Wow. I can't believe this is ACTUALLY THE END. Thank you so much to everyone who read this ridiculously stupid number of words :)

Keeping perfectly to the spirit of the previous night, the following morning was – anticlimactic, to say the least.

"You still here, then?" Thomas said, squinting up at him, speaking with the rusty voice of the just-awakened (though Jimmy had not been particularly quiet as he dressed – the grand finale of his sartorial routine had been to upend the contents of his duffel bag onto the bedroom floor while swearing, in a fruitless attempt to find an uncrumpled shirt).

"I'm going to work," Jimmy said.

"Right," Thomas said. "I'll call off the search party, then, shall I?"

Jimmy glared, and waited. Thomas did not seem inclined to move. Finally, he hinted, with all the dignity at his disposal, "Aren't you coming down for breakfast?"

"No," Thomas said, and pulled the covers over his head. In a more muffled tone, he continued, "You can let yourself out this morning – you've got a bloody key, haven't you?"

Jimmy shut the bedroom door with more force than necessary, before thumping down the hardwood stairs (briefly regretting the door-slam of moments before).

It was not fair, he decided, as he ferreted through Thomas' cupboards in search of cereal. He had finally decided to cast caution to the winds and be wholeheartedly gay, only to then have the most fundamental aspect of gayness cruelly denied him by Thomas – who, to empty the entire contents of the salt cellar into the wound, acted as if he were the injured, sexually dissatisfied party in this situation.

Of course, part of him grudgingly pointed out that his relationship with Thomas was based on more than shallow physical lust…but this anaemic voice of reason was drowned out by certain other parts that argued (very convincingly) that shallow physical lust had its place. And if he and Thomas were going to be properly together (as Jimmy had already explained to Thomas), then it stood to reason that they should be together, properly.

If Jimmy'd wanted a lifetime of sexless frustration, well, he could have had that in spades with Alfred and Ivy, thank you very much. He made his way through a bowl of slightly soggy cereal, and contemplated his options.

Not that he needed to.

All annoyance at this sudden enforced celibacy aside (and it was annoying – extremely annoying), Jimmy knew that the only thing he really had to do was wait Thomas out. After all, the one trait Thomas Barrow had demonstrated above all else, practically from the moment they'd met, was a complete and utter lack of restraint. That, coupled with the restrictions of monogamy and sexual exclusivity, meant that the odds were heavily weighted in Jimmy's favour. He was Thomas' only option, apart from celibacy – and Thomas was certainly not up for a lifetime of sexless frustration. All Jimmy needed to do, was wait him out.

Because it might take a while for him to understand that this was how things were now…but – eventually, Thomas would have to accept it…

…given enough time and patience…

…enough persistence and perseverance…

Jimmy drummed his fingers against the table, and began thinking about possible shortcuts.

He set the cup of coffee down on the little locker next to the bed, and stood until Thomas gave up on ignoring him, and opened his eyes with a frown. "Thought you were going to work."

"In a minute," Jimmy said, pleasantly. "I thought you might like some coffee first."

Thomas' eyes flicked between the cup and Jimmy, face unreadable. "I take it this means I'll be seeing you later, then," he said, eventually.

In response, Jimmy folded himself onto his knees and buried his face in Thomas' neck. Thomas inhaled sharply. "What are you doing?"

Jimmy took a moment to enjoy the vibration of sleep-warm skin against his lips before saying, "Saying goodbye." He kissed just under Thomas' ear, before drawing back.

Thomas cleared his throat, gaze jumping away from Jimmy even as he said off-handedly, "A kiss on the mouth's the more conventional choice, you know."

"You've not brushed your teeth," Jimmy reminded him, then sighed, hard done by, " – but if you insist"-

He pressed a quick, hard kiss to Thomas' startled mouth before straightening and getting to his feet. Briskly, almost businesslike, he said, "I'll see you tonight," and added, an afterthought, before he walked out the door, "And it's your turn to cook this time."

The similarity of the betrayed look angled at him by Mr Carson that morning, to the betrayed look Ivy aimed in his direction when they met at lunchtime – was eerie and infinitely disturbing.

Mr Carson spent his time sifting through the red-inked ideas he had so recently jettisoned. "Despite my personal opinion of its worth, in light of recent events, I take it this folder full of ignoble sensationalism may merit some further examination."

Mrs Hughes said, mildly, "Anyone would think you weren't happy about Thomas' return, Mr Carson." She didn't look particularly amused, but Jimmy got the impression that she was, nonetheless.

"Would they, Mrs Hughes? I cannot imagine why," Mr Carson said, as he pulled out a piece of paper. He held it between thumb and forefinger, as if Thomas' handwriting carried an expletive-laden insult to his mother.

Then later, in the café, Ivy looked at him with sorrowful eyes, "You're really going through with it then?"

"Of course I am," Jimmy said, biting into his toasted sandwich with an air of decision that he hoped would close the subject.

The conversation however, remained resolutely ajar. "Well, I hope it works out for you, I really do," Ivy said, the mournful certainty that it wouldn't threading through every word, like a cold wind. She tapped her fingers against the table and said, casually, "You know, gay Emmett visits his grandmother in the nursing home in Ripon every week. Even though she hasn't recognized him in years. And," she continued, with the air of one delivering a fatal blow, "he writes love songs."

"To his grandmother?" Jimmy took another bite of sandwich. "No wonder she pretends not to know him."

"In general." Ivy narrowed her eyes at him. "He's a really good person, is what I'm saying."

"That's nice," Jimmy said blandly.

"He writes love songs," she reminded him.

"And maybe one day gay Emmett'll find someone who doesn't mind that," he allowed, with magnanimity.

Ivy sighed, then stopped, attention caught by Alfred as he entered the café with purpose and a plate, upon which rested several tiny pastries, all protected by a glass cake cover. He strode towards the counter, and Daisy, who immediately turned her back, but undaunted, he launched into an awkward, heartfelt speech. Jimmy did try to block it out, but it was sadly futile.

"I spent all yesterday thinking," Alfred began by announcing to the back of Daisy's head.

"Oh?" Daisy said. "What about? Whose heart you should break next, now that you're done with mine?"

"…I was thinking about jam tarts, actually," Alfred said.

Daisy faced him, gifting him with a look of confusion that, in Jimmy's opinion, could have done with a great deal more disdain. "Jam tarts?"

"Yeah," Alfred said.

"Oh – this'll be one for the ages – I can tell," Mrs Patmore said, leaning against the far side of the counter. Alfred ignored her, and took the cake cover off the plate.

"The thing is, a jam tart's not the fanciest dessert. All the ingredients are easy to find – they've always been right there, in front of your eyes, and you can't believe how simple it is to make, once you start," he said. He held up a single jam tart, which, Jimmy noted with disgust, had a tiny heart-shaped piece of pastry baked into the top. "But…when you get it right – it's perfect. I can't think of anything better, anyway. And…I wouldn't want anything else."

Daisy stared at the pastry, dwarfed by Alfred's stupidly massive palm. "You – wouldn't? Really? You're not just saying it?"

"I'm not just saying it," Alfred told her. He cleared his throat and said, "I made a marmalade glaze for the hearts. I don't know…it just seemed to fit."

Daisy drew in a shaky breath, apparently moved to tears by this sickly sweet declaration of affection. She grabbed Alfred's arms and pulled him into a hug across the counter.

Jimmy watched, unmoved, but apparently, he was the only one. Though Mrs Patmore shook her head, she held her tongue, and the look on her face could almost be categorized as fond. And Ivy…Ivy stared at Alfred's back, and Daisy's hands stark against his tour guide waistcoat, before turning to Jimmy.

"I really do hope it works out for you, you know," she said, suddenly, quietly. "I mean…don't get me wrong, I don't think it will, but…" her eyes wandered back toward Daisy and Alfred, "…what do I know about love, anyway?"

She sighed, and said, "I suppose if Mr Barrow's not changed the locks yet, you've got a chance, at least."

After work, Jimmy went back to the house and began to pack the remainder of his things. But on this occasion, he took his time, leisurely putting his possessions into boxes and bags, waiting for Alfred to make his appearance.

It wasn't that he particularly wanted to talk to Alfred – as a matter of fact, he felt an unpleasant certainty that the upcoming join-the-dots conversation would follow a painfully earnest script – as if Jimmy's decision to move in with Thomas was not a simple life-choice, but a valuable life lesson. Still Alfred was an important part of his planned shortcut, and so Jimmy waited, with mounting impatience.

When he did finally appear, bounding upstairs and whistling, Jimmy almost reconsidered in the face of this revolting good cheer, but he forced himself to remember – " – what's going to happen when Alfred finally twigs you've moved out and asks where you're staying?" He imagined knocking over all of Thomas' objections in one fell stroke, and so nobly gritted his teeth when Alfred came to an uncertain stop at the sight of the stack of boxes in the hall. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I'm moving out," Jimmy said, briskly moving past him to place his stripped sheets in the laundry basket.

