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After the queen’s speech concludes - his eyes tightly shut throughout, thank you very much - the Captain finds Thomas still standing mournfully at his post under the mistletoe. If he were a soldier, the Captain would commend him for his steadfast resilience.
“No luck yet?” he asks.
Thomas shakes his head. “I’m afraid not. I was counting on a single stolen moment, but it seems like the moment keeps slipping away like -- like-- butter.” He makes a face. “Or any other substance that’s slippery.”
“Whale oil,” the Captain suggests, helpfully. “Never a better substance out there to clean one’s pistol.”
“Right, of course. I'll keep that in mind." Thomas folds his arms behind his back, and he gazes intensely at the sprig of mistletoe. “A Christmas kiss. There’s nothing like it, you know.”
The Captain furrows his brow. “I don’t.”
“What?”
“I don’t know,” the Captain says, and he feels his face colouring slightly. He clears his throat. “As an officer of my station, I hadn't the time or opportunity for holiday dalliances.” Or, really, dalliances at all, but he wouldn't admit that to this mooning undisciplined poet.
“Well,” Thomas says, blinking owlishly, “it’s a marvelous experience. Cold outside, the world windy and wintering. Flames crackling in the fireplace.”
Thomas goes on, his voice warm and wistful, “You and your paramour returning from a carriage ride, bundled up under layers of coats, and you look up at the entryway and there’s the hanging green of the kissing bough.”
The Captain’s gaze flickers to the mistletoe.
“You look down at her mouth and her eyes,” Thomas murmurs, “so open and lovely. And you discover that she’s looking back at you and thinking the exact same thing.”
“I see,” the Captain says, and it feels like the words have dried up in his throat. He’s not a stranger to Thomas’ sentimental moods, but it isn’t as if he doesn’t notice that the man is objectively, well, pleasing to look at.
What would it be like, he catches himself thinking, to put a thumb underneath Thomas’ chin and kiss that mouth -- that irritating, pouting, overwrought-poetry-reciting mouth -- and stand here together, feeling, his other hand twisted in the curls of Thomas’ hair?
How absurd. The Captain clears his throat again. “It sounds quite novel. I shall leave you to it, then.” He starts forward to leave the mistletoe’s radius.
Perhaps he should follow Julian’s example and stand by the wine glasses, hoping that he could imbibe it through mere proximity. The queen’s speech televised and now this foolishness. He needs a damned drink.
Suddenly, Thomas says, “Wait,” and he sounds startled. He’s looking at the Captain as if he’s just come to a realisation, and the Captain freezes.
Thomas reaches out, his fingers grasping the Captain’s uniform sleeve. “I have always been an admirer of many maidens in the day. And even today, the fair Alison…”
“Thorne,” he says. He means to snap the poet’s name out sharply, but instead it comes out hoarsely.
Ignoring the warning in the Captain’s expression, Thomas continues, “But like other poets and artists of my time, I had attention from other suitors as well. Attention that I accepted, even if we had to remain discreet.”
“Ah.”
“It’s all right,” Thomas says, and he smiles, inclining his head toward the mistletoe. “Go on. I suppose there’s always a first time for everything, isn’t there?”
Stunned, the Captain stares at him helplessly. And then Thomas leans forward, tugging the Captain down by his sleeve, and it’s the Captain who closes the last centimetre between them.
It’s just as Thomas said. Marvelous.