Archive of Our Own

Jimmy can’t find Thomas anywhere. 

His chest burns for the bitter nicotine of a cigarette, bummed off Thomas and lit by him, too. However, the damned under-butler has vanished into thin air.

He’s missing from the kitchen where dim lights hover over Mrs. Patmore as she orders around poor Ivy and Daisy. The two kitchen maids dance busily around the island piled high with pots and pans, bowls and platters, rolling pins and spoons, preparing a hearty dinner for the family upstairs.

Jimmy leaves before Ivy can strike up a conversation and distract him from his task of finding Thomas.

He’s missing from the boot room, dusty and darkening as the setting sun’s final rays slip through the thin, slanted windows. The room is bare, except for a pair of lonely brogues lounging on the table, waiting to be polished.

The servants hall, too, is also empty of Thomas’s presence. A hall-boy scribbling down something in a beat-up notebook sits alone at the end of the table, near the piano. Jimmy frowns, leaves, checks Thomas’s bedroom up in the attic. 

Thomas’s bedroom is vacant, haunted only by an empty dresser top and a neatly made bed. A stark contrast from Jimmy’s own. He ducks out, confused and conflicted.

Jimmy knows that Thomas isn’t lurking around upstairs, not at this time.

At this time, the two men would typically be sharing a cigarette and conversation outside, waiting for the dinner gong. Evidently, Jimmy sulks, that would not be happening this evening.

He makes his way out the servants entrance and to their little corner, an alcove composed of soot-covered bricks and decaying wooden crates, checking if Thomas has since decided to show up. He has not. 

At this point, it isn’t even about the cigarette anymore. A burning worry invades Jimmy’s chest, replacing his previous craving for nicotine.

Where could Thomas be?

They will be serving soon and Jimmy’s already checked everywhere he thinks Thomas could be. The under-butler has seemingly vanished into thin air.

Jimmy eyes the direction of the garage. Vacant most of the time since Tom Branson had married Sybil Crawley and left the chauffeur-life behind (mostly). It is an unlikely place for Thomas to be, but Jimmy has to check.

Just in case. Otherwise, Jimmy fears letting Mr. Carson know that Thomas is missing.

He kicks off toward the garage at a hurried pace. 

Before he can enter, turn the doorknob, press on the door and let himself in, a faint moan escapes from inside the garage. Jimmy startles, and his eyes go wide. For a minute he wonders whether or not he should open the door, fearful of whatever may lie on the other wise. 

In the end, both his curiosity and worry set in and Jimmy quietly pushes the door open ajar. He doesn’t want to risk any possible occupants noticing. If Thomas happens to be in there, Jimmy doesn’t know what he would do.

Flee? Stay? Enter?

His heart races. Jimmy’s eyes trail across the garage, looking for the source of the sound he’d heard earlier. Maybe he’d misheard?

He prays that this is the case. That is, until his eyes slide over to where the Crawley’s car is parked.

A figure with a strong, sturdy frame is currently being pressed against the hood of the car. Mussed brown hair and loose strands that have fallen across their face. His face. Tom Branson.

In front of him, on his knees, Thomas Barrow holds onto Branson’s hips, pushing him against the car. Thomas’s face, half-shielded by Branson’s hand that grips Thomas’s hair, is buried into the Irish man’s crotch, where his trousers have been shrugged down.

Oh God .

Struck with fear, confusion and mild horror, Jimmy closes the door as quietly and quickly as he can. He braces himself against the wood frame, so unsure of what to do with the fact that he has just seen—

He blinks his eyes furiously. Oh God , he thinks again. Anyone can walk in . Jimmy almost had himself. Practically did.

Thomas had forgone their daily smoke for… Tom Branson?

Jimmy has to check again. To make sure he isn’t seeing things all of a sudden, he tells himself as he slowly opens the door ajar once more. 

He watches as Branson’s fingers twist into Thomas’s hair, freeing the black strands from their heavy layer of pomade. Watches as Thomas’s head moves at a slow pace, then gathers a steady speed, then slows again. Watches as Branson’s own head falls back, eyelids fluttering, face fixed with immeasurable pleasure.

No one has ever pleasured Jimmy like that before.

Jimmy realizes he’s been staring for too long now. Having kept a close eye on the entire scene; slow movements that flicker frame by frame, like a film at the cinema. Fingers curling. Back and forth. Eyelids fluttering. Back and forth. Hands gripping. Back and forth.

He has to leave. His hands waver.

Thomas had forgone their daily smoke for Tom Branson.

Jimmy closes the door. He has to leave, wipe everything he’s just witnessed from his mind. Thomas on his knees. Tom Branson’s cock most definitely in his mouth.

Oh God, get it out of your head .

Jimmy scampers back to the servants hall, far away from the garage, heart beating at an unreasonably quick pace. A nervous worry has started to camp inside his chest. He’d been there too long. They’d seen, or something. One of them? Both of them? Jimmy had closed the door too loud. Made a sound. They’d heard. One of them? Both of them?

“Hey, Jimmy!”

Panicking, Jimmy startles, frightened at the sudden recognition of his presence. Alfred.

“Are you alright, Jimmy?” Alfred asks, noticing Jimmy’s wide eyes and frantic stance. He’s always been very emotive. Thomas mocks him mercilessly for it sometimes. 

His face will certainly not save him now. He’d just witnessed his best mate with Tom Branson’s cock in his mouth. The likelihood of his face resuming a servant’s blank is zero to none at the moment.

Attempting to school his features into a somewhat more reasonable expression, Jimmy replies, “Better than you.” A bitter lie.

Affronted, Alfred continues, “It’s just you look—”

“Are you going to keep blathering on?” Jimmy says. “Or am I serving dinner tonight by myself?”

Alfred scurries after Jimmy as the dinner gong sounds.

The table has already been set, and now it only needs the foods that adorn it. Like clockwork, Jimmy and Alfred move swiftly through the kitchen, grabbing platters of meat and gravy saucières, and heading up the stairs to the dining room.

As Jimmy holds out platters for each of the family to take their chosen portions he eyes the table for Tom Branson. Missing.

Jimmy knows exactly where he is. Slinking around with the under-butler when Thomas should’ve been smoking with him : Jimmy, he thinks bitterly.

Right when Jimmy goes to stand off to the side to await further instruction as the family dines, Branson rushes in, holding his dinner jacket closed by the buttons on the front. He looks almost nothing like the man Jimmy had witnessed earlier, head tipped back in ecstasy. Falling apart at the hands of Thomas Barrow. 

“Goodness, Tom,” Lady Mary startles, placing her fork back down. “Where have you been?”

“I went out earlier to check up on one of the farms that’s been in disrepair,” Branson says as he moves to take his seat. “Lost track of time.”

He sits.

Jimmy moves to start serving him. A bitter resentment rises within him. Not for the type of relationship that’s brewing between the two men , but that Branson had stolen Thomas. Lied to the family so easily, and without a wink.

It is Thomas and Jimmy that are supposed to share the free time before the family dines. Smoking, of course, not… that . But still, it makes Jimmy’s blood start simmering. 

“Ah, did you happen to take Mr. Barrow with you?” The Dowager Countess asks. 

Both Jimmy and Branson freeze. 

“It seems he’s decided not to make an appearance tonight, either.”

Branson, resuming his movement, reaches for a slice of turkey off the platter that Jimmy is holding, and replies with a forced chuckle, “No, Lady Grantham. Not unless Mr. Barrow has a past in farmhouse restoration that we’ve been somehow exempt from knowing.”

At this, the Dowager laughs, and Jimmy eases slightly. 

However, Mr. Carson has heard, and knows, and has known since Thomas neglected to show up earlier when they’d started serving. The worry that had set in previously begins to creep back, and Jimmy has to force himself to continue working.

He knows Thomas is always on thin ice when it comes to Mr. Carson. Jimmy often is himself. Never able to please Mr. Carson with an amount of work completed. And Thomas has worked here longer, and done worse, so he once told Jimmy one evening.

It is hard for Jimmy to believe, and understand, why Thomas would forgo his duties as under-butler to spend time away with Branson. 

He has to stop thinking about it . Jimmy wants the image of it gone, banished from his mind. 

He needs to stop thinking about Tom Branson’s head bent back, hands gripping Thomas’s hair, face contorted with wild lust. The man is sitting only feet away from him now. 

And Jimmy’s got to get it out of his head for fear of these restricting and obvious trousers. He refuses to indulge the idea of what it could possibly mean.

It means nothing.

Branson eyes Jimmy. In response, Jimmy does absolutely everything he can to avert his gaze, staring straight ahead at the wall. 

Does he know ? Jimmy thinks, terrified, mortified .

It dawns on him, then, that if Branson is ‘involved’ with Thomas, then he likely knows about Thomas’s friendship with Jimmy. Maybe? Has to, Jimmy concludes, for Thomas to skip their daily smoke so that he can rendezvous with the Irish man in the often-empty garage.

In the end, when dinner ends and Jimmy starts to remove the dishes from the table alongside Alfred, both options are waging war inside his head. He knows versus he doesn’t . It’s a bit bloody, and Jimmy himself is crawling over barbed-wire in No Man’s Land, searching for refuge and unable to find it. 

Downstairs he almost runs into Mr. Carson, who is berating someone with loud and lacerating insults. Jimmy tilts his head past the Butler to see who the culprit is and—

Thomas.

He stands tall, shoulders straightened and body rigid in a perfect servant’s stance. His mouth is pinched and Jimmy can tell he’s averting Mr. Carson’s glare. 

“It is completely irresponsible for someone of your stature, as the under-butler , to exempt himself from standing post at dinner ,” Mr. Carson seethes. “I don’t know what could have possessed you from refusing to show up, but whatever it was is absolutely no excuse for your behavior! Slacking off, at your age and rank!”

