Work Text:
2013
“Good Lord, Thomas, there’s no need to kill me,“ says David, as he stares at the fireball-shaped burn on the table that has just barely missed him.
It’s four in the morning, and Thomas is standing in the harshly lit kitchen of the Folly, his heart racing a mile a minute.
“I thought you were someone else,” Thomas says, as he releases the shield he had drawn up when the door had suddenly fallen shut behind him. David really should know better than to creep up on him like this, especially after the day he’d just had.
“Evidently. So, it’s true what Peter says? Lesley has gone rogue?”
He’d sent Peter home hours ago, hoping that at least one of them might be able to get some kind of rest. He’d looked terrible, his apprentice, and not just because of the physical impact of his fall from Skygarden and being tasered shortly afterward. Lesley’s betrayal had cut him far deeper than he would ever express in front of Thomas.
“It appears so. At least that is the only explanation for her actions I can think of”
“I can hardly believe it, I never would have expected her to do such a thing,” he trails off, eyes fixed on a point somewhere behind Thomas. Thinking of another betrayal that happened several decades ago now.
Thomas sighs and reaches for the kettle. “David, I’ve been discussing this for the past eight hours and I need –“ To be honest, Thomas isn’t quite sure what exactly it is that he needs, just that there is something buried deep within him, itching to take over control, some remnant of who he had been during the war.
“What you need is to sit down,” David interrupts him, “and drink a cup of tea, and then you need to go to bed, and sleep. Everything else can wait”
He does want tea, that’s why he has come down here, but there is one last thing he needs to do before he can even try to let down his guard for the first time since Skygarden had been turned into rubble. “The library –“ he begins, but David interrupts him again, shaking his head.
“I’ve checked,” says David, pushing past him to fill the kettle to the brim, “I went down there with Peter after he came back. The door is locked and there are no signs that anyone has been down there in years. You don’t have to worry about it“
“You went down to the library?“
“Was I not supposed to?“ They’d never really spoken about it. About the monster lying in wait beneath the floorboards, it’s heart beating so loud they could both hear it.
“I didn’t think you’d want to. Considering“ Considering it was David’s research hidden down there as much as it was the Germans’. Considering all the people who had died to retrieve it.
“It’s just a door, Thomas, it can’t hurt me,” there’s a look in David’s eyes Thomas hasn’t seen in decades. Not since the day he had found out that is favourite brother had been killed by people believing him to be Thomas. As if he’s afraid Thomas might shatter like porcelain if handled to roughly. “Now sit down”
Thomas is unsure what to say as he finds himself being ushered towards the table. „You don’t have to do this, Davey,“ he says, „Any of it“
„I’m here for you,” David insists, placing a warm hand on his shoulder, “You don’t have to shoulder this on your own, Pumpkin. I might not be able to help with police matters, but this I can do“
„I suspect you might be overqualified for just making tea“
„I wasn’t just talking about the tea“
Thomas nods, mutely, and watches as David prepares the tea, an entire pot of it, as if he is expecting this to require more than just one cup for each of them. He's still dressed, light brown slacks and a dark blue sweater, fraying at the collar. He's waited for him to come home, Thomas realises, to make sure he's alright.
“Scoot over,” David says when he’s finished, and settles next to Thomas on the bench. He pours tea for the both of them, and adds just the right amount of milk and sugar into Thomas’.
The first sip warms his body from within, in a way that nothing else can. He leans against David’s side, shoulder against shoulder, the solid warmth of David’s body reassuring. They sit like that for a while, neither of them daring to say a word. Thomas drains his cup and sets it aside, staring at the slight discolourations on the inside, caused by decades of use.
„Do you –“ David begins after a while, but Thomas quickly shakes his head.
„No. The last thing I want to do right now is talk about it. I’ve done enough of that tonight“
„And about how you feel? Have you talked about that tonight? Or even considered it?“
“I fear that if I think about that for too long I might fall apart”
“It’s your good right to, Tom. No one would blame you if you did”
But it wouldn’t do. He couldn’t hole up in his rooms and shut out the world like he had done the last time, couldn’t let his pain and grief consume him yet again. He had others to consider now. Peter. The Met. Even David.