Alfred smiled broadly in disbelief. "You're having me on, are you?"

"Yes, Alfred. I decided to pack up my entire life, just for the thrill of pulling one over on you. You've seen right through my plan."

Alfred looked around at the boxes. "Right," he said, sounding no less confused. "Well…I suppose…you've not been around the past few nights…" he stopped. "Hang on a minute – have you – met someone?"

He didn't, Jimmy thought, need to sound quite so incredulous. "Yes," Jimmy said. "I'm moving in with Thomas." He turned and walked back into his room, dumping the contents of his sock drawer onto the bare mattress. As he expected, Alfred followed, frowning.

"Thomas?" he said. "You mean – Mr Barrow?"

Jimmy waited.

"Isn't that a bit…full-on?" Alfred wondered. "I mean…I thought you were just going to be a sort of go-between for him and Mr Carson. I wouldn't have thought you'd need to live with him to do that."

Jimmy stared at him. "I'm not moving in with Thomas because of my job."

"Then why?" Alfred asked.

Jimmy stared some more. "Why d'you think?"

Alfred's earnest bewilderment slowly seeped away, replaced with an unsettled, uncertain look. "You – don't mean…you and him…?"

"Oh well done, Alfred," Jimmy said, dropping a handful of socks on the bare mattress to clap sarcastically. "You got there eventually."

Alfred didn't seem to register the insult. "But – it don't make any sense."

Jimmy went back to sorting socks. He was damned if he was going to counsel Alfred through his coming out experience. "I mean, you" – Alfred sucked in a pained breath, loud enough that Jimmy glanced up, in spite of himself.

Alfred's face was twisted by some deeply felt emotion, he took a step closer to Jimmy, and said, in a voice that shook with sincerity, "You don't have to do this, Jimmy."

"What?" Jimmy said, taken aback by this sudden turn of events.

Alfred actually laid a hand on his shoulder. "I know you've had it hard lately" –

Jimmy scanned his face suspiciously, but apparently, Alfred meant his poorly chosen words in an entirely innocent way.

" – but I don't think this is the solution, I really don't. I know it's difficult for you, seein' her every day, and knowing she don't feel the same way about you…but you'll find someone else in time. Take it from someone who knows." Alfred squeezed his shoulder once, then let go.

Jimmy blinked – but the flow of incomprehensible drivel had apparently come to an end. "Alfred," he said, "what are you talking about?"

"Daisy, of course," Alfred told him. "I know how you feel about her, and – how hard it was for you to let her go. But – I never realized that it would lead to this."

The very molecules of air in his bedroom seemed disbelieving of Alfred's obliviousness. Jimmy pressed the heels of his hands into his forehead. "Let me see if I'm following this. You think I've decided to be gay…because Daisy prefers you to me?"

"I know it came as a blow when she made her choice," Alfred said, with gentle, enraging sympathy.

"A bl" – Jimmy had to take a deep breath. "Are you even listening to yourself? A month ago, you barely noticed that Daisy was in the same room. But now that you've decided she's worth a go, she's suddenly so irresistible that getting turned down by her – which I wasn't, by the way – means no other woman will do?"

"I'm just saying – you have other options," Alfred said, in that same careful tone, as if gayness were a ledge Jimmy needed to be talked off. "You don't need to go down this road."

Jimmy looked at him for a long moment before straightening his shoulders and deciding, "You're right."

He relaxed a little. "I knew you'd" –

"I'll take Daisy, and you can live with Thomas."

"What?" Alfred took a skittering step backwards.

"It's perfect. I mean – if she's the one who made me gay," Jimmy rolled his eyes, "– then she's the one who's going to have to set me right. And, since you're never going to want another woman again – because that's how special your girlfriend is – you might as well take Thomas and be done with it."

Honestly. Daisy as Helen of Troy in an apron…in Alfred's case love wasn't just blind, it was ridiculously optimistic as well.

"That's…not what I meant," Alfred said finally.

"Good," Jimmy said. "Then you can start loading my boxes into the car."

Alfred was quiet on the short drive to Thomas' house. And he kept looking at Jimmy.

"What?" he said finally.

"Nothing," Alfred said. And then, a few seconds later, "Just, you're…you really want to do this." It wasn't quite a question.

Jimmy kept looking forward, out the windshield. "Well, I don't see anyone holding a gun to my head," he said.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Alfred nod. "Right," he said, almost to himself. "All right."

What that apparently meant, was that he now had Alfred's complete and unquestioning support. Because when Jimmy unlocked the back door, and Alfred carried in the first box, he took the time to look around and say, "He's got a nice kitchen, I'll say that for him."

Alfred made it sound like the heartiest endorsement one person could give another. He dropped Jimmy's box on the table and said, "Good storage…lots of preparation space…sturdy appliances…" he nodded at Jimmy, who felt bizarrely as if Alfred was giving him his stamp of approval.

"I don't know if it'd be enough to make me turn," Alfred continued, musing, "…but I might be tempted."

"I'm flattered," Thomas said from the hallway door, and Alfred jumped, turning beet red. "Or frightened, maybe," Thomas added, and Jimmy smirked. He tried to catch Thomas' eyes, but they met only his for a moment before glancing away. Jimmy couldn't read the expression on his face.

"Alfred's helping me more in," he said. I did it, he thought smugly in Thomas' direction. You thought I wouldn't – but I did.

"So I see," was all Thomas said in reply.

"Yeah, and I should – start on the rest of the boxes," Alfred muttered, seizing thankfully on this excuse. He left the kitchen, eyes firmly fixed on the floor, still somewhat tomato-y around the ears.

Dinner, against all Jimmy's expectations, was strained.

He – well, it wasn't so much that he hadn't anticipated it – but rather, he hadn't even thought about it. He hadn't expected dinner to play much of a part in his plot to destroy all Thomas' misconceptions via Alfred-shaped shortcut. He'd imagined – well, he'd imagined last night, to be honest – only with a much more satisfying ending.

But instead, here they were, sitting at the kitchen table. Again.

As he forked his chicken into pieces, Jimmy supposed that at least tonight's dinner was strained in an entirely new way. Because instead of lobbing ineffectual arguments across the table, Thomas twirled his fork through his food and made stiltedly polite conversation.

"Matthew Crawley called today," he said.

"Oh?" Jimmy said.

Thomas avoided his eyes, as he took a bite of chicken. "Wanted to make sure I was still up for the job."

"You said yes, of course," Jimmy said, leaning forward.

Thomas didn't answer him directly, just shrugged and said, "It'll be Christmas soon. No better time for staging something. It'd be a shame not to take advantage of that."

Jimmy sat back, something inside him easing. Not that he'd expected Thomas to turn down Matthew Crawley – not really. Still…it was good to have confirmation.

"Mr Carson's going through all your old ideas," he volunteered. "Readying for battle, Mrs Hughes says."

"Is he?" Thomas didn't seem especially bothered. He took a sip from his glass. "I suppose he'll be in for a shock then – after you give him all my new ideas."

He'd missed this. Jimmy smirked across the table at Thomas, who smiled back…only for the conspiratorial expression to fade slowly from his face, replaced by a frown. He stared at Jimmy, studying him intensely, and said, voice suddenly very different than the careful tone he'd been using moments before, "Why are you doing this, Jimmy?"

"What?" It felt like, just as he'd begun to adjust to one emotional terrain, the ground immediately lurched under his feet.

"This," Thomas said. "The job, the – bed, telling Alfred…" He put his fork down. "What's it all for?"

"What's it…" Jimmy could feel incredulity stretching his face. "Are you being serious?" He put both hands flat on the table, and said, holding Thomas' gaze, voice clear and firm, "You know why I'm doing it."

"Right," Thomas looked away. "Right. So just because you've decided you want to play house for a bit" –

"I'm not playing at anything" – Jimmy interrupted, stung.

" – I'm supposed to fall all over myself, is that it?"

"Well, that'd be nice," Jimmy muttered. He was sure the bloody Duke hadn't been subjected to this sort of cross-questioning when he'd swanned back into Thomas' life. It was insulting. "Look – I don't know what you're complaining about. You wanted me to tell Alfred – and now I have. You should be pleased."

Across the table, Thomas stiffened slightly, but his voice and face held nothing but studied indifference as he said, "Don't pretend that was for my benefit."

"Well who else was I bloody doing it for, then?" Jimmy asked.

"Right," Thomas said, though he didn't sound convinced in the slightest. "So you've enlightened Alfred…just because I wanted it – after you've already said that how I feel doesn't matter to you?" He raised an eyebrow at Jimmy – underlining whatever point he thought he'd made. "Seems a bit contradictory, to say the least."

