Downton Abbey:
The Sufficiency of Service (formerly "Guy(s) Night")
by Mirwalker
Chapter Forty-three: Not Enough
Having prepared for a heated battle, O'Brien couldn't react to Ian's excited hospitality with more than awkward obedience, stiffly allowing him to seat her fireside and accepting a handkerchief to drape across her lap.
What are you doing? Thomas telegraphed with a look, as O'Brien arranged the makeshift napkin.
Ian responded with a bat of his eyes and his most charming smile, as he turned back to her. "I can't say enough how happy you've made me, appearin' yourself on me one night here, before I'm back to the city for good. My last chance for an introduction or glimpse…" He started his hand gently toward her face, and pulled it back quickly. "Tommy, have you got more than biscuits? And make her some tea if she's to sit a while."
"Actually-" Barrow and O'Brien said at the same time, neither wanting her to tarry.
"Hush you," Ian scolded the other man, who might understand the strategy, but not like it. "You were goin' to say, my lady?" he turned back to O'Brien, rapt.
She gathered the handkerchief around the barely nibbled cookie, and made to stand. "I can't stay. You see, I'd only come to see where, Tomm—Thomas, had gotten off to; and I must get back to the house. Long day today; early morning tomorrow; and so much to be done…"
"Oh, don't go!" Ian protested. "Or, if you must, I'll walk you back. We can't send you out into the cold night alone!"
"Thomas can walk me back, thank you, as we'll be going the same way."
"Then I'll accompany you both," Ian insisted eagerly. "So as not to lose a minute with either of you." He headed to the far corner of the room, and clumsily rummaged for jacket, hat and shoes.
Wide-eyed, O'Brien pulled the uncomfortable, and trying not to laugh, footman toward the door. She whispered, "You keep him away from me, you hear? He's… possessed."
"He's smitten," Thomas didn't lie. He just didn't specify the object of that affection.
"I'm twice his age," she excused. "Nearly."
"Ian likes a little… experience on his women," Thomas shrugged.
She was not amused. "Why on earth is he here?"
"Just a moment!" Ian shouted over his shoulder as he uncovered his second shoe.
Thomas forced a serious look onto his face, and indicated his own right shoulder. "He came to me for help after a… a work accident. And our 'benevolent meddler,' Mrs Crawley, came upon us in the village, noticed his arm, and made him the latest victim of her middle class medical mercies. I'll admit, her contacts probably saved his arm, if not his livelihood; but it's meant he's been between Manchester, here and London a few times in the last month."
So that's where you've really been, and why all the hushed whispers and rushed travel. "And you've put him up here?" she confirmed, admired and judged at the same time.
"Well, we can't afford a suite at the inn, can we? And having met him now, would you have brought him anywhere near the Abbey?"
She didn't say no, as they both looked over to see the young man grinning and struggling to get either shoe on with one and a half good arms.
Thomas drove the point home. "Not that he hasn't asked—begged really, at least to stop by Downton, in hopes of catching a glimpse of his 'fair Sarah'…"
She shot him such a look, before it faded quickly as she straightened her coat. "Well, I'm... flattered, of course. But I've got enough trouble with one Barrow tagging along behind me all my days."
"So sorry; almost ready!" came the cry from the corner.
"He's me only family," Thomas apologized.
"You have parents and a sister."
"…me only family worth bothering with."
"Only who'll bother with you, you mean," she nearly smiled.
"As I recall, you have a nephew you have plans for?" he fired back.
"A footman let go for lying, stealing and shirking his duties, that could mean promotions up the line, and a hall boy opening for young Alfred."
"How about I keep my lovestruck cousin at bay, while you make your escape tonight," Thomas negotiated. "And we'll keep this sanctuary, and its history, off the record should either of us need it down the road?"
"Ready!" Ian charged back to them, dressed for an outing. He held out his good arm, "My lady?"
O'Brien looked from him back to the waiting Thomas, weighing her options. She didn't care for either; but Thomas' offer was immediately beneficial, and didn't preclude her letting slip his sub-letting in the future if it served her. So… "You're most kind… Ian, is it? But I'm quite able to see myself back to the house; and wouldn't wish to interrupt this rare family reunion."
Ian looked crushed, and to his kin for some support. "But-"
"Now, Ian," Thomas pulled him away, "Mrs O'Brien found her way here well enough on her own; and her strength and fearlessness are just more of her… allurin' qualities to admire."
"But you said the 'Missus' didn't mean she was married," Ian pretended to whisper to him. "You told me she weren't spoken for."
"She speaks for herself," Thomas said with a stern look, suggesting the conversation was over.
Ian looked back to the hand-on-door visitor. He seemed ready to say, if not shout, something more. But ultimately, he dropped his gaze to the floor, and pulled his arm from Thomas' grip. "Very well… But," he looked up to O'Brien, "As I'm not likely to visit, to see you again, for some time, might I have some small token from you, to remember tonight?" He briefly puckered his lips.
Thomas almost laughed aloud. Instead, he looked away, as if in embarrassment.
O'Brien's signature stone face had settled in, even as Ian stepped tentatively, if hopefully, toward her. When he'd reached an arm's length from her, her arm shot out, and offered him the wrapped biscuit. "I do hope you're feeling better. And I thank you for your… hospitality."