“Right now what is important is that Peter is safe and the library is secured,” he says, more to reassure himself than for David’s benefit, “I can deal with the sentimentalities later”
“Thomas -” David begins, reaching for his hand. Thomas grips it like a lifeline, anchoring him to this place and time.
“Please don’t. I’m far too exhausted to argue with you right now”
David sighs, quietly, and refills both of their cups. It’s slightly too cold and far too sugary this time, David’s hand shaking with exhaustion, but Thomas drinks it anyway.
“I’d really like a fag right now,” he says, and David lets out a surprised laugh.
“I’m afraid I don’t have one to offer to you. And apparently they’re terrible for your health now”
Thomas nods. Abdul had told him as much when he had forced him to quit smoking at some point during the 80s. Or perhaps it had been the 90s, Thomas wasn’t sure. “I’d really like one anyway” It had always helped him to take the edge of.
“I think it’s time to get some sleep,” David says carefully.
“Come to bed with me?” he asks. At any other time David would have laughed and called his question redundant, considering that he’s spent the night in Thomas’ bedroom every single night, unless Thomas had been out on a shout until the early hours of the morning.
But now he only presses a soft kiss to Thomas’ forehead. “Of course, Pumpkin”
David clears the pot and cups away into the sink - Molly is generally not pleased if either of them does the washing up by themselves and insists on doing it again herself anyway - and then tugs Thomas up from the bench.
The walk up to his rooms is quiet, neither of them talking. As they’re on the stairs David’s fingers brush against his own, and after a brief moment of hesitation he reaches for his hand and grasps it tightly. He doesn’t care if Peter, of even Varvara, see, not that they’re likely to be out of their rooms at this hour of the night.
The silence continues as they change for the night, Thomas dropping his clothes on a nearby armchair instead of folding them up as he normally would. He feels the exhaustion that had settled into his bones hours ago more acutely now, and it takes all the strength he had left to not simply crawl into bed with his suit still on.
David takes longer to get ready, but when he finally joins him in bed Thomas reaches for him in the dark, pulling him closer until he can wrap an arm around David and settle against him, the solid weight of him reassuring in its familiarity.
“I love you, Davey,” he whispered, voice muffled by the fabric covering David’s shoulder where his face is pressed against it.
*
When he wakes it’s just past noon, sunlight peeking through the gaps in the curtains, and he remains in bed for a while longer, listening to the sounds of David’s steady breathing next to him.
Thomas had fallen asleep with his head resting on David's shoulder, but at some point during the night they have drifted away from each other, and now David is turned away from him, curled around a pillow. He reaches out for him, hesitating before softly touching David’s shoulder. Thomas can feel it rising and falling in tune with his breathing, and it’s reassuring, in a way, to watch him. He tries to concentrate on that and to push the thoughts of the day before away.
He'll have to face that later, but for now he doesn’t want to think about Lesley, or the commissioner, or what he'll tell her parents. And it nearly works.
A soft knock - not Molly's - on his door disturbs him, and he quietly slips out of bed and wraps himself in his dressing gown, before he opens the door.
As he expected it’s Peter, and Thomas is careful not to open the door wide enough that Peter might catch a glimpse of David sleeping in a bed he definitely shouldn’t be in.
“Seawoll's on the landline,” Peter says, looking drawn and exhausted, “he wants to speak to you. He sounds pissed”
“I'll be down in a few minutes,” he promises, and adds, just as Peter is turning away, “I hope you got some sleep tonight”
Peter shrugs. “A bit,” he says, and Thomas knows exactly what that means.
His conversation with Alexander is tense, and he's glad when the other man hangs up with a curt “I'll see you”
The breakfast table is still set, not surprising since neither he nor David have eaten yet, and at one of the tables Varvara Sidarovna is sitting, reading a newspaper and sipping on her coffee.
