Hello, hello! I'm back! I haven't written anything in what feels like a lifetime, and my word did it feel good to be back writing. This is my August Rock the AU. Rock the AU is something that gets organised over on Tumblr where every month there's a new theme which acts as a prompt for writing or fan art or manips or anything relating to Sybil and Tom! It's been going for many many years, briefly stopped over the last year or so, and I've restarted it. So you can expect at least one one-shot from me every month for the rest of the year. Anyway, I'll stop rambling. I hope you enjoy this fic. There's a significant amount of smut. (Also I've not even read through this, I was just so excited to post it, so sorry for any mistakes. All my fault.)

Cora and Robert had been hosting an annual ball to celebrate their anniversary for as long as Sybil could remember. When she was a child she was put in a party frock and was allowed to briefly join in before being pulled away to go to bed at a reasonable hour. Then as a teenager she was allowed to stay for longer, but without fail would eventually get bored of making small talk with family acquaintances. But now as an adult, she actually enjoyed the atmosphere of the annual Crawley ball. Since finishing her nursing degree and starting work as a full time nurse in a different city, she rarely got the chance to come back to stay at Downton and join in with large events, so the annual ball was something she always looked forward to.

And this year was the first time she was bringing a boyfriend along with her. Sybil had been going out with Tom for a little more than a year. He hadn't come to last year's ball because he and Sybil were still in the early stages of their relationship and they decided that getting Tom to meet Sybil's family all at once at a large event was asking a bit too much, especially so early on. But this year, he'd been invited to join in. He'd met Sybil's family multiple times now and felt comfortable enough with them that with Sybil by his side, he was sure he could hold his own at a large event attended by the whole extended Crawley family, along with a large number of the Crawley's family friends and acquaintances. The only thing holding Tom back from diving in headfirst was the fact that he felt very out of place. He came from a working-class family in Ireland. Being thrown in at the deep end with the English aristocracy was as far out of his comfort zone as he'd ever been. The thing keeping his head above water was knowing that he had Sybil to guide him through the evening. If all else failed, he knew that he could stick close to her throughout the whole evening and feel safe and slightly less out of his depth than he would were Sybil not in the picture.

Tom had just been on a run around the Downton grounds and came back to Sybil's (quite frankly enormous) childhood bedroom to find her admiring herself in the mirror, twisting her body to see herself from different angles.

When she heard the bedroom door creak open she turned to look at him.

"What do you think?"

He stood across the room from her, staring shamelessly at her body.

"You look…" he didn't have the words to finish his sentence.

Sybil couldn't help a grin from inching its way across her face as she allowed Tom to eye her up and down. She hadn't chosen her clothes specifically to impress Tom. She chose them because she liked them. But having Tom react in this way was definitely a bonus.

After a moment Tom walked towards Sybil and pulled her in for a tender kiss, his hands on her waist.

"Is that a corset?" he asked when he pulled back.

Sybil nodded. "I always feel this outfit looks better with a corset than a bra."

Tom cocked an eyebrow and reluctantly stepped away from Sybil for his own good.

Sybil was wearing one of her favourite outfits. It only came out on very special occasions, a few times a year at most, and Tom had never seen it before. The bodice was made of a blue and bronze floral patterned fabric with a beautiful bronze waistband to match. The sleeves were elbow-length and the skirt was not actually a skirt at all, but two trouser legs that flowed together to give the illusion of a skirt at first glance and gathered at her ankles. Each trouser leg was a different shade, one a lighter shade of blue and one a deeper teal colour to match the blues in the bodice. Her shoes, jewellery and makeup matched the look well, and the outfit was finished with her hair pinned in an updo and dressed with a head band to match the frock.

Violet hated it. Mary tolerated it. Edith wished she had the confidence to wear something so bold. Sybil didn't care what her family thought of her fashion choices. It boosted her confidence through the roof every time she wore it and that's all she cared about.

"I'm going to go and have a shower," Tom said. A cold one, he thought, if I'm going to spend the whole evening trying to hide that I'm imagining getting you out of that corset. "Otherwise I'm not going to be ready in time."

When Tom returned from the bathroom down the hall Sybil was nowhere to be seen. Tom quickly got into his suit. He had a number of suits for normal occasions, and one especially nice suit that he wore when he needed to be a bit smarter. That's the one he would wear tonight. His mother had kindly bought it for him for a special occasion a number of years ago and he'd been careful to look after it ever since. Suit on, hair dried and looking not too dishevelled, and bow tie successfully tied, he made his way down the large Downton staircase into the main hall where the finishing touches were being made before guests arrived.