"Well, that's your problem, isn't it?" Jimmy said shortly, pushing his plate away. "Because it makes perfect sense to me." He was cross and tired – not in the sense of physical exhaustion, but in a different way…he'd chased Thomas down, declared his love, made clear his good intentions, and still, Thomas kept picking at his defences, determined not to leave him with a shred of dignity.

Well – all right. If that was what Thomas wanted…

"But if you really need it spelled out for you – fine. It's simple. I can be in love with you and not think that your feelings matter" –

"Of course," Thomas said, with contemptuous amusement. "I can't believe I ever doubted you" –

"Because," Jimmy glared him into silence, "I'm going to change your mind, aren't I?" He took a breath. "So it doesn't matter if you don't love me yet – because you will."

He waited for the inevitable sarcastic rejoinder, but Thomas just stared at him across the table. His mouth worked. "I don't…" he repeated, shaking his head. "I don't…"

With all the bravado he could summon, Jimmy shrugged and said, "I already made you want me – and that was when I wasn't even trying. Imagine what I can do now I'm putting a bit of effort in."

Thomas got to his feet and left the kitchen without another word.

"Right," Jimmy called after him. Thomas didn't even pause, and Jimmy scowled at the remains of their meal. "I'll just tidy up then, shall I?"

Jimmy fell asleep before Thomas came to bed that night – if he came to bed at all, because when Jimmy woke that morning, Thomas wasn't there either.

He handed Jimmy a cup of coffee when he came into the kitchen though – and Jimmy briefly relaxed. Until –

"So I'm supposed to believe that this is it for you?" Thomas said conversationally. "Just like that? Headfirst into happily ever after…without so much as a minor sexuality crisis?"

Jimmy tensed up again, though he tried to hide it. "What – now you're complaining because this is too easy? You're a treat in the mornings, aren't you?"

He took a big swallow of coffee before meeting Thomas' narrowed eyes again, and relenting. "Anyway I'm too busy helping you through your crisis right now – so it wouldn't work would it?" he pointed out reasonably. "Both of us going through a crisis at the same time. Be a bit messy."

"So you've – what? – just shelved dealing with being queer for the foreseeable future?" Thomas' choice of words was deliberately provocative, but Jimmy refused to rise to it.

"For the moment," he conceded. He drained the rest of his coffee, and put the cup down on the table. Even that, Thomas watched unblinkingly – and Jimmy felt an odd exasperated kind of fondness at his unwavering suspicion.

"This would be much easier if you'd just accept that I'm not going anywhere, you know," he told Thomas. "I could throw as many fits as you like, then." He swung off of his chair and around the table to kiss Thomas goodbye. "So hurry up, won't you? I'd like to come to terms with bein' gay before I turn thirty."

Daisy pounced on him as soon as he opened the door, grabbing his wrist and pulling him down to the very end of the café, by the vast swathe of tables where no-one was sitting. "Is it true?" she asked, without preamble.

"What?" Jimmy said, though he knew already.

"You and Thomas," Daisy said. She looked around the still-mostly-empty café, and lowered her voice still further. "Alfred told me."

"Then if Alfred told you – why are you asking me?" Jimmy said.

Daisy blinked. "Well…I thought it might be a joke."

"Yes – I've moved in with Thomas for a laugh."

Daisy scrutinized him. He had no idea what she saw in his face (other than annoyance) but it must have been something, because she decided, "It is true, then!"

"Yes," Jimmy said. He shifted from foot to foot. "Well – go on. Haven't you got anything to say about it?"

"Yeah. Congratulations," Daisy said simply – and she smiled. "I'm happy for you – both of you. I really am."

He felt the barest squeeze of her hand, and then she scurried off.

"We should probably have a meeting," Thomas said. He was sitting hunched forward on the sofa, frowning down at the papers spread across the coffee table. "Start organizing some sort of timeline…make sure we leave enough time for Carson to register his objections before we get started, after all."

"All right," Jimmy said agreeably, shifting closer on the sofa. "What have you got planned?"

Thomas looked startled for some reason. "What – now?"

Jimmy shrugged. "I'm right here." He folded his legs up underneath him, leaning half against Thomas and half behind him. "'S part of why moving in together was such a good idea."

"Yes – we're sharing a bed to increase productivity," Thomas said dryly – but his shoulder was tense when Jimmy rested his chin on it. "Thought we were keeping things separate. This and work."

"Yeah – because that worked so well before. Besides, I thought there wasn't a this," Jimmy countered. "At least, not as far as you're concerned, anyway." He saw the minute pull of Thomas' mouth, and felt a little flicker of satisfaction. "But – if it's making you uncomfortable…"

An annoyed jerk of his head, before Thomas said, "I'm not uncomfortable."

"Good," Jimmy said, sliding even closer, challenging. "Then let's get to it."

It was nice, actually – sitting next to Thomas and listening to him talk about his plans for Downton (certain as they were to be curtailed and scaled back by Mr Carson). Sometimes he interjected with a question or comment, but mostly, Jimmy watched the movements of Thomas' hands, and enjoyed the warmth of his skin through his shirt.

Eventually, Thomas went back to his notes – but Jimmy didn't move back to his side of the sofa, and Thomas didn't ask him to, either. He closed his eyes for just a moment, lulled by the low sound of the television in the background – and when he jerked back to awareness (he couldn't have been out very long – his head had only started to lean to the side), it was to find Thomas looking at him.

"Go to bed, Jimmy," he said. Jimmy blinked at him. He was still holding his pen loosely between his fingers.

Jimmy got to his feet, a bit unsteadily, then paused. "Are you coming?"

Thomas looked away, and he felt a pang. But –

"Yes," Thomas said. "In a while."

The next morning, Jimmy turned his head to the side and saw dark hair on the pillow opposite. True to Thomas' word. He felt something small and warm slipping about inside his chest, and he was careful not to disturb Thomas as he slid out of bed and dressed.

Thomas was stirring by the time he brought up a cup of coffee though. Jimmy looked at his sleep-slitted eyes, his untidy hair, and he found himself saying, through the clench of feeling that gripped him in its fist, "If you still think I'm only doing this for a shag, then we should just do it, and get it over with."

"And they say romance is dead," Thomas pushed a hand through his hair and sat up, gesturing for the cup. After he'd taken a few sips, Jimmy said, "It'd solve everything."

"I'm sure it would – from your perspective."

"And yours," Jimmy insisted. "I mean, if we sleep together and I'm still here afterwards…then you'll see that I'm telling the truth. But if you're right, well…then, once you give me what I want, I should be out of your way, shouldn't I?"

Thomas didn't say anything, but his eyes were fixed on Jimmy, coffee forgotten in his hands.

"Unless…you're not shagging me because you don't want me to leave," Jimmy said, slowly, the thought just occurring to him.

Thomas snorted. "Yes, I'm not sleeping with you because I'm desperate to keep you around."

It did sound stupid, put like that, but Jimmy refused to be quelled.

"All right – then we're agreed. We should do it," he said firmly. He put his knee up on the bed and leaned over Thomas, who immediately pulled back, narrowly escaping slopping coffee everywhere and said, "Don't you have work to go to?"

"Absolutely not!" Mr Carson said. "Quite out of the question. It's both a needless expense and a fire hazard."

"I don't know that everything will go up in flames because of a few candles," Mrs Hughes said. "They seemed to manage quite well in the days before electricity – the house is still standing, after all."

"Yes – because 'Candlelit Christmas Evenings' were a fact of life at that time – nota cynical marketing ploy. Not to mention, Downton was not playing host to hordes of slack-jawed onlookers at the time."

"Then we'll make sure that proper safety measures are in place," Mrs Hughes said. "And – well, of course Thomas can't expect us to organize something quite so elaborate right off the bat" –

"Can't he?"

Mrs Hughes smiled wryly in scknowledgment, and said, "Well, if he does, he'll need to prepare for disappointment. Still…we might manage one 'Candlelit Christmas Evening' – on a very small scale. It does sound like it could be a nice start to the festivities, and I'm sure people would enjoy it. Not to mention," she aimed a speaking look at Mr Carson, "as my mother always said – there's no point in cutting off your nose to spite your face."

Mr Carson hmmed, but Jimmy took that for the grudging agreement that it clearly was, and began noting down suggestions to temper the profligacy of Thomas' original vision. Liaising was a considerably smoother business when Mrs Hughes was part of the mix.

At the end of their conference, as Jimmy was collecting his things, Mr Carson looked vaguely at his bookshelf, crammed with heavy, leather backed tomes. He sighed.

"Penny for your thoughts, Mr Carson," Mrs Hughes said, as she gathered herself. She smiled, slightly rueful, "Or will I regret the expense?"

"I was just thinking about those days when working for a great house meant respectability and dignity."