He’d deposited her into one of the empty bedrooms the night before, after making sure that she understood the consequences if she tried to escape, and it seems that she has made herself quite at home in the Folly since then.
“Good morning,” Thomas says as he pours himself a generous amount of coffee, “I trust you found your accommodation amenable”
“Very,” Varvara answers, looking up from her newspaper, “I don’t think I’ve ever stayed anywhere quite this nice before. Although you will have to do something about the reading material, or I will grow rather bored rather quickly”
“There’s a library,” Thomas tells her. He’ll be locking the magical library, but there is no reason why she should be allowed in the Mundane Library. “Although I’m afraid rather a lot of it is in Latin and Greek”
She shrugs. “Better than nothing I suppose”, she says and gets up to leave, and Thomas is secretly relieved to be rid of her again, at least for a while.
He eats a quick breakfast before heading out to Belgravia again, to field even more questions and paperwork than he had done the night before. Peter’s holed himself up in the coach house, or at least he can hear the television as he unlocks the Jag.
They’d have to talk about what had happened, sooner rather than later, but Thomas supposed that it was only fair to give the boy at least some time to sort his feelings out on his own before he had to be bothered about it. Perhaps a few days of leave spent with his parents would do him good.
The day turns out to be as productive as he had imagined, by the end of it he is no nearer to figuring out how to find the Faceless Man and Lesley, but has instead answered the same questions as he had already done, to three different people, each more higher up the chain of command as the last.
He briefly thinks about stopping by Alexander’s office on the way out, no doubt to explain the day’s events another time, but decides against it. If he really is so desperate to know, Alexander knows where to find him.
Only Toby greets him when he returns to the Folly. Peter is out, he had informed him via phone, tying up some loose ends, as he calls it, and might not be back before tomorrow.
Molly, he spots lingering in the door to the Mundane Library, watching Varvara like a hawk, and he finds David in his lab, bent over some notes, the patter of Toby’s paws right behind him as he walks through the Folly.
“Your back earlier than I thought,” David says when he notices Thomas.
“There’s only so many times they can ask the same question, at least in one day,” he joins David on the workbench, and casts a brief look at the papers in front of him. “Those are not your usual work notes,” he says with a frown.
David shakes his head, “I’m trying to remember everything I told Lesley. About magic, and the Folly. And us, I suppose” He pushes them away, turning slightly away from Thomas in the process, “It’s stupid, I know, but I couldn’t go about my day as if nothing had happened”
“I don’t think it’s stupid at all. It might help us determine what sort of information she could give the Faceless Man”
“In that case you should write a list as well. Or add to mine. And Peter, too. He might have told her things one of us told him”
Thomas nods, and reaches for the notes and a pen. He can feel David’s eyes on him as he jots down details he remembers about their conversations, however unimportant they might seem. It’s more than he had expected, given her brief time at the Folly, although none of it had been particularly well kept secrets.
“I still have to call Lesley’s parents,” he says once he’s finished, “and we’ll have to pack up her belongings”
“Don’t you think that can wait a few days? The packing up, not the phone call. It’s not like we need the room”
“I’d rather be done with it as soon as possible. I don’t want Peter to feel like he has to do it”
“As admirable as I find your determination to spare him that pain, I don’t want you to tear yourself up over it either”
“He’s my apprentice. I have duty of care,” David gives him a look he knows all too well, “I’m not going to break”
“Oh, but I’m afraid of just that”
1918
It’s an unusually hot day, even for early summer, and Thomas tugs at the collar of his shirt where it is sticking to the back of his neck, already damp with sweat.
His sister, standing next to him and talking to some of his school friends, doesn’t seem the least bothered by the heat, but the she’s wearing a dress, a pretty affair in a pale lilac and bordered with white lace that she had gotten married in two years prior, and not the Casterbrook uniform, stiff and starched.
But this will be the last time he’ll ever have to wear it. The lawn is filled with the families of the graduating class, waiting for it to begin.
