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“Tell me about the dragons again.” Jimmy says sleepily. He’s more beautiful than anything an artist could possibly capture to Thomas sprawled on top of him, half dressed with his face resting on Thomas’s collarbone. When he talks he can feel Jimmy’s soft lips moving against his skin. When he blinks he can feel long eyelashes tickling him gently. He wonders if the boy knows what he does to him. Or if it’s just a fantasy to Jimmy- just a bit of fun.
“Dragons” Jimmy insisted, louder now, and he shook Thomas’s arm.
The older man sighed, exasperated. He was having him on. Or it was some sort of fetish. Either way he hadn’t been able to get Jimmy to shut up about bloody dragons of all things ever since he’d found a book in Thomas’s room about mythical creatures (a moment ranked high in the most embarassing of his life). He couldn’t very well tell him that he’d really only thoroughly read the chapter on unicorns- that would make it a hundred times worse.
“You’re a funny one…” he grumbled, pulling the book and a pack of smokes from under the bed. He lit a cigarette and put it between his lips before cracking open the book and flipping through it. He could feel Jimmy’s lips move against his skin again, this time in a smile. And for that all the silly dragon rubbish was worth it.
“The dragon is one of the most fearsome legends of history and seen in several cultures. They are a reptilian monster often with wings-”
Jimmy made a low hum in the back of his throat and adjusted his position, his crotch grinding against the under-butler’s thigh as he did so. Thomas swallowed and took a drag on his cigarette before continuing.
“Many dragons are said to have the ability to breathe smoke and fire.”
Jimmy was rubbing small circles with his fingertip against Thomas’s chest. “You breathe smoke. Are you sure you’re not a dragon?” the blond asked, looking up at him.
Thomas smirked and for effect exhaled his cigarette smoke from his nostrils impressively.
“Haven’t you been paying attention, James? Dragons are covered in scales.”
“Oh? I could’ve sworn I saw some scales, somewhere around here” Jimmy said, lifting up Thomas’s undershirt and peering around in mock curiosity. He dipped his hands behind his back, feeling about. Thomas laughed but smacked his hands away.
“Oi- cut it out. You know I’m not ticklish anyway.”
“No. I know you SAY you’re not ticklish.” Jimmy corrected with a cocky smile but relented and flopped back down to let his head rest on the man’s chest once more.
“Known for hoarding treasure and burning villages, in literature the dragon is often seen as a symbol of power, greed, and chaos…”
Jimmy was kissing just above the collar of his undershirt. Thomas inwardly groaned and stamped out his cigarette, going to run his fingers through Jimmy’s hair when the footman stopped and looked up at him with a hurt expression- “why did you stop reading?”
Thomas hoped the look he gave him was as long-suffering as he felt.
“I think you like dragons too much, Jimmy. You’re loony, you are.” he said shaking his head.
Jimmy just laughed and returned to kissing Thomas’s collarbone and neck.
“Oh, I’m not that strange, Mr.Barrow. Or atleast not any stranger than you. After all…” another kiss and then he looked up to meet Thomas’s eyes, his own twinkling with mischief, “I’ve seen your paintings.”
“Well, that’s-“ Thomas starteed before the words out of Jimmy’s mouth sunk in and he went pale in the face because he knew exactly what Jimmy was talking about. Though he’d been refraining from it recently since Jimmy was so often in his room, for a while Thomas had been getting in touch with his creative side with the subject of his artwork always being the same- those beautiful, majestic, obviously and tragically fake beasts- unicorns.
He bolted upright in bed, knocking Jimmy off of him in the process.
“You what?!” Thomas nearly shouted.
The blond had nearly tumbled straight off the bed but caught himself. Now his face broke into a crooked grin and he laughed at the under horrified stare.
“The corner of one of them was sticking out from underneath your bed about a month ago and I had a look. So I’m afraid your secret’s out- albeit safe with me.”
“You knew about this for an entire month?!” he yelled, his voice rising an octave in panic.
Jimmy put a finger to his lips, his shoulders shaking with supressed laughter.
“Be quiet, you idiot! You’ll wake Carson!”
Thomas shut his mouth at that but his eyes were still bugging out of his face comically.
“They were lovely, by the way.” Jimmy said, resettling by putting his elbows on Thomas’s thighs and cupping his chin in his hands- all the better to look up at Thomas and bat his eyelashes at him sweetly. “Did you have to go to Ripon to buy the watercolors?”
“Oh my god…” Thomas groaned, putting his face in his hands.
“Do you think you would ever paint me like that-?”
“No.” the reponse was muffled because Thomas still had his face buried against the palms of his hands and was now curling himself into a protective ball of denial.
Jimmy was finding this amusing to no end but kissed his partner reassuringly on the wrist.
“Don’t be embarassed, love.” he cooed.
“Did you find…” Thomas started hesitantly, “Did you find… anything else… while you were invading my privacy?”
What Thomas was thinking of, of course, was some of his earlier sketchbook entries where he’d grown tired of trying to draw the bloody beasts and resorted to writing in calligraphy “Jimmy Barrow” and “Thomas Kent” in hearts. Just to test out how it would look! But he was pretty sure he’d burned all of those in a fit of embarassment soon after he’d made them.
“What do you mean? Was there something else?” Jimmy asked, pulling Thomas’s hands away from his face and looking him in the eye. “Was it…” Jimmy swallowed, his eyebrows knitting together.
“Was it… paintings of pegasus?” he asked seriously.
Thomas gave him the most threatening gaze he could muster as Jimmy couldn’t keep the staight face and had to bury his face against a pillow to muffle his hysterics.
“This is it, Jimmy.” Thomas said, shaking his head somberly, “Now I have to kill you. That’s all there is to it.”
“Go ahead- I’ll die of laughter anyhow at this rate!” Jimmy said from the pillow where he was still giggling madly.
“You know you’re awfully cheeky for someone who starts moaning over dragons. The great mystery of Jimmy Kent solved at last- he doesn’t like women or men, it’s dragons that have his heart.”
Jimmy’s head shot up from the pillow, his cheeks bright red “I don’t think about dragons like… like THAT.”
“Oh? You were getting pretty excited I think.” Thomas said, raising his eyebrows up and down suggestively.
“Yeah- but- shut up.” Jimmy sputtered, “Bet you’d be all bright eyed and blushing if we were talking about magic horses.”
“Would not.” Thomas frowned, indignant.
“Would to.” Jimmy said, smacking Thomas in the face lightly with the pillow and then lying down sideways on the bed. Thomas did the same so they were facing eachother, pressed close from having to share the tiny cot they had to sleep on. For a few moments they just smiled at eachother each trying not to either burst into laughter or start blushing again.
“But… dragons and unicorns are real, don’t you think?”
Thomas raised an eyebrow at Jimmy skeptically. “I’m sorry that the British school system has failed you so dismally that you’d think so” he scoffed.
Jimmy rolled his eyes and rolled over onto his stomach.
“But think like this- we know true love’s real, inn’it? And true love between two men is real. So… maybe unicorns and dragon are real too, yeah?” he said, smiling proudly at his own reasoning.
Thomas smiled. “When you go on like that it makes me think O’Brien wasn’t lying to me after all- all those years ago. She said you were saying ‘silly, sloppy, stuff’ about me.” Thomas tipped Jimmy’s chin up with his hand and smirked as he leaned in for a kiss, “and now you really are.”
Jimmy opened his mouth to the kiss.