March knows River is Simon's (vagaries) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2013-03-18 01:01:00 |
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Entry tags: | river tam, sam winchester |
Who: March and Ford
What: An awkward meeting
Where: Vegas is Burning
When: Recently
Warnings/Rating: None
Vegas is Burning was right around the corner from Fremont and Las Vegas Blvd. It boasted a dance floor, a stage where drag performers and Elvis impersonators entertained the crowd nightly, and two bars on either end. A balcony overlooked it all, along with a big old DJ booth, and the entire place was nice without being snooty. March liked it well enough, though he wasn't real sure he wanted to spend his lifetime looking at the place. But it did plenty fine for now.
March had gone from working some, to working a lot, playing piano or guitar, depending on what the performers needed doing. It was a far cry from medicine, and it was a real far cry from helping criminals get themselves stitched on up, but he'd left that behind the month before. It had nothing to do with guilt, that decision, and everything to do with a cold that had lingered near a week, scaring him partway to death after he'd gone and patched up some Giacoma folks late at night in a heavy rain. The last thing he needed was to be shot or worse, and he couldn't go letting himself bleed all over folks without warning, and it had been a real possibility that night.
As for March's prescription business, he kept that on for the time being. He'd need to talk to his momma about his status first, so his grandmomma could alter his trust to cover his medicines. He hadn't got the balls up to do it yet, and so he still sold papers for cash, but mostly to tourists and old folks and people like Blake, who had nothing better to do than take some Percocet with his whiskey.
March hadn't gone back to the ranch in weeks either, because he'd been full of willingness to ride Guthrie until that cold came on. Now, everything was making him skittish. And, truth be told, it had a whole lot to do with Ford being in town.
He remembered Ford as a real pretty tumble on mussed sheets. The kind of thing that went more than one round, and March had thought the fact that the man didn't speak a whole lot was exciting at the time. March talked enough for both of them, and Ford wasn't anything like the rich jockeys he went bedding at his grandmomma's ranch. The man was poor as dirt, make no mistake, but he carried himself different, and March had liked that real well at the time.
But now, now Ford was all wound up in a whole mess of guilty feelings. March could do his math just fine, which meant he should be meeting up with Ford to talk to him about getting himself tested. But March hadn't ever had that talk with anyone, and he wasn't even sure he could come right out and say he was sick. Heck, he didn't even have a local doctor. He prescribed his own cocktails and did his own damn bloodwork. He wasn't real sure he could deal with this at all.
But there was no hiding from it, seeing as Ford was coming to see him, come hell or high water. Damn man and his attractive persistence.
The club was quiet, but March had told the bouncer that was still lingering to let Ford in when he got there. In the meantime, March was sitting at the piano onstage, pounding out something that sounded bluegrass, despite being played on ivory. He was wearing khaki pants and thick brown shoes, and he had a rust cardigan over a white t-shirt. His brown hair was hand-mussed, and there was a cigarette smoking in the tray atop the piano.
March never smoked these days unless he was nervous.
Ford went to noisy places when he was looking for company. He picked places where the speakers were taller than the people, and the crush made it impossible to recognize your best friend. Such places meant that when Ford saw something he liked, the alcohol made it easy for both parties. Ford could move his mouth like he was talking and nobody could tell the difference, and if he found the right place busy enough at the end of the night, sometimes he got laid. Ford wasn’t looking for a connection that went on too long, generally because he expected it to cut short when his partner realized that the cheap motel wasn’t just the place Ford had gotten for that night, it was the only place he had. If that didn’t do the trick, the total lack of verbal morning communication did. He learned not to be too bothered by it.
This club wasn’t loud or busy enough for Ford’s taste, but he was here for a unique reason, so he was willing to risk it. Ford liked the journals; he liked being able to say whatever came to mind without repercussion, and he especially liked it when he was pissed off at that asshole Russell or when he was feeling flirty. Ford didn’t feel flirty all that often; it was either cautious or horny, because the talking thing didn’t allow for too much in between. Ford was hoping that all the flirting being done on the journals meant he wouldn’t be expected to do much here, and he’d tried to drop a few anvil-sized hints that he wasn’t going to be all that chatty. Still, he was a little worried about it, considering that he remembered March as very smiling and very flexible, a combination not easily dismissed from his mind.