As he stood beside one of the large pillars around the edge of the hall, not knowing whether he should be offering help, Sybil came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him.

"Hello," she said sweetly, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Hello, love," he replied, turning around to face her.

She gave him a quick kiss before saying, "Guests are going to start turning up soon. Ready for the inundation?"

"I'm never going to be ready for an evening surrounded by the English aristocracy, but I'll do my best," he said.

"It's not all aristocracy," Sybil said.

"It's not?"

"There are some people coming who are our age who are friends of mine, Edith's and Mary's. You might have met a couple of them before actually," Sybil said.

"Might I?" he asked.

"Some of them were at my birthday party last year. I don't know how much you spoke to them, but do you remember Gwen?"

Tom frowned at her, trying to remember.

"Redhead, about yay high," she gestured with her hand, "Scottish, incredibly loud when drunk..."

That was enough to jog his memory. "Oh! Yes, I remember her. She was lovely, we chatted quite a lot that evening actually."

"I'm not surprised, you two aren't all that dissimilar," Sybil said. "Well she's coming, and there are a few others in the same friendship group who are all very down to earth. I tend to stick with them the majority of the time at these balls, and the evening always flies by."

It was certainly going to be an interesting evening, but Tom hoped that he would enjoy it (and not get too political with her family).

-ooo-

The dinner portion of the evening was uneventful, but Sybil and Tom were sat apart. Tom was in between Mary, with whom he surprisingly got along quite well, and some family friend who largely ignored him. Sybil was sat across the table between her grandmother and Gwen. Even though she spent the meal deep in conversations with Violet and Gwen, she still found time to give Tom some sideways glances and cocked eyebrows every now and then. She'd seen how he looked at her when he first saw her in her outfit. She wondered how much she could tease him before he cracked. It would be a fun evening finding out how far she could push him.

Once the meal was over, the best part of the evening began. There was music and dancing and mingling and friends and alcohol and laughter. Sybil and Tom spent a lot of the evening at the side of the room with Gwen and one or two more of Sybil's childhood friends, occasionally joined briefly by some family friends looking to find out who Tom was. Most of them would have seen Gwen and Sybil's other friends before – they were often invited to large gatherings, along with a few of Mary's and Edith's childhood friends. But Tom was new. No wonder they were curious.

Towards the end of the evening Sybil had gone off to the bathroom and upon her return found Tom talking to Larry Grey, a family friend whom Sybil hated. He was vile. He was arrogant and thought he was superior to everyone in a five mile radius and wasn't afraid to let everyone know that that's what he thought. Tom was Larry's least favourite sort of person – someone down to earth who earned every single penny he had, was clever, was attractive, and more to the point, was going out with Sybil. Since they were teenagers, Larry couldn't stand it whenever Sybil showed interest in somebody else. Larry had always liked her. Sybil had never liked him.

"Ah, Sybil," Larry said as Sybil approached the two of them.

"Larry," she said, not wanting to get involved in a conversation with him. She took up her place beside Tom and put her arm around him, a not-so-subtle sign to tell Larry to back off.

"I've been talking to Tom here," he said.

Sybil tried not to voice her thoughts. I'm surprised you could hold a conversation with him. He actually has brains.

Tom had been speaking to Larry for no more than a couple of minutes, but it had been long enough that, coupled with the very strong vibes of hatred he was getting from Sybil, he knew he didn't like him.

"I'm surprised at you Sybil," Larry continued. "The aristocracy is full of eligible young men."

"As is the rest of the world," Sybil snapped back. "And the eligible young men in the rest of the world have the advantage of not being in the aristocracy."

"Is it wise to bad mouth your own kind?" he said, his arrogance shining brightly through.

"The only kind that I consider my own kind are decent people, Larry. A category of people that you've never even seen because your head is so far up your own arse."

Larry huffed off without saying another word to Sybil. Each time he saw her he tried another arrogant tactic to get her to like him, and it never worked. All it did was push her further away from him.

Sybil turned to Tom in triumph.

"Sorry you had to talk to him," Sybil said.

"The one and only time, I hope," he said.

Sybil leant in to kiss him, a kiss that lingered for longer than she had intended, not that she was about to complain about it.

"Shall we call it a night?" Sybil asked quietly.

Tom nodded.