“To be honest,” his sister is saying, to an enraptured audience of three pubescent boys, “I didn’t expect this place to look like it does. It seems so mundane. Not like a school for magic at all”
“That’s because we’re all on our best behaviour,” Jim Ballentine answers, and Vita giggles. Thomas, not particularly interested in watching one of his best friends snare his sister, casts a look around for any other conversations he might join.
His mother is talking to Horace Greenway’s parents, keeping a firm hold on the hand of his younger sister, making sure she won’t vanish into the crowd, again. Daisy, on her part, is looking around the crowd as well, and gives a little wave when she sees Thomas watching them. He waves back, never one to deny her anything, but doesn’t join them.
While he can’t find his father he spots his favourite Uncle, Stanley, talking to some of the other older family members. They’ve known each other for years, of course, some of them having attended Casterbrook at the same time as Stanley. Not a group he would be particularly welcome to join, Thomas suspects.
In the end it is David he joins, half hidden behind one of the two bronze lions flanking the stairs leading up to the school. He’s taken off his jacket and is leaning against the brick wall, reading a well-loved paperback novel.
David doesn’t seem to notice his approach, and only looks up when Thomas blocks him from the sun. “Oh, it’s you,” he says, “Gotten tired of watching Ballentine try to add your sister to his list of conquests?”
He’s right, but Thomas doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction. “Won’t you at least pretend to enjoy yourself?” Thomas asks, “This is our day”
David huffs. “I don’t really see the use in this ceremony. And it’s not as if anyone’s here to cheer for me”
“I’ve seen your father, he’s here” David looks nothing like his father, whose black hair, angular lean face and piercing, disapproving glare have nothing in common with David’s light curls, kind eyes and round face. Not like Thomas at all, who is the spitting image of his father and struggles to see any physical resemblance to his mother.
“He’s not here for me. I doubt he would have come if it wouldn’t have looked incredibly bad”
Thomas leans against the wall next to David, and briefly bumps their shoulders together. “Well, I’ll cheer for you”
A smile flickers across David’s face. “That’s kind of you, but it’s not the same” It’s his brother that David misses, Thomas knows, shot dead in France in ‘16. His own brothers aren’t here either, two of them dead as well, and the other two stationed somewhere on the continent. The postcards they send sound cheerful enough, but Thomas doubts that it’s the full truth.
He’s not quite sure what to say; when David’s in a mood like this there is nothing to bring him out of it, except for perhaps some experiment to divert his attention; but he’s saved by the large door swinging open and them finally being allowed inside.
2013
Thomas sees nothing of Peter until it’s time for dinner, and when he joins him in the dining room the boy looks drawn and exhausted. It’s only the two of them, Varvara eating in her own room, something Thomas is increasingly glad of, and David shut up in his lab, doing god knows what. He’ll have to bring him some food, like he does most days now, to make sure he doesn’t starve. Funny how easy it was to settle back into old routines after all this time.
For a few minutes he watches Peter silently push his food around on his plate. “Are you quite alright?” He asks finally, a superfluous question, all things considered.
“Fine,” Peter mutters, and finally takes a bite of Molly’s steak pie and mash.
Really? Thomas wants to ask, but thinks better of it. He’s not any better, he has to admit, never has been. “You could spend the rest of the week with your parents, if you’d like,” he says instead. “I don’t think I’ll need you here at the Folly” He’s met Peter’s parents, of course, several times now, and they seem to be lovely people, and perhaps they’ll be able to provide Peter with some comfort. Or at least more than Thomas could.
Peter seems to consider that for a moment, before nodding. “Yeah, might be a good idea. I’ll be out of your hair for a bit”
A part of him, the part that wants to let Peter in closer than either of them are entirely comfortable with, wants to insist that this has nothing to do with Peter being in the way, or even Thomas himself at all. He just wants Peter to be able deal with his emotions in peace, or at least as much peace as he could get with the incessant flood of questions that will descend upon them in the next few weeks.
Plate still half full Peter retreats into his room not much later, and Thomas finishes his meal alone, before plating up some leftovers and placing the teapot and two cups on the silver tray Molly usually leaves for exactly this purpose.