Ford tried to clean up for the meeting, a process that consisted of taking a shower and putting on his clean shirt while the other one dried in the bathroom. He only had one pair of shoes and three pairs of underwear, and right now, thanks to Russell, he had enough to cover maybe a two rounds of drinks and still pay for tomorrow and the day after in the motel. He eyed the bouncer to see if he was expected to pay at the door, but he wasn’t given any trouble, which was a relief. Ford stood for a bit on the threshold, feeling out the space around him on the bare skin of his shoulders and arms, and then he saw the figure at the piano. Trying to match up the vague image his memory supplied with someone in a spotlight was difficult, since Ford’s memory tended to cling to the sweaty details more than little things like hair color, but he moved around in a circle to catch the profile and satisfied himself that he had the right person.
March was a better looking than Ford remembered, which pleased him and put a double-level smile on his face as he stopped and tipped his chin up. You could see the grin waiting to break through, and the spotlights coming off the stage were kind to Ford’s narrow face and dark brows.
Damn man had always been real pretty - that was March's first thought. He'd tumbled plenty with boys and girls in his life, and he always remembered the ones with faces like music, and Ford was one of them. He watched that circular approach, and he slowed down his fingers on the keys to match. The chords became deep and slow, something reminiscent of stalking, and he couldn't help but smile at that damn grin. Boy was trouble on legs, even if he didn't say much. And March didn't recall anything like a stammer during the sweaty night he'd known the man coming up to the stage. He recalled Ford was quiet, but that was all that stuck in his memory, save sweat and sheen on the man's skin.
When Ford got near, March switched his playing back to bluegrass, though it was slower, something distracted and idle, not his usual kind of playing, which was all passion and deep feeling on keys or strings. "You figure yourself a vulture or a big cat with all that circling?" he asked, too-old voice carrying across the empty space, and his smile said he felt nothing like prey. March just wasn't the type to be chased, not when he spent near his entire lifetime doing the chasing. But he was a small thing, and he looked younger than he was, and those dimples helped him look like mischief come calling.
The bartender, who was closing up shop, raised a hand in the distance, and March gave him a real quick nod, acknowledgement and goodbye without saying as much. There was still cleaning staff lingering, and that bouncer would turn into security soon. They were near to alone as they were going to get, and March took his fingers off the keys and reached for the smoke as he swiveled on the piano bench. The tar was terrible for his lungs, and it was even worse on his voice, but it helped his fingers stop shaking some. He straddled the bench easy, all long legs, despite his short stature.
Ford smiled and shook a curly head, all general innocence and vulpine eyes.
Ford swept his gaze around the room, assessing the state of it. He wasn’t worried about anyone here hurting him, but he wanted to be sure he wasn’t about to do anything that would annoy March or anyone else. Ford spent most of his life trying to avoid making enemies, and he was fairly successful at it. Confrontations always required words to defuse the situation, and Ford didn’t have any of those. Satisfied that no one was going to take exception to his presence, Ford walked up to the stage in two or three long strides and made a little jump that mounted it in the count of one. He had long legs without having much height (maybe five or six inches over five feet counting the curly hair and the work boots), and he folded one up high and set it where he needed to go without blinking. He shot March a sweet smile as he straightened next to the piano.
It was around this time, perhaps thirty seconds to a minute, that people started to get awkward when Ford didn’t fill the silence, so he moved around the piano and leaned against the round curve of it, his elbow next to the ashtray. Ford couldn’t afford a smoking habit, but he spent a lot of time with people taking breaks from long shifts, and he didn’t cough.
