"I…I wanted to offer my apologies, for the offense I have caused you."
Sarah's eyes widened at his words and immediately began to shake her head. "No, no, please, you have nothing to apologize for—"
"I do," he stated, his tone and look full of determination and offering no room for argument. "I do," he repeated, his voice softening but the firmness remaining. "Forgive me for my forwardness…but your absence these last few days has been greatly felt."
The heat Sarah had felt before was nothing compared to the inferno that lit her face at his words. Again, that tender intensity seemed to blaze within the depths of his eyes, and despite her shyness, she couldn't look away from him; she didn't want to look away from.
"…Greatly felt," he repeated again, and Sarah felt her breath catch as she noticed him taking a hesitant step towards her, his eyes never leaving hers…save for the moment they fell to her parted lips.
Begin story here!
**title manip by angiemagz; other images not mine
top manip by @goodbyedonk
Edna’s eyebrows shot up as she took in his appearance. Impressive. His clothes were…rather fine, actually. Much finer than anything she had seen him wear before. The gray suit he wore must have been new, looking so crisp and clean. And well-tailored too, fitting him very nice. This was no "hand-me-down" suit that most working men claimed. Indeed, the collar was starched and his tie looked like silk! His shoes were polished and looked better than most people's "Sunday best", and his hat…
Had he always had a fedora? It looked very fine as well, and matched his suit perfectly!
Had he always possessed such fine clothes? Perhaps she had misjudged him; perhaps he's more ambitious than she gave him credit for?
"Sarah," Daisy insisted, now grabbing her other hand. "Don't believe her! She wants to make you jealous because it's the only weapon she has! She knows Mr. Branson fancies you, and fancies you alone."
Sybil looked back at Daisy then, her heart seeming to quicken at the other woman's words. "You…you really think he does?"
Daisy groaned and rolled her eyes, releasing Sybil's hands and reaching once more for her knife. "I can't believe you're asking that," she sighed, a hint of amusement and possibly annoyance in her voice. "After singling you out on his half-day off, after all those times he lingers in the kitchen, offering to help with clearing up so he can spend time with you…" she paused in her peeling and gave Sybil a smirk. "And the way he looks at you when you're not looking at him."
Sybil's eyes widened at this. "H-h-how does he look at me?" she stammered, her efforts to sound calm going right out the window.
Days before the wedding, one brother goes to the other, hoping he can ease his anxieties, as well as perhaps answer a few personal questions...
Set in my “A Tale of Two Twins“ universe (where both Tom and Sybil have identical twins) here’s a fun, goofy, little ficlet designed specifically for S/T Smut Weekend. While you can read this without having read “TWINS”, some things may be a little confusing (a few references to that fic will be made, but no major spoilers...or at least spoilers you didn’t already suspect) ;oP **gifs not mine
Excitement was bubbling throughout the whole village of Downton.
A double wedding! There had never been a double wedding in the history of the village, possibly even the region, according to the local magistrate. And with such festivities came all sorts of stresses, large and small, important and frivolous. Yet the Crawleys said they would handle everything (or rather, the Dowager Countess said they would handle everything) and no one doubted that the woman couldn’t move mountains if she wanted to. She certainly could handle the various arrangements, though there were a few to which she pursed her lips and frowned upon (such as Tom Branson’s insistence that a Catholic priest share the duties alongside the village vicar).
Two days.
In two days, twin brothers Tom Branson and Tom Bellasis would be marrying twin sisters Sybil and Sarah Crawley, respectively. It was surreal to say the least. A year ago, neither brother knew the other existed; Tom Bellasis didn’t know that he had been adopted by the Bellasis family, or that he had half a dozen older brothers and sisters, and had originally come from an Irish Catholic working class family. It had been a shock, to say the least, for both brothers. And it had taken some time to get used to, to assess and learn their different histories, as well as understand this unique connection that they had with one another. Not to mention the shock that the woman each brother was in love with answered to a different name (and happened to be twins themselves). It was the sort of situation that Shakespeare would turn into a play, a strange farce that was too outrageous you had to believe it.
And now, it was all cumulating at last to this moment.
The Bransons had descended from Ireland and were presently staying at Grassley. Tom (Branson) didn’t want to impose on his brother (or his brother’s adoptive family) but Tom (Bellasis) insisted, not only wanting to offer and show his birth family good hospitality, but wanting to spend a bit more time with them, because even though he had spent nearly a month in Dublin amongst them after the truth had been discovered, a single month did not make up for twenty-eight years.
