Let all the trumpets sound, the day is here! It is Thomas Hamilton Resurrection Day (and also my birthday). As such, I asked for prompts, and I thank the two anons who sent me the following:
Thomas tells James about the time he almost died as a child
Modern AU, Thomas wakes up from a coma
Here’s my 1200-word response (and if you’d rather read it on AO3, it’s here).
“I nearly died once, you know.” They are in bed together, sticky and sweaty and replete, their bare skin cooling in the aftermath of pleasure. To other people, this would seem perhaps an odd moment for Thomas to choose such a somber topic. But not to James. James is muzzy-headed with the joy his body is still, miraculously, capable of experiencing, the joy of Thomas there to once again be its cause. He is hardly likely to stop the man sharing whatever he wants to share, given that he is alive—alive!—to share anything with James at all.
He wraps his arms more tightly around Thomas’s solid torso and offers up Did you now?, ready to hear all the stories Thomas wants to tell, be they never so unpleasant.
“I did,” Thomas answers, and shuffles to accommodate James’s limpet grasp. He, too, has seemed loathe to be physically separate from James since their reunion, and now he strokes one calloused hand aimlessly along James’s back as he goes on. “Well, truth be told, there were several incidents since we’ve been parted, but I don’t want to speak of those tonight.”
“Speak of anything you like,” James says. He rubs his cheek against the skin beneath it, relishing warmth and firm pectoral muscle. Perhaps he should be chagrined at this reference to Thomas’s difficulties in their years apart, but that can come later. Right now, he floats in blissful fatigue. James is, to put it plainly, well fucked, and pleased about the fact.
and it’s… fine. The prince is great! They’re in love, he’s very sweet and passionate, writing her poems and songs, giving her anything she wants. The time she spends with her husband is great.
but cinderella is not royalty, her family was noble but she never spent time in those circles. She’s used to being busy, she’s used to cooking and cleaning and mending. There are hours, days, where she has nothing to do.
time passes. cinderella learns the fancy lady type of needlework. Learns to ride horses. Reads a lot.
as is normal for royalty at the time, they travel and are hosted by nobles or stay at castles owned by the king. But even that variety begins to become routine. The prince is distracted, there’s a lot of young women living and working on their route. Daughters of nobles. Younger and prettier with soft hands that have never done a day’s work.
cinderella needs something to spend her time on, and there’s a part of her thinking a couple-only trip might get her husband’s attention again, so she suggests making an old castle that’s fallen into disrepair their “project.” It was built in the time when castles were made to be defensible, so it’s quite sturdy, but it’s overgrown and secluded. The prince doesn’t know why his family stopped living there either. A hundred years ago it was their summer home.
so they go. And they work. And for a while it’s great! But when they leave for winter cinderella’s husband forgets her once again. cinderella resolves to make the best of her life and stop worrying about a man who has gotten what he wanted from her.
summer comes again and this time cinderella goes alone to the old castle (minus staff, of course, but cinderella manages to narrow it down to only repair workers and one maid). She can cook and clean and mend again, but this time it’s her own choice. She is happy.
this summer they make more progress on repairs. The workers say that most of it can be salvaged, except one tower that’s been completely overgrown with vines and briars. It will have to come down, eventually, but for now it can be safely ignored.
cinderella has more free time now. The old castle has a surprisingly untouched library, though time and moisture have damaged many of the books. Behind a collection of greek poetry cinderella finds an old diary. Very old, in fact, at least a hundred years. It’s rude to read a diary, of course, but whoever wrote this is long dead, and cinderella is bored, so…
from the description of activities the author looks to have been nobility. Maybe even a princess. She’s sensitive and sweet and smarter than she seems to realize. If circumstances had been different cinderella wishes they could have been friends…
after the summer ends cinderella returns to her husband. He’s spending a lot of time with a young musician and cinderella can’t even work up the energy to care. She does some research about the castle and the family she’s married into, finds out the name of the princess who wrote the diary.
aurora. Cursed and forgotten. She died young, they say, in a plague that also took out the castle staff and her own parents. Luckily they avoided a succession crisis, but not so lucky for the dead.
time passes. cinderella goes to the old castle again and again, even out of season. Soon enough all that remains to be done is the old tower, and the builders say they should tear it down and fill the gaps before it gets cold.
one night cinderella is restless. The princess from the diary had been fond of that tower, and cinderella is far more attached to a dead woman than she ought to be. She gets out of bed, reads by candlelight, and finally goes to walk the empty halls.
she finds herself going to the tower. Pushing past the vines that don’t seem so troublesome really. They almost part before her. The stairs are perfectly intact, the door at the top is already cracked open. As if she should have done this years ago, cinderella steps into aurora’s bedroom.
