First Downton fic, eek!
Title: When I have been a memory
Pairing: Thomas Barrow/Edward Courtenay
Rating: PG-13
Summary: I rewatched series two last night and this happened. Short and angsty.
Warning(s): Canon character death, non-graphic suicide.
Word count: 1000ish
Disclaimer: DA belongs to its creators, and I am but a penniless student.
Courtenay was beautiful but terribly unfortunate, Thomas thought. Privately, of course. It wouldn’t do him any good to actually tell him.
He’d had so much ahead of him. Something actually tangible too, rather than the far-fetched, wretched, day dreaming stuff that Daisy was prone to rabbiting on about. Not any more, though. When they’d spoke earlier in the day, Edward had spat about how he’d be reliant on someone for the rest of his days and flopped back weakly against the pillows.
Thomas had been a bit stunned.
He’d dabbed awkwardly at Edward’s eyes when the tears had spilled over, the silence stretching out, and tried not to think about holding reaching out a grasping his hands. About how much he wanted to smooth back his hair where the curls had become unruly.
Instead, he leant a little closer.
“If it is any consolation, sir, I doubt that you could ever be a burden.”
He snorts, but doesn’t turn away, so Thomas counts it as something of a victory. The irony of that doesn’t escape him.
_
The following week doesn’t go nearly as well.
He’d been assigned the night watch. For the most part, it was fairly dull work. Refilling glasses of water, making sure anyone who woke was comfortable. Nothing strenuous.
By about three in the morning, there’d been a lull. Silence, save for the snores and rough breathing. He’d managed to sneak out for a cigarette, hurriedly puffing away in the walled yard when he’d heard the disturbance and his stomach had sunk.
Nightmares weren’t out of the ordinary. Not here, at least. Thomas liked to think he’d become accustomed to them.
The sight of Courtenay, though, twisted up in the starched sheets, flinching and whimpering with one hand pressed to his blistered eyes - was almost more that he could bear.
He arrived before the nurse and grasped Edward’s arm, shaking him awake, the other hand untucking the bedclothes from around him, and he startled awake.
He didn’t move away when Edward shoved himself upright in bed, limbs jerking and trembling and grabbed onto Thomas, hands fisting in his jacket and clutching at his waist.
In any other situation, he’d have been glad of the contact, thought he’d never have admitted it. Such cravings were reserved for when he was sleepless and morose.
Now, though, all such wants seemed futile when the other man was pressed close to him but out of fear,more than anything. Sobbing and trying to grasp on to any physical comfort he could.
Thomas held him stiffly, one hand pressed to the back of his neck, until he eventually drifted back off.
They didn’t speak of it again.
-
The only real intimacy they ever achieve comes when Thomas, in a fit of recklessness, offers to take Edward out into the grounds.
Earlier in the day he’d overheard Courtenay morosely saying how much he’d miss seeing the countryside to nurse Crawley and decided that something must be done, because despondence in Edward’s tone that set his nerves on edge.
So he’d taken action. Sneaking Edward out in the murk of dawn and slipping outside, beyond the courtyard for once.
They’d spoken for a while, about how much trouble they were likely to be in, before falling silent and coming to a stop. They hadn’t been walking long, but Edward’s hands were shaking from the cold. Thomas told himself that when he took them in his, it was for purely practical reasoning.
Edward jumped, looking up at him sharply, but his eyes didn’t focus. He may as well have been looking right through him. Something uncomfortable prickled up the back of Thomas’ neck. It was hardly an unfamiliar feeling.
“I wonder what you look like, so much, sometimes.” Edward spoke up suddenly, and Thomas nearly laughed at the absurdity of it.
“I’m sure there are much better things for you to be wondering about, sir.” He’d replied, trying not to let the feeling of where their fingers brushed to distract him. Courtenay didn’t seem eager to let go.
“Perhaps not. I also wonder if you’d touch me or stare at me quite so much if I could see, though.”
Thomas startled. It sounded so bitter, so accusatory that he made to pull away.
“No, don’t.” Edward said, and he was running his hand up Thomas’ arm, pushing his fingers into the short strands at the back of his neck. “Don’t go.”
Later, Thomas had told himself that it was instinct and nothing else that had made him press their mouths together. It didn’t quite explain why the memory of Courtenay’s startled gasp was burned into his memory, nor how just thinking about the drag of Edward’s teeth against his lip made his skin prickle.
They’d gotten back safely, without a hiccup. That was the important thing.
_
Of course, it had been too good to last.
Thomas hadn’t even suspected anything was amiss the night before, bar Clarkson’s ridiculous decision to send Edward away to convalesce. He’d clutched his hand, briefly, when the nurses weren’t hovering, and Edward had squeezed back.
“I’ll change his mind, I swear it. You won’t be sent away.”
It sounded far too much like please stay.
Courtenay had said nothing in reply, but when Thomas changed his bandages that night, he’d leaned into each touch, his warmth bleeding through Thomas’ glove. He’d promised to come back first thing.
He had, of course, but by then it had been far too late.
The sheets were changed and the blood and body cleaned up by the time he got down. It was almost like he hadn’t been there at all.