It was now the early hours of the morning. Gwen and all Sybil's other friends had already left. There were a fair few people still clinging on, but they were all friends of Sybil's parents rather than friends of hers, and she'd rather avoid talking to them if she could help it. None of them would even notice if she disappeared for the rest of the evening.

-ooo-

Sybil took Tom's hand and they quickly and quietly made their way up the grand main staircase. Sybil sped up without even realising until she and Tom were jogging down the hall to her room. As soon as they were in her room and the door was closed, she instantly turned to face Tom and planted a kiss on his lips. He responded willingly, gently pushing his tongue towards hers, knowing full well where this evening would end.

They kicked their shoes off at the door, and as the two of them were kissing, they made their way to the bed until Sybil felt it with the backs of her legs and fell back onto it, pulling Tom down with her. She held him close to her with her hands on his back and arms as she deepened the kiss even further, slowing everything down a notch.

Tom ran one hand down Sybil's side until he reached her hip. He slowly moved his hand across her body until it was just between the tops of her thighs. Unfortunately with what she was wearing, he couldn't get to where he wanted.

"Syb," he moaned against her lips.

"Patience," she said in reply.

"I want you," he groaned.

"And you'll have me," she said, kissing him again. "But first…"

Sybil gently pushed Tom off her and the two of them sat up on the bed. Sybil pushed his jacket off his shoulders and he undid his tie. Sybil leant forward and undid the buttons of his shirt as she lay delicate kisses on his neck. She'd undone his buttons enough that she no longer needed to look as she did it. She could judge her movements entirely by feel. Once she'd undone the last button, Tom pulled the shirt off behind him and Sybil ran her hands down his chest, all the while their lips searching each other out.

After a moment, Sybil shimmied off the bed and took Tom's hands to pull him up too. She dropped to her knees and unzipped his trousers. As they fell to the floor, she pulled down his underwear and he automatically stepped out of his clothes.

Sybil took in the sight of Tom's already hard cock and wrapped her hand softly around it as she looked up at him. She smirked the smirk that she had picked up from him as he closed his eyes to enjoy the feeling of her hand moving up and down on him. With his eyes still closed, she leant forward and took his cock in her mouth. She heard his breath hitch in his throat. He hadn't expected her tongue to be around him quite yet.

Tom tangled his fingers through Sybil's hair, pushing through the pins. Sybil changed her rhythm and pace to get him to where she wanted him to be – not quite at climax. Once he was close, she stepped away, eliciting a whimper from him.

She walked over the vanity across the room and reached up to take out the pins from her hair. Once the headband was off, there were a few more pins to find before her hair would fall free. Tom walked up behind her and kissed her neck as she fiddled with her hair. He nipped at her jawline from behind, a way to tell Sybil he wouldn't be able to wait long. He started to undo the back of Sybil's dress, and once her hair was loose and hanging around her shoulders, she shimmied her arms out of the sleeves and let the bodice drop. She stepped out of the trouser legs and left the garment on the floor to reveal only her corset and a pair of lacy black underwear.

As she turned to look at Tom he looked her up and down and let out a sigh of admiration.

"Jesus fecking Christ you're beautiful," he said. He always swore more when he wasn't sober.

He kissed her gently and then lifted her up around her back and knees and brought her over to the bed, laying her down gently. He straddled her and leant down to kiss first her lips and then along the top line of her corset across her breasts. Her heavy breathing was exaggerated thanks to the way the corset pushed her breasts up, arousing Tom even further as her chest was pushed up towards his lips with each breath.

He took his time, drawing out the pleasure as much as he could, both for himself and for Sybil. Eventually he moved down Sybil's body and traced the edge of her knickers with a few fingers until he found what he was looking for. He felt how wet Sybil was already, pushed aside the fabric and quickly found her clit. Sybil took a deep breath – as deep as she could whilst still in a corset – at the feel of his fingers on her.

It wasn't long before the fabric in between him and her began to annoy him. He put his fingers in the waistband of her knickers, prompting Sybil to push her hips off the bed so that he could slide them down her legs.

He tossed them aside and whispered to Sybil, "I'm going to taste you."

His accent was thick enough and his voice deep enough to make anyone swoon. Tom returned to the lower half of Sybil's body. He quickly settled himself between her legs and went tongue first for her clit. She bucked her hips up to him, something she always did and couldn't help. He wrapped one strong arm around the back of her thigh in a futile attempt to try and steady her. His other hand joined his tongue at her centre. As his tongue flicked and sucked at her clit, tasting as much of her wetness as it could, his fingers ventured into her, stroking her G-spot.

