#hallbarrow

[kaxen]

[miluppa]

ssooo. i might've drawn a hallboy shamelessly swooning over Mr. Barrow, as we all do here i can't, for the life of me, draw him what he looks like

also. i might be on a dangerous path to start writing fanfic for this. i've never written so. i dunno.

@kaxen , 

[deathtrapnest]

Shenanigans By A Pond

fandom: Downton Abbey pairing/warnings: N/A author’s notes: birthday present for kaxen

summary: exactly what it says on the tin. Thomas featuring a gaggle of hallboy and footman ducklings that are up to no good. featuring also random-hallboy part of the "different Thomas pairing fics with a common theme"challenge butterfly kisses series. Nick / Thomas. 

also on ao3

Thomas wasn’t entirely convinced this wasn’t a ploy for him to lower his guard so that Nick could pick pocket him. But Nick’s sleeping face looked somehow… sincere…. something Thomas would never have called Nick’s waking face.

It was a novel situation but the day itself had been out of the ordinary. It was rare that all the servants got a full day off from work. There had been the fair during the day, and on this occasion even Carson had gone- with Mrs.Hughes dragging him along at the elbow. They were disgustingly saccharine with eachother these days now that they’re engagement had been announced.

Thomas, obviously, had had no one to hang off his arm… but he didn’t like to miss any opportunity to break up the monotony of usual rural life, the opinion shared by most of the staff it seemed as downton servants seemed to populate much of the fair stands.

Thomas wasn’t sure if it was the excess of sunshine putting him in an uncharacteristically agreeable mood but when Andy and the hallboys invited him to walk back to the house with them he said yes and when they decided to take a detour to dip their feet in the lake and cool off he’d followed them. Ignoring the fact that he was too old to be getting into a splashing fight with footmen and hallboys, he found himself with his pants legs rolled up, stripped down to shirt sleeves, and knee deep in a murky pond getting mud on one of his best suits.

The excursion had started peacefully enough though there were the lingerings of a competitive banter between some of the hallboys the whole walk over that Thomas had mostly tuned out. Things had dissolved into chaos when Nick threw a frog on Thomas.

He hadn’t meant to of course. He’d MEANT to throw the frog on another hallboy friend but frogs are not the most predictable of creatures and his plot went awry. Thomas’s pride didn’t allow the throwing of frogs and soon he’d chased Nick knee deep into the pond and dragged him back to the shallows in a headlock with Nick yelping and promising to shine Thomas’s shoes for a month if he let him off the hook. But it seemed Nick had loyal friends. Thomas wasn’t sure if it was Peter, one of the other hallboys, or Andy (traitor) who through the first splash and he also didn’t know who’d thrown the first fistful of mud but whoever it was, the idea had quickly taken hold of the entire group. It was no longer about Nick or Thomas it was an all out war and everyone was shrieking with both laughter and mild distress at it.

Thomas couldn’t take his own anger seriously in light of the events- and possibly due to some form of mood altering heat stroke, he thought in retrospect. Especially not after the sight of Peter swinging his arm back too far to lob a mud ball at Nick and slipping so that his feet went out from under him and he landed on his arse.

The six of them involved had really only stopped out of exhaustion and dragged their cold, wet, bodies to the shade of the oak tree by the pond to splay out and catch their breath.

Thomas collapsed with his back to the trunk of the tree and caught his breath through the inhalations of a cigarette which he was generous enough to share with a sopping wet Peter (despite the fact that Peter had come dangerously close to pushing Barrow over into the water and ruining their friendship permanently). Nick asked if he could have a drag as well and Thomas snapped his suspenders against his back and called him cheeky for the mere suggestion.

It was no surprise that they were all tuckered out. But Thomas hadn’t really anticipated Nick to fall asleep with his head against his shoulder. It wasn’t really a problem as Nick was light for a boy of his age and the weight of him pressed up against Thomas’s side was almost warm and comforting. However, he didn’t like the way Andy was beaming at the two of them from a few feet away. Andy already had a problem of mistaking Thomas for some sort of benevolent guardian to the downtrodden and having one of the smallest and most delicate looking hallboys curled up against him like a kitten and snoring gently wasn’t helping Thomas’s image as a strict and unforgiving authority figure.

The sun was beginning to set but none of them were making any moves to start the trek back to the abbey. The sky was a brilliant canvas of orange and rose colored hues that cast a warm glow over the landscape.

Nick shifted in his sleep and buried his face deeper against Thomas’s shoulder. Even through the fabric of his shirt he could feel his sweaty, mud streaked cheek and the bat of his long eyelashes fluttering gently, and the deep, even, breaths of sleep.

He looked even more like a child with his mouth lolled open and his expression peaceful and innocent.

The sound of crickets began filling the air almost numbingly loud. As the sky got darker the cold began to seep into the damp of their clothes and soon they were all stretching their arms above their heads and dusting their knees off as they prepared to head back. Thomas shrugged gently until Nick stirred awake, looking around groggily.

“Mmmn, sorry, Mr.Barrow. I dozed off.” Nick yawned and rubbed his eyes.