Though of all the Bransons, it was Tom Branson, his identical twin brother, to whose company Tom Bellasis desired the most. And the feeling was mutual; even though they had grown up in such stark contrasts, there was a deep connection between the two brothers, something that couldn’t easily be explained, and the only people who seemed to understand were naturally, their respective fiancées.
The previous evening, both Toms were given a proper “stag night”, as organized by the older Branson brothers. There were three pubs in the village closest to Grassley, and they had visited them all. Tom Bellasis had lost track of how many pints he had consumed, and while he was still standing by the end of the evening, he would safely admit that he didn’t hold his liqueur as well as his Irish brethren.
“Too many years amongst them toffs have made you soft!” Kieran Branson joked at the end of the evening.
“Shut up, Kieran, you’re every bit as drunk,” Tom Branson defended his twin.
“We’re all drunk,” Kieran laughed. “Drunk and in love, right lads!?”
The group of brothers lifted their glasses in agreement and made a toast to their two youngest.
“May you both be drunk with love and happiness for the rest of your lives! And may you never recover from the hangover after your wedding night.”
A great laugh filled the pub, and the brothers all staggered back to Grassley then, though despite his inebriated state, Tom Bellasis did find himself pondering his older brother’s words.
…And they were still on his mind that morning (despite his headache).
He was sitting in Grassley’s library, nursing a cup of the cook’s strong tea which she claimed would cure his hangover in an hour or less, when the door opened and the face of his twin brother appeared.
“Hey…I was told you were in here,” Tom Branson murmured, smiling back at his near-mirror image. “How are you feeling? Your eyes are a bit red…”
“I’m fine,” Tom Bellasis reassured, offering a somewhat sheepish smile. “Had to escape Mother’s lecturing; her voice can be quite shrill.”
Tom Branson chuckled and nodded his head. “If it helps, Mam is lecturing us as well, though more so because I think she feels we bullied you into getting drunk last night.”
They each laughed softly. Then, Tom Bellasis looked at his brother…and for the first time in his life, realized he had someone now with whom he could talk to about the things that troubled him. “Tom…” he began, smiling as he always did whenever either of them said the other’s name (the strange coincidence that they both had the same name!) “Are you nervous?”
Tom Branson’s eyebrows lifted. “About the wedding? Absolutely; I’m still expecting Lord Grantham to sic his dogs on me—”
“Actually…” Tom Bellasis felt his cheeks flood with color. “Actually I meant…” he stopped and swallowed the nervous lump in his throat. “Can I ask you something personal?”
Tom Branson seemed to realize how serious this was, whatever his brother wanted to ask. He moved closer and sat in a nearby chair. “What is it?”
Tom Bellasis closed his eyes. “It is personal, so if you want to tell me to mind my own business—”
“Just ask the bleedin’ question,” Tom Branson chuckled.
The other Tom did smile at that, then with a deep breath, looked directly into his brother’s eyes and asked, “Have you…been with a woman before?”
Tom Branson blinked for a moment as he stared back at his brother…and then his face suddenly grew very hot. Of all the things to be asked, this was not what he had expected.
“Um…” he swallowed the lump in his own throat, glanced behind him as if expecting his mother to suddenly appear, before giving a small nod of his head. “I…I have,” he answered.
Tom Bellasis felt equally embarrassed. “May I ask…how long ago?”
Tom Branson ran a somewhat uneasy hand through his hair. “God, I don’t know, it’s been a long time, but…” he paused to think about it. “Well over a year, at the very least.”
Tom Bellasis nodded. “Sorry, it’s just…” his voice faded and his skin began to burn.
It was then that Tom Branson seemed to understand why his brother was asking him this. “You…?”
Tom Bellasis sighed and shook his head. No, he had never shared his bed with another.
“Alright, um…” Tom Branson leaned a bit closer. “So I imagine then that…that you have some questions?”
Tom Bellasis let out a weary sigh. “God, yes.”
Both brothers laughed then, the awkward tension easing slightly. “What would you like to know?”
“God, I…I’m not even sure where to start!” he groaned. “I just don’t want to make a mess of everything; I want it to be perfect—”
“Well, you should probably let go of that hope, because I guarantee that whatever you’ve built up in your mind as to being ‘perfect’, won’t measure up.”
Tom Bellasis frowned at this. “I…I just want to please her; that’s all I care about. I love Sarah, and the last thing I want to do is…is hurt her while I’m clumsily—”
“Have you ever touched a woman?” Tom Branson interrupted, blushing at the frankness of his question, but needing to understand what knowledge, if any, his brother possessed on such matters.
Tom Bellasis blushed. “I gather you don’t simply mean shaking hands or even touching lips to another.”