Putting a hand on the top of the instrument he glanced down to see where music would be sitting, but saw nothing. He then raised his eyebrows at March--impressed--and settled back on his hips. He managed to convey that he liked the music and that it was outside his skillset in one set of movements, and, pleased, he eased back into the smoky quiet. He reached into a back pocket and took out a silver and brown-wrapped chocolate bar, six pieces per chunk. White fingers offered it in March’s direction. Ford grinned his fox grin.
March didn't mind the silence so much, because it wasn't silent to March. He had music going, and even if he preferred strings to keys, this was still talking to him. Maybe that was why he didn't remember silence first when he thought of the man that had just climbed himself up on the stage like he owned it. Without him even thinking it through, the tempo changed. Something classic and slow, pensive is what it sounded like, thoughtful. He watched Ford move himself around the piano, and he waited for the man to take a drag, assuming that was why he'd come round the side.
But it didn't happen, and March played a questioning chord, hard and inquisitive. And then he realized someone should have done some talking by then.
It was Ford's hand on the piano that kept March from speaking right off. And it was Ford's gesticulating that made March realize there was something more to all this silence than just being pretty and mysterious. But he grinned all the same, swiveled on the bench, and he sped up the fingers on the keys, playing something real ornate and complicated. He paid full attention to the piano while he played for a few minutes. He didn't know a whole lot of piano pieces by rote, but he had a fondness for Ravel that had come from real young. Some of the man's pieces felt like strings instead of keys, and March could hear them in his head long after they were done.
When March looked up, he grinned again, and he looked like there wasn't a care in his whole world. Like he wasn't wondering after all this silence, and like he wasn't trying to suss out a way to tell this pretty thing that he might have gone and killed it without meaning to. He was good at shoving things off, at pushing concerns clear out of his mind, and he did so now. It wasn't permanent, he told himself. He'd come around before Ford left. He'd come clean before Ford left.
But just then, March didn't go dropping any bombs. Instead, he moved on back to straddling the bench, and he slid slid way on down on one end. He patted the space in front of him, indicating Ford should bring his damn chocolate on over and sit. "You ever tried? I'm not real patient, but I can teach you Mary Had a Little Lamb," March offered, voice low and scratchy, jazz deep as he grinned and took the chocolate Ford had been holding out. He considered asking about the quiet then, but he held off.
Ford watched March’s mouth for just long enough for the direction of his gaze to be obvious, and then he smiled a quieter, somewhat triumphant smile full of memory before he turned his gaze to the keys. He didn’t recognize the tune--no reason he should, he listened to loud, screaming rock in his headphones, not anything pretty or soft--and he assumed that March was just playing with the sounds. He tipped his head to listen and looked vaguely surprised by the sudden jump in chords.
Gently, untroubled, Ford shook his head. He hadn’t ever tried before. Settling his brows a little lower as if concentrating, he forced out one syllable for agreement. “‘Kay,” he said, frowning at the black-and-whites. Lifting one arm that saw enough breaking labor to burn it raw and sleek, Ford settled five fingers on the smooth keys. He touched each key in turn and climbed a scale, going up to A and back down to G without realizing much about what he was doing. Eventually he found E again and hit the tone twice. Ma- .. and then he found the D and hit the two in succession. Ma-ry...
March realized, a few seconds into all that smiling and key pressing, that this was going to be a damn challenge. He took the chocolate, because eating it gave him something to do besides fretting, and he took a bite. The rest got set atop the banged up piano, which wasn't anywhere near as sweet as the one in his apartment. He stood, turned, and sat straight again, his shoulder pressed up alongside Ford's in a way that made his sweater feel just a touch warm where their bodies touched. He was being a silly fool, he knew, but damn if he could help it. There was something endearing about the man at his side, about the way he had to fix on getting few sounds out of his mouth, and March couldn't even imagine having a conversation about dying with him. Instead, he slid his hand over Ford's on the keys, and he guided them right.
