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This is the third dark haired man Richard has dragged into a dark corner of the dance hall tonight. He's young, a bit younger than Richard would normally go for, but his eyes had gleamed unmistakably when Richard's hand had wandered from his shoulder to the nape of his neck, into his hair and tightened just a bit and a dance turned into a heated embrace within seconds. Eager, clumsy hands slide down Richard's back, clutch at his arse, then slide around to his trouser front while wet lips mouth at the corner of his jaw. There's desire in the touch, but it's impersonal, Richard could have been any reasonably handsome man.
He doesn't blame his partner, it's not different for him after all.
He lavishes reciprocating kisses and bites on the man's neck, as if leaving enough bruises on the other patrons of this underground club will relieve his frustration. His helpless anger. His absolute heartbreak.
Richard is in a seedy Soho dance hall and Thomas is on a boat to America.
His eyes well up unbidden and he's glad that his nameless partner has dropped to his knees and is too busy getting Richard's trousers open to notice. Richard tugs at his hair, harder than he usually would have. It draws a delighted moan from the man below him and so he does it again, and is rewarded with the sweet, sharp pleasure of the man's lips fastening around him.
How he can still rise to attention after all the beer he's had and the two men before this one, he doesn't even know. But his blood is boiling and this is helping, just a little, just for a few minutes.
When he comes, some of the stinging tears manage to spill over too.
-
It doesn't help for long, it never does. Richard ends up stumbling out of the bar into a stinking back street, in search of another place that had recently opened somewhat close to the Ritz. Some part of his brain knows that unless by some miracle he finds Thomas there, (and Thomas had been terrified of dance halls after his first experience with them, so it wouldn't have been bloody likely anyway) this one won't help either. Richard ignores this part, and stumbles on. His stomach is roiling uncomfortably and before he knows it, considerably more beer than he remembers drinking is making a reappearance on the cobbles.
Richard trips, catches himself on a wall, slides down, uncomfortably close to the puddle of vomit. He'll just rest for a minute, and then he will go home. He just needs a moment to gather himself.
When he opens his eyes again, a dark-clad figure is crouching in front of him. An ungloved hand is cupping the side of his neck. A pale, triangular face swims in and out of focus.
"Richard Ellis, are you bloody serious right now?" The thick Manchester accent is unmistakable. Richard starts laughing miserably. Same dream as last night, then. His eyelids are heavy again already.
-
Richard's head is pounding. His mouth tastes like something has died in it and the street he remembers passing out in is gone. He's tucked under a blanket in what must be a bed and he's wearing pyjamas he cannot for the life of him remember putting on. He wants nothing more than to go back to sleep, but the hammering headache disagrees with his plans. When he pries his eyes open he's surprised to find himself in his own bedroom with the curtains closed, a glass of water and some aspirin miraculously on his night stand as though the fairies had placed it there for him.
Something is off here.
He downs the pills and water – FUCK, he was thirsty before – and digs his way out of the blankets. His robe is draped across the foot of the bed where he can grab it without even having to get up and stumble towards his dresser. He's not entirely sure if he will throw up, or lose his balance, or both, if he tries to get up.
What did he get up to last night? Why has he woken up in his own flat, pampered as though he's found himself a personal nurse, when he was not even able to walk home after... he doesn't want to know how many drinks. Or how many men. He doubts any one of them would have taken him home, dressed him in pyjamas and tucked him into bed with some aspirin waiting on the night stand. They wouldn't have known where he lives. Or where he keeps the medicine.
He manages admirably to squirm into his robe and drag himself out of his bedroom in the search for toothpaste, but an unexpected sight stops him short.
In the old armchair in his sitting room is a hunched over figure, asleep, face half squished against the backrest at an angle that must cause neck pain for the next two weeks at least. It's a man, in a brown suit, dark hair hanging into his eyes. Richard blinks, rubs his own eyes. He looks like Thomas. It can't be Thomas – Thomas is on a boat to America – but Richard would know him anywhere. The way his fringe has fallen out of it's pomaded place in sticky strands, the aquiline nose, the pouty red mouth that hangs half open when he sleeps sometimes. He smells like Thomas, too, pomade and sharp cigarette smoke, and his breaths are Thomas' breaths. Richard would know their soothing rhythm anywhere, no matter how hungover and confused he might be.
Which begs the question... why is Thomas here? In England, in London, and, most importantly, in Richard's very own sitting room, sleeping in the armchair with – yes, his shoes still on and his coat draped haphazardly across his lap as though he tried to use it as a blanket and it has slipped down over the course of the night.