The Folly has two labs, one larger one that was historically used for larger demonstrations and that Thomas now uses to teach Peter, and a smaller one, that the more scientifically minded members had used for their private pursuits. This is the one David has now claimed as his own.
The room is cast in a dim light, the shutters drawn closed, David’s face illuminated by a small lamp balancing precariously on a pile of books in one corner of the desk.
He looks up at the sound of Thomas entering and frowns. “Is it already that late?”
“Yes, it is. Why are you sitting here in the dark?” Thomas asks and flips the light switch next to the door, immediately switching it back off when he sees David squinting at the sudden light and massaging his temple. “Headache, again?” David nods. “And you didn’t think to take a break?”
David nods. “You need to eat and drink something,” Thomas says, “Do you have water?”
This sort of thing is new, not something that had happened at all when they’d been younger and David had spent the entire day in his lab, whether here at the Folly or at Cambridge. David says as much, and Thomas shakes his hand in soft exasperation. “It’s because you're not as young as you used to be,” he says, and clears some of the notes off David’s desk before putting the tray with dinner in front of him.
Fetching one of the wooden stools scattered around the room he settles next to David, pouring them both some tea.
“I love you, you know,” David says, comfortably, digging into the food as if he’s just now remembered he needs to eat to stay alive.
His words do something to Thomas’ insides he can’t quite describe. It’s still new, all this, in the grand scheme of things. “Because I make sure you don’t starve?”
“Mostly,” David says, between to bites, “and because you’re a good fuck, of course”
Thomas has to laugh at that. “I think you might have me confused with someone else” They don’t, as a general rule, neither of them particularly inclined to it, and if they do it’s part of a wider effort to avoid talking about something they really should. They’re good at that, both of them.
“I might be approaching my 114th birthday with alarming rapidity, but my mind is still quite sharp.” David’s smiling as he takes a sip of tea. “How is Peter,” he inquires, suddenly serious again.
“Not, all too well, I believe, although he wouldn’t say so. I told him he could stay with his parents for a bit, and I fear he took it as me not wanting him here”
“Can you really blame him for that? Lesley was his friend before she stabbed him in the back, and if he now feels that you want to get rid of him, that is sure the drive the blade in deeper”
Thomas drops his head in his hands, sighs. He can feel David placing his hand on his back, lightly rubbing his shoulders. “I just thought he might be able to … He wouldn’t have to feel like he had to hold it all together, with his parents”
“I know you mean well, Pumpkin, and Peter probably knows too, he’s just hurting right now. Give it some time”
1918
The first two weeks after graduation Thomas spends at his family home down in Devon, entertaining his niece and nephew, who’ll be two years old soon and are already running about and wrecking havoc, with werelights and some more harmless spells, while his sister watches in quiet amusement. “You can have Paul for that school of yours, if you don’t have a son of your own by then,” she tells him. They’ve talked about it before, hiding behind the garden shed at Easter, sharing a fag between them. “I can’t bear to think of him going off to war when he’s older,” she’d confided in him, “dying like his father” It’s a relief, the Folly staying out of the war, but Thomas can’t help but feel guilt about it.
Vita’s not happy, Thomas knows that, not about being a mother, or about the war, or anything, really. After the twins had been born in ‘16 she’d taken off to London to work as a VAD nurse, but with their mother’s failing health and their father’s general incapacity for empathy she’s now stuck at home, keeping the peace in the house. It’s nothing Thomas is particularly envious of.
Eventually Thomas packs his bags and heads for London, where most of his friends are staying at the Folly, before pursuing their respective career paths in the autumn. It’s mostly an excuse to spend the entire summer sitting in the smoking room and drinking their way through the Folly’s wine cellar, and Thomas is only too happy to join.
It’s a novelty, to most of them, being in the Folly for the first time. Thomas has been before, accompanying his uncle or grandfather, and finds his way around with no particular difficulty. It does take him some time, though, to find the desk, hidden in the depth of the Mundane Library, where David has set up camp, possibly every physics book within the Folly stacked neatly around him.