Jimmy almost wants to let Thomas take the verbal beating. He’d had his pleasure with Branson, and now he’s receiving rightful punishment for it.

But Jimmy knows Thomas would never let Mr. Carson ground him into the dirt. He would rescue Jimmy in a heartbeat—and he had . Once. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Carson,” Jimmy interrupts. 

The aging Butler turns, fury in his movements, “ Wha t can I do for you, James ?”

Jimmy tucks away his terror of the man and says, “I’d been looking for Mr. Barrow meself earlier, before it was time to serve, and I’d found him up in his room. He’s got a fever, I’m sure of it.”

Behind Mr. Carson, Thomas’s shoulders dip a fraction in relief. A part of Jimmy knows it’s because Thomas never thinks Jimmy will— wants —to come to his aid. And he just had. 

“Is that so, James?” Mr. Carson doesn’t seem swayed by Jimmy’s interruption and half-arsed explanation. The Butler turns to Thomas again, expectant. “Do you confirm this excuse ”—it’s a dirty word in his mouth—“Mr. Barrow?”

“Partially, yes, Mr. Carson,” Thomas nods. He knows exactly how to play along. To conjure lies on the spot. “Nothing too serious, certainly not a fever—just a dizzy spell come over me. All I needed was a quick lie-down.”

Mr. Carson hardly looks convinced, but with two people to confirm the story, there isn’t much he can do. He glares at the under-butler and footman with sharp, angry eyes. His thick brows hide a brewing storm.

“You best hope that it’s not a fever, Mr. Barrow,” he tells Thomas, voice low and ever-threatening. Then he says to Jimmy: “James, if there ever is a next time, God help us all, alert me immediately. We can not risk another embarrassment, such as that , in front of the family ever again.”

When Mr. Carson leaves, Jimmy lets slip an audible sigh of relief. Thomas drops his stoic servant’s stance, shoulders slackening.

“Thank you, Jimmy.”

He looks so relieved for almost a second until his guard is back up. Jimmy immediately knows why, but a part of him hoped Thomas could be—would be—trusting of him. They are supposed to be best mates, right?

But Jimmy knows the night Thomas tried to kiss him still haunts Thomas. It still haunts Jimmy, too, sometimes. For reasons that he locks behind a steel door in the back corner of his mind.

He’s forgiven Thomas. Doesn’t Thomas know this?

To ease Thomas’s worry that Jimmy knew exactly where he was, exactly what he was doing, Jimmy asks, “Where were ya’ really?”

With Tom Branson .

“Forgot the time filling out the wine ledger down in the cellar,” Thomas says smoothly.

Jimmy deflates. He knows that Thomas already had a white lie prepped and ready to go, but—

Thomas notices. “I’m sorry.”

He’s apologizing for abandoning their evening smoke. And for Jimmy having to cover for him with Mr. Carson. 

Perhaps, Jimmy thinks, he’s also apologizing for lying about his whereabouts. Jimmy suspects that Thomas knows he doesn’t buy the wine ledger lie. 

“You’re alright.”

It’s all Jimmy can muster at the moment. He looks at Thomas, standing in front of him now, and only remembers him on his knees. And Tom Branson’s face. Thomas must be a natural.

“Would you like a smoke?” Thomas offers. He’s already reaching for the packet that he keeps in his livery jacket.

They’re in the middle of the hallway, blocking the path that leads from the kitchen to the servant’s hall. Jimmy can’t stop thinking of something besides a cigarette filling Thomas’s mouth. He doesn’t know how to feel about it.

“I’m alright, thanks.”

Thomas’s face wilts and Jimmy almost regrets saying no, but then he remembers Tom Branson’s fingers curling in Thomas’s hair. At least, Jimmy sulks, Thomas has got Branson for company if he’s truly beaten up about it.

And the corridor is empty again, free of their bodies and unexplained tension. Back and forth. 

Jimmy spends the rest of the evening trying to catch Ivy’s eye to take his mind off the back and forth. He should’ve accepted the cigarette.

——

The table in the servant’s hall is bedecked with silver dishes, utensils, and other assorted objects, as the morning sunlight trickles in from the small windows. Jimmy groans as he sits, knowing this’ll be his work for the rest of the day. 

He reaches for one of the smaller utensils. His tactic has always been to start polishing the little things first before making his way to the larger objects. It saves his wrist from aching early on.

However, the second he starts to polish, Mrs. Hughes enters the servant’s hall. Her thin hands are clasped in front of her, eyes kind and gentle, same as her voice. She isn’t particularly fond of Jimmy, but since he made up with Thomas for the Incident, she has made several small allowances on his behalf. 

“James,” she starts.

Jimmy places the utensil back onto the table. He doesn’t mind distractions, depending on what they entail.

“Yes, Mrs. Hughes?” He’s working on being more polite—both verbally and physically, in his emotive facial features—to mitigate any damage done in the year he’d ‘hated’ Thomas. 

“Mr. Branson wants to meet with you,” she says. “He’s in my pantry, if you don’t mind putting your polishing aside for the moment?”

Jimmy thinks he’s about to have a heart attack.

There is no other reason, he panics, for Tom Branson to want to meet with him unless it’s to talk about the scene in the garage.

He’d seen. Of course he’d seen. Jimmy is an utter fool to have believed otherwise.

Branson’s probably also told Thomas by now. Oh God , Jimmy wants to die, fade away into the brick wall of the servant’s hall. The large pile of unpolished silver and an aching wrist suddenly seems far more appealing than usual. 

“James?” Mrs. Hughes’ voice returns him to reality.

He never should’ve opened that garage door, he thinks. He should’ve accepted Thomas’s cigarette. 

“Yes, I’ll go see him.”

Jimmy stands, pushes off from the table, and makes his way through the downstairs labyrinth towards Mrs. Hughes’ pantry.

The walk there is the most agonizing process Jimmy has ever encountered. He places it above all the humiliating times he’d marched up to Lady Anstruther’s bedroom. At least he’d known exactly what she wanted from him.

Branson is sitting when Jimmy enters. He stands almost immediately, hands flying once more to the buttons on the front of his coat, like he’s holding secrets captive. He doesn’t look flustered or embarrassed, which makes Jimmy’s worries worse.

“James Kent,” Branson acknowledges as a way of breaking the ice.

“I go by Jimmy.”

“Jimmy, then.”

Jimmy doesn’t know how one is supposed to stand, or look, when someone’s about to call them out as a voyeur. Accidental voyeur, he amends. He opts for keeping his arms loose by his sides. 

Branson doesn’t look like a violent or physical man. That eases Jimmy’s fear of getting pounced on.

“May I ask why you’ve called on me?” Jimmy says. His voice nearly wavers. He wants to get out of here, as quickly as he can. 

“Yes, of course,” Branson says. “I’ve been thinking about acquiring a valet of my own. It’s what the Crawley’s have been pushing for for a while now, and I’ve been suggested that you are the perfect candidate.”

“Your… valet?”

“Yes.”

Jimmy is so sure that he’s misheard Branson’s request. Is so sure that Branson had seen him lurking at the door of the garage yesterday evening. The man had eyed him the entirety of dinner, which Jimmy had so ardently ignored.

“I…” Jimmy stutters.

It is possible that Branson had eyed him the entirety of dinner working himself up to ask Jimmy to be his valet. A part of him finds that explanation quite reasonable. Branson’s body language is so open, and he’s showing zero signs of discomfort or embarrassment, or a need to cover up the act. 

He doesn’t appear worried that Jimmy could run off and alert the police. Which, Jimmy tells himself, he would never do.

“Of course, I’ll give you time to mull it over,” Branson says politely. “All I ask is that you let Mrs. Hughes know when you’ve made your decision, whatever it may be.”

He claps Jimmy on the back of the shoulder as he exits, leaving the footman standing stock still in the middle of Mrs. Hughes’ pantry. The silence crushes around him before Mrs. Hughes enters the room and ushers Jimmy out.

He had been so sure Branson was there for alternative reasons. So sure.

Maybe he is more sneaky than he previously thought. But he’ll never do that again, he concludes. Watch as two people engage in a sexual act. And especially not if those involved in the act are two men.

Still, Jimmy can’t figure out why he stayed and watched in the first place. Any normal, self-respecting man would close the door and walk off the second he gauged what was happening. Instead, Jimmy had reopened the door, like some dastardly voyeur. 

Two men .

He reasons, even more, as he walks back to the servant’s hall to resume polishing the silver, that since it wasn’t him engaged in either position of the act—the one with a cock in his mouth and the one with his cock in another man’s mouth—that the plausibility of this type of voyeurism doesn’t ruin his presentation as a red-blooded man . He can watch something and not derive satisfaction from it. 

Jimmy retakes his seat at the long table in the servant’s hall. Alfred has since shown up to help polish, already finished with the previous task Mr. Carson had assigned him.

Uninterested in conversation with him, and quite put off from his previous conversation this morning, Jimmy lets Alfred drone on about the new recipes Mrs. Patmore has been assisting him with.

He mulls over Branson’s request, as the man had so delicately put it, and decides that it would be rather beneficial to both his pay and his career. Alfred himself is certainly working his way up for something new, despite all the times Jimmy has mocked him for it, and Jimmy isn’t eager to get left behind.

All the other servants have slightly more achievable dreams outside of service than Jimmy, it’s true. He isn’t keen on being a footman forever.

Then, as Alfred switches topics to different kinds of spices and the dishes they belong to (God, this is so entertaining), Jimmy thinks: Why did Branson ask him ?

He could’ve propositioned Thomas, who had far more experience in the world of valeting—not to mention their sordid lust-filled tryst Jimmy had just discovered. What could Jimmy offer to Branson that Thomas couldn’t?