"Oh yes," Mrs Hughes said. She sounded brisk and unimpressed. "I'm sure I would have felt very grand ironing newspapers and emptying chamberpots."

Unfortunately, though progress had been made in terms of Christmas planning, momentum had been lost when it came to (in Jimmy's opinion) the far more pressing issue of that morning.

After dinner, Thomas remained at the table and immediately began to discuss the possibility of incorporating chairmaker Mr Abrahams' other useless passion (handcrafting traditional Christmas decorations) into a workshop – teaching people how to make their own wreaths and crackers.

"And afterwards, he can show 'em how to make their own ropes, and they can all hang themselves," Jimmy said.

Thomas smiled, but it suddenly struck Jimmy that he had been engineered into another meeting – only this time, one carefully lacking the intimacy of the previous evening.

Jimmy considered this. Deliberately, he moved his feet under the table, trapping Thomas' leg between them. "Should be easy enough to get by Mr Carson, at least." He pressed his knee against Thomas'. "It's not interesting enough for him to try and forbid it."

It took Thomas a moment to reply – and he didn't sound entirely engaged by the prospect of Mr Carson's acceptance/ire. "It's an opportunity to celebrate tradition and revive a dying art form – he should be all in favour."

"Yes, because that's what's wrong with people today – we can't make our own wreaths. 'S almost a national emergency." Jimmy slid his leg against Thomas' – pushing forward until his knee met the edge of the chair opposite him, and he couldn't go any further.

Thomas took a sharp breath in. "Suppose it – does show a lack of self-sufficiency," he said, but the words sounded mindless, said for the sake of saying something, and his gaze wandered over Jimmy's face, from forehead to chin, before meeting his eyes again.

"Buying Christmas crackers from a shop – what's the world coming to?" Jimmy was aware that his own words were coming out in a similarly distracted fashion, but he didn't care. He rubbed his left knee against the inside of Thomas' trouser-clad leg.

With a sudden scrape, Thomas pushed back his chair and stood, plate in hand, before making for the sink.

In retaliation, Jimmy unpacked another box, further encroachment into Thomas' territory. He put the Mazeball that had been a birthday present from Alfred (because Alfred was still twelve) on top of the wardrobe, where it provided a garish clash with Thomas' odds and ends.

An A4 pad, pens, several pairs of tangled up earphones, and the unopened bottle of fragrance that had been Ivy's considerably more mature contribution to Jimmy's birthday ("It's a blend of woods and citrus," Ivy had said, obviously parroting whatever the girl at the counter had told her. Then, looking at him through her eyelashes, "And…I thought it smelled really good…"). Absently, Jimmy wondered how much she'd spent on it, and stood it up next to Thomas' sharp-edged bottle of scent.

At the very bottom of this hastily packed box was a by-now familiar DVD case. In the black and white picture, a man stared with stone-faced worry at a woman leaning out of a train window. The woman looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard – A respectable, happily married doctor comes to the aid of an equally upstanding housewife when a passing train blows cinder into her eye," Thomas read, as Jimmy loaded the disc into the DVD player. He looked up. "I wouldn't have thought it was the sort of thing you'd go for."

"It's not," Jimmy said, sitting back as the DVD loaded up. "It's rubbish."

"Which is why you've got the DVD, of course," Thomas pointed out.

"It's not mine," Jimmy said, affronted. Thomas, whose shelves were crowded with titles like So Long at the Fair, and Pink String and Sealing Wax, had no business questioning him about his choice in films. "I got it from Hugh and Leonard. Now are we going to watch it, or are you going to complain about this too?"

Thomas stared at him, but didn't ask any more questions, and Jimmy settled onto the sofa next to him as Rachmaninoff's Concerto No 2 started to play, setting the overbearing, grandly romantic tone.

And it was exactly, exactly how Jimmy had pictured it, that first night. The way it should have been. The yammering voices were transformed into something comforting, amusing, with Thomas beside him, wincing at the peculiarly annoying pitch at which the boy-child barked its demand to be taken to the circus, and murmuring things like "Cheerful sort, isn't she?" – when the saucer-eyed woman said things like, "Nothing lasts, really – neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts very long."

But Thomas was absorbed in it too, even as he made fun of the agonizing the saucer-eyed woman – Laura, that was her name – and the nothing-special doctor did over their forbidden love (agonizing that somehow managed to be at once embarrassingly overblown and self-consciously restrained). He didn't take his eyes off the screen, as the tired looking woman descended into a black hole of grief and regret that was almost decadent in its sheer, unending scope.

Jimmy studied Thomas' profile, apparently gripped as Laura and the nothing-special doctor enjoyed a brief moment of incomprehensible amusement over a sub-par, stupid looking cellist – and something eased within him. As if he'd fixed something…made something right…something small, but still somehow significant. He twisted around on the sofa, and laid out on his side, resting his head in Thomas' lap.

Thomas' thigh tensed against his face, and he warned, quickly, before Thomas could ruin the odd perfection of the moment, "Just shut up, all right?"

He could feel Thomas' eyes on him, but he stared ahead at the screen, where the nothing-special doctor told Laura (quite against all the evidence Jimmy had seen), "You could never be dull."

And, quite miraculously, after a few seconds, Thomas shifted his attention back to the film, doing as he was told. They kept watching – in silence this time, until – as the nothing-special doctor discussed with Laura his passion for pneumoconiosis and she stared at him with a look of rapt longing – Jimmy felt Thomas' leg jerk slightly against his cheek, just once, before Thomas' hand came down and slowly, carefully, touched his hair.

After that, Jimmy only really remembered bits and pieces of Laura's worried love affair. Thomas brushed the hair back from his forehead when she dissolved into high-strung laughter in front of her bewildered husband. As she raced with the nothing-special doctor to prevent him missing his train (the excitement!) Thomas' thumb brushed the fine, short hair by the nape of his neck in the wrong direction, sending shivers down his spine. And, as they had tea after a boring misadventure in a boat, at exactly the moment the nothing-special doctor confessed his love with a fatalistic, "It's too late now to be sensible as all that", the pads of Thomas' fingers hovered, stroking, just barely, against the tip of Jimmy's ear, and he had to close his eyes for a few seconds.

By then, watching the film with Thomas had turned into something that wasn't at all what Jimmy had imagined, that night on the sofa with Alfred and Daisy, Ivy clicking away on her laptop…

…but this was even better, so he supposed he didn't mind.

In bed that night, Jimmy curled around Thomas' back and pointed out, quite reasonably, "We're going to end up sleeping together anyway – so we might as well start now."

"If it's going to happen anyway, then you've got nothing to worry about then, do you?" Thomas murmured – but this time, even though he didn't turn around, he didn't move away from Jimmy either.

Oddly, given how irritating Ivy's constant harassment had been – the sudden hands-off attitude that she, Alfred and Daisy were now following was, in a way, almost more disconcerting.

It wasn't that he wanted their noses stuck in his business – but, well, it wasn't as if any of them had been known for hanging back…and it might even have proved useful this time. Such as, for instance, when Mrs Patmore poured his coffee, remarking, "You're in good humour, for once." She raised her eyebrows. "Who's the lucky girl – or did you just catch sight of yourself in the back of a spoon?"

Jimmy stared at her for a moment before catching Daisy as she walked past, carrying a sponge cake.

"Mind – you'll have it over in a minute!" she squawked as he steered her a safe distance away from Mrs Patmore's frizzy-haired interest.

"You didn't tell her?" his voice came out as a fierce whisper.

"Tell her what?" Daisy asked, gripping the plate warily.

"About me and Thomas – what d'you think?"

"What? Of course not," Daisy said, sounding shocked at the very idea. "That's your business, isn't it?"

It turned out that Alfred (possibly following a lecture from Daisy) was following a similar, irritatingly virtuous policy. "It's up to you, mate," he said. "I mean – you can tell whoever you want…and in your own time. There's no rush."

Alfred made his relationship with Thomas sound as if Jimmy needed to break the news of an embarrassing personal ailment – diarrhea of the heart, or emotional eczema or something. It turned out, on further questioning, that he hadn't even mentioned to his aunt the fact that Jimmy had moved out.

"Why not?"

"Well…I just thought she might be a bit…" Alfred made a vague hand gesture that failed to communicate 'needlessly nasty, skirting right up against the edges of unprovoked malevolence'. "Don't worry – your secret's safe with me."

"Brilliant," Jimmy said bitterly.

And Ivy, Ivy, who had shown all the regard of a chainsaw for his personal barriers, shrugged and said, "I didn't like to say anything – just in case. No point talking about it if I thought he was going to kick you out, is there? You've already lasted a lot longer than I thought you would."

"We've not even been together a week," Jimmy pointed out.

"Exactly," Ivy said.

Jimmy shot her a dirty look and left.