she’s as beautiful as the stories say. And sitting under her hands, crossed across her stomach as it rises and falls, is a book of greek poetry.
years later, people will tell the story of cinderella as a cautionary one. Don’t seek above your station. Don’t marry for prestige. After all, a girl who grew up as a servant once married the crown prince, and disappeared after only three years. She ran away, they say, she couldn’t handle the lifestyle.
two old women who run a bookshop together agree with the lesson. Marrying for the wrong reasons never ends well. It’s best to wait for someone you have things in common with, shared interests.
or, failing that, the more linguistic of the two says, wait a decade or ten for someone to fall in love with you from your diary.
her partner laughs and hits her with the socks she is mending.
i combined these two bc i’d planned some wood-chopping for the first prompt bef the second hit my inbox, and who am i to question this divine coincidence?
this is 3 down, ~11 more to go! (you guys sent in a lot of prompts wow)
if anyone wants some musical accompaniment, riches and wonders by eliza rickman and jherek bischoff goes nicely w this.
When
Thomas had started heating the water he had still been able to hear
the regular thwack of the axe outside. Now, with the boiling
water poured into cups, he noticed that the sound had ceased.
He
found James standing motionless over the carcass of the sassafras
tree he had been disassembling. He could smell its rich, sweet scent
from the fresh wounds the axe had hewn.
“Tea
is ready, love.”
James’
fingers twitched in acknowledgement but he didn’t turn. His head was
bowed and Thomas noticed how loose his grip around the axe handle
was. He swiftly placed one of the cups on the porch and hurried to
take the axe from his husband’s hand before it could fall and injure
him.
When
Thomas peered into James’ face his suspicions were confirmed—he
looked tired and drawn, and very far away.
“Hold
this.” Thomas pressed the cup into James’ palm and curled his
fingers around it. “Do that for me, love? Watch it a moment for
me.”
He
fetched a blanket from inside and bundled James into it on the porch,
sitting him down with the cup of tea while Thomas picked up the axe.
The straight grain of the logs split easily and he finished the
waiting stack within less than a quarter of an hour. He wasn’t sure
what James had planned for it, given that it burnt fast but not as
hot as other woods, and he simply finished what work had been begun.
Maybe James would later decide to break it further into kindling.
James
didn’t speak and seemded half-asleep in his warm cocoon of blankets,
only one hand visible where it held the cup.
Thomas
kept his eyes on the task at hand, but snuck the odd glance at James.
It
wasn’t the first time this had happened. James didn’t go anywhere,
not the way Thomas occasionally would, when he felt removed from his
body and far outside everything. From what he had gleaned, in these
moments James simply… realised. Realised how long those ten years
had been, realised all the hardship he had gone through, and how tired he was. He had never allowed himself rest or respite,
not even with Miranda—he had always been about to go off on the
next haul, hunt down the next merchant ship, plan the next attack on
the British. Occasionally, James had told him, he remembered, and his
body remembered, and it was as if the tiredness of a decade came
crashing down on him all at once.
Sometimes
he’d simply fall into wordless musing in the middle of whatever it
was he had been doing, sometimes he’d curl up for an hour of
dreamless sleep.
The
wood was done with at last, and Thomas moved to sit beside James. As
he went he grabbed an apple from the crate he had used to harvest
them earlier in the day.
“Have
a bite,” he said and leant heavily against James’ shoulder as he
held the apple out to him. He took a bite of his own, after, and the
sweetness of the sassafrass and the crisp tartness of the apple
mingled pleasantly as he stared up into the blue autumn sky. There
were sassafrass leaves littered about, deep red: oval, two-lobed and
three-lobed, fantastical shapes against the rich earth.
They
chewed in companionable silence and Thomas sighed when James extended
a blanket-draped arm to pull him into its warmth.
“Feeling
better?”
“Much,”
James said and pressed an apple-sticky kiss to Thomas’ temple. He
took the fruit from Thomas’ hand and took another bite. Thomas helped
himself to a swig of tea. It was only lukewarm anymore, but the
afternoon was mild yet. “I could make apple cake tonight.”
“Mh.”
Thomas contorted a little to press his cheek into James’ should. “I’d
love that.”
“And
then we’ll go to bed early.”
Thomas
grinned. “Oh?”
“You’ve
spared me quite a bit of work, I think that deserves a reward.”
“Such
as a nap.”
“Of
course.” James nodded, very sensibly. “Among other things.”
“Of
course,” Thomas agreed and looked forward to an evening spent
exchanging languorous sugar-and-apple-flavoured kisses and letting
their bodies chase exertion and rest as they pleased.
Meg's Mumbles 