“You’re not even listening to me, are you?” Alfred gripes. He looks a bit put out, but Jimmy can’t bring himself to care. He’s too busy over-analyzing everything to do with Thomas Barrow and Tom Branson.

He never should’ve opened that garage door. That stupid, fated garage door.

“Not really, no.”

Alfred has never been a particularly interesting bloke. And now that his aunt is gone and Ivy still pays him no heed, it’s always Jimmy he comes blathering off to. It’s a wonder that Alfred hasn’t picked up on just how much Jimmy doesn’t care . 

Really, Jimmy would prefer Thomas’s company much more. His cigarettes. His conversation. Unlike Alfred, Thomas is more interesting in everything he says.

Jimmy is able to communicate with Thomas in a way he never has been with anyone else. Except perhaps his mother. There’s nothing awkward in silences that sit between them (not anymore), and no uninteresting one-sided conversations. Thomas keeps Jimmy engaged, afloat. He’s good company.

Alfred has shut up now, put off by Jimmy’s animosity.

In the sudden silence, continuously plagued by thoughts about a garage door, Jimmy works at a slower pace than before.

A small part of him wishes—has been wishing since last night—that Thomas would just come out with it and tell him about seeing Branson. Being with him, in whatever way men like Thomas did. Jimmy tells him about all the women he picks up at pubs and the like.

Jimmy fully believes he’s put the awkwardness of the Incident behind him. He trusts Thomas now. Likes him, like friends—best mates—are supposed to. He accepts the way Thomas is, but being face-to-face with it? He’s trying. He wants to try. Wants Thomas to trust him the way that Jimmy trusts him.

Even so, a part of Jimmy burns with strange resentment. Not of Thomas, or who he is. Just of the garage. The other man inside.

Jimmy doesn’t want to dwell on it.

——

It seems that being stuck on silver polishing duty all day isn’t enough punishment for Jimmy coming to Thomas’s aid the night before. Mr. Carson, in all his fury, had assigned him a task more befitting of a hall-boy.

Jimmy’s malleable face is fixed in disgust as he steps outside into the dark of the night. 

The moon is obnoxiously bright, and tens of stars decorate the black sky, and Jimmy’s so tired. He would much rather be in bed, or playing cards with Thomas in the dim candlelight of the servant’s hall. 

Instead, he’s out at night to collect coal and firewood for the kitchen to use to prepare breakfast at the crack of dawn.

Underneath his breath, Jimmy mutters obscenities hurled at an imaginary Mr. Carson. Jimmy is the first footman! This task is completely beneath him! Not to mention, earlier today, he was offered a job as valet for Tom Branson!

Jimmy has thought about the offer all day. And, excluding the image of a garage and filthy acts, he has no qualms over accepting the position. He plans to tell Mrs. Hughes about his decision early tomorrow.

Then Jimmy would never again be delegated to coal and firewood duty in the midst of one of Mr. Carson’s foul moods. 

He turns the corner to the shed where the firewood is stored and immediately doubles back to hide behind the brick wall. Not again , he panics internally, eyes split wide, the pit of his stomach roiling.

However, it’s just like when he reopened the garage door knowing what lay behind it. Knowing he shouldn’t look in at that… reprehensible act. But Jimmy can’t look—walk—away, no matter how hard he tries.

What’s really so reprehensible about who Thomas is?

It’s Thomas . He’ll always turn back to Thomas.

He’s learned from his past mistakes. From Alfred at the bedroom door, returning from a night at the cinema. From Ms. O’Brien’s threatening words, sour attitude, and harsh vendetta against Thomas. From Thirsk fair and the black bruises that shattered Thomas’s porcelain skin.

Jimmy peaks behind the corner, shielding his body from view as much as he can. Really, the two men should be trying for some privacy if they don’t want wandering eyes. 

Did Mr. Carson not alert Thomas that Jimmy would be on coal and firewood duty?

The two men’s bodies are swathed in shadows, only illuminated by the cold moon’s light. Both of Thomas’s hands grip the hard lines of Branson’s shoulders, clutching onto him for dear life. 

They’re kissing; harsh movements, all tongue and teeth. It’s nothing like the feather-light kiss that Thomas had given to Jimmy all that time ago.

One of Branson’s hands holds on deathly tight to Thomas’s lower back, fingers twisting in the stiff material of his livery jacket. His other hand, however, is shoved down Thomas’s pants: reaching, pulling, tugging.

And Oh God , Branson is giving Thomas exactly what Jimmy said he couldn’t.

Jimmy nearly breaks down, abandoning his retrieval of coal and firewood to the clandestine affair of Thomas Barrow and Tom Branson.

How could Thomas just forget him? Go ahead and rip Jimmy’s bruised heart out, trample on it just the same as Jimmy had once done to him . It isn’t fair.

Jimmy listens, heart and body burning, to the sound of Thomas’s whimpers as Branson bites his way down the under-butlers neck. And then Thomas says, in a voice that’s drowning deep in pleasure, “You’ve asked him then?”

His voice is harsh, caught in a strong mix of lust and nearness .

“Mmm, of course,” Branson mumbles in reply against the pale column of Thomas’s throat.

Jimmy wonders who they’re speaking about. 

The greedy part of him doesn’t want Branson involving himself so intrinsically in Thomas’s life. He thinks that if he can at least have Thomas for smoke breaks and conversation and trips to pubs and card matches and poking fun at Alfred and light-hearted banter in the middle of the servant’s hall, then Branson can have Thomas for this . Maybe .

Neither Thomas nor Branson pursue the rest of that conversation, so Jimmy is left to wonder about the other man’s identity in agony.

In the meantime, as Branson works his hand around in Thomas’s pants, Jimmy tries to remember if there’s an alternative route that will get him to the shed undetected by the two men. Anyone in the world could walk out right and see them , Jimmy frets. What is Thomas thinking?

The last time that Thomas had been so reckless, he’d almost been tossed out the door of Downton with no reference. And from Jimmy’s own doing to boot. 

There’s a second door to the shed housing the firewood if one wants to walk the long way around the Abbey. Jimmy decides that he’s had enough of Branson’s hands all over Thomas and kicks off from the wall to make the journey.

He can’t possibly compete with Branson for any ounce of Thomas’s affection. A year of torment and the under-butler has finally gone off him at the worst possible time. He’d just won Jimmy over not that long ago.

‘ You know why’ doesn’t impact Jimmy the way it should when Thomas’s hands slide across Tom Branson’s stomach.

What could Jimmy give to Thomas that Branson can’t? Jimmy’s not that kind of man, and evidently the Irish man is. Of course Thomas would go off him, everyone does in the end. Jimmy shouldn’t have thought Thomas an exception. 

Jimmy compared to Branson, he thinks, is like looking at Dadaist artwork and thinking, “I could do that,” although full well knowing he hasn’t and he can’t . He’s not—he’s not what Thomas wants him to be.

He can’t be.

The wind-induced night air whistles around Jimmy as he trudges along the estate. It’s cold out, and he’s tired, and even though it’s only been one day that Jimmy has known about the affair with Branson, he misses Thomas.

Thomas is his friend. 

Thomas is his. Friend. And Jimmy misses him.

He’s only ever missed his mother and father like this before. No one else has ever been worthy. Even so, while they’re six feet deep, all Thomas is doing is spending his evenings with Branson. With someone who isn’t Jimmy.

It’s reasonable, Jimmy knows, to enjoy the company of others, but he thought that he could have Thomas just for a little while longer. An extra day, or something.

Jimmy has never felt more alone than now, with the wind biting his cheeks, even when he had endured that horrible year after the Incident. 

Yes, Jimmy will become Branson’s valet. He will accept the generous offer tomorrow morning and find out what Branson has that Jimmy doesn’t.

He’ll get Thomas back. He has to.

Jimmy finds his way to the second entrance at the back of the shed, out of breath and feet aching. 

The shed, a tall wooden structure with dirt-covered flooring and no windows, houses an assortment of tools for gardening, freshly chopped firewood, and rusting metal buckets filled with coal. It’s drafty inside and smells like the earth and Jimmy is desperate to grab what he needs and never return. 

However, through the small cracks in the wood panels that support the shed, he can hear soft voices conversing. 

Leaving the firewood aside, Jimmy makes his way over to the wall where the noises are coming from. He peeks through a small sliver between two wooden panels, eyeing the small courtyard in front of the shed. 

By an alcove of soot-covered bricks, Thomas leans against the wall, his trousers buttoned back up. A cigarette hangs from his mouth. Beside him stands Branson, his hair smoothed down and face relaxed. There’s no cigarette in his mouth or hand. Instead, he is fiddling with Thomas’s gloved hand, the scarred one that Thomas doesn’t show to anyone, running a thumb across his knuckles.

Seeing them now is so different from the previous times Jimmy had stumbled across them, bodies pressed so close together, like they were scared they’d be parted any second. He doesn’t know what to think. 

A part of him assumed that men like Thomas, or rather, men in general, weren’t capable of these tender-like moments. It is the stuff of women: wanting to hold hands, or saddle up against one another with no intention of sex. 

Thomas uses his free hand to remove the cigarette from his mouth. He puts it out against the brick wall and discards it on the ground. 

“We shouldn’t do this anymore,” Thomas says as Jimmy strains to catch his words. 

Branson continues running his thumb along knuckles, but through the crack, Jimmy catches a glimpse of the worry that overtakes his face. “What do you mean by that?”

Thomas, like Jimmy, also senses the uncertain, nervous lilt that taints Branson’s voice. It’s as though he’s scared Thomas is calling for an end between them. 

“I mean, being out here, late at night,” Thomas corrects. “It’s not safe for us.”

Bransons eases, and Jimmy’s breath hitches. He wonders briefly if these midnight rendezvous are a recent development or not. Maybe Jimmy’s just had really unfortunate luck two nights in a row. 