He sighed as if his wish were granted, took the ball of fabric, and in one quick motion, grabbed her hand, leaned in and kissed it.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, as she wrenched her hand loose, and hurried through the door and curtain without a second glance.
Shaking his head, Thomas playfully knocked Ian's cap off, and followed to see her out and to lock the cottage door behind her.
Returning quickly, as O'Brien's retreat didn't pause at the outer door, Thomas found Ian still working to take off all the outerware he'd piled on for his performance. Thomas approached, laid a chuckling, lingering kiss on top of his head, and asked as he helped with the myriad buttons, "Not that I'm not again sorely impressed by your people skills among others, but truly, where the hell did you get all that?"
"You're welcome," Ian smiled and kissed his cheek. "You'd told me she had a contrary nature, as well as a vain streak. And I never said Mister Tutwiler was a saint to his children, or widowed patrons…"
"I hate him again. And love you all the more." Dropping the final shirt to the floor, Thomas took Ian's face in both his hands, and traced the high cheeks as if they were fragile glass. "I have known, and watched, and noticed many people in my life, too many. But I have never known the… wonder and joy you raise in me. I am mad happy for ya, with ya and 'cause of ya, Ian Colson."
They kissed until Ian couldn't stay on his tip toes any longer.
Thomas leaned in to lay a trail from lips lower, but Ian pulled away. His hand gently atop his footman's heart, he asked, "If tonight's our last for a while, I want to fall asleep against you, savorin' you, not spent. No talk, no quick heat; just together, like our first nights."
Not what he'd planned or expected, but standing there, in ongoing awe of this unearned angel, Thomas could not think of anything he wanted more. He pulled Ian against him, not driven by lust, or urgency, fear or excitement—nothing the body or calendar might demand. They simply shared the tender connection, each knowing he was wholly cherished.
Sunday, 15 December 1912
Thomas woke to the briefest ring of an alarm clock. Ian's good arm slid across his back, and gently caressed him from hind to head.
"Good mornin'," the familiar, quiet voice whispered over the steady beat of the full heart under Thomas' ear.
"Can't be mornin' already; not fair," Thomas complained, quick to recall the finality of this particular pre-dawn.
"I've let you sleep an extra hour..."
"What?!" Thomas sat up in a fright.
Ian smiled knowingly, and shivered from his chest's sudden meeting with the morning's chill. "I wanted more time with you in me arms. Well, me arm."
"But!" Thomas argued, grabbing and squinting at the clock in the low firelight. "I have to be back…"
Ian sat up, set down the clock, put his arm around Thomas' waist, and nestled his head into the frantic man's shoulder. "I don't want you to take me to the station, where we can't do much more than a handshake. We'll make our goodbyes here, in our place. You can go directly to the Abbey at the last possible moment; and I'll pack and get meself to the train. I'll have to do for meself for a while startin' today anyways."
"I don't want to make goodbyes at all," Thomas confessed, wrapping himself and the blanket around Ian.
"Come with me?"
"So temptin'."
"Thought I was an angel," Ian smiled.
"You are; more than you can appreciate," Thomas began to sniffle.
"No tears, love," Ian smiled and kissed them away, poorly hiding his own as he stood. "I'll help you dress. I want the happy image of a bare you at me fingertips, as it's all I'll have of you for a while."
Silent except the occasional throat clearing, the two men dressed one another, too frequently finding themselves slowing or stopping their movements entirely, to simply rest in close contact. Having talked through all the plans for staying in contact during their separation of uncertain length, there was no need to fill the space with repeated details; just being near was more important.
Checking he had the last of his own things, Thomas's fingers ran across the ring still in his pocket; and he looked over to the beautiful, fire-lit man trying not to make red-eyed eye contact. Finding it hard to swallow, much less speak, he decided the gift and request deserved a happy, lasting moment, not one pressured by time and focused on loss.
"I should be off," he regretted, as Ian nodded.
Holding a candle in his slung arm, Ian let Thomas take his good hand, and lead them downstairs. A lonely cold now just moments and feet away, Thomas set the candle on a shelf beside the door. Taking Ian's hands, he kissed them, held them against his cheeks, and reminded, "I love you."
"I love you," Ian stepped in against him for the umpteenth kiss in as many minutes. "I have to go, it's true," he started their familiar refrain.
"But I'll follow, quick as I can," Thomas finished the promise.
Forcing in a deep breath, Thomas opened the door, pressed his lips against Ian's and stepped back into the darkness. Turning away as the door closed behind him, he relished the smile and wink that sent him on his way.
Late that morning, Thomas hurried back to his attic room to change from Church clothes into luncheon livery. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a break in the otherwise crisp lines of his properly made (and unslept in) bed. He pulled at the corner of something just peeking out from under the prim pillow. Sure it had not been there before he left for services, and amazed yet again for the supernatural skills of its delivery, he sat, smiled and didn't control the tears as he relished the simple sketch of two very familiar hands, intertwined.
Thanks to all who have been reading, following and favoriting along the way! Special thanks to "anonmum," whom I believe has been a most consistent reviewer despite not taking that credit by signing in. It all feeds the muse as we proceed; so thanks and keep it up!