@intolerablexsacrifice from here
[...]
“It isn’t as bad as it looks,” says James, quietly. “And it hardly hurts.” He moves to clasp his hands back behind himself again, out of sheer habit.
“I had thought you would be displeased with me,” he admits (and the instinct to say my lord is there, a notable silence hanging where the title should rest). “The damage I might have done to yours and your wife’s reputations, the rumours that will no doubt arise–I thought you’d dismiss me.”
Thomas wants very much to fling caution aside, to clasp James tight to his breast, but with some great wealth of restraint he had not expected to possess, he does not. For once, he holds his tongue, filled though he is with a thick, hot desire to whisper away the doubt in his friend’s mind. He can see his words, and his fervour, settling slowly over James. He strives to calm his own heartbeat, to find the patience to wait for James; wait until he understands that Thomas does not intend to allow harm to come to him. To them. He thinks it is some sort of hell to have to hold a man like this at arms length, but he stills himself, watching the rise and fall his lieutenant’s chest as it heaves, betraying the tumult beneath that stoic face.
James murmurs then, a quiet plea; the first he’s truly asked of Thomas.
He is standing, as stiff and still as a soldier facing his end. His jaw a terrible mess of trapped and mottled blood, and Thomas feels his innards turn against him at the frantic worry in his friend’s eyes.
He hears, as if his horror had conjured him, the low and long forgotten drawl of his father, oozing slowly under muttered conversation. His horrible gaze had been pinning an ageing gentleman; someone grand but stooped, and suddenly quite without friends in the musty, smoke filled room. We are all quite aware, and his father’s voice had been filled with a darkening threat, how that little man has gained such favour with your young heir.
Thomas, young, naive, and not yet full of the disappointment his father would slowly feed him over the coming years, had been eavesdropping. He had risked a snarling glance to his head to be told what it was that little man had done. And his father had looked disgusted, as if Thomas were muck off the streets and hissed that he had willingly given that which was asked.
The child, who grew into a man, who understood those words, had never forgotten the cold hatred or violent distaste in his father’s grey eyes. The laughter, that had spilled from cruel mouths at the suffering of another man. It had pained him, torn at his mind, had for too long lingered sourly at the corners of mouths he kissed.
Thomas shakes his head, as if to slough off the stench of that memory. He lifts his hand from James shoulder, aching at the loss, but no longer blind to the truth of the venom behind the taunts that had pushed him to untethered rage.
And James had, for small, breathless second, caught his eyes, and trusted him with a glimpse of those brave and beaten knuckles before tucking them carefully out of sight.
Thomas holds his questioning gaze, for as long as he can, and slowly nodding, he places his own hand - pale and untouched, and softer than butter - against his breast. He splays his fingers, stepping back a little way.
“I swear it.”
He will keep his word. He owes James his loyalty, at the very least.
I had thought you would be displeased with me, he says, and Thomas wants to weep.
He feels the thundering space behind his ribs bloom and wail, pressing too tight against those flimsy bones, writhing sadly around the sweet little seed of fondness. A bright, sharp edged knot; shaped by the waves and shining like green and glinting seaglass, lodged firm at the core of him.
But the truth behind his quiet admission, James’ spilling grief at the thought of having damaged something as worthless as a reputation, of losing his place amongst them, drags him from his own pity. He can mourn himself another night.
He reaches out again, letting his fingers brush gently down his arm and tugging lightly until James allows his bloodied hand to be held in Thomas’ own. It rests, hot and bleeding still, on his palm. “We should bandage these, before they heal crooked.” He touches lightly at the bruise on James’ face, at the cracked knuckles, his swollen thumb joint. He lets fondness brighten his face at last, and smiles.
“One cannot dismiss a friend, James.”