“I can’t get in trouble with Carson,” Thomas continues. He’s alluding to the night before, when Jimmy covered for him.

“I won’t let them fire you,” Branson says. “I’ll take you on as my… my…”

“Valet?” Thomas suggests in a sad but teasing tone. “You already have Jimmy.”

“We’ll stay together, Thomas,” Branson goes on. Jimmy realizes he’s never fought for anyone before, never wanted to cling to somebody. Until Thomas. “If you’re ever ‘in trouble’ with Mr. Carson, I won’t let them get rid of you, love”

Thomas smiles. “That’s nice of you to say.”

“I mean it.”

Jimmy feels a piece of himself splinter. A small crack in the center of his soul. Like the word ‘love’ acts as a knife instead of a cure for heartache. 

Deep down he thinks to himself: he wants something like that. All the times he’s went out searching for aimless sex, never bothering to pursue anything past hot skin against skin. All the times he’s fucked someone he didn’t give two shits about.

He wants something tangible, something that he could cling onto. Something like the way Branson’s thumb slides across Thomas’s hand. A gentle, tender touch that means so much even though it’s so small. 

“Scared me there for a moment, though,” Branson says.

Thomas grins at Branson with a soft expression. Hard lines eased from his face.

“Didn’t mean to.”

Jimmy presses a hand against the wood, as though he’s somehow trying to move closer. Watching them with more interest than before. 

It’s like seeing the side of Thomas that he hides from everyone. A hardened man turned into soft edges by a… lover? Is that what Branson is to Thomas now? A lover? Jimmy grimaces at the thought, overtaken by strange, unexplainable jealousy.

As though it’s a practiced motion, Thomas grasps Branson’s hand and lifts it to his mouth. He presses a gentle kiss on the top of the man’s hand and then lets go. 

Jimmy lifts up his own hand and looks down at it. He tries to imagine someone being gentle with him. A girlish thought, he sneers. 

He can’t picture it, however. Like he’s incapable of being treated with kindness. 

Unable to bear anymore, Jimmy steps away from the slit in-between the planks and begins to collect the firewood he was sent out for. 

——

Begrudgingly, Mr. Carson had relieved Jimmy from the last of his duties as a footman earlier the next afternoon at the behest of Tom Branson. Branson had been pleased to hear the news of Jimmy’s acceptance, and instructed that Jimmy start his career as a valet that evening.

Now, however, Thomas is helping Jimmy review the process of dressing one up for dinner. Jimmy listens with rapt attention to the under-butler, grateful for his tutelage in the art of being a valet.

Thomas doesn’t appear bitter that Jimmy’s become a valet instead of him. It’s strange, because Jimmy knows that the title of ‘under-butler’ is starting to lose its hold in aristocratic society, and that Thomas’s job security loosens with every passing day.

“I know we’ve gone over this several weeks prior, but it’s always a good idea to readdress the formalities of one’s dinner-wear,” Thomas says as he lays out each garment with delicate hands.

Jimmy looks up at him, remembers the needy sounds that had pooled from Thomas’s mouth the night before as Branson had unraveled him, tries to forget it, and answers: “I’m sure. Can hardly remember what you do and what you let them do.”

“You’ll remember as time goes on, don’t fret,” Thomas says. “In the meantime, that is why I’m here. To help show you the ropes.”

“Not Mr. Bates, then?”

“I would never leave you in his hands.” Thomas sneers at the very mention of the man. “He’s the last person you want telling you how to do your job.”

Thomas works his way through all the steps, detailing everything that Jimmy should expect to perform, and placing a heavy emphasis on when Jimmy should step back and let Branson take over.

It’s Branson that Jimmy will be dressing though, not Lord Grantham, and Jimmy tries to point this out. Instead, Thomas shuts him down with a light-hearted chuckle, and tells him, “Lord Grantham or not, these are important things to know.”

As the two men go through the steps one last time Jimmy fights the urge to ask Thomas about Branson. Even covertly. He’s worried that Thomas might think that Jimmy is shaming him for who he is.

“All ready?” Thomas asks as he carefully slides a waistcoat onto a wooden hanger. The clothes seem so fragile the way Thomas handles them. Jimmy knows he will have to get used to all the delicacies of aristocratic clothing—barring the fact that Branson is anything but.

“Quite so, Mr. Barrow.”

Thomas grins, and Jimmy flashes him a bright smile in return. 

It’s so much better to be Thomas’s friend again, Jimmy thinks. He’s thought about it almost everyday since Thomas told him, “You know why.”

“Got your new livery?” Thomas points out Jimmy’s new dress. 

“Aye,” Jimmy says, looking down at his clothes. “It’ll need to be tailored-up a bit, but I can make do for tonight.”

Jimmy’s old footman livery has been swapped for a smart pair of dark grey trousers, a high-buttoned black waistcoat, a plain black swallow-tail coat, and a dark tie. He’s grateful to have forgone the black and green striped vest and white bowtie. 

The valet livery makes Jimmy feel older, in the good sense, and more accomplished. It’s strange how much clothing can change the perception of a person.

“And you know how to sew?”

“I can learn.”

Thomas eyes Jimmy with a knowing look. “ I can teach you.”

“It’s a wonder Mr. Branson’s gone and hired me instead of you,” Jimmy mentions off-handedly, not thinking much about what he’s saying. “Can’t even explain how I’ve got the job, really.”

Thomas’s face grows serious. 

“Don’t doubt yourself, Jimmy. You’ll make an excellent valet.” He turns to face Jimmy fully, and looks at him with soft eyes. “And if you should run into any roadblocks, I’ll be there to help you out.”

It’s then that Jimmy realizes how grateful he is to have Thomas on his side: fighting his battles with him, helping him at every opportune, giving him the strength to push through each dull day at this godforsaken Abbey. 

Even if Thomas has somehow gone off him, at least he still cares about Jimmy. That’s what best mates are for. So why is it that Jimmy’s pulse aches at the thought?

He needs to ruin the moment to heal himself, so Jimmy says, “Actually Mr. Barrow—” and he grins, because of course he does “—it’s Mr. Kent now.”

Thomas just chuckles, and it sort of makes the ache Jimmy is trying to replace hurt more. The under-butler always goes along with whatever Jimmy says and whatever Jimmy does and it’s like he’s not even his own person sometimes. It’s a mask that he wears around Jimmy in order to make the younger man ‘less uncomfortable,’ but it only hurts him instead.

Even so, Jimmy knows Thomas can’t read his mind. Can’t understand that even though he’ll be Mr. Kent around the Abbey and to everyone else, that he’s still just Jimmy . Can’t understand that he should always just be Jimmy to Thomas. 

Mr. Kent is too formal for their friendship. That’s what they are, right? 

He can’t make Thomas understand, though, and it’s Jimmy’s own fault for correcting him in the first place, and Jimmy’s so stupid for never thinking before he speaks, and—

“Quite right, Mr. Kent,” Thomas says, not catching any of the hints that Jimmy’s mind is trying to throw at him. “You’ll forgive me if I slip up? It won’t be easy getting used to.”

Jimmy knows Thomas is just making a joke, but yes, Jimmy will always forgive Thomas.

Instead he just jokes back: “We’ll have to see about that.”

Then, the evening comes too fast, and separates Thomas from Jimmy. Darkness drapes itself over the Abbey, and Jimmy finds himself walking through the gallery to Branson’s room. The hallways, bathed in shadows and lit by sconces on the walls, give the Abbey a sense of some impending doom.

His stomach churns with nerves, partly from his first performance as a valet and the fact that it’s Branson he’s valeting for. Although he is not overjoyed at Branson’s interest in Thomas, a part of him yearns to impress the man. To prove that choosing Jimmy as his valet was a good idea.

As Jimmy nears Branson’s room, he tries and fails to ignore the frame by frame flicker of scenes of Thomas entangled with Branson. Back and forth, and unwise whimpers. 

These aren’t the sort of things men like Jimmy are supposed to indulge, but indulge them he does.  

Steeling himself, Jimmy pauses in front of the garage bedroom door. He pushes the obscene thoughts from his mind, knocks to alert Branson of his presence, opens the fated door, and enters the room.

“Jimmy,” Branson greets with his lush Bray accent. “Or isn’t it Mr. Kent, now?”

“Mr. Kent, but you can still call me Jimmy, if you like,” Jimmy says. “I know titles like that don’t mean much to you.” He’s trying to be cordial and assume a natural valet’s impassive countenance, but too much of his personality leaks through.

“That’s true,” Branson replies. “Mr. Kent will do.”

Jimmy makes his way to the wardrobe and begins to withdraw the necessary dining attire that Branson requires for this evening. He’s careful to follow Thomas’s exact instructions.

“You’re efficient,” Branson says as he waits, watching Jimmy at work. “Though we don’t need to over-do it.” 

Jimmy nods, knowing full well how practical the man is when it comes to dressing. “I agree. You know it were Thom—”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentence.

“Thomas Barrow instructed you otherwise, I know.” Branson doesn’t seem to gauge the amount of damage he’s just inflicted with that otherwise innocuous line. 

Jimmy stills. He doesn’t know what he should say, or if he should say anything at all. If he should continue to dress Branson or flee altogether. It’s a dangerous line that he is toeing, and something clicks in his head.

“I thought I should tell you this because I know Thomas never will, but he suggested you should be my valet in the first place.”

“Is that right?” Jimmy croaks out pathetically.

He knows that his glass world is about to fracture and shatter across every carpet in the safe shell of his mind. Every part of his body has been lit by a fatal flame. 

Branson knows . He knows everything.

“It’s true that I do need a valet, and that the Crawley’s have wanted me to get one for a while,” Branson continues. “Thomas thinks very highly of you.”

