Looking back on how LJ and Stephan met is so hilarious though. John comes home already kind of cranky because he hasn't had anything to eat, he's dragged against his will to go join his mother's social gathering, and there's this ridiculously large and loud German man kind of obnoxiously monopolizing the conversation with his overzealous excitement about all the Frenchmen he and the English are going to blow up with their clearly superior cannon or whatever. And it's weird because whenever we see Stephan later he seems unfailingly courteous, not at all lacking social graces, and not this sort of adorably obtuse - maybe he just gets excited and a bit overenthusiastic meeting new people and of course John is a handsome man that everyone naturally wants to talks to.
And meanwhile John is thinking Please will someone give me an excuse to get away from this lunatic while his mom is unhelpfully listening to all this, watching his suffering and clearly having a hard time keeping herself from laughing because that would be rude. (Later she's just like "The Hanoverian guy didn't seem to like the sausages idgi" and that's apparently the most they ever say to each other about that ridiculous man at her party who becomes one of John's dearest friends.)
Then Stephan greets him like they're already BFFs when he goes to show him his list. Stephan looks nice in the light of the window and John isn't hungry and cranky rn so somewhere in the back of his mind he's like Maybe I'd climb that... However he has just been poisoned so he proceeds to ruin Stephan's sofa throwing up on it, and when he says he has to go somewhere immediately even though he's been poisoned because it's his duty, Stephan doesn't even need to know anything more and says "I will go with you." Which is convenient because he's a ridiculously large and intimidating man and a Landgrave who everyone will listen to.
And it's just so funny to imagine Stephan's perspective through this. He's probably not consciously attracted to John already, or even ready to acknowledge his attraction to men in general, but John is a really competent badass and that's surely part of what attracts Stephan to him. Yet at this point as he must be starting to get kind of heart-eyes about him all he sees is this little man throwing up on his couch, being nursed in his drawing room, and later having the determination to go do what he has to while he's still barely able to walk and probably looks like shit and Stephan has to practically act as his muscle. It's after this he thinks "This is such an honorable man, I must have him on campaign with me as liaison, no other Englishman will do."
And John just. Never even thinks again about the first impression he had of Stephan. 😂 It’s like he’s so embarrassed to think he thought at the time that Trevelyan, the man who later poisoned him, seemed like a surprisingly agreeable guy to talk to by comparison and has a very effective selective memory about this.