Fingers like braille, March pressed against Ford's knuckles. His fingertips were string raw, calloused over and rebuilt, and the steady notes of Mary Had a Little Lamb filled the club, almost something like blasphemy, given what usually happened on that stage. When the tune started over, March sang along to it, voice like old souls and sandpaper. He grinned over at Ford, and the smile was all dimples and youth, and the two things didn't fit at all. Once he knew Ford had the basic tune down right, he moved his hands to the keys down the way, and he added something quick and funky underneath the simple notes to the song. He loved music, plain and simple, and it showed all over his face as he turned his singing into something crooning and befitting the 50s.
Ford had avoided performance art and choir like the plague when he’d been in school. Anything that put him in the spotlight like this, anything that lifted him up over people’s heads and invited their gazes; those were things to dodge and ditch, like the pyres built for innocent witches. It wasn’t the music he’d been avoiding though, and he let himself smirk a little bit as he got the song right, identifying the notes in his own way, matching Mary with her lamb.
The corkscrew curls were long and ragged, but convenience store razors put the edge on his jaw, and there was a hint of vanity in the care he took when he smoothed his cheek. Ford lifted his head and shot a look all amusement at March’s jazzy little wail. It was the kind of thing that suited him, and the red rush of the fox found his eyes again, keen admiration without any nonsensical hero worship. Ford’s lack of speech and his dalliance with the piano might be charming, but there wasn’t too much of youth in the way he looked at March.
Ford picked up the candy, slowing his one-handed nursery rhyme to do so, and took a healthy bite. He bobbed the slick end of the chocolate at March’s hands where they met the piano. “S’good,” he slurred, dodging bad consonants to make another single syllable comment.
March liked the smirk that came from playing right. It made him feel like Ford got it, like he understood, and maybe music was language to March in a way it wasn't to most folk, and he felt real proud when other folks understood. But all that pride didn't take away noticing, and March might have sworn off sex, but that didn't mean his libido had shut itself down with his diagnosis. Ford was still a handsome thing with all those curls and that sharp jaw. He was masculine in a way March liked, without being manly, and that made no damn sense, but it was the way that it was. There was no changing it, and March wasn't big on trying to turn the tide.
"Don't go looking at me like that, you damn rascal," March said, smiling despite the chastising words. That keen admiration translated as something like wanting to March, and Ford was so much more dangerous than Blake's pushing. The quiet made everything seem louder, every smile, every heavy-lidded gaze. "I don't sleep with anyone these days, and you being a sight for sore eyes doesn't change that," he explained, and there wasn't any pity or apology in the words, though they were wound up real tight with regret.
He didn't want Ford to go, and it was as simple as that.
March grinned when Ford complimented his playing. "You should hear me with a fiddle," he said, fingers slowing to almost nothing, going as slow as the conversation was turning. "We never did talk much about each other. I don't know a damn thing about you," he admitted.
Ford put on a look of entirely false innocence at being called a rascal, a perfect who, me?! that was worthy of the stage he sat on. He noticed that March responded in kind to his sidelong looks and the warm pressure of his shoulder, and he was reassured that he wasn’t unwanted. March’s strange determination to avoid the physical put a perplexed look on his face, though, as if March had just said something in a foreign language. Ford tipped his head and wrinkled his brow, and the form of the question implied was clear. Why?
As for talking about himself, Ford just shrugged. He had round, strong shoulders, perhaps the thing about him that was most wolf and less fox. Russell was a big man with a big voice, but Ford wasn’t built that way. There was much of the scavenger about him, even at ease and licking chocolate off his lower lip. The deep shrug said, quite clearly, Nothing to know. Nobody had bothered to get to know Ford all that well, not his mother and not his friends, few as they were. He didn’t think there was all that much to know, as if he was an obvious, shallow river clear to the bottom.