Jimmy’s fear and panic must be plastered across his face because Branson comes up close to him and grabs his elbow delicately. 

“It’s alright,” Branson says in a quiet whisper, already dropping the title. “You haven’t hurt anyone, and it’s fine, I’m not upset. I’m relieved, really.”

“Does Thomas know?”

“No.”

Oh, God . Jimmy is flushed with relief, but even so, Branson still has to lead him to the bed so he can sit down. Branson joins him on the edge of the bed, his hand is still on Jimmy’s elbow. Despite Jimmy’s distrust of the man, he’s grateful for the touch. 

“You haven’t asked, but yes, Thomas and I are…” Branson lets Jimmy fill in the gaps. 

There’s always that need to tread carefully in unknown territories, and Jimmy understands, but he’s enduring a war in his head as Branson just sits there.

“Why are you telling me this—” Jimmy thinks of the police making a sudden appearance on the cricket field in 1920 “— you , you had a wife.” Jimmy thinks of Thomas grabbing his hand after the death of Lady Sybil, “-and a, a daughter!”

“Alright, alright, just… deep breaths, Jimmy,” Branson says, voice calm amid Jimmy’s fiery mood. “Deep breaths.”

Jimmy, so used to following instructions, obeys easily. 

“To address each of your… concerns ,” Branson continues after he’s satisfied that Jimmy is no longer in the throes of hysteria, “Thomas trusts you, and he’s mentioned you already know about… him, so I just assumed… you know.” 

That he’s not at qualms about Thomas’s attraction to men , Jimmy fills in the blank. He nods at this. He’d never call the police on Thomas. He was against it the first and time is against it still.

“As for Sybil,” Branson says, and his voice grows soft and sad, like after someone has just stopped crying and started to collect themself. “There is no doubt that I loved Sybil, truly, and that I’ll always love her.”

He releases his hand from Jimmy’s elbow. The loss of pressure makes Jimmy look up from the carpeted floor and at Branson’s open face. There’s a simple kindness in his eyes that confuses Jimmy. 

“I’m able to see the positives of both sides,” Branson says. “Both men and women.”

Jimmy has since calmed down after coming to the terrifying realization that Branson had seen him watching them. Which time, Jimmy doesn’t know, and frankly is too afraid to find out.

He listens ardently to Branson, like he’s about to have a revelation to end all revelations. His heart jumps around in his chest. Both men and women?

“Thomas says you aren’t like him.”

Jimmy is upset, really, at how much ‘Thomas says’ to Branson. Although an odd part of him grows warm at the thought that Thomas talks about him . Gone off him? Sure. But he still talks about Jimmy, sometimes.

“I’m not.”

Branson smiles, no teeth. “You’re sure?” he presses lightly. “I’m not one to pry—”

“So don’t.” Jimmy’s on the defense. He’s scared. There’s too much coming to the surface, and he’s not sure he can deal with it. It’s been so safe underground, and Jimmy doesn’t want to let it all go. He can’t.

Branson stands. “There’s still dinner tonight.”

It’s not a stern command, just a suggestion to get Jimmy back on his feet. It’s really intended to change topics (and get Branson to dinner on time), but Jimmy panics and springs to his feet. 

His first evening as a valet and he’s already failing to impress Branson. He’s definitely not proved himself a worthy employee, either. 

As he helps Branson into his waistcoat, Jimmy thinks about how tomorrow he’ll likely be a footman all over again. Thomas will be disappointed, but Jimmy can’t help the way the cookie crumbles. It’s his own fault anyway, for being a terrible voyeur who so easily gets caught.

Jimmy hands Branson his bowtie. Several minutes of silence have passed since the two were sitting on the edge of the bed. 

“Mr. Kent,” Branson says as Jimmy helps straighten his bowtie. “I don’t mind. Thomas and I were foolish, and reckless, and we shouldn’t have been. But I am glad that it was you, rather than someone else.”

“I advise, Mr. Branson, that next time,” Jimmy starts, although he’s not eager for there to be a ‘next time’ between Branson and Thomas, “that you should be more… discreet.”

Branson mimics his smile from when he’d originally asked “You’re sure?” Jimmy dreads whatever is to follow. 

“Thomas likes you,” he says, like it’s some huge revelation. 

“I know.”

“You like him, too,” Branson continues as if there are no issues with what he just said. He should be heading down to dine now, but he stays, and Jimmy’s confused again. “It’s why you don’t like me.”

“That’s not true.”

“Which part?”

Jimmy is itching to glare at Branson, but he restrains himself. This is his employer now, and he needs to be professional. Much more than he has been these last few minutes. 

“I’m not some silly girl,” he says harshly. “Pining over someone, getting jealous and all that. S’not me. I’m not like that.”

Branson looks him up and down. “I can see you’re not a girl, Mr. Kent, it’s glaringly obvious,” he replies. “But you should be honest with yourself.”

“Why are you telling me if I should be honest with myself?” Jimmy says, arguing. “I am honest with myself.”

“You stood there.”

Jimmy scrapes up a half-arsed defense. “You were in my way!”

“Twice?”

The whole of Jimmy’s world comes crashing down. All the sharp edges of the already shattered glass ceiling splinter even more. He’s off kilter, walking around with pins stabbed into his body. There’s nothing more that Jimmy wants to do than abandon the Abbey altogether.

“How do you know that?”

“You’re hardly discreet yourself.”

Branson should leave now, Jimmy thinks. He’ll be late if he delays a second longer, but he delays and he delays. Jimmy wonders if it’s him that Branson’s staying for, or the connection that they each share with Thomas.

“You are handsome,” Branson says. “I can tell why Thomas was drawn to you.”

“I’m more than what I look like.”

“I don’t doubt that.” 

Jimmy has always liked the simplicity of physical attraction, however. It requires very little beyond the surface, and he doesn’t have to worry about what a person likes and what they don’t like. 

“Is that why you like Thomas?” Jimmy asks. 

“I like him for many reasons,” Branson says. “He’s handsome, yes, but he’s smart and holds good conversation.”

“I’m not anything like him.”

Branson smiles softly, a small tilt of the corner of his mouth. “You don’t have to be,” he says. “There are many things that make you likable.”

Jimmy doesn’t think Branson has ever truly paid much attention to him. He’d arrived after Branson had already moved upstairs with a pregnant Lady Sybil. There wasn’t much time for them to get to know each other.

But he’s been spending more time with Thomas. Learning more about what Thomas likes, who he likes: who his friends are. And Jimmy’s his valet now, even if Thomas had planted the idea to hire Jimmy in Branson’s head. That has to mean something, right?

“Are you—” Branson pauses before he asks the question.

Instead, he places a gentle hand on Jimmy’s cheek, and Jimmy doesn’t flinch, or pull away, or yell threats into his face. Jimmy just looks up at Branson with parted lips and steel blue eyes. 

They don’t need to say anything, both already know. This connection that they each share with Thomas has made itself visible.

“I’m not that kind of man,” Jimmy says, but his heart’s not in it, or at least, he can’t find anything to argue against what’s coming.

“I’m sure you’re not.”

It’s expected, when Branson kisses Jimmy, and it’s not all tongue and teeth like he’d seen Branson kiss Thomas. It’s soft and gentle, like Branson is trying to ease Jimmy into the whole idea of kissing another man. 

For some strange reason, Jimmy doesn’t feel that disgusted by it. 

He didn’t the first time, when Thomas had leaned over him with feather-light lips. Then he’d just felt sort of used—his ‘pretty face’ taken advantage of.

Then Branson pulls away. “Thomas should be here,” he says. 

“Please don’t tell him.”

“Which part?”

“Any of it,” Jimmy says, and then adds, “Just… don’t.”

He’s not that kind of man, he repeats inside his head over and over, even though he can still feel the sudden absence of Branson’s lips on his. 

“Fear is natural, Jimmy,” Branson says.

“He’ll be upset.”

Branson touches Jimmy lightly on the cheek, a friendly gesture. “We’ve spoken about this kind of thing,” he replies. “At the end of the day, we still come back to each other. It’s about communication. But I’ll want him to know, at some point.”

He leaves, then, and Jimmy follows him out the door. 

Jimmy doesn’t follow Branson to the dining room. Instead, he heads back downstairs and to the boot room, where he begins to organize Branson’s shoes to take his mind off things.  

It’s much later when Thomas enters the boot room, having sought Jimmy out. At the table Jimmy is buffing a pair of shoes, and Thomas stands there for a moment, watching him. They could capture this moment in a glass globe and be safe forever. 

“It went well, I presume?” Thomas says, and shatters the calmness that previously draped the room. Dull light from the sconces on the wall give the room a small and cottage-at-dusk sort of glow.

Jimmy looks up. “Yes.”

He had told Branson that he should be the one to tell Thomas everything, but now that Thomas is in front of him, the usual sour scowl gone from his face, he’s too afraid. He’s not that kind of man. He can’t be. 

“That’s good.”

Thomas withdraws the packet of cigarettes that he keeps in his livery jacket and pulls out two. He offers the second one to Jimmy tentatively, remembering the night before. Jimmy remembers it, too, and accepts the cigarette this time. 

He is in desperate need of a smoke.

Thomas slips the lighter out of his trouser pocket and lights his first, then stretches out his arm to light Jimmy’s as it dangles from his mouth. The shoes sit abandoned on the table that divides them.

Loose strands of honey-colored hair fall across Jimmy’s forehead. He takes a long drag of the cigarette, and lets the wispy spires of smoke spool from his mouth, filling up the space in front of him. Thomas looks blurry through the smoke.

“Do you miss being a valet?” Jimmy asks.

Thomas eyes him serenely, smoke drifting out from between his lips. “No,” he says. “It were only a means to advance upward in rank. Didn’t keep, obviously.”