Sybil's breathing quickened and she whimpered Tom's name as he built the feeling within her. He focused on her pleasure with his tongue and fingers until she reached orgasm. She threw her head back on the bed, bucked her hips up to meet Tom's tongue and clamped her walls around his fingers. He moved away from her centre and moved up her body so place a deep kiss on her lips. Her breathing hadn't had a chance to recover from her orgasm, but that didn't stop her doing everything she could to kiss him back, their tongues dancing around each other, allowing Sybil to taste herself on Tom's lips.

Eventually she sat up and undid the hooks at the front of her corset. She knew she needed to be able to move more and breathe more. When the hooks were undone she pushed the corset off the bed, leaving it to land haphazardly on the floor, and Tom's hands immediately found her breasts.

Sybil pushed him down so that she could be on top of him and she positioned her breasts in front of him so that he could take a nipple in his mouth. Sybil then moved so that her knees were either side of his head. Her hands grabbed the headboard of the bed to steady herself as his tongue resumed work on her clit, soaking up the wetness that continued to flow out of her the more he touched her. One orgasm was rarely enough for Sybil. She regularly wanted more, and Tom was always more than willing to provide.

Having just had one, her senses were heightened now and if he carried on the way he was going, it wouldn't be long before he tipped her over the edge again. Sybil had been gently teasing Tom all evening in such a way that Tom was desperate for her now that they were alone. He would do anything to please her.

Before she was too close to her second orgasm and while she still had some self-control, she moved herself down Tom's body so that her vagina was right by his cock, still hard and wanting to fill her. She slowly circled her hips against him, feeling his cock against her where she was most sensitive.

"You've been teasing me all evening, love," Tom said. "Please…" he begged for more.

Sybil smirked at him before climbing off him and reaching over to the drawer of her bedside table to find a condom. She tore one off the strip and handed it to Tom who quickly tore the packet open and rolled it onto himself. Sybil faced away from him on all fours. Tom took the hint to get onto his knees behind her. He ran the tip of his cock along her opening a few times before gently sliding into her. Sybil rocked back against him to get him as deep in her as she could. She wanted to feel him. She needed to feel him.

Tom took Sybil's hips in his hands and moved her in sync with his own thrusts, starting slowly and gradually getting faster and harder. Their breathing quickly became erratic and full of moans and words of pleasure. Sybil lowered her chest nearer to the bed and pushed her backside up towards Tom. He leant forward and reached around in front of Sybil to fondle her breasts as he carried on thrusting into her. She moved one hand down to play with her own clit to increase her pleasure.

Knowing that she was close to orgasm only aroused Tom even more. When Sybil instructed Tom to go even harder, he obliged and soon she was clamping around him as her orgasm exploding and ricocheted throughout her whole body. Her body shook and her breath hitched and she bit her lip to stop herself being so loud that other people might hear her.

Once she had begun to come down the other side, she kept pushing back towards Tom, wanting him to get his pleasure just as she had got hers. When Tom suddenly slowed to deep powerful slow thrusts, she knew he was close. His own body tensed as his seed shot out of him. He grunted Sybil's name as he reached his peak and then relaxed his whole body as he began to get his breath back. He pulled out of her, took off the condom and fell beside her on the bed.

He wrapped one arm around her and pulled her close to him. She lay her head on his shoulder and reached across his torso to interlace her fingers with his. She kissed his chest and smiled.

"I've never been to a ball that ended quite so perfectly," she whispered.

"You mean they don't all end with a handsome Irishman fucking you till you can't walk straight?" Tom teased.

"Haven't in the past," Sybil said. "Although I have a feeling future balls might end in a similar way to tonight."

"Only if you're good," Tom smirked.

"I can be very good if this is going to be my reward," Sybil said.

"I'll hold you to that," he said.

"I'm counting on it."

She moved so that she could lean in to kiss him. It was deep and slow and sensual and full of longing. The two of them had been desperate to have each other all day and finally they'd got what they wanted. Sure, Sybil's life was different to Tom's. Balls and dinners and charity events rather than what they both considered "real work". But it had given Sybil the chance to gawp at Tom in a suit all night and Tom the chance to imagine ripping Sybil out of a corset all evening, so they could hardly complain about it. Today had been a very good day with an exceptional ending that neither of them were going to be forgetting any time soon.