March understood the asking, even without the words tied to the tip of head and wrinkled brow. "I changed some," he said, and then realized that was too plain. "I had a change of heart about medicine," he said, even though he couldn't remember if Ford even knew he was in medical school when they tumbled. "Came out here, on account of family and wanting to do some sorting of things. Don't want nothing in the way of that." And it wasn't a lie, not outright. He was trying to sort out things, they just weren't the things he expected Ford to imagine he was sorting. His fingers on the keys went lower, slower, darker. As for there being nothing to know about the man at his side, that was a whole lot of lying. "You talk plenty on the journals. Bet you'd tell me your whole life story there," he said, but he understood something about not telling, and his voice didn't sound pushing and poking. "You like it here?" he finally asked, catching on that Ford would answer simple things without saying, and wanting to know something about him that went deeper than how his shoulder felt.
Ford listened with his head tipped slightly to one side in inquisitive pose. He didn’t remember anything about medicine, and he wasn’t sure if that was his own faulty memory or if nothing had been said at all. He tried to think of March as a kind of medicine type, a personage that came more readily to Ford’s mind in the form of a drive-thru pharmacist or a soap opera doctor in scrubs. March seemed too young and too bright to be in that profession, but Ford acknowledged that most of the world must be smarter than him, so it was possible.
Ford’s expression flinched slightly with some regret when March mentioned the difference between here and the journals. Ford’s shoulders shrugged again but he didn’t quite give off that casual air he had a moment ago. He dipped his head and closed the blue eyes for a second, indicating that Las Vegas was fine, as cities go, but not much more than that. Russell’s presence made things complicated. Ford hadn’t been so pissed off at a person for at least a month. Maybe two.
He started to ask March a question, because he wanted to know what was being sorted, but he got caught with his breath in and his tongue flat. No sound came out. He looked away in a quick shiver of curls and darting eyes, giving up on what in favor of playing out a few notes instead.
There wasn't any faulting Ford for not remembering, and March's grin said as much. "I can't remember if I told you either," he admitted unapologetically. Ford stood out in March's memory on account of having a unique name and being quiet in a way others weren't, but the list of people March couldn't quite fix on in his memory was long. He remembered details even less, and he couldn't go faulting Ford for things he didn't remember his ownself. "I was studying medicine. My grandmomma thought I should do something with my life. I had a change of heart after graduation, before my residency," he explained, and the notes on the piano keys went sad and somber, something real close to a dirge filling the room.
March bumped Ford's shoulder when Ford's expression went changing. "Someplace you like better?" he asked, not knowing what made Las Vegas just okay, and wanting to know. It was dangerous, wanting to know things about the man sitting at his side, and March knew it, but damn if he could help himself. Maybe he'd break the news over the journals, where Ford had a chance to call him all kinds of a sonofabitch. Seemed unfair to do it here, when the man couldn't scream and make a fuss. Course, Ford could break his nose in person, but that wasn't going to change a damn thing, and March was sorry of it.
That almost-asked question made March bump his shoulder against Ford's again. "You can go on and say whatever. I'm in no hurry," he assured Ford, and damn if it wasn't true. This might be the only time Ford actually didn't want to go throwing a punch, and March didn't want it ending so soon.
Oblivious to the violent outcomes running through March’s head, Ford focused on the notes under his fingers. He wondered if March’s patience had to do with being a doctor, or if he was just like that naturally. Ford definitely didn’t remember patience coming into the equation when they last met, and he’d kind of been hoping that this would be as equally rushed, though maybe not as brief. He wasn’t counting on quite so much talking beforehand, because he knew he was shit at this part. He sighed into a D# as the tone expanded out into the empty air.
“Ni-nu-nuh-no-no place better.” He had to force it out in pieces, and he put his eyes in an entirely different direction in order to manage it, the lines of his face creasing with effort and embarrassment. March might be patient, and might not be in a hurry, but listening to one syllable cut up into six words was not a fun experience, and Ford would have preferred the punch. Thinking about it generally just made it worse.
March couldn't remember ever spending time with someone who stammered, but he was understanding now that it was the problem. He wondered if Ford had ever gotten help for it, but knew it wasn't real likely. Ford didn't seem the rich type, and stammers weren't something public health care thought were important. And maybe March was more patient than most, because he didn't feel any need to rush Ford on during that long no. He wondered, instead, what he could do to make Ford feel more comfortable, which made him stop himself in his damn tracks.