“At least as a valet, I’m no longer under Mr. Carson’s charge.”

“That’s true,” Thomas says. He takes another drag himself, and Jimmy watches him. His eyes stay on Jimmy. His cheeks hollow. The smoke floats through the air like small, cirrus clouds on a windy day. 

“Run into any roadblocks?” Thomas asks. 

From the way that Thomas’s question hangs in-between them, Jimmy knows he’ll ask the same question to Branson later. 

Jimmy thinks about Branson telling him about seeing him watching. About the talk they had. The kiss they shared. Thomas is standing there, and knows absolutely nothing, and Jimmy’s in front of him, too scared to say anything.

“Not that I know of,” he says. “I’m a quick learner.”

“Very humble of you.”

Jimmy chuckles, the cigarette burning out, pinched between his middle and forefinger, and adds, “You’re a good teacher, too.”

“Am I?” Thomas says. “Wouldn’t have guessed.”

The cigarette hangs from his lips, and he moves slowly around the table to stand beside Jimmy rather than across him. He won’t touch him, though, he never does. Instead, Thomas leans back against the table, and eyes the pair of shoes that sit there discarded.

“I think you’ve tortured those enough,” he says.

Jimmy is loath to admit that Thomas is right. He’d been buffing and polishing in order to distract himself so much that the shoes might fall apart in front of them if he keeps going. So Jimmy heads over to the windowsill where a misplaced ash tray that Thomas brought in once sits alongside half-used tins of shoe polish, and stubs out his cigarette. 

He comes back over to the frail table that Thomas is still leaning against, smoking down his cigarette until it ends and singes his fingertips, and collects the shoes to put away.

“Should be time to eat,” Thomas notes. A fob on the end of a thin chain sits in his hand, the shiny silver bright in the dimly lit room.

Jimmy’s already used up all the words the boot room would allow him to, and instead mutely follows Thomas to the servants hall. 

Light chatter is scattered throughout the downstairs, and it feels so much like dining with a family, but Jimmy doesn’t see anyone here as family. Except for Thomas, in some way that Jimmy hasn’t yet discerned. 

——

Early morning light drifts into the servants hall, where Jimmy’s sat at the end of the long table by the piano. Branson’s given him a folded note. He had slipped it into Jimmy’s pocket right after Jimmy had dressed him, and before he had absconded to breakfast.

The two of them had not spoken of the night before, but Branson had eyed him curiously. Jimmy hadn’t yet told Thomas, and Branson knew. 

The quality of the note isn’t thin, unlike that used downstairs. It’s a perfect example of how much different Branson’s life is now. A stark divide that separates what is up from down. 

He unfolds it.

Jimmy has received little notes like these before, when he was under Lady Anstruther’s employ. They’d always left him with a terrifying, bone-chilling sense of dread. But that same sense of dread fails to form in Jimmy’s chest.

Instead, it dissipates. It’s replaced by something akin to nervous excitement. He trusts Branson. His heart and body burn like a candle left unattended. 

Jimmy refolds the note and tucks it away in his livery coat for safe keeping. 

He thinks about learning how to sew. He waits for the day to draw to a close.

—— 

When dusk settles—the time when recent and private rendezvous reshape into something other just by happenstance—Jimmy has already made several decisions that he’s stored away for future use later tonight. 

There’s a subtle whisper in the back of his brain that’s tugging playfully at his heart. The soft remembrance of Branson’s lips on his. A masculine shape that bends beneath his fingertips. 

Jimmy thinks he knows what he wants to say—what he needs to say—and what he wants to ask. He’s scared, yes, but he’s also sure of himself. Finally, for once in his life, he’s sure of himself. 

Phrases like ‘ you know why ’ and ‘ you’re sure? ’ crop up in his mind like instructions. Commands and orders, and Jimmy’s learning, slowly, how to listen to them. These, from Thomas and from Branson, in particular.

He smooths down the errant blond curls that don’t rest atop his head carefully in the small mirror that’s perched on top of his dresser. It’s his vanity, and the thoughts of what might come soon that drive him.

A light pitter-patter reverberates around his cramped one-person bedroom as raindrops pelt the window. It hasn’t rained in well over a week. Jimmy wonders, briefly, about it’s timing. Rain always dulls his erratic sense of self. 

It’s nearly time.

Steeling his nerves, Jimmy reminds himself that he can always back out. Although, he knows that, strangely, he won’t. This moment, or something else like it, has always been just one step around the corner. Jimmy just hasn’t had time, nor wanted to find the time, to make space for it. 

Not delaying another second, he exits his room.

During the day, the Abbey is a magnificent, monumental structure, lit by sunlight streaming in from the hundreds of thick-paned glass windows and chandeliers that hang high over each room. It’s a relic, sort of: shut-in by its ancient history and mannerisms of the past. But it’s powered by hall-boys, maids, footmen, and the rest of the servants that are housed upstairs in he drafty attics, set apart from all the glitz and glamor that crowds the rest of the house.

Jimmy hasn’t been a part of the Abbey long, and so the Abbey hasn’t yet absorbed him like it has all the others. As all Butlers of old houses are, Mr. Carson is a part of the mainframe, alongside Mrs. Hughes, who is almost his equal except in the fact that she is a woman. They’re important cogs, aiding in the synchronization of all that work beneath them for the mechanization that is the old house. 

They’re a part of it. Jimmy isn’t. He’s not sure if he ever will be.

And so, he treads up the red-carpeted stairs to the gallery, quiet like a servant, not letting the Abbey seep into his bones, as the rainy night takes its hold on the house. 

Jimmy has been trying to figure out who he is for a long time. Figure out where he belongs, and what he stands for, and what he likes and what he doesn’t. He’s lied a lot, trying to make sense of himself and his social standing among others. 

He’s not a part of the Abbey, but some of the people in it make him feel like he’s close to solving the puzzle. 

The bulbs in the sconces that line the walls wrapping around the gallery are dim, flickering every once in a while, reminding Jimmy that a footman is due to replace them soon. Not him, though, he thinks gleefully. 

He’s graduated upward in the social hierarchy of the house. He’s almost on equal footing with Thomas.

Jimmy stops in front of a door. 

He raises his hand, he pauses, he knocks. The door opens only seconds later—it would be ruinous to get caught now , when everything behind the door seemed delectable.

Branson smiles at him, and takes a step back, letting Jimmy enter. Nearly pressed against the wall, as far from the door as he can get, is Thomas, who looks both caught in the act and confused. 

It’s obvious Branson has waited for Jimmy to get comfortable. To let Jimmy say what he needs and wants to say. 

“Evening,” Jimmy says. He’s always let others take the first word. And, if he doesn’t take charge now, he might not be up for the task he’s set for himself.

“What is this?”

Thomas is clearly unhappy, and Jimmy’s heart stutters painfully in his bruised rib cage. If it’s really true, that Thomas has gone off him the minute Jimmy finally might have his act together, then Jimmy doesn’t know what he’ll do with himself.

Branson has already dangled the poison apple—fed it to him—and Jimmy is finding it hard to look back at life before it.

“I invited him, Thomas,” Branson says. The Irish man is a no-nonsense kind of person, and Jimmy’s grateful for it now because he doesn’t know how he’d be able to explain himself to Thomas in a room without Branson.

“ What ?”

Thomas looks like he’s seconds away from sinking into himself. He’s always been very brave, standing up to everyone who’s tried to put him down, but Jimmy’s another kind of fight. If anything, Thomas will always falter in front of Jimmy.

“I, well…” Jimmy can’t summon any words. 

He wets his bottom lip. He’d had all this planned before he came up, but the words were escaping from his grasp now. Scrambling through the window, glossy with rain, that sat beside Thomas’s right shoulder. 

“Do you know something you shouldn’t, Jimmy?” 

Thomas says it so accusingly that Jimmy just has to defend himself. He won’t let Thomas leave him speechless. Not anymore.

“I’ve just been working on figuring myself out, is all.”

Branson takes a seat on the edge of the bed. It reminds Jimmy of the light kiss they’d shared all over again, and how Branson wants— needs —Thomas to know it happened. Because that’s what love is, right? Communication? But Jimmy’s so terrible at it, and that’s why he thinks he’ll never be able to love properly. Or be loved.

Thomas glances at Branson, confused, asking for help in the subtle way he moves his eyes. It’s some kind of lover's language that Jimmy has never tried to learn with anyone. He wants to try, though.

“He hasn’t done anything wrong, if that’s what you’re wondering, Thomas.”

Beside the thick-panned window, Thomas appears almost relieved. The rain makes tears against the glass. The room feels cold.

“ Why are you here, Jimmy?” he asks then. He’s never questioned Jimmy like this before. Like they’re sitting in chairs positioned opposite one another in a towering courtroom, and Thomas is a judge that never relents. “And why, pray tell, wasn’t I told this was happening?”

“I thought it could be a surprise?” Branson tries, shrugging.

Put on the spot, Jimmy says, “I told you, Thomas , that I’ve been working on figuring myself out.”

“And that is?”

There’s something Jimmy almost says. An explanation, maybe. But it’s clogged up in the sewer system that runs through his mind, constantly dirtying all of Jimmy’s awkward attempts to justify himself. 

“Oh, fuck it,” he says instead, like it’s one of the King’s speeches. 

He crosses the room, and Branson watches, and Thomas watches, and no one breathes for a second. Time has paused. The world has stopped spinning and, at last, Jimmy has finally landed in place.

He takes Thomas’s face between his hands and asks, “Will you kiss me? Please? Branson already has, and—”

Thomas stumbles out of his grasp, the force of Jimmy’s confession and question hitting him directly in the face. “You what?”

Jimmy is confused. Shouldn’t Thomas want to kiss him? He’d asked, this time, which is a lot better than the mess of the last attempted kiss. 