Tom Branson chuckled to himself. “I’ll take that as a ‘no’ then?”
“I…years ago, when I started university, I met the cousin of one of my friends, and we did kiss and…and my hands did wander slightly from her waist, but we stopped before anything could progress much further.”
Tom Branson nodded his head. “Well…every woman is different, you should know that. What one likes, another may not. Now…understand that despite the way I’m talking, my ‘experience’, if you will, isn’t vast, and…perhaps the best advice I can offer is that when the time comes, and you’re together…you’ll learn from each other what is that you like, what she likes, and be sure to talk to each other, tell each other and not let shyness get the better of you.”
Despite his blush, Tom Bellasis did smile gratefully at his brother for that.
“It will be that way for me too,” Tom Branson murmured, looking down and smiling softly to himself as he thought of Sybil. “We’re in the same boat, you and I.”
“Not exactly,” Tom Bellasis sighed. “Unlike Sarah, at least Sybil will have a husband who has some knowledge, on her wedding night.”
“Alright, the reason I asked if you had ever touched a woman is because I needed to know how…‘knowledgeable’ you are about a woman’s body.”
Tom Bellasis’ blush darkened. “While I lack the personal experience, I’m not completely ignorant, I have read books on anatomy, I’ve seen illustrations—paintings, sculpture—”
“It will be so much better,” Tom Branson interrupted, his mind once again wandering to his own fiancée. “With the woman you love? It will be so much better.”
Tom Bellasis did smile at that thought. He didn’t doubt it in the slightest.
“Well, I’m glad to know that,” Tom Branson got back on topic. “Alright, um…” he looked around the library. “Do you have one of those books…?”
“Oh! Yes, right here…” Tom Bellasis rose and found one such book and together, they found the illustrations they needed for reference.
“Alright, um…” Tom Branson blushed. “This is a great deal more ‘scientific’ than what I remember, but…see this?” he pointed at something on the page. “That’s where…” he glanced down his brother’s body, and Tom Bellasis understood what his twin was saying.
“Right,” he murmured, and then cleared his throat. “That’s where I um…”
“Where you want to go,” Tom Branson finished.
There was a bit of an awkward pause…and soon the room filled with laughter. But eventually it died down and the lesson continued.
“Again, keep in mind that every woman is different, so you’ll be learning a great deal of this together, but…but I would suggest that you try touching here…and stroking here…” Tom Branson explained, indicating to several areas on the illustration, “and begin softly, though don’t be surprised if she asks for you to…to um…”
“I understand,” Tom Bellasis cut in, saving his twin from having to explain, though the embarrassment was impossible to escape.
“And also…” Tom Branson’s voice lowered a bit more, even though they were both completely alone. “Make sure she’s…I mean, before you go any further, make sure she’s…” his voice was practically a whisper then. “Wet.”
“Wet?”
“Oh God,” Tom Branson groaned. “Do you have any idea what I’m—?”
“Yes!” Tom Bellasis answered, also groaning in embarrassment. “I told you, I’ve read about—”
“Well I didn’t have fancy books like you when I was growing up!” the other Tom hissed back.
There was another long, awkward pause…and then the two starting laughing once again.
“Consider this good practice should you need to explain it to your son someday,” Tom Bellasis joked with his brother.
Tom Branson smiled tenderly at the idea of having a child with Sybil, but shook his head. “Nope, I’m sending all of them here; you can explain it, you and your ‘fancy books’—”
“Feck off,” Tom Bellasis groaned, shoving his brother’s shoulder, to which Tom Branson laughed, more so at hearing his twin swear like any other Branson.
“Anything else?” Tom Branson asked, when their laughter had managed to die down slightly.
“Well…one thing, really. As I said, I…I don’t want to hurt her—”
“You won’t,” Tom Branson answered, with a great deal more confidence than Tom Bellasis felt.
“You can’t promise that—”
“No, but…but I know you, and I know what you feel for her is the same as what I feel for Sybil, so I know that when the time comes…you’ll be so dedicated to pleasing her in any and every way a man can, that when that time comes, while…while there may be some…discomfort, at first…in the end, it will be fine. Because it’s with—”
“The woman I love,” Tom Bellasis finished for him, and smiled at the thought. He looked up then at his brother and asked again, “Are you nervous?”
Tom Branson let out a nervous chuckle. “Bloody terrified,” he admitted. “Despite my ‘experience’…in all honesty, I feel the same as you. And the same fears you have, I have—I don’t want to hurt her, I want to please her—”
“To which you will because it’s the woman you love,” Tom Bellasis finished for him.
Tom Branson smiled. “Aye, that is true.”
