Tag: I second Ana’s review

comtessedebussy:

squid-inspiration:

ohgressfuriosa:

bean-about-townn:

okay so imagine the first time james sees thomas naked after the reunion, and thomas is angsting and getting prepared for sadness so he isn’t facing james but the moment he takes his shirt off, from behind him he just hears this squeak

‘i – i didn’t – i mean i should have guessed, but – i – oh wow’

or perhaps just ’………arms’

FIC IT!

Thomas had not been self-conscious of his body in a long time. 

Neither Bethlem nor Georgia had held anyone whose good opinion of him he wanted to avoid ruining. The things that had been done to him had made him feel violated, invaded, exploited – but those were not the same thing as self-consciousness or shame. Never had he desired his tormenter’s favourable esteem or thought himself deserving of what cruelties they had inflicted upon him.

He had made friends at the plantation but even with them he had not felt reticent about his body. They all were marked one way or another by their hardships and none had ever known Thomas as he used to be: unblemished, smooth, broad-shouldered but lean.

Then here was James.

There were ants crawling between Thomas’ flesh and his skin, making him twinge and tingle all over; in anticipation and anxiety both. Now that he was alone with his lover once more, he felt the first rush of relief mingle with unbidden thoughts, the insistent questions of what if yes, what if no, what if again, what if no more.

Thomas had to let go of James’ hand and turn away do undo his shirt’s fastenings. His fingers shook and he pulled the shirt clean off in one motion to mask the tremor.

As the warm air hit his skin, Thomas heard behind him a small, wrung-out sound; as of a bitten-off gasp.

For a second he wanted to curl up, or to flee the room. He even considered retreating into anger – he had never shied from righteous fury before, and the past decade had turned him harder than before. For a moment he wanted to defend this trembling, uncertain thing that was his body, wanted to lash out because even though he had done so many times while imprisoned, James was the one human being he was certain would understand, would let him be angry and know. James had always been safe.

In the end Thomas contented himself with wrapping his arms tightly around himself before turning around.

James’ eyes were wide as they alighted on Thomas’ now-bared skin. Thomas tried to read his face, but there was something unpracticed about it. As if Thomas had forgotten some of the nuances, and as if James’ face had forgotten how to show them. As if James were trying to spell a word he had not written in a long time, and fumbled to arrange the letters the right way.

Where words failed them both, James let his actions speak. He stepped closer, hands rising gently to cup Thomas’ elbows. Thomas tensed a moment before he relaxed into the warm touch. James glanced up at him; a quick, almost bashful thing that barely caught Thomas’ eye before hushing back down to his arms. James’ hands ran slowly up from Thomas’ elbows, gliding over the rise and fall of his muscles that had been so modest the last time James had seen them.

James’ thumb paused when it reached the point where Thomas’ scapula rested delicately on the outer edge of his collarbone, where that raven’s beak of a bone curled around and connected his reach with his self. His out with his in.

And with this action, Thomas felt as though he had been handed the key to decipher what James fought so desperately to say. He let his arms relax further as James slid his hands back down, pressing thumbs into the soft insides of Thomas’ elbows, brushing over the stretches of sinew anchored below the heels of Thomas’ palms.

Thomas felt compelled to say something, anything, but all he managed to bring out was, “Yes?”

James looked up at him, eyes wet and ablaze at the same time, and wordlessly pulled Thomas with him as he stepped back against the wall. He brought Thomas’ arms up around him, caging himself in.

“Keep me here,” he said in a rasp wet and rough as a cat’s tongue against Thomas’ clavicle, and Thomas felt the sound all the way into his groin. James’ groin, he noticed, was already a few steps ahead.

Thomas kept James against the wall for a long time.

Listen this is PERFECT