Branson had said—he’d said —they’d spoken about things like this. That Jimmy could kiss Branson. That Jimmy could kiss Thomas, too.

He feels like crying. Thomas has gone off him.

“ Oh, God ,” Jimmy voices out-loud because he has no other option except to break down. He’s finally figured himself out, and the first thing he does is embarrass himself. Humiliate himself in front of the one person he cares for the most.

Branson rises from the bed at last. “He has.”

In front of them both, Thomas stands looking bewildered. Like he’d been out on a Hunt with Lord Grantham, dipping in and out of the twisting woods, searching for the perfect shot. His face betrays that he’s missed it. Birds fly away from the loud pop! , but Jimmy stays, even as his heart drops into his stomach. 

“I should’ve known you’ve… you’ve gone off me,” Jimmy cries softly. There aren’t any tears pricking his eyes. Yet.

He should’ve known. It would’ve saved him from finally leaving behind all the safe years he’d known.

Thomas takes a step forward, catching Jimmy’s cheek in his hand. “Perish the thought,” he says. “How could you say that?”

“I asked you to kiss me,” Jimmy says, voice choking up. “You can finally kiss me, and you won’t.” His heart aches. Every word that spills from his mouth is coated in held-back sobs. He doesn’t want to cry in front of two men. It’s not like him, a red-blooded man, to cry over two men in the first place.

“You kissed Tom first.”

“And?” Jimmy says. 

“Jimmy, stop .”

Thomas’s words halt him in his place. He’s confused, and a little downtrodden. The hand that Thomas had placed against his cheek has fallen away, back to Thomas’s side. Jimmy feels embarrassingly bare. 

“What?” His voice is sotto voce. 

“It’s been a year, and you already said you’re… That you couldn’t give me what I want. That you’re not that kind of man,” Thomas explains with a pained expression on his face, like it’s hurting him to say this.

“I… well…” Jimmy struggles to find the right words. “Well, can’t I change my mind? Can’t I be wrong?”

“This is a very big thing to have been wrong about.”

Branson steps forward and places a gentle hand on Thomas’s elbow, mimicking the same gesture he’d done with Jimmy the night before, helping ground him. “Don’t be too hard on him, love. We don’t all wake up one day and know.”

“Yes, but—”

Jimmy shifts. 

However, Branson’s already there to interrupt him. “But you still love him. I know that, he knows that.”

“I’m… I’m okay with it, Thomas,” Jimmy says, finding his voice although it’s shaky and nervous. He’s worried Thomas might continue to shut him down. “It’s… I can give you what you want, I know that now.”

Thomas’s eyes gleam with dangerous hope. “Are you sure?”

Jimmy nods. He feels both big and small at the same time. All his thoughts and emotions churn within him, pushing him forward as much as he’s able to go. 

“I tried to get over you,” Thomas says. His heart isn’t in his words. They float around overhead and disperse in the dim light of the bedroom. “I didn’t succeed.”

Jimmy pushes down his almost-tears. He blinks wildly and glances between the two men. 

“Are you sure, Jimmy?” Thomas asks. His hand is still pressed against Jimmy’s cheek. Jimmy leans into the warmth, sated by the rough, calloused texture of a working-man’s palms. It feels natural, and all-encompassing. “Are you sure you want this ?”

“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

Branson steps back, but as he goes, says, “I’ll have him again, if you won’t.” 

Thomas glares at him, and Jimmy feels wanted. Devoured. Stripped apart and remade by the right kind of people. 

The Abbey hasn’t been able to absorb Jimmy into its fabric, but Jimmy finds the folds of Branson and Thomas’s hearts more comfortable. It’s the first time he doesn’t feel used by a lover, and instead, needed. Required like a body needs a heartbeat. 

He doesn’t know how he’s lived so long without this. 

Thomas kisses him, finally, and Jimmy almost collapses against the under-butler. Pulled toward him like gravity tugs on mass. It’s just them, and their lips, and their body heat, and Jimmy needs more. Craves more. And Thomas, who has never been able to deny Jimmy anything, lets him take it.

There’s a slight tongue, and ( nearly ) a clash of teeth. 

It’s so different from kissing Branson. Although Jimmy was still in the throes of learning when the Irish man first kissed him, and he knows if he goes in for a second, the currents that drive them will be different.

Jimmy doesn’t want to break the kiss, but they part anyway. Thomas gazes at him with dizzy, glossy eyes, like he’s been placed beneath a spell. 

Still.

“You…” Jimmy has to know. “You haven’t… gone off me, right?”

Thomas smiles. “I never could.”

“What about me?” Branson asks. 

He doesn’t look heart-stricken or upset like Jimmy would’ve thought. Instead, it looks like he’d just returned from an evening at the cinema. The static-y black and white? Thomas and Jimmy.

“I come back to you,” Thomas tells him. “At the end of the day.”

Jimmy doesn’t want to be left out. He wants to be loved, and held. Wants to be something special to someone. Wants to come back to someone at the end of the day, and when he wakes up, he never leaves. 

“Am I taking up space?”

“Never,” Thomas says almost immediately, and Branson nods along. 

Thomas turns to Branson. “You’re okay with this, love?” he asks gently. 

“I can learn to love him the same way I love you,” Branson says. “And our Mr. Kent here is quite easy on the eyes. What could go wrong?”

Jimmy decides then—and a part of him has always sort of known this, like fate had seeped into his veins in the middle of the night many years ago to tell him—that he wants to be loved by both these men.

Wants it so viscerally, in fact, that he’s made decisions beforehand, when Branson’s note had first been stuffed into his pocket. When Jimmy had opened it, read it, and then read it again. When he’d hid it carefully in his dresser. 

He moves to kiss Branson now, powered by this sudden urge to fulfill his fated want and the love he is so desperate to find. 

Branson lets him, eagerly, and their hands are on each other, like they hadn’t been before. And this time, Jimmy doesn’t deny being ‘ that kind of man’ because it’s useless now. The words of denial lie in a puddle of rain water outside the window, several stories down. Jimmy will forget to pick them up the next time he goes out.

It’s not as soft and gentle as their first kiss, but that’s what Jimmy is going for. He’s reaching and grabbing and taking all the love he deserved when Anstruther’s lips had first been on his body—never his mouth—and never got. 

He knows that Branson (or is it Tom now?) and Thomas will give it to him willingly. And he’s finally ready to willingly give it right back.

They break apart. 

Jimmy’s breathing is ragged, folded over like the dog-eared pages in one of the many well-read, worn-out books that line the small shelf in Thomas’s bedroom.

“Thomas, I…” Jimmy needs to say this. Has to get it out. 

He’s been keeping secret from Thomas all the things that led him here tonight, be it accidentally, but still here nonetheless. Branson knows, and hasn’t said a word, and Jimmy realizes something he never did with Anstruther.

Trust matters. It isn’t greedily taken and discarded with the rotten food that Mrs. Patmore orders to be chucked out at the end of each day. 

“Is everything alright?” Thomas asks. His words are kind and patient. “Is this too fast for you?”

Jimmy shakes his head. “No, no, it’s fine. It’s good. I just… I’ve not been entirely honest with you, Thomas.” Thomas looks stricken. “But Branson—or Tom?—” he doesn’t yet know which to use now that he’s kissed the man twice “—knows, and he’s fine with it, but I want you to be, too. I can’t leave you in the dark.”

Thomas nods along. 

There’s a violent current of energy that’s hurtling in the empty space between them. It’s the unknown that Thomas fears, and it’s the being known that Jimmy can’t, and doesn’t want to handle. 

“I saw you together,” Jimmy confesses. 

Confused, Thomas shoots Branson a look. It’s caught in the energy current, sparks, and fizzles. 

Jimmy continues, “Twice. And I’m sorry, I really am. I didn’t mean to, really. I just sort of stumbled onto the two of you and I couldn’t leave. Like I were stuck to the floor, honest.”

“You saw us?” Thomas asks. His voice wavers. He still thinks it’s too much for Jimmy to handle, like Jimmy hasn’t already kissed two different men in the span of five minutes. “When?”

Jimmy tries to take confidence from Branson, who urges him on. 

Damn communication, Jimmy thinks. It’s too much, and there’s a lot to say, and Jimmy’s worried the ceiling will collapse on him and kill him if Thomas gets upset. Gets volatile.

“In the garage, and,” Jimmy swallows harshly, “by the shed, when Mr. Carson put me up on firewood duty after I stuck up for you when you were in the garage.”

There. He’s said it. It’s all out in the universe now, swimming around with all the other lewd and damning things that men like Jimmy, Thomas, and Branson have uttered. He can’t take them back. 

At least, he hopes, if everything goes skyward, he might still have an inch of Branson. But he’s already decided he doesn’t want one without the other. Two is always preferable to one.

“The garage ?” Thomas sounds like he’s swallowed bricks.

“You’ll forgive me.” It’s not a statement. Or an order. Or a question. Just three words pressed together, slipped from Jimmy’s mouth and onto the floor. It rolls around on the carpet, and flies through the air. 

“I…” Thomas sends another look at Branson. It seems like everyone tries to draw their courage from him. They’d all fall apart without him, really. “And you’re… alright? With what you saw? You’re not… disgusted?”

Again, Jimmy comes to the realization that Thomas is only really worried that Jimmy is adverse to what being a man like them entails. All the grizzly, lascivious things that pull and stroke in the dark of the night behind closed doors, out of sight.

“Actually,” Jimmy starts and Thomas stills. “I kind of… I’ve never experienced anything like… Like what happened in the garage .” He wonders if his suggestion will take form. If it’s possible, in one night, after a confession that nearly took the air out of him.

Thomas’s eyes widen, as if he is remembering exactly how it felt to be on his knees in front of Branson.