“Won’t you be reading enough of that when you’re up at Cambridge?” Thomas asks, perching on one corner that is at least partially empty.
“I want to be prepared,” David says, which Thomas takes to mean that he wants to be better than the other students. He’s always been like that.
Thomas snatches the book out of David’s hands and places it on top one of the stacks. “I’m sure you’ll be the smartest person there, David, and I simply can’t let you waste your last summer of freedom hidden away in the library”
“You know that I’m not particularly interested in getting drunk every day like the rest of your lot”
“Well, there are still a lot of things that are more of a Lark than reading stuffy, old textbooks”
“And what would that be?” David asks, one eyebrow raised.
“Dinner, for example. You won’t outshine all of your fellow students when you’re dead of starvation before term starts, I should think”
“Dinner? It’s not time for that yet, is it?”
“Yes, it is. And now I’ll have to sit next to Old Angus, or some other bore, because you made me late. Or,” Thomas casts a look around the room to make sure no one is there, before leaning close to David and whispering “we could beg some food off Molly and eat that in one of our rooms, alone”
“You know, Nightingale,” David says with a grin, “that sounds like a splendid idea”
They leave the books as they are, David will be back in the library in the morning before anybody else, and, having secured some sandwiches from Molly in the kitchen, sneak into David’s room, firmly locking the door in both the mundane and magical way.
They spread their loot on David’s bed, kick off their shoes and sit on the bed crossed legged. As they eat Thomas tells him about the time with his family, his mother’s days spent in bed and his father’s unexplained absences, and the time Daisy had been dragged through a field by a particularly vivacious donkey.
Once they’re done Thomas flops down on the bed, his head resting on David’s thigh. Fingers begin moving through his hair almost at once, massaging his skull.
“I’m going to miss this,” David says quietly, “miss you”
Thomas reaches for the hand currently not tangled up in his hair, brushes his lips against David’s knuckles. “As soon as your up at Cambridge you’ll forget all about me, surrounded by all that scientific knowledge,” he tries to sound lighthearted, but fails, “It’ll be me, left here in London, who’ll be missing you”
“I wish you could come with me. You could hide in my room and I’d sneak you food”
“You can hardly remember to feed yourself, Davey, I fear I wouldn’t last a week”
“But you’ll visit, won’t you? Whenever you can”
“I’ll try,” Thomas promises, although he knows he won’t be able to keep it. Too frequent visits might grow suspicious, and any rumours of the sort would be the end of them. Casterbrook had been easier, that way. They’d never been far apart, simply because they had legitimate reasons to be spending time together, but now that has changed. While the occasional visit of a friend might seem innocent, that friend appearing in Cambridge too often, despite neither living nor working there, was reason for suspicion.
2013
The next morning Peter packs his bag and leaves for his parents’ flat. They still see each other at Belgravia, being ushered from room to room, always answering the same kind of questions, but he seems withdrawn and silent.
In his spare time Thomas drifts through the Folly, which is suddenly as quiet as it had been before Peter had become his apprentice. David stays in his lab for the most part, not particularly happy about Varvara’s continued presence in his home. Thomas himself keeps pushing dealing with her further and further back. It’s not particularly pressing, and it’s not as if either of them are likely to be running out of time soon.
Instead he takes Toby on walks around Russell Square, until even the dog seems to grow tired of inspecting the same benches and trees over and over again.
It’s the sort of monotony he spent nearly seven decades with, and only now he truly realises how it drains his soul. He takes off Toby’s leash and collar in the Atrium and deposits them on the coat rack, and makes a quick visit to the kitchen before ascending the stairs to David’s lab.
“Is it time for dinner already?” He asks, not looking up from the ball of - well, something - he is inspecting.
“Nearly,” Thomas says, “but I told Molly we won’t be eating in today.”
“Are we not?”
“I thought we’d go out for dinner, you and I. We haven’t really spent that much time together lately, at least not in any way unrelated to the event at Skygarden. It’s your pick”
“Thomas Nightingale, that sounds suspiciously like a date” He’s already standing, awfully quick to abandon his experiment, this once.