That fragmented dream of Thomas standing over him like a guardian angel, the feeling of an arm looped around his middle, half supporting, half dragging him onwards. The mixture of soothing murmurs and quiet cursing and grumbling in an accent made thicker by distress. The comforting hand rubbing his back when he had to retch again. It had not been a dream. Thomas had shown up, after everything. He'd found Richard in some seedy alleyway, dragged him home, put him to bed and made him as comfortable as he could, only to fall asleep in the armchair afterwards.
Richard frowns and tugs the coat back up to at least fully cover Thomas' legs. The beginnings of stubble are starting to show on his jaw and his temples look greyer in the thin rays of sun creeping through the curtains. He looks as handsome as ever, but somehow pinched and drawn even in sleep. Without thinking, Richard reaches out and gently caresses his cheek with the back of his knuckles to soothe the lines away as he's done so many times.
The merest ghost of a touch has Thomas stirring. He twitches, mumbles, nuzzles his face against Richard's hand instinctively. Thomas' eyelashes beat against his cheekbones once, twice, before revealing just a glint of an eye – and abruptly, Thomas flinches upright.
He stares at Richard for a few breaths, back ramrod straight, his neck muscles tense while his consciousness comes back to him, and Richard realises the figure he must be cutting right now – rumpled pyjamas, poorly tied robe, hair sticking up every which way and probably reeking.
After Thomas got him home safely, the least he could have done would be to brush his teeth and put the kettle on before standing over him and touching his face like they had never fought-
"You're up. I'll make you some tea." Thomas' sleep-rough voice cuts through his spiralling thoughts. "You go back to bed or, sit down somewhere..."
Richard blinks. That should have been his line, but Thomas is already out of the armchair, coat quickly draped over the backrest, and busying himself with the kettle in the kitchen. Richard hurries after him and almost crashes into the stove.
"Thomas, wait, let me-"
"Sit down, Richard, I can manage." Thomas' voice is gentle but firm. It has that peculiar tone to it that Richard thinks may be his medic voice. He can imagine a younger Thomas talking to his then-patients and subordinates just like that.
Richard sits on the rickety chair at his small kitchen table with the most grace he can muster, which admittedly isn't very much, and watches Thomas rummage through the cabinets for something edible to be turned into breakfast while he's waiting for the water to boil.
"Are you still feeling sick?" he asks without looking at Richard.
"A little" Richard says. Thomas nods, more to himself than to Richard, and settles for putting some bread into the toaster. Richard is relieved. Watching Thomas prepare a more elaborate breakfast would have felt wrong, somehow. It hadn't felt wrong the last time Thomas was here.
Thomas' sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows and Richard had embraced him from behind while Thomas was watching the bacon in the frying pan with bleary, sleepy eyes.
Now, the arm's length of distance between them feels impossible to cross. Thomas is here, somehow. After Richard had sprung the news of the engagement on him, after Thomas was supposed to be bound for another continent, Thomas has shown up and saved him.
Thomas has also slept in the armchair fully clothed, and Richard knows that he knows where the extra blankets and pyjamas are. He'd not even kicked off his shoes and taken the sofa, if borrowing a pair of pyjamas had felt like too much of an imposition. Thomas had flinched from Richard's most gentle, tentative touch.
Richard's head is still throbbing dully when Thomas puts his breakfast – toast with marmalade and tea, something gentle on his weak stomach – down in front of him. He's not prepared a plate for himself. Richard isn't sure if it's a gesture of disdain or Thomas doubting whether he has a right to just march into Richard's flat and start eating his foodstuffs or drinking his tea. Or lie down on his couch, for that matter.
"Thomas, are you alright? Don't you want any breakfast?"
A pointed glance stops Richard from getting up from his seat to be a slightly less terrible host and procure something to eat for the man who saved him. Thomas is still using that gentle voice brooking no argument. "I'm perfectly well. As opposed to you."
"Please, sit down and have a cup of tea at least." Thomas sits, stiff and uncomfortable as though Lord Grantham was the one asking, and pours himself a cup of tea that he proceeds to not drink from. It helps make Richard feel slightly less awkward as he starts to nibble at his toast, but it doesn't seem to get Thomas into a more talkative mood. Richard is not going to get anywhere with patience and subtlety, it seems. Straight to the point, it is.
"Why are you here, Thomas?"