“Are you asking for that?” Branson says. He knows that Thomas is still worried there will be a repeat of the Incident, as if Jimmy’s tongue hasn’t already brushed against his own. “Now?”

He’s already made his decision. The folded note in the top drawer of his dresser hides away all the things he wants to ask for and all the things he wants to learn from them. 

“Yes,” is all he can say.

“We don’t have to rush into things, Jimmy,” Thomas explains. There is a gentle kind of love that is wrapped around the sentence. 

He’s giving Jimmy a choice. They are giving Jimmy a choice. An out, if he truly doesn’t want to go further. If Jimmy’s not actually ready for anything past dove-like kisses and tender touches on his cheek. 

“I know what I’m about,” Jimmy answers. “I won’t be scared off.”

“We just want you to be comfortable,” Branson says. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting this, but there’s also nothing wrong with taking your time.”

Jimmy understands what he is saying, but he feels like he’s wasted too much time already figuring himself out. Understanding the truth behind what he wants. What he’s been wanting and hasn’t realized until now.  

There’s more to thi s than sex, yes, but Jimmy knows that sex is easy. It’s what he knows. The rest he can learn. The rest he wants to learn, and take his time. 

“Tom is right, Jimmy,” Thomas says. “You’ve only just—”

“Thomas, please ,” Jimmy begs. “I want… I want this. I want you .”

Thomas’s face has been moving a mile a minute since the moment Jimmy had walked in. Now, his mouth is cherry-red, kiss-swollen and hungry, and Jimmy wants to be eaten. Taken in and sucked dry. The Thomas in front of him is medicine for the soul.

“Are you sure about this?” Thomas is a broken record.

“I’ve never been more sure,” Jimmy says, and he glances between the two men, needy. “If you’ll have me, I want you both.”

There is a flurry of movement.

Jimmy’s request—his words—has put into this unstoppable, lust-filled force. The want, this hot, burning thing that exists in all of them, at last becomes something physical, malleable.

Branson moves in to kiss Thomas, who reciprocates eagerly. Jimmy watches. He’s finally party to all things he’s previously been witness to. The hungry hands that grab at loose clothes and fair skin. The magnets are mouths, clinging to one another with desperate need.

Jimmy is pulled toward them with groping, grasping hands. He is needed too. His own hungry hands. His own magnetic mouth.

He is kissed again by Thomas. By Branson.

The black tie around his neck unravels. Branson’s own loosens, and is pulled up and over his head. Thomas yanks his bowtie from its stubborn knot. The valet in Thomas, and the persistent student in Jimmy see the end of the buttons’ reigns from all their shirts.

Jimmy has never been undressed by a lover before. He’s never been taken care of with careful, delicate hands that know what they want. Know what they’re doing.

Thomas pauses for a moment, unsure if he should remove the glove that hides his scarred hand. But Branson has other plans. He reaches for Thomas’s hand and slowly unbuttons the glove, sliding it off his hand.

Coats fall to the floor. Fabrics slip over shoulders, crumpling, undoing the arduous work of a valet. Not a single man in the room has a mind to care.

It’s only bare skin and wet lips and eager mouths.

Thomas lays kisses in-between light and teasing bites along the column of Jimmy’s pale throat, like the sharpness of Dracula’s fangs to the tragic neck of Mina Harker.

Branson grabs Jimmy swiftly by his waist, strong hands gripping his hips, pulling him in closer. He kisses Jimmy deftly on the lips, and Jimmy whines into the Irish man’s mouth. He’s become needy and weak and flush with a trembling excitement.

As whimpers escape Jimmy, Thomas works at the buttons on each man’s trousers. His skilled fingers work quickly, and it’s evident he’s had many years to practice this. 

The trousers hit the floor soundlessly, and Jimmy is left almost bare, as are the men in front of him.

He’s greeted with flat-chests and a smattering of dark hair that criss-crosses the stomachs of both Thomas and Branson. Their thighs are filled out, muscular, and defined. Jimmy could slot himself nearly between them.

It’s completely different—foreign and freeing—from the very limited kinds of partners Jimmy has had before.

He’ll have to get used to it.

He kind of likes it. Wants them both to run their strong hands across Jimmy’s lean body. Wants them to press sloppy kisses up his stomach to his neck, to his face. Wants to do the same to them.

Touch, massage, knead the muscles that fill out Tom Branson’s shoulders. Trace, learn, understand the smooth, pale stomach of Thomas Barrow. 

“I’m not the best at this,” Branson says as he tugs down Jimmy’s underpants.

“I don’t care,” Jimmy answers.

He means it, truly. Right now all he wants is to feel them. Feel hot skin on skin. Feel their mouths on him. Anywhere. Everywhere. Consuming him.

Jimmy isn’t taken aback by the two naked men in front of him, cocks jutting out, half-hard. He thought it might shock him at first, make him change his mind, but it doesn’t. The hunger inside him just fills out, expands into intense desire. 

Branson pushes him down onto the plush bed with force. Thomas is still too soft when it comes to Jimmy. Doesn’t want to hurt him. Doesn’t want to scare him away, either. But Jimmy likes the roughness that Branson brings, and the gentleness that Thomas gives in response.

“Please,” Jimmy croaks. He’s dying for them now. They’ve taken so long—too long—getting to this moment. He’s fit to burst with wanting.

Branson saddles up on Jimmy’s left side, allowing Thomas to stand in front of Jimmy. The under-butler pushes open Jimmy’s legs, giving himself access to Jimmy’s cock.

Thomas leads, giving Branson a helpful view of how exactly he should pleasure Jimmy, and giving Jimmy the satisfaction he craves. 

His tongue, wet and warm, drags up along Jimmy’s cock from base to tip. Jimmy gasps sharply, unable to contain any sounds that pour from his mouth.

On his side, Branson’s hand grips Jimmy’s thigh, kneading the soft skin with a rough thumb. Slowly, he gravitates his hand upward, teasing Jimmy, mouthing kisses against Jimmy’s hip bone as Thomas works his own mouth along Jimmy’s cock.

A light shower of rain can be heard outside, just loud enough to drown out Jimmy’s moans. 

Branson moves his mouth towards Jimmy’s cock, and repeats Thomas’s long, wet lick, working his way around his length. His tongue brushes against Thomas’s as they maneuver their way above Jimmy, figuring out which actions elicit the most noises from the man.

With rehearsed movement, Branson’s mouth slips away and trails slowly up Jimmy’s flat stomach. He licks his way up Jimmy’s abdomen, palming Jimmy’s chest as he goes, kneading the skin gently. He makes his way to the hollow of Jimmy’s collarbone, sucking at the delicate skin like he’s already done it a thousand times before.

And then, as though Branson has been made just to distract Jimmy, Thomas takes Jimmy’s cock fully into his mouth. Jimmy can’t help the following messy, unintelligible sounds that escape him. 

The under-butler moves himself up and down the length of Jimmy’s cock. And as sudden as he’d been there, his mouth slips away. 

It’s replaced, however, by the amateur mouth of Branson, who does his best to mimic the motions of Thomas. Jimmy finds he really doesn’t care if Branson is not practiced or skilled, it feels wonderful and warm nonetheless.

As Branson bobs his head, Thomas slides up Jimmy’s body with soft, aching hands, and tangles himself in Jimmy’s messy gold hair. 

 They stare into one another’s eyes, not saying a word. Jimmy hasn’t yet learned the language of lovers, and Thomas just wants to memorize the way Jimmy has fallen apart beneath his hands and tongue, beneath Branson’s hands and tongue, too. 

“Is it how you imagined?” Thomas breathes out from above Jimmy. His hands caress Jimmy’s face with such care and love. 

Branson is still working his tongue around Jimmy’s cock. He runs it along the head once, twice, and then slides his mouth back down the length. 

All Jimmy can do is nod in response. He’s weak, and close to the end, and he’s never felt anything like this before. It’s a feeling he doesn’t want to let go of, but knows he must soon.

A small smile forms on Thomas’s lips, and then he kisses Jimmy, heavy with tongue, to wipe it off his face. 

There’s something impossible about this moment. 

The fear that had coursed through Jimmy when Thomas first kissed him under the cover of night during his first few months has dissipated entirely. All the times he thought he had to look over his shoulder, or sweeten the barmaid with extra sugar sprinkled in his words.

Each little thing vanished as Thomas and Branson took him in their mouths. Tenderly, and with care for his desires. His wants. 

He’s satisfied. He’s exhausted. He’s loved—in whatever way men like him are.

Jimmy could have this forever: eighteen months of skin on skin. More than that even, if the other men are willing. Years of skin on skin. Decades of being loved. 

——

The three men lie naked, curled up, limbs crossing over limbs, tired and sated, on Branson’s bed. It’s much larger than anything Jimmy’s ever slept on, and he knows this won’t be the last time his body will hit the plush mattress.

Outside the rain has nearly stopped. A soft pitter-patter, the last dregs of raindrops, fall against the window softly.

Thomas lies in-between Branson and Jimmy, the former’s head resting on Thomas’s shoulder, his hand gently making circles on Thomas’s arm. Half-asleep, Jimmy is tucked into the side of Thomas as Thomas slowly kneads the overworked muscles on Jimmy’s back. Leftover remnants from his time as a footman.

They’ll have to leave at some point, before morning encroaches on this safe space they carefully carved out for themselves.

None of them know what the coming days will bring for them, but they’re a set of three now. Connected by chance and heart and the need of something better than before. 

And when Jimmy returns to his room, he’ll burn Branson’s folded note, and the man will soon become Tom. 

He won’t worry about the fear of stumbling across wet tongues in supposedly empty garage’s and rough hands in moonlit alcoves. He won’t be on the outside of lovers’ looks and lovers’ languages.

Jimmy will be at home. Embedded in the strong arms of two men. Held and wanted and protected.