“Well, it’s not like we’ve ever properly had one of those,” Thomas nearly grins. In their youth the very idea would have been ludicrous, being out in public together like that, and in the last few months they’ve spent most of their time together in Thomas’ rooms, or, when both Peter and Lesley were out for the evening, in the library.
“In that case, I guess I’ll have to get changed,” he’s wearing grey slacks and a light blue jumper, both coated in a thin layer of white chalk.
It takes them quite a while of searching for something they both agree on as suitable, their sartorial tastes being vastly different, most of his closest scattered throughout David’s, now mostly unused, bedroom. He should really start keeping some of his clothes in Thomas’ room, he thinks to himself, but before he can make that offer he’ll have to do some reshuffling to make space. “Will this do?” David asks, holding out a cable knit sweater in a dark green that compliments his eyes. It’s far too nice for David to have bought it for himself. Thomas nods regardless.
He doesn’t get changed, only exchanges his cufflinks for a pair David had gotten him for his birthday when they had been young.
David chooses a Thai restaurant, mostly because he’s never tried it before, which is quite poorly judged considering he can barely handle any spice at all. Despite the sweat gleaming on his forehead they pass a nice evening, conversation flowing easily the entire time, their feet nudging each other under the table.
They walk back to the Folly, the darkness only illuminated by the street lights, close enough that they fingers keep brushing against each other, until, quite suddenly, reaches for Thomas’ hand and holds it tight.
“I keep forgetting that we can do that in public now,” Thomas says, glancing down at their intertwined hands.
“Times have changed,” David stops, and turns to Thomas. “We could even kiss right now, right here, and nothing would happen”
Thomas glances up and down the street, a force of habit he can’t quite shake, David watching him closely. He hesitates for a moment, then cups David’s jaw with his free hand and presses a kiss to his lips. It’s quick, fleeting, but it’s more than he has ever allowed himself to imagine.
1918
“Are you sure you’ve packed everything you need?” Thomas asks for the third, maybe fourth, time, playing with one of the buttons on David’s pyjama top.
He’s leaving tomorrow, all of his belongings packed neatly into two suitcases, and they’re sprawled out on his bed together, legs tangled up together, Thomas’ head resting on David’s shoulder. He’s still dressed, has only taken off his jacket and shoes. He won’t be able to sleep here, with David, of course, but will have to sneak back to his own room later on.
“I’m not moving to Russia, you know,” David says, “it won’t be the end of the world if I end up forgetting something”
“You don’t have the disposition for Russia, far too cold” David is always bundled up in a jumper, even in summer, so the thought of his in snowy Russia is almost comical.
“Never minding the Revolution”
“That too”
They fall quiet for a while, Thomas burrowing closer into David’s side and David tightening his arm around Thomas, neither of them ready to let go of each other.
For the past years they’ve only been apart for a few weeks, at most. It is disconcerting to think that for the first time in their relationship Thomas doesn’t know when he’ll see David again. Perhaps at Christmas, perhaps sooner, although he doubts it. David will be busy with his studies and Thomas with his training under Inspector Murville.
“You’ll write, won’t you?” David breaks the silence.
“Every week,” Thomas promises, “perhaps even twice, depending on how much I miss you”
“Distance makes the heart grow fonder”
“I don’t think that is possible”
He thinks about saying it. Neither of them has done so yet, although at least Thomas has known for a while now. He’s told Stephen, his favourite brother, about it, the last time they had seen each other before he’d been shipped off, sharing a bottle of wine in their shared bedroom, passing it back and forth between each other. Talking to Spud about that kind of thing has always been easy, as almost everything is with him. But he hasn’t told David yet, hasn’t quite plucked up the courage to do so.
David’s signare fills the room, wind blowing through tall grass, the faint smell of chemicals. It’s a variation on lux, tiny lights hovering on the ceiling, forming constellations Thomas is vaguely familiar with and David can name without error.
It’s almost as if they are lying outside, underneath a sky full of stars.
“They’re pretty,” Thomas says.