"If I weren't here, you'd still be sleeping off your night out in some alleyway in Soho." Evasive bastard.
"I spoke to Mrs Hughes on the phone. She told me that you just... up and left."
"So I have."
"For America? Just like that? With some actor or another? Were you just pulling her leg?"
"I wasn't. But it doesn't matter."
"Please tell me what happened."
Thomas turns his head sharply. His face is cold, blank, the way it only becomes when he's cornered somehow. "None of your bloody business, Richard," he hisses. Richard can't help but flinch back minutely. He only just manages not to choke on his bite of toast.
"I'm sorry" he says tonelessly. He's not sure what he's apologising for. Prying? Getting engaged in a panic and telling Thomas in a terribly worded letter? Getting completely sloshed and making Thomas of all people take care of him? The word feels inadequate for any and all of them.
Thomas' shoulders lower with a deliberate exhale, but he says nothing. Richard soldiers on.
"I'd gotten in trouble, Thomas. It was just to throw them off the scent."
Thomas doesn't offer any words of encouragement for him to go on, but he's looking at him, at least. Richard cannot decipher his face.
"Too many letters addressed to me, too many trips up north. Too many phone calls. Getting myself the flat. They were all innocent on their own, but all together... people were starting to talk. When I was caught calling you love on the phone, I wrote to an old friend of mine. She and I were going to get engaged, and after a staged drawn-out fight, cancel the wedding. I'd pretend to be broken hearted, reap everyone's pity and lie low for a while until they all found some other gossip to get involved in. I thought you'd understand what I was saying in that letter. I realise now that I was wrong, and I'm sorry."
He watches for a reaction, any reaction from Thomas. He doesn't know what he expected, Thomas sinking into his arms weeping with joy, or rage and shouting and smashing plates maybe, but not the unnerving blank expression that he had never worn around Richard.
"You could've said." His flat voice wavers a miniscule amount. He might as well have sobbed.
"I tried, Thomas."
""We've not set a date yet, but we will get everything sorted soon. You needn't trouble yourself on my account, for there will only be a small civil ceremony in London and I'm sure you have more important things on your schedule. Please believe that this is not a decision I'm making lightly, I've given the matter much thought. I am positive that this step is a good choice for the both of us."" Thomas recites blandly, his eyes fixed at a point on the wall somewhere above Richard's shoulder.
The image of him reading and re-reading the passage of the blasted letter over and over again settles in Richard's imagination unbidden.
"We'd have been doomed if someone had managed to intercept that letter and I'd spelled it all out, Thomas. Both of us would have been."
"And I was supposed to decipher from that, "don't worry love, I'm just getting engaged for cover"?! To me it read a lot like "look, Thomas, getting married is the respectable, circumspect thing to do and you will have to take on the role of the dirty little secret up in Yorkshire"!"
"Don't put words in my mouth, Thomas! If you had managed to wait for me for one bloody second instead of running off with another man-"
The moment the words have left his mouth, Richard wants to swallow them back down, grind them to dust with his teeth, choke on them. Thomas gets up abruptly with a loud, sharp screech of the chair across the floorboards and Richard's words seem to have fled him altogether.
"Thomas, I'm sorry, I didn't- I wasn't-"
But Thomas doesn't answer. He just walks towards the armchair to collect his overcoat, slowly as though in a daze. Richard jumps up, hurries after him barefooted as he walks back to the door and jams his hat on his head with a jerky motion with one hand as he reaches for the doorknob with the other.
Richard has seen Thomas leave his flat often enough, and it broke his heart every time, but this can't be the last time. It's wrong, just plain wrong. It looks wrong, too, and then Richard realises what is missing from the picture. Thomas doesn't have his suitcase with him.
"Wait!" he croaks in a last ditch effort. He's never felt more stupid and pitiful than now, standing in his entryway in his dishevelled sleep clothes and stinking of stale beer with the best thing – the best person he's ever had in life about to slip through his grasp. "Your things- your suitcase-"
Thomas pauses, blinks owlishly. Then, "It's alright. I left without it."
Richard's stomach drops. Has Thomas lied to Mrs Hughes, maybe even Lord Grantham, and made up this ludicrous story of a better life in Hollywood of all places and planned something much, much different with no intention of being intercepted this time? Is that the reason he came to London, rather than Liverpool or something? Richard's breaths are coming quicker and quicker, but they don't seem to be transporting any air into his lungs.
"You left Downton without your things... Thomas, what were you going to do?!"