This wasn't supposed to be a permanent friendship, and March knew that.
No point settling in with Ford, when he'd have to ‘fess up eventually. If he didn't say a damn thing, it would all still come out in the end. Death didn't stop for nobody, not even for March Hatfield, and it would all come clean eventually if Ford hung around long enough.
"I miss home," March said instead, despite it not being anything he was thinking of, and he gave Ford a side look a second later. "This isn't what you were expecting, was it? I'm not?" Because that was clear as day, and damn if he knew what he could do about it. "If things were different, I'd be shoving you back onto these piano keys," she admitted, jerking his chin toward the keys in question and grinning a real devil's grin.
Ford had no idea what other people were thinking while he was trying to get through a fucking word. He had a lot of assumptions based on the experience of a dirt poor kid with no friends, and then he had an adult’s theories based on working with people who had no interest in letting him waste their time with ten syllables a word. His best experiences tended to be with people willing to wait him out. He felt the heat at the back of his neck and let the familiar mortification work its way up his throat before he turned his eyes back up to March.
The vivid blue examined March’s face, and he decided that March’s response wasn’t a sad attempt at changing the subject for Ford’s benefit. Ford allowed himself a tentative touch of relief when March didn’t immediately bring it up, because stuttering about having a stutter had to be a level of hell.
Ford smiled back at this new question. Ford had been expecting a little less in the way of conversation and more in the way of some dark back room, but he liked this fine. It wasn’t as bad as he might have thought, if he’d known going in it would be like that. In response to March’s tip of chin to the keys, Ford shifted his weight and easily lifted a hand up to settle it at the top of March’s spine in a cradle of thumb and forefinger. He pulled a little bit in his direction, unmistakably suggestive. “Li-like... like you fine.”
March wished he was Toby when Ford's blue gaze settled on him wished he had Toby's sense of knowing what was going on in folks' head. His hazel eyes were all wound-up curiosity, wondering what the other man was thinking, and this was just why he didn't go spending alone time with nothing pretty. His damn curiosity got the better of him, and then his willpower threatened to go caving a second later. He wished for a banjo, a fiddle, a cello, something to occupy his fingers with that was better than cold keys. Strings lived in a way keys didn't, and March had trouble concentrating on anything else when he had them under his scratch-scarred fingertips.
But the keys didn't do a damn thing when Ford put that hand on his spine, and they didn't do a damn thing when Ford's voice went all suggestive. Warning bells flashed somewhere in the back of March's mind, and there was a perceptible lean, forward and closer and nearing Ford's mouth, before he managed to pull away and spin to his feet with enough force and speed to knock the piano cover down and the leftover chocolate onto the ground.
March was all rough breathing and pupils gone wide, and he looked down at the other man on the piano bench for a hard second. "I think I best head on home," he finally managed, despite the fact that now was the perfect opening to go confessing. "Alone," he added, and that sounded all kinds of regretful, even to his own ears. Cutting Ford off with disinterest would have been the best way to handle this, but there wasn't a chance in hell he was coming across as disinterested, not when his dick had gone jumping in his pants like he was a randy schoolboy.
Ford’s clean blue eyes sparked with interest and satisfaction when March leaned closer. He could generally tell when a man wasn’t interested long before he touched him, but Ford kneaded his fingers in a little on either side of March’s neck and it had felt pretty good... for about 3 seconds. With a sharp exhale of exclamation that had no clear form, Ford’s hand dropped away and he slid his jeaned ass all the way to one end of the bench, mouth slightly open and tongue set against the upper ridge of his teeth as he looked up at March with concern and surprise.
Ford wasn’t stupid, and he took that a pretty clear sign of rejection in a blink. It didn’t make any sense to him though, because he remembered March as being more than willing and ready once, and everything from the big eyes to the sleek smiles had suggested the same. Ford let his lips fall together and then dropped his head to look down at the chocolate on the ground. He glanced up at March one more time, obviously trying to get a read on him without any success.