“Not as pretty as you”
Thomas hesitates a moment. But if he doesn’t say it now it might never happen. “I love you, Davey”
David is silent for a long time, long enough for Thomas to start regretting his words. But David’s fingers are still wandering up and down his spine. “I love you too, Pumpkin. More than anything”
*
The next day they don’t say goodbye the way either of them would have liked to. Instead Thomas waves him off after breakfast with the rest of his friends. They’ve considered Thomas accompanying him to King’s Cross, but had thought it too risky. The last night has to be enough, the kiss they had shared when they’d both known that it was time for Thomas to go back to his own room.
It’s not forever, he has to remind himself, as he watches David disappear through the doors, wearing his best coat, a suitcase in each hand.
Instead he goes up to his room and pens the first of what will be hundreds of letters, signing it not with his name, but a simple -T.
2013
When Peter returns the next week nothing much seems to have changed. He’s still withdrawn and silent, utterly unlike himself.
Thomas seeks him out, one evening, holed up in his Tech Cave, watching something that Thomas faintly recognises as something with Star in its title.
“I think we ought to talk,” Thomas forces himself to say.
Peter says nothing, simply nods and turns off the TV.
“Conversations like these are no particular strength of mine, so bear with me. But I think Lesley hurt you very deeply”
“She tasered me in the back. I introduced her to all of this, and she turned around and betrayed us”
“That is not your fault,” Thomas says firmly.
“But it is. It’s absolutely my fault. You only took her on as an apprentice because I showed her how to do magic. If it hadn’t been for me we wouldn’t even be in this position”
“Magic is a tool, Peter, you cannot control what people do with after you give it to them. It’s not your fault that she chose to do this”
“You were right not to trust us”, Peter says, staring off into nothing
“What makes you think I don’t trust you? I would have hardly made you my apprentice if I didn’t”
“You trust me with that, at least to a point. But never the rest. I've been with you for over a year, and you've barely told me anything about yourself. And whenever you do you immediately change the topic”
“I -” Thomas begins, but hesitates, unsure how to continue. “I have never found it easy to open up about myself. That has nothing to do with you, or how much I trust you. I've lived a life much longer than yours and have experienced more horrors than I hope you will ever need to. Those things I keep from you not out of a lack of trust but out of a desire to spare you that kind of thing”
“But you share them with Mellenby”
“That is quite different. We've known each other a long time. He’s lived through much of the same as I have”
“But there’s more to it. I'm not stupid, I've known since I moved into the Folly. You could have told me, you know, I don’t mind”
A part of Thomas, the part of him that is still afraid to be seen with David, that checks even within the Folly that no one will see them, freezes at those words. It was foolish, perhaps, to think they could keep this from Peter for long, considering they live together and he can be quite perceptive at times. He reaches for the discarded Rubic’s Cube laying on the coffee table, courtesy of David, no doubt, starts twisting it in his hands. “It's not quite that simple”
“Then explain it to me”
“It is true that David and I are -” he struggles to find the right word. Lovers doesn’t quite fit, and is hardly appropriate to use in front of Peter. “involved. But that development is a lot more recent than you seem to think. When you moved in there was nothing between us, and there hadn’t been for quite some time”
“But you had been before? And are now?”
“From when we were sixteen up to the war. Near the end of the war we had some …” he twists the Cube, separating a row of red from green, “rather major disagreements and split. After the war David moved away and we didn't see each other for decades. By the time you moved in we were still figuring things out. We'd gotten rather good at not talking, or at least not about the important things”
“Until when?”
“The end of January. So you see, this is still all rather new for us, and neither of us is particularly forthcoming about that sort of thing. You must consider that throughout our most formative years this sort of thing was quite thoroughly illegal. At first we didn’t tell you because we were both still uncertain with each other, after all that time. And now with Lesley being gone…, well, it felt rather superfluous bringing it up at a time like this. I do trust you, Peter, and would trust you with my life. But you must understand that there are things that I find difficult to share”
“Yeah, I get that. And for what it’s worth, I'm happy for you”
“Thank you, Peter. That means a lot”