It wasn't that he wanted Daisy or Alfred or Ivy talking about him (he really didn't)…but neither did he want to have to keep informing people, over and over. It was boring and a bit soppy, hauling out his private feelings and his private life for other people, like a passport or an ID card, just to correct their stupid misconceptions. It had been bad enough telling Alfred – and that had at least had the minor (if predictable) upside of Alfred making a fool of himself.

He was still thinking about it the next day. He turned it over every so often, without coming to any sort of agreement within himself – except about how very annoying it was going to be to bring everyone else in the world (or at least Downton) up to his own newfound level of self-awareness and understanding. But as the hours passed, it receded into a sort of irritating tickle at the back of his mind. He hadn't planned what happened next.

Mr Carson droned on and on about the planned school choir carol service, while Jimmy stared at the clock and waited to be released. He'd stopped listening some time ago. It wasn't until Mrs Hughes said, "For heaven's sake, the carol service will keep for a day or two. Let the poor lad go home," that Mr Carson's diatribe faded into chagrined silence.

"Enjoy your day off tomorrow," Mrs Hughes said with a smile, and Jimmy began to ease his thankful way to the door.

"Ah, yes…" Mr Carson cleared his throat. "I'd forgotten about that. Still – I suppose it can't be helped" –

He aimed a dissatisfied look at Jimmy, who thought with tight impatience that no, he didn't suppose the labour laws of Great Britain could be helped, even if they did interfere with the express wishes of a po-faced old tyrant like Mr Carson.

"I had hoped that Thomas might…but never mind. I suppose you're right, Mrs Hughes – it can wait."

Mrs Hughes' eyes looked briefly skyward. "Will wonders never cease?"

"Unless…" he turned to Jimmy, who had his hand on the doorknob at this stage. "James – I don't suppose you have any plans to meet up with Thomas?"

The annoyance he felt cautiously began to ease into something else, and Jimmy said, "Actually…I will be seeing him, Mr Carson."

"Ah – in that case, I wonder if you'd mind passing this on…" and Mr Carson fumbled around his desk, before sliding a biscuit-coloured manila folder across the polished wood.

James stared at it, and realized that – dull and thankless as the task of bringing everyone up to speed with his sexuality might be…

…it was not entirely devoid of compensations.

And so, with calculated, and very obvious hesitance, he reached out and took the folder.

"Is there a problem, James?" Mr Carson asked.

"No, no, Mr Carson," he said. "Only…" he paused again, and Mr Carson gestured impatiently at him to continue.

All right, he thought, with a jubilant kind of smugness, you asked for it, you uptight old pillock, and said, "Well…it's just – I'm sure you can appreciate how difficult it is" –

"Actually, I have no idea – but I'm sure you will apprise me, James," Mr Carson said, already looking down at another paper on his desk, as if he hadn't just extended Jimmy's workday by a full ten minutes.

"Well – I know every relationship has its challenges, but –me and Thomas, it seems like we've got more than our fair share…what with working together and now living together too..." he inclined his head, trying for bashful. Mr Carson's eyebrows shot toward his hairline, but Jimmy just continued smoothly, "We find that the only way to make things work is by – setting boundaries and keeping to them…especially when it comes to our jobs. You understand, don't you?"

Mr Carson made a strange strangled sound in the back of his throat. Even Mrs Hughes seemed taken aback, staring at him, mouth slightly open.

"I…that is…"

Jimmy bit at the corners of his mouth and tried to look apologetic. It was difficult, with a wave of satisfaction washing over him at having, for the first time he could remember, rendered Mr Carson speechless.

"I'll do it, just this once," he said, taking the folder off the desk with an air of gentle, resigned reproach. "But – I hope you don't mind my saying, Mr Carson – a bit of consideration wouldn't go amiss, next time."

He nodded at Mr Carson, who opened and closed his mouth to no effect. An admirably recovered Mrs Hughes stepped in to say, "Enjoy your day off, James." She sounded almost grave, except for the way the corners of her mouth twitched.

"Thank you, Mrs Hughes," he said, inclining his head.

As he exited, he had just enough time to hear Mr Carson recover his voice, and mutter to Mrs Hughes, "Not a word – not one."

Jimmy closed the door behind him, with a small, contented click.

He supposed it was this sense of gratification that led him to stop and chat with Anna as they passed in the corridor.

"You certainly look cheerful today," she said, looking quite good-humored herself – but then Anna always seemed to be cheerful in a low-key way.

…he'd done it – and more than that – he'd done it on his own terms. Thomas hadn't been impressed by Alfred (and, in all fairness, who could blame him?), but he couldn't deny this…

"It's my day off tomorrow," Jimmy offered, realizing that Anna was still looking at him and waiting for an answer.

…and if he even tried to talk it down, or make light of it, or say that Jimmy was playing house, he would… would… well, he would do something…

"Oh, lovely. Are you doing something nice?"

Something.

He looked at Anna, and, while it was a mere aftershock in comparison with the earthquake in Carson's office, he found himself saying, casually, "Yeah, actually. Can you recommend any good restaurants around?"

Anna smiled. "Well, I'm afraid you're quite limited, unless you plan on going a bit further afield…but there's always Maurice's – it's not the most exciting place on earth, but the food's always good and the staff are nice. John and I go there every Friday night – sort of a standing engagement, you might say."

"Right," Jimmy said. He made a face. My friend Sandra says she saw them having dinner at Maurice's once. He supposed it fit, in an annoying way.

"Are you planning a special night then?" Anna asked – and even her curiosity seemed nice, born of genuine good will rather than nosiness.

"You could say that," he said, before admitting, "I want to take Thomas out."

He remembered – "I think we should go out to dinner tomorrow" – and he thought, triumphantly, almost in reaction to the memory of Thomas' voice – just try and complain about this, because I won't believe you. Whatever he said about telling Alfred, Thomas had definitely asked him for this. It had just – taken him a while to get around to it, that was all.

Anna blinked. "Oh," she said. He saw the barest beginnings of a frown on her face before it smoothed away into polite, slightly nonplussed interest. Obviously, she wasn't going to assume. And neither was she going to ask.

"It's been a rough few months – especially for Thomas," he elaborated. "But things have finally started to turn around for us, and – well, it'd be nice to mark the occasion. Make a fresh start."

"Oh…em…" Anna took a deep breath, and cleared her throat, trying to regain her composure, "…well, like I said, Maurice's is – is your best bet, unless you want to travel."

"Thanks." He smiled at her, and she weakly returned it.

This whole sharing and being honest thing wasn't so bad, Jimmy decided. Really, it was just another way of tying Thomas down to long term – after all, however much he quibbled about 'happily ever after', Mr Carson and Mrs Hughes at least knew exactly how permanent this whole thing was.

And then – it struck him, wild and brilliant – his best idea yet.

"Tomorrow's Friday, isn't it?"

"It is," Anna agreed.

Try denying this, he thought. He smiled at Anna. "Maybe we'll see you at Maurice's then."

"Er…I suppose," she said.

"Great," Jimmy said. "We can ask the staff to put our tables together."

"Oh – I don't think," Anna began, sounding as close to alarm as he'd ever heard, before she caught herself, "I mean…we couldn't intrude on your plans with Thomas."

"Of course you could," Jimmy said. He held back from making the same offer. "I think it'd be nice."

"Would it?" Anna seemed doubtful.

"Yes," Jimmy told her firmly. "The four of us, enjoying a night out, it'd be..." honesty compelled him to add the face-saving and slightly aggressive, "…well – why not?"

"I…can't think of a reason right at this second," Anna admitted, though she appeared to be thinking quite hard. She smiled a strained smile. "All right. Well…I suppose we'll…see you tomorrow, then."

But, contrary to his somewhat pessimistic expectations (realistic expectations, he amended, given how much of a fuss Thomas had kicked up over, oh, everything else – from Jimmy moving in, to sharing a bed, to the prospect of having sex with the person he was going to spend the rest of his life with) – Thomas took the news exactly in the spirit that Jimmy had intended it.

Of course, he didn't mention it to Thomas until the following morning, because discussing his glorious one-upmanship of Mr Carson involved letting Thomas know –

"Your day off? You kept that quiet," Thomas said, as he flicked on the kettle.

At the table, Jimmy shrugged. "I'm sure I said it," he said vaguely.

But it didn't matter, because Thomas did not seem immediately inclined toward his usual cagey, distancing maneuvers upon hearing the news. Instead, he dropped two slices of toast in the toaster ("sturdy appliances," Alfred noted approvingly in his head), and they had breakfast.

There was something nice about it – the two of them, just sitting at the kitchen table and having a normal, desultory sort of conversation, made up of equal parts silence and speech – both of them still in their bare feet. Even if the tiles were cold, there was something nice about it, Jimmy thought, eyes skating over Thomas' sleep-messed hair.