Ford twisted away from the piano and stood up in one long, slow extension of limbs. The work had trimmed away anything unnecessary, and he still had enough youth and energy not to be too bowed down by anything life had thrown at him yet. He studied March again, and decided the question was worth the trouble. “How c-c-c-come?” Up here on the stage Ford felt something should be obvious to him, but nothing came. He knew the speech thing was bad but it hadn’t ever done this before, sex was so physical and needed no explanations, so no potential partners had changed their minds over it. Ford couldn’t think of anything else he’d done, so it started to sink in that maybe March was serious about this... life assessment thing. Whatever the hell that was.
March picked up the chocolate, and he held it back out apologetically, folding the wrapper over the exposed end and shrugging his shoulders. His expression was sheepish, and it looked like something practiced real often in life, likely whenever he got into trouble for mischief, which had been real often in his youth. And Ford was right in thinking that he'd been more than willing once. Heck, March had always gone for a good time, long as it wasn't too wild. He was never the daredevil type, but he liked himself some sweaty fun, and he was a social sort. Ford was right on all counts.
Which made it harder for March to answer that stammered question straight, because he just couldn't saying what needed saying. But he didn't want to fib, and he was caught in a corner, make no mistake.
"Told you," March said, closing the cover on the piano permanent, and then shoving his hands deep on into his pockets as he wandered toward the stage stairs. "I'm not getting involved in anything, with anyone, no matter how pretty they are, and no matter how much I might want to. I'm getting settled for myself, making changes." And after saying all that, he felt like he needed to make changes. Damn the dark-haired thing in front of him.
March shrugged those shoulders again, the ones that didn't seem real accustomed to hardship. He could blame all this on his daddy, or his stepmomma. Ford wouldn't know better, and that made everyone uncomfortable enough to get them to stop asking questions. But, March hadn't become that person yet. He preferred him a little bit of truth, to full lying.
"I can be your friend, but that's all, son," March added, and maybe that was lying, because friendship couldn't be based on secrets, and he was keeping one hell of a secret.
Ford didn’t follow March down the stairs. Instead he followed a different circuit, backtracking around the side of the piano. He refused the offer of the chocolate back, trying not to feel like it was a handout, a consolation prize. Hey, sorry the chocolate didn’t work but here ya go. He knew that it wasn’t what March meant, and he didn’t want to feel like it was, so he let March have it and backed away. Ford was confused and embarrassed and not the kind of many to hide either. His white fingers, chapped and ill-suited to the kind of shit he’d been doing at the construction site, pulled through his dark curls, and it took a long time because those curls were just corkscrews of dark locks long enough to touch his shoulders.
Ford skipped the stairs and jumped down off the stage. He landed on the flat of two boots and straightened up to look long at March sideways. “D-d-d-don-don’t sweat it,” he said, with a sort of shake of his head and a smile that said March didn’t need to apologize for the rejection. Ford wanted March to like him, but only if March wanted to like him.
March could tell Ford was embarrassed, and he'd been hoping to avoid that by telling the man ahead of time that he wasn't getting himself involved in anything. Maybe he'd flirted on the journals, but it had seemed like nothing there, safe, so long as it came with a warning a caveat. He meant it about being friendly with Ford, but he knew now might not be the time to go pushing for that neither, when he'd made the other man eat crow. So, he kept to the stairs when Ford jumped down, giving him plenty of space, and then he backed up instead. Best to let the man have his exit; he could always go out the back, if it came to that. But he didn't go running neither; this wasn't anything to be ashamed of. "Not sweating anything," he just said, and he tried to make it sound as casual as could be. The chocolate was melting from the nervous heat of his palm, but that didn't matter worth a lick. "You have yourself a good night," he finished, and then he turned slow and made his way backstage, no rush, no retreat, just friends saying goodbye come the end of the night.