Something in Thomas' face softens, just a bit and most probably without him noticing. "Not that it's any of your business, Richard, but I wasn't going to do anything. I left the Ritz without my things. And then I ran into you."
Richard forces himself to breathe out slowly, in, out again. "The Ritz? With...?"
"With Mr. Dexter, yes, the actor. He had some business in London before going back to the States." Mr Dexter, the actor. Richard would have expected a more triumphant tone. Thomas is like that when he feels cornered and sees a way out that conveniently humiliates whoever put him in that position. But rather than triumphant, he is quiet, almost fragile.
"So you're going back there now?"
Thomas pauses, looks down at the floorboards. When he speaks, his voice is smaller than Richard's ever heard it.
"No. I'm not sure where I'm gonna go now."
"Did something happen?"
Thomas' brow crinkles and his lips tremble as he presses them into a firm line. Then, barely perceptible, he nods.
Richard's hand finds Thomas' forearm without Richard's active permission, to hold Thomas back from Lord knows what, to support himself, to ground himself from the wave of dizziness that has nothing to do with his hangover, he doesn't know. But he can't bring himself to let go.
"Please come back in and tell me, Thomas. You don't have to get back with me, or forgive me, or ever speak with me again afterwards. Let me show my gratitude for last night. Just please don't go out there without a plan. Without anywhere to go."
Thomas looks at him with wide, stinging eyes, and then – Richard wants to cry from relief – takes his hat back off.
-
Richard steps out of the bathroom, feeling significantly more human and competent now that his teeth are brushed, his hair is combed and he's washed off the stench of stale sweat and alcohol. Thomas has insisted on doing the washing-up and putting another kettle on rather than sitting down on the sofa as offered. Richard suspects it has something to do with Thomas needing to distract himself. But for a moment, it's just Richard coming out of the bathroom in the morning to find the man he loves standing at the sink, washing the dishes after breakfast. Richard aches with it.
"Alright, I'm done." Richard bites down on the "love" that almost tacked itself onto the end of the sentence unconsciously. He doesn't have that right any longer.
They decide, somewhat awkwardly, to go into the sitting room with their obligatory cups of tea, where Richard takes the armchair and Thomas looks somewhat lost in the middle of the sofa.
"Will you tell me what happened?"
"I suppose I have to start at the beginning. I've written to you about Lady Mary planning to let the film people into Downton, right?"
"Right."
"Well, Mr Dexter..." Thomas twists his hands in his lap. "He took a shine to me, I think. Before... before I received your letter, even. Made some jokes about it first thing when I served him, if I'd truly provide "anything he needed"."
Richard tries his best to not let his distaste show too openly. This is not off to a good start.
"He continued to seek me out again and again and... after your letter, I had a talk with Mrs Hughes, you see. She said I was destined to be lonely if I didn't want... anyway, he offered me a job as his valet. And sort of... implied I'd be something like a wife to him. Taking care of him, or something, making him comfortable. And at that moment, I had two options, grow old at Downton, alone and ashamed, or go off on an adventure with a man who offered me something like marriage and forget my heartbreak, you know."
Thomas' voice is wavering now, but he's trying not to cry. It looks like a doomed endeavour. Richard bites his tongue to stop himself reminding Thomas that there were very likely men all over York clamouring for a chance to be with him. Even with Richard himself out of the picture, it wasn't a black-and-white choice between loneliness in Yorkshire and companionship with the only man who'd have him in Hollywood, Thomas should know that after having seen one of the dance halls. But he would not take a reminder of his panicked impulsiveness well at the moment and so Richard stays quiet for now.
"He had some business in London before going back to America," Thomas continues. "So to London we went. He got us a room at the bloody Ritz. It felt unreal, like a fairytale. Too good to be true."
"What went wrong?"
"I had a smoke outside after dinner. And when I came back to our room, he was in there with another man."
Richard blinks.
"Yeah," says Thomas bitterly. "I asked him what the hell he was doing, and he was... confused? Almost angry. Told me to join in and called me a prude in the same breath. I s'pose I have only myself to blame. He never told me exactly what our arrangement was and I just assumed he wanted something like a marriage. I really should have known at that point that I don't get to have that-" His voice cracks around a sob. Richard's face is burning, he wants to reach out, take Thomas into his arms and stroke his hair as he cries, he wants to deck the man who had tried to lead Thomas to a whole other continent under false pretences, wants to- but he doesn't have the right. He's the one who started the whole avalanche. He clenches his hands into fists and stays seated.