Maybe it was the sense of – something – anticipation, maybe, that was building in the air, insidious, like the cigarette smoke Thomas released in steady slow exhalations when he'd finished with his toast. Jimmy imagined it slipping across the table, and curling along his skin – an almost-touch.

But it wasn't just that – and it wasn't just Jimmy. He was sure of it. Thomas' kitchen was fairly big ("Lots of preparation space," Alfred offered helpfully), but he and Thomas kept – contriving to bump into each other, all the same, as if the whole house had shrunk to the size of a boxy little bedsit…

…or as if their bodies were magnetized, feeling a pull towards one another that was physical, tangible.

It wasn't by design – it just kept happening. Jimmy stretched his legs a little, under the table, and ended up putting his feet on top of Thomas'. Thomas handed Jimmy a plate and their fingers brushed. When Jimmy left the table to get milk, and Thomas followed suit in search of cups, they ended up standing far too close in the middle of the kitchen, despite the fact that the fridge and the cupboard that held cups were nowhere near each other.

Jimmy was very conscious of his own breathing, as well as Thomas', as they stood there, on the cold tiled floor, and just looked at each other. But even when Thomas reached out, and placed his hand in the centre of his chest, forcing him backwards, just a bit – a half-step, nothing more – Jimmy didn't feel the usual rush of frustration.

Something is going to happen, he thought. His bones practically buzzed with the knowledge. Thomas' hand lingered on his chest, even after Jimmy had moved back.

And that was before he'd ever mentioned –

"A bit of consideration wouldn't go amiss, next time," Thomas repeated. He shook his head a little. "I wish I could have seen old Carson's face."

Jimmy smirked. "If he didn't have heart problems before that, well, he does now."

Thomas looked down at the table, but Jimmy could still see the amused quirk of his mouth. "You actually said that to him."

"Ask Mrs Hughes, if you don't believe me," Jimmy said. It was flippant – he didn't really think that Thomas was questioning his version of events, but Thomas locked eyes with him, and said, quite seriously, all traces of laughter abruptly gone, "No – I believe you."

Jimmy looked back across the table. Something is going to happen, he thought again.

"So," Thomas said. His voice was lighter, but he kept his gaze firmly fixed on Jimmy, refusing to break eye-contact, "What have you got planned for today?"

It felt like honey was rolling down his spine, heavy and thick, and he said, "Well, we're going out to dinner later..." Thomas' eyebrows crooked slightly, but his eyes were very warm…or at least, the look in his eyes made Jimmy feel warm, and reckless with it, he said, "– but I'm all yours until then."

Thomas reached out across the table, quite deliberately, and picked up Jimmy's left hand from where it was resting on the table. "I'm sure we'll think of something," he said, studying it carefully, before running his thumb across Jimmy's palm. He looked up into Jimmy's eyes. "So – dinner," he said.

"Yes," Jimmy said, watching the lazy motions of Thomas' thumb over his skin. "Maurice's. At seven. With Anna and Mr Bates."

The distracting tracing of his palm abruptly stopped.

"I'm sorry – what?" Thomas asked politely.

Jimmy buttoned his shirt with near-ferocity, shoving the ends into his trousers before turning to the mirror. His reflection glowered back at him.

He took a deep breath before making his way over to the bedroom door and throwing it open. He made his way to the top of the stairs and called, "Start getting ready, Thomas," over the noise of the television from the sitting room.

Then he stomped back into the bedroom, and ripped a shirt off one of the hangers in the wardrobe. "Here," he said a few minutes later, thrusting it in Thomas' direction when he appeared at the door. "You can wear this."

Thomas ignored his sartorial offering. "I'm not going," he said flatly, arms crossed. Again.

"Yes. We are," Jimmy said, narrowing his eyes. After this morning's lightning fast shift from teasingto its decidedly less pleasant counterpart – cockteasing – Jimmy was in no mood for argument.

He brandished the shirt at Thomas once again. Thomas continued to refuse to acknowledge it.

"Give me one good reason why not," he demanded, poking Thomas' shoulder with the hanger with every word.

"Bates," Thomas said immediately. "I'm not sitting across from him and making small talk over goat's cheese and bruschetta."

It was too much. It wasn't even that Jimmy cared about Maurice's and bloody sodding Bates – but he had had enough. He had moved in with Thomas. He had saved his job. He had come outof the closet so often and to so many people by now that he felt like a bloody jack-in-the-box.

And he had gone to the bother of making reservations at a rubbish restaurant for seven o' clock and, and enough was enough – there just came a point where something had to give.

He flung the shirt at Thomas, who made no move to catch it as it fell to the floor between them, hanger making a hollow wooden thump against the floorboards. "We. Are. Going," Jimmy told him, through gritted teeth, breath coming hard and fast from sheer frustration.

Thomas faced him down for a few moments – before abruptly bending forward. To pick up the shirt, Jimmy thought – but the surge of victory he felt was short-lived, as instead, Thomas' hands went around the backs of his knees and pulled. Jimmy went tumbling backwards, hands instinctively shooting out to grab something to keep him upright. In this case, it was the front of Thomas' t-shirt, and he only succeeded in likewise unbalancing Thomas, pulling him down on top of him, and causing them to hit the bed with even more force.

He stared up at Thomas, who didn't seem at all disconcerted by this sudden horizontal shift. Jimmy cleared his throat. The mattress was still bouncing, slightly, under their combined weight. "What" – he began.

Thomas kissed him, tongue immediately dipping into his mouth to stroke against Jimmy's. Jimmy's fingers curled and uncurled against Thomas' shoulders.

"Or," Thomas said, when he finally broke the kiss – as if they were just in the middle of a conversation, " – we could stay in."

Jimmy blinked up at him. "Yeah – all right," he said, breathlessly. "We could – we could do that," already pulling Thomas down again.

Afterwards, Jimmy lay across the bed, almost at right angles to Thomas, the back of his head resting against Thomas' stomach. Without looking, he let his hand fall back beside his head, trailing the back of his knuckles absently against Thomas' skin. Thomas reached down, stilling the movement of Jimmy's hand when he curled his fingers around Jimmy's. He didn't let go afterwards, though.

Jimmy released a deep breath that it felt like he had been holding for a very long time, and some combination of perversity and irrepressible happiness made him say, "You know…if we hurried, we could still get there in time for dessert."

He turned his head to the side, trying to keep a straight face at Thomas' speaking look. "Banoffee pie and Bates? No thank you, I think I'll pass."

He began to run his free hand through Jimmy's hair. "Carry on like that, and I'll begin to think you don't want to be seen with me," Jimmy told him.

"Oh yes?" Thomas' voice was mild. Jimmy tilted his head back further, and kept poking. "I might ask someone else next time. I bet gay Emmett'd be up for dinner at Maurice's."

There was the barest hesitation in the movement of Thomas' fingers, before they resumed their stroking. Very evenly, he said, "He might be up for it…but I don't think I need to worry about anyone you're calling 'gay Emmett.'"

Abruptly, he twisted on the bed, pulling his body from underneath Jimmy and turning so that he was now leaning over him, so fast it made Jimmy blink. He bent down and kissed Jimmy, short and hard. "And I think we can do better than Maurice's, anyway." Something flickered across his face and he added, moving back a little, determinedly nonchalant, "If you want."

"Yeah." Jimmy let his hands wind around Thomas' back, pulling him close again. "Yeah. All right."

A few minutes later, when all hope of making dessert had been thoroughly, enjoyably destroyed, Jimmy placed his hands on Thomas' shoulders, pushing him back and breaking their connection. Undeterred, Thomas began moving down his body, laying a trail of kisses down Jimmy's chest and stomach. Jimmy stared up at the ceiling and tried to remember exactly why it was he wanted Thomas to –

"Stop," he said suddenly, and Thomas looked up.

"If you've got cold feet, it's a bit late in the day," he pointed out. His hand brushed, as if by accident against Jimmy's cock, which was half-hard again.

"Ha." Jimmy made a face. "I only meant, I'm not doing it after you."

Thomas frowned. "Doing what?"

Jimmy slid out from underneath him, grabbing Thomas' hand at the same time to pull him further down on the mattress – until finally, Thomas was sitting at the foot of the bed, and Jimmy was…

He took a breath and slid off the bed entirely, to kneel in front of Thomas.

"Jimmy" – Thomas said, and for just a second, Jimmy found that he couldn't look at him, not when he sounded like that.

"You're not allowed to complain, by the way," he said quickly instead, putting his hands on Thomas' knees. He felt a hand touch his face, and his eyes flew upwards instinctively.

"I wasn't planning on it," Thomas told him, and the look on his face made Jimmy lean forward to kiss the tip of his erection. Thomas made a choked kind of sound, and Jimmy rubbed his cheek against it, before giving a slow lick to the entire length with the flat of his tongue, careful to keep eye-contact the whole time. Jimmy wasn't adverse to using the look of the thing to cover for some of his inexperience.