“I think we all started to nod off a bit.” Thomas replied awkwardly, draping his jacket over his shoulder and standing up.

Nick’s attention was quickly diverted toward the other hallboys who were racing ahead toward the abbey, challenging eachother to first one back. He ran off to enter the competition and Thomas trailed behind them with Andy at a more leisurely pace.

As he walked though he felt slightly lighter than before and after a quick pat down of his suit he noticed he was missing his wallet.

“NICK! GET BACK HERE YOU LITTLE RAT!”

[sphinxface]

Thomas kissing Peter's neck by the moonlight~

[underbutlerbarrow]

[underbutlerbarrow]

Want a Christmas card from Peter and Thomas?

So I decided to order a ten pack of the cards I designed for Peter and Thomas. I want one, of course random-hallboy gets one, but I thought it would be fun to send them out to people who read and follow our threads. If you've enjoyed Hallboy and Thomas's story, drop me an ask and I'll add you to the list. I won't ask for addresses until the cards actually arrive, just to keep things fair.

Don't be shy!

[underbutlerbarrow]

"Will there be anything else, Mr. Barrow?"

Modern AU. Thomas Barrow is a businessman at Downton Property Management, working under its ineffectual CEO, Robert Crawley. The company's future is uncertain; the older members on the board of directors don't quite trust Crawley's daughter, Mary, with the company's management, and are looking for a successor in Matthew Crawley, whose specialty by happy coincidence is real estate law. Thomas is a low-level associate who bristles under the control of senior management. He has a particular loathing for Tom Branson, who seduced the CEO's daughter and was rewarded with a handsome salary and a seat on the board of directors.

Peter Bennett is a barista at a local coffeehouse. Bright and handsome, he shares a flat with several friends and spends his days people-watching and serving overpriced coffee. When one of his customers, a dark-haired business man with sharp, handsome features, catches his eye, Peter knows he has to have him.

After months of flirting with the handsome stranger and getting nowhere, Peter's all but given up. The last place he expects to see his businessman is in a club, but Peter does, and even manages to go home with him. A feverish night passes in his crush's bed, but when Peter returns to work--sore and disheveled--Thomas is nowhere to be seen.

A week passes and finally Thomas returns to the coffeehouse, but he shows no sign of remembering their tryst. Peter flirts with him desperately in the hopes of getting some kind of acknowledgment, but Thomas is clearly done with him. Feeling dejected but determined, Peter does the only thing he can do: he finds out where Thomas works and gets an internship at Downton.

Now the two work together, and Thomas can't avoid the issue any longer. Peter is the one night stand who won't go away, and Thomas is irritated (and frustratingly, still aroused) by Peter's attempts to capture his attention. With Peter using every trick he knows of to get a man's attention, will Thomas be able to resist him much longer?

This is a closed AU with random-hallboy.

[alittlewhos-this]

Peter.

anonymous said: not seen any hallboy prompts- so voyeurism/bath prompt or similar

This isn't at all smutty, just a bit long.

The sunlight speckled the woods, providing just enough spots of light to imbue a pleasant warm without succumbing to the ungodly heat of the open spaces. It wasn’t Thomas’s half day, but he’d stolen an hour after luncheon to escape from the downstairs, stuffed as it was with seemingly decades’ worth of heat from the oven.

There had been no goal in mind in walking through the woods, other than to appreciate the shade and the slight breezes which nearly made the air tolerable. The focal point of his attention and simply been to not trip over any wayward roots or mark his livery, but he soon realised that his path had been sprung up from memory.

In the middle of the woods, there was a small body of water; Thomas had learned that fairly early in his career at Downton. When he had been a footman, he would sometimes spend his half days beside the pond if he was in a particularly money-saving mood. He’d always taken care to ensure that these moods coincided with days when no one else had time off to speak of; he didn’t want anyone to stumble upon him sitting like a child with his feet in the water.

He yawned silently against the press of the heat, catching sight of the clearing ahead of him. As he came closer, he saw that he wasn’t the only one to have discovered the little haven of silence, though the lad sitting by the edge of the water clearly had taken none of the precautions against having been seen. Thomas mused that perhaps his being a hallboy had skewed the lad’s perception on his visibility; one may have missed him in apron, but one was unlikely to do so now.

For starters, it appeared that everything but his trousers had been taken off and piled in an ungainly heap at his side. He sat with his feet in the water, the broad span of his back exposed to Thomas, skin glowing white beneath the sun’s glare.

He stood for a long while, watching as he wet his hands and ran them through his hair, water dripping down his back. When he leaned forward, Thomas could see the dimples on his low back and felt a sudden spark of arousal. Thomas realised, dimly, that he needed to either approach the lad, if only to prevent himself from ogling, or walk away; hovering as he was was somehow more damning than either.

The lad was beautiful, though, carved and slack all at once - beautiful in way that Thomas found in direct opposition to Jimmy.

That was the thought that made him finally turn heel; he’d had quite enough trouble on the score of love for many years to come. He knew better than to try his chances at that again; he simply hadn’t the luck for a lad like that, so close to home, to love him.