"Anyway, I told him to sod off and ran out. Didn't take anything with me, I couldn't think at that moment. Took me five minutes to realise I couldn't go with him. My whole life would have been in his hands and he... he clearly didn't care about that. And then I stopped thinking about it because I almost tripped over you." Thomas concludes, voice raspy.
Richard feels nauseous again in a way that has nothing to do with his hangover.
"I'm sorry, Thomas."
"You've said."
"I'm sorry that happened to you. And I'm sorry for what I did. Sorry I made you pick me up from the streets and baby me after I've disappointed you."
"Don't apologise for that," Thomas whispers. "Helping gave me something to do." Thomas has told Richard the story of that footman once, the one he'd given secret reading lessons to. When that task was taken from him, he'd said, he'd lost his will to hold on even faster. Richard attempts to breathe through the lead settling in his guts.
"Let me help you now."
Thomas just looks at him, a piercing, wary gaze from between protectively hunched shoulders.
"I just want to see you well, and settled. I'm not angling for anything. You will always be welcome here, but I understand if it's something you're not comfortable with anymore. We can make some calls though. Get some food into you. Get your things back, and then make a plan."
Thomas shakes his head. "I don't wanna go back there", he whispers.
"I'll go. Just wait for me here." Can I trust you to wait for me here, he doesn't say. Will you trust me to be there?
"I'll wait for you", says Thomas. You can. I will.
"Please have something to eat while I'm out. And lie down, if you like. You know where the spare blankets are."
-
A pencil-moustached man in his fifties in just a robe with no visible pyjamas underneath opens the hotel room door that Richard just knocked on. His mildly smug grin abruptly drops when he registers Richard's face. A more polite smile flickers and settles into place instead. "Can I help you, Sir?" he asks pleasantly.
"I'm terribly sorry to disturb you," says Richard in a tone that hopefully indicates he is not sorry in the least. "My name's Ellis. I'm just here to collect Thomas Barrow's suitcase for him, I've been told it's in this room."
The man furrows his brow. "Mr Ellis? His friend who just got engaged?" A pang of hurt stabs at Richard at the thought that Thomas told this man his name along with the story of how he broke his heart, but resolves to not let it break his composure.
"And I assume you're Mr Dexter, his new... employer. Mr Barrow told me you had fallen out and he would like his things back."
Mr Dexter shrugs and opens the door, gesturing for Richard to step inside the lavishly decorated room. Richard can still smell the traces of alcohol and sex in the room, or maybe on Mr Dexter himself. The other man Thomas mentioned seems to be long gone. "He really meant it, then. Ran back to you, even. I thought he'd wanted something more modern than to be the secret of a married man."
"Something more modern," says Richard flatly. "Like being one of many secrets of an unmarried man?"
Dexter huffs. "I don't care about secrecy."
Richard raises his eyebrows at that. "Interesting. That explains why you kept mincing your words when Mr Barrow asked you what his prospective job entailed, or what your relationship would be. If you thought he would want a modern arrangement, as you call it, why not ask him?"
Mr Dexter opens his mouth and closes it again. With another huff of breath he turns to retrieve Thomas' suitcase from the corner of the room when he realises that Richard will not do it himself. It looks out of place between the glamorous furniture and Mr Dexter's more expensive-looking luggage. Richard nods to himself as he's handed the suitcase by a silent Mr Dexter.
"Thank you. I'm sure you can find another man to make you comfortable on unclear terms in no time, Mr Dexter. But I'm very glad it won't be Thomas. Good day."
The door clicks quietly shut behind him and even though he'd known him for less than five minutes, Richard feels a bone deep relief that Thomas had not gone to another continent solely dependent on this man.
-
When Richard unlocks the door and steps into his apartment, Thomas is asleep, curled up on the couch under a spare blanket. His shoes are off and his jacket and waistcoat are folded on the armchair, tie neatly rolled up and stacked on top.
Richard gently sets the suitcase down and walks over to the couch. Thomas is breathing deeply and slowly. His face looks somehow younger in sleep. He smells faintly of tea and the sweet raspberry jam he prefers to Richard's favoured marmalade.
Despite Richard's best attempts to be quiet, Thomas stirs. His eyes flutter open and he looks up at Richard, but he doesn't flinch or tense, just blinks away the sleep. Thomas sits up and reaches out for Richard with a slightly trembling left hand, and when Richard gently takes it into his own, his lips curl into a small, tentative smile.