He wanted it to be good for Thomas – who was looking down at him with parted lips, want written all over his face. Jimmy bent forward again, a quiver of panic running through him – not for what he was doing, but at the more prosaic how of it. And then Thomas' right hand came up to grip the base of his own cock – and the fingers of his left slid through Jimmy's hair, not directing him or urging him on, just waiting.

And it was suddenly easier than Jimmy could ever have thought it would be to take Thomas into his mouth, sliding down his length until his lips kissed Thomas' fist.

Before Jimmy fell asleep that night, arms and legs comfortably entwined with Thomas', he announced, "You didn't do that just to dodge Bates." His voice came out flat in the darkness.

"It got us out of dinner, didn't it?" Thomas murmured, half-asleep already, but he pressed his face into Jimmy's neck all the same.

"Well, we're not going back to how it was," Jimmy told him firmly. "Not after all that."

Eyes closed, Thomas made a sound that could have been agreement or disagreement, but after that, he only frowned and said, "Ssh," when Jimmy poked his side.

It was probably fine, Jimmy thought. Sex had been re-introduced into their new arrangement now, and he couldn't see how Thomas could conceivably take it back. Still, just in case (and because it wasn't as if Thomas was known for his graceful acceptance of the inevitable), he tapped his fingers against the table after they had finished breakfast the next morning.

"Shouldn't you be going?" Thomas asked, tapping his cigarette against the ashtray in the middle of the table.

"Yeah, in a minute," Jimmy said. Then he cleared his throat and said, aiming for conversational, "I liked it, you know. Last night." At Thomas' look, he took a breath, and forced himself to clarify, "Having your cock in my mouth."

Thomas stared at him, hand frozen midway toward his mouth, forgotten cigarette releasing a small plume of smoke.

"I just thought you might like to know," Jimmy told him. His skin felt like it was on fire, but he was proud of how calmly the words came out. He got to his feet. "Well, I'd better be" –

He ended up half sitting on the edge of the table, with his hands braced behind him, trousers unzipped while Thomas stroked him to orgasm – and he was late to work…

…but that was a small price to pay, Jimmy thought.

Anna was surprisingly understanding, when Jimmy caught up with her.

"Sorry about Maurice's," he said. "We ended up staying in. Having an early night."

"Oh - did you end up not going either? How funny - we decided to do the same thing," Anna said. She seemed unaccountably amused. "We thought it would be nice to have a quiet night in, for a change."

"Oh. Right," Jimmy said. He rallied. "Anyway, it's not like we'd made definite plans or anything. Thomas said it was really more of a suggestion."

"Well, great minds think alike," Anna agreed. "Because John said exactly the same thing to me."

It wasn't that he was particularly adept at dirty talk – putting all his secret wants under the spotlight made him feel – a little raw, as if he had sunburn, or something. But…there was something in the way that Thomas reacted to his disclosures – face slack and blank with shock, only to abruptly give way to unstoppable blunt desire – that compelled Jimmy to do it, and keep on doing it, in spite of the preliminary discomfort.

"Did you ever think about us shagging, before we did it?" Jimmy asked. He was in the bathroom, sitting on the side of the bath, watching Thomas shave.

Thomas didn't speak until he had drawn the razor in a long, clean line down one cheek. "Since you moved in? Or do you mean the first time?"

"The first time," Jimmy said promptly, but before Thomas had a chance to answer, he admitted, "Because I did. When you were with Philip." Thomas' eyes were fixed on his in the mirror. "Not shagging, exactly…but – I thought about you when I…" his left hand made a small motion by his hip. "I imagined it was you, touching me."

Thomas put down his razor – a slow, careful movement that contrasted with the messy blur that followed. The edge of the sink left a red mark on Jimmy' hip, and he got shaving cream in his mouth – though he didn't notice either of those until afterwards, too caught up in the feeling of their cocks thrusting together within the circle of Thomas' fist, and the way Thomas bent his head and whispered, "Yes," into Jimmy's ear, right before he came.

" – run it by Crawley first, of course – and it won't be done in a day…but I don't see why we shouldn't start considering it, at least," Thomas finished. He looked expectantly at Jimmy, who blinked back at him, lost.

"Of course, that's provided Crawley actually listens when I'm talking to him." He quirked his eyebrows at Jimmy. "Am I boring you?"

"I wasn't bored," Jimmy said. It was true. "I was just thinking" –

"Oh yes, it looked like an existential crisis, all ri" –

" – about your mouth." He leaned across the sofa, and touched his thumb briefly to Thomas' bottom lip. He smiled, and added, "I wouldn't mind if you wanted to keep talking."

But in fact, Thomas finished their meeting early, in favour of other activities – ones that showcased the non-verbal skills of his mouth, and also somehow managed to leave a blizzard of expense reports carpeting the floor.

"D'you remember when the dog died?" Jimmy found himself saying, one night, as Thomas' fingers drew invisible patterns on his skin. He was as surprised to hear the words as Thomas, who frowned, hands suddenly stilling, and said, "The one that never stopped pissing?"

From the funny, chafed kind of feeling in his chest, Jimmy was almost certain he'd meant to say something about Thomas' cock…or his fingers…or his tongue. One of those mildly mortifying, though ultimately gratifying things that exposed still more of himself to Thomas. He didn't know what the dog had to do with it. "Yeah. Wellington."

"What about him?"

"I was just…thinking about the day he died," Jimmy said, slowly, finding as he said it, that it was true. "Ivy got the phone call in the morning, and after that, me and Alfred had to go to all those schools…and we met up for lunch and he wouldn't stop banging on about it. Was Ivy all right, and did I think she was still upset, and maybe he should text her, except that might remind her and make her feel worse, and…" Jimmy shook his head. "It was a rubbish day."

Thomas looked at him. "All right," he said, obviously still wondering where this story was going.

"And then," Jimmy continued, still wondering himself, as a matter of fact. "And then I came back to the office and you were there, and" – he stopped, because it hit him then. The feeling he'd had upon seeing Thomas – relief and gladness and something else…a kind of – rightness, or fitting…almost mundane, in a way, because it was so obviously how things were supposed to be…

"And?" Thomas prompted him, voice low and quiet.

Jimmy shook his head, just as embarrassed as if he had spent the last few minutes in babbling praise about Thomas' cock….or maybe even more so, oddly enough. "Just – it reminded me, is all."

"Of what?"

"This."

It was funny – he expected Thomas to react to his ramblings with arch confusion or amusement – but instead, he pressed Jimmy back against the pillows, taking his face in his hands, and just – kissed him, slow and deep, and for a very long time.

And that was it.

Mrs Hughes, or Mr Carson (well, maybe not Mr Carson, given how scrupulously he seemed to want to avoid the topic) obviously mentioned his new living arrangement to Mrs Patmore, because she said, as Jimmy dropped the money for his coffee into her palm, "I hear congratulations are in order," and then added, "You and Thomas, I mean," as if Jimmy were thick.

She cocked her head to the side, regarding him with unabashed interest – but Jimmy was thankfully spared further conversation (he had a feeling Mrs Patmore, unlike Anna, would have no compunction about asking awkward questions) when Alfred pushed his way through the café door and over to the counter, with a, "Hello Mrs Patmore – is Daisy about?"

Jimmy quickly grabbed his coffee and made for the door as Mrs Patmore turned her head and called into the kitchen, "Daisy! Alfred wants you!" As he opened the door to leave, he was just in time to see her flick a look at both him and Alfred and hear her sigh, "It must be something in the water."

And it turned out that Mrs Patmore wasn't the only one who had been brought up to date. After a meeting in Mrs Hughes' office (during which Mrs Hughes crisply exempted the drawing room from Thomas' Christmas plans on the grounds that the chandelier needed to be cleaned – a complicated procedure that would involve scaffolding), Miss O' Brien stood in the corridor and studied Jimmy with appraising eyes.

"Can I help you?" he asked, tone barely skirting civility.

The corners of her mouth turned up, and she said, cryptically, "Yes. You can tell Thomas it's all right. He needn't bother with the thank you card," before turning away.

Old cow. But Jimmy found himself glad in a way, that even O' Brien knew, and that it was finally done with.

And above and through and underneath it all, there was Thomas – Thomas at night, and in the morning, smirking at him, and holding him, and filling the cut glass ashtray with cigarette butts – a fixed point, an unalterable truth…home.

And it was good. Everything felt right…or…well, nearly right. Which wasn't to say that Jimmy wasn't happy – he was. It just felt like…he was waiting for something at the same time. Happy, but with just a tinge of something that he could only identify as – almost.

