself.

Finally, at least something was easy.

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MJ always makes her so pretty

It was amazing (or dreadful), how swiftly his fears could be thrown out the window and scattered away to the wind. There was still a needling voice at the back of his head - a horribly rational one - that told him nothing was solved and that she really shouldn’t be here. This was exactly what they weren’t supposed to be doing, was exactly the kind of risk that could hurt them, that they had done so well at staving off for months on end...

A whiff of this, and Elsie’s parents would dash their chances at a proper courtship in a heartbeat, even more than they already might.

But Tybalt quashed that voice. Funnily enough, he would rather not think about Elsie’s parents right now. 

Because when it came down to it, not seeing her had been hell in itself. That was the worst part of it all; he would marry her tomorrow if he could, but he might’ve married her if only to get to see her, at this point. But when had he last even kissed her? Too long ago. He could scarcely remember. (When had he last kissed her quite like this? He wasn’t sure he had ever.)

Overtaken by the recklessness of it, Tyb let himself careen backwards horizontally onto the bed, pulling Elsie with him to make the moment last as long as he could without having to let go of her. If anything and everything they did was a risk, and if she was already here, well - they may as well make the most of it for once.

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   Elsie Kirke

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