“We’re twins in more ways than one, I suppose,” the other Tom chuckled.
They both laughed softly to themselves then, and paused to quietly reflect on everything they had discussed, and were thinking about.
“I never really asked you my question,” Tom Bellasis murmured after a while. “And…it’s a bit personal—”
“And these other questions weren’t?”
They laughed together again, and finally, Tom Bellasis spoke. “How…how do you ‘hold off’?”
Tom Branson frowned. “Hold off?”
He blushed but nodded. “I know that…well, from what I’ve read, I understand that the first time for a man can be very…quick. And I don’t want to it to be too quick, so…how can a man ‘hold himself in check’? Or perhaps the better question is, how can he rally again so quickly?”
Tom Branson couldn’t help but smile as he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not sure about ‘holding off’, but I have a feeling that when it comes to ‘rallying again’, that won’t be so difficult.”
“Because it’s the woman I love?”
Tom Branson nodded. “That…and simply because once you know what it’s like, especially with the woman you love, you’ll want to go again as soon as possible!”
For magfreak, to whom I confessed these shots of Robert and Tom in their dinner jackets with their brandy glasses made me think of one specific thing. So here's a possible future moment from "A Tale of Two Twins" (images from allenleechonline)...
"Lord Grantham...might I have a word?"
Robert paused and looked up from his brandy glass. The young man before him looked serious. "Mr. Bellasis? Is something the matter?"
A smile broke across the young man's face. "No, actually...everything's wonderful, or I certainly hope it will be..." he murmured, looking down at his own glass, his face reddening as he spoke.
Robert lifted a quizzical eyebrow at this. "Alright, please...go on."
Tom Bellasis swallowed and looked up at the man in front of him, a man whose relationship to him was on the brink of changing, that is, of course if she agreed. "You see...I...I would like to..." he paused; he wasn't sure why he was so nervous, when in truth, his heart felt like it was ready to burst!
He closed his eyes, thought of her, and with a smile, took a deep breath and opened his eyes and said, "I would very much like to ask Lady Sybil for her hand in marriage."
I decided to make a little Tom Bellasis/Tom Branson photoset in honor of our favorite AU twins :oP ("starring" the handsome and talented Allen Leech)
While I confess, it is still a ways away, I promise to dedicate the chapter when they do officially meet face to face to you ;o) anyway, hope this helps brighten your day too!
*pictures from downton abbey screencaps and Allen Leech Photos
You've said before that Sybil and Sarah in "Twins" had a deep emotional connection even though they didn't know the other one existed. Have the two Toms ever had similar experiences?
YES! As soon as they were separated, the two brothers started crying for each other. Tom Bellasis has felt the “loneliness” more, because Tom Branson was surrounded by siblings growing up. Also, Tom Branson *knew* he had once had a twin brother (although all of Margaret’s children believe that his brother died). Sometimes Tom Branson wonders what it would be like if his brother had lived and grown up with him (when he was little he used to think that they would play tricks on his older siblings by “switching places”) but because he knew the subject was very painful for his mother, he never asked her any questions about his twin.
Tom Bellasis, as a child, suffered a terrible illness when he was roughly five or six years old. It came out of nowhere and Nora was terrified. Apparently, back in Ireland, Tom Branson was suffering a similar illness due to malnutrition (he nearly died) but as soon as he started to recover, Tom Bellasis also made a “miraculous” recovery. The doctors were never able to explain the reasons behind Tom Bellasis’ illness.
As mentioned in the most recent chapter, Tom Bellasis does have a food allergy; he can’t eat crab meat. Tom Branson does not suffer from any such allergies (most food allergies develop amongst more “affluent” communities) but on Christmas day, when both Toms were 12, Tom Branson started scratching the back of his neck…scratching it so hard that the skin turned red and raw. There was no reason behind it, he just complained that something itched. Meanwhile, his brother was a allergic reaction to the crab meat he had consumed, and it made his skin break out in hives and swell up.
But perhaps the biggest thing of all, is that when Tom Bellasis visited Ireland in the summers of his childhood, both he and Tom Branson felt a strange “pull”—one lived in Dublin, the other in the country, and yet they felt an odd tug to go to the other place. Tom Bellasis did ask once to go to Dublin when he was a boy, but he found that he didn’t care for the city. Tom Branson was always curious about seeing the farm where he had been born, but his siblings told him that their mother never wanted to go back there, that it had far too many painful memories.
As they’ve gotten older, that “tug” between them has lessened slightly. Yet, who knows? Maybe Mr. Bellasis will feel the need, for some unknown reason, to go to the village? Or…out to the garage? ;o)