It didn't interfere with anything – it didn't even bother him. It wasn't – quite – as if something were missing…it was more like…being present in one place, and wanting to find his way to somewhere else…but at the same time, knowing with certainty that he would get there eventually, because it felt far too close for him to miss it.

A want, without worry.

It began almost the same way as any other morning – he woke up, and dressed, and went downstairs, where, as he was finishing his breakfast, he was joined by Thomas, still clad in pajama bottoms and a t-shirt.

Thomas watched him gather himself, and told him, "Don't mention anything about the holiday cottages to Mr Carson."

"But I thought Matthew Crawley gave you the go-ahead," Jimmy said. "Said you could look into it, anyway, didn't he?"

"He did," Thomas said, and then, casually, "But I thought I might pop in some day and break the news to Carson myself."

He smiled at Jimmy, and Jimmy smiled back – and as he stood there, in the middle of the kitchen, it passed through his mind in a near-exultant flash – Almost.

Maybe it was that that started it – Thomas' first step towards the office, and Downton, and back to how things had been – though Jimmy wasn't consciously thinking about it that lunchtime.

Actually, he was turning a sugar packet over in his fingers, and only half-listening to Ivy as she stared at Alfred and Daisy, standing close together at the other end of the café.

" – not even about him – not really," she said, as she stared at Alfred's profile. "I mean – he's nice, of course, Alfred's…really nice, but…it's like they say, isn't it? You always want the person you can't have."

Jimmy made a half-hearted assenting sound – though he remembered that Thomas had said something that, actually.

"You know me – I only fall in love with people I can't have." It rang with pristine clarity in Jimmy's head. He frowned. People, Thomas had said, as if it wasn't just Edward Courtenay.

He shifted in his seat, Ivy's voice fading to an indistinct background murmur as several seemingly unrelated incidents from the past chose to ambush his brain –

"What is it now?"

"A distraction, if you must know."

"From what? A distraction from what?"

The Duke, Jimmy remembered. They'd been talking about the Duke, and Jimmy had asked him why, and Thomas had…answered, and not answered at the same time, skirting right up against the truth, against finally saying –

"Don't think I mind anything – not if I've got this to come home to."

"I can tell loving you is going to be hard on my home furnishings."

"We've got time for all that. We've got enough time for everything."

It felt as if he had – turned within himself, like a key in a lock, a slight but categorical shift in his perception. Nothing had changed, but it suddenly felt to him as if everything was perfectly in place. Complete.

"Jimmy?"

He looked down at Ivy, realizing with a start that he was on his feet.

"Are you all right?"

"I've got to go," he told her. He sounded distant to his own ears, as if this - right now - were the memory, and he was already halfway to – somewhere else. "I've got to go home."

"What?" she said, bewildered. "Does Mr Carson know? I thought you were meeting him after lunch."

"I can't," Jimmy said. His heart was beginning to pound, loud and slow, like a drum, in his ears. "You can tell him I had to sort something out."

"What – me? Are you mad? I'm not making your excuses to Mr Carson – Jimmy? Jimmy!"

He ignored her as he walked out of the café and through the grounds, over to the car park. He unlocked his car and sat in. It felt like he was moving in a dream, deliberate, pushing through weighted air. It seemed like a long time had passed, and simultaneously, hardly any time at all, before he was pulling up in front of their house.

He let himself in with his back door key. It felt heavy in his hand – more solid than usual, and he walked into the kitchen. Thomas was just turning back from the kettle, a steaming mug in his hand. He stared.

"Jimmy? Is everything all right?"

"You love me," Jimmy said. The words came out strangely loud, like an accusation.

Thomas frowned. "What?"

"You're in love withme," he repeated. "I don't need to try and make you fall in love with me – because you already love me." He glared at Thomas. "Were you ever going to tell me?"

Thomas set his mug down on the countertop. "I thought it might come up at some point," he said with care, like he was talking about a stain on the carpet, or a torn shirt. He had a completely bland look on his face.

Jimmy gaped at him. "You thought" – he had to stop.

Silence sprang up between them as they stared at each other.

"I assumed you'd figure it out. Eventually," Thomas said, with an offhand shrug.

"Oh yes, because that's what everyone wants in a relationship – a bloody great game of Cluedo," Jimmy said. He was trying for annoyance, but he couldn't hold on to it – it kept slipping away from him, like soap in the bath, in the face of the monumental fact of Thomas' love.

Thomas pointed out, "Well, it's not as if you did so well when I was spelling it out for you either" –

But almost before he finished the sentence, Jimmy cut him off with a breathless – "Thomas."

He obediently shut up and looked at Jimmy, who said, "I think you should fuck me now."

A little while later and he had been brought back to earth with a definite thump. He shifted gingerly on the bed.

"Relax," Thomas said, stroking a hand soothingly against his side.

"I am," Jimmy said tightly. He felt ridiculous and uncomfortable and exposed – legs spread and one of Thomas' fingers up his arse. And even that had taken a disheartening amount of effort.

"It's all right," Thomas said, and Jimmy couldn't stop his face from scrunching up when Thomas withdrew his finger. "We don't have to do this," he said – amending it to, "At least – we don't have to do it all right now," at Jimmy's expression.

Jimmy grabbed his hand as it retreated. "No," he said firmly. "You're fucking me. Right now. Just – try to make it less awful."

A few minutes later and the resistance had eased, allowing Thomas' finger to press in and out more easily. The addition of another finger made him flinch again however, and he gritted his teeth and concentrated on breathing deeply, closing his eyes and listening to Thomas' voice, telling him to relax, relax and let go, Jimmy…

Thomas' fingers moved inside of him and he jerked suddenly, eyes opening.

"Are you all right?" Thomas asked.

Jimmy tried to nod and shake his head at the same time. "That – wasn't completely terrible," he said.

Thomas bent down, and kissed his forehead. "I'm flattered."

"Do it again," Jimmy instructed, and Thomas crooked his fingers once more, bringing another flicker of sensation almost too startling to feel like pleasure.

It seemed like forever until Thomas deemed him ready – although, as soon as he lined up his cock against Jimmy's entrance, it began to feel ridiculously, terrifyingly premature, as if they had miscalculated several, very vital steps.

"Ready?" Thomas asked.

"No," Jimmy said, because there was no way, unless Thomas' cock folded up, that it was going to fit. He put his hands on Thomas' shoulders. "But do it, anyway."

Slowly, Thomas began to press in, bit by incremental, impossible bit. Jimmy breathed and clutched at Thomas' arms and shoulders, and felt Thomas' unworkably enormous erection gradually push its way inside him.

He felt unimaginably full – stretched to and beyond capacity, and he had to keep taking deep breaths. Thomas pressed his forehead against the side of Jimmy's face. Apart from that, he was careful not to move at all, giving Jimmy time to adjust.

"I love you," Thomas said. His voice sounded as strained as Jimmy felt, and that helped, somehow.

"I know," Jimmy said, and he slid his hands down Thomas' sides. "Now move a bit."

But instead of doing as he was told, Thomas first began to touch him, holding his hips down with one hand and teasing Jimmy's cock back to hardness before he began to rock minutely against him.

"Okay?" he asked.

"Not – terrible," Jimmy panted.

He closed his eyes as Thomas' hand moved on his cock, as he began to thrust harder inside Jimmy.

"All right?" he asked again. His voice was shaking with tension, and his hair had fallen in his eyes.

"Better," Jimmy told him, arching forward into Thomas' touch. He gasped for breath as Thomas' cock bumped against that place inside him, once, and then again.

"Are you" – Thomas forced out, as his hand tightened around Jimmy's erection, but this time Jimmy could manage was a spasmodic nod as he felt everything constrict into a tiny, tight point inside of him, before exploding outwards in a shockwave of pleasure.

Afterwards, Thomas kissed his mouth and stroked his arms, and Jimmy tried to find a comfortable position, doing his best to ignore the residual, lingering ache.

"Was it all right?" Thomas asked, fingers gentle on his skin, and Jimmy, because he couldn't put it into words, settled for saying, "Not - terrible," again, trying to kiss Thomas back and smile at the same time.

He ended up resting with his head on Thomas' arm, while the silence stretched out like summer. Jimmy closed his eyes.

It was funny – he thought…but even if he knew logically that it had taken him a while – longer than most people, even – to figure out something so fundamental…it felt at the same time, as if he had, in an odd paradoxical way pre-emptively worked everything out beforehand – unbeknownst to himself.

Otherwise how could he have possibly ended up here, in the exact place he wanted to be?

He turned his head toward Thomas. He felt breathless, astounded by the realization. "I'm not going to have a sexuality crisis," he said, suddenly.

Thomas looked over at him. "No?"

"I don't need one," Jimmy told him. "This just took me a bit longer…because I got it right the first time."

He watched as slowly, a smile spread across Thomas' face. The held-breath feeling didn't go away.