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Philipp is the first to touch him, to really touch him since he entered service at Downton. Not that that’s something to cry about, no, service is no place for fraternizing with your competition, there’s no room for sentiment between pressed linens and stiff collars, and certainly no use for sentimentality. Thomas isn’t bothered by it, far from it, barely notices the lack of something that has been sparse his entire life – until the Duke of Crowborough takes a liking to him. He throws him looks and smiles across dining tables and highly vaulted ball rooms, and it doesn’t take long for his hands to find Thomas’ body and light a fire within him he hadn’t know he was capable of feeling. They tumble between sheets, love and lust carrying them through an entire season.
Philipp notices the effect his touch – the touch of a duke, of another man, of a lover – has on Thomas. Of course, he does, and he makes it into the precious commodity it is. He bestows it upon him only when he sees fit, uses it to spur the flames inside Thomas’ chest and to silence him when he becomes too loud. His touch is heavenly, sure and confident, and Thomas doesn’t even stop himself from sinking into fingers cupping his cheek and tracing his back, fingers slinking inside him and caressing his stomach, fingers carding through his hair and tracing his lips before slipping between them. It’s so much more than he had hoped for, but everything he knows he deserves, everything he wants, and he revels in it like a king in his diamonds.
The letters are a lacking substitute for the hands, thin and bodyless, and only the memories, the ghosts of touch, skin on skin hot and burning, carry him through until their next meeting.
And then, just like that, it’s over. One swallow doesn’t make a summer, yet one touch was enough to make an addict out of Thomas.
Mud, rain, screams. They follow him everywhere as the ground swallows his feet, wholly intended to never let go. He has to all but yank them out again, only to slide and stumble on the next step and sink even deeper. It’s a fight against earth, and he is losing with burning calves and screaming lungs.
A bayonet goes off right next to Thomas and he jerks to the side, fingers almost slipping off the wooden handles.
“Oi-” Collins calls from the back. He doesn’t have any more air left to speak, chest heaving just like Thomas’, but the reprimand is clear. Get a grip, Barrow. He’s heard it often enough to know it by now, for the words to lose the sharp shame they’re supposed to ignite. In response he merely straightens his back and forces his fingers to tighten their grip, ignoring the pins and needles racing down his arms and up into his shoulders.
They manage another few metres then they falter again. This time it’s Collins, colliding with the wall of the trench when he slips in a puddle, and Thomas half turns around, twisting and lifting the stretcher so it can stay as even as possible just as a hand shoots out to clamp around Thomas’ wrist. The fingers are cold and hard, digging into his skin like a vice, and he can feel his heart plummet right out of his chest and into the mud from shock. When he looks down, he meets a panicked gaze.
The soldier on the stretcher just stares at him for a second, his brown eyes impossibly wide beneath the deep furrows of pain lining his face. There’s something in his gaze – sheer horror, and perhaps a plea for salvation, voiceless in its desperation – that stops Thomas in his tracks, that captures him, making his mouth dry and his heart pick up its pace almost to a painful degree. He opens his lips to say something, but before he has the chance Collins has rightened himself and is starting to push from his end. Thomas stumbles forward. The move is enough to rip a scream of agony out of the soldier’s lips between them, wailing and loud, and the fingers dig deeper into Thomas’ wrist. Blunt nails cut into his skin, draw blood, mixing it with the trails already coating the other’s skin, and Thomas feels something inside his brain switch – the biting pain dulls, the whimpers become muffled, and he is solely focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.
Only when they arrive at base does he notice the hand still clamped around his wrist no longer belongs to a living man.
Thomas keeps to himself, after that. He doesn’t touch anyone, and is careful not to be touched in return. It’s near impossible, in the trenches, where they are stacked like sardines, and he finds himself vomiting into latrines and growing number and number with each brush of a hand and pat to the shoulder and skin he himself touches because he still needs to treat their injuries. He does it all, and wishes himself far, far away.
Eventually, and through careful planning, his wish is granted – he’s allowed to return to Downton. The Abbey is as close to heaven as he is ever going to get, with its wide space and few people, and for the first time after two years, he can breathe again.
When Thomas helps Jimmy with the clocks they stand so closely he can smell his aftershave. It’s almost intoxicating, the sheer proximity, and he barely thinks as he settles his hands on the footman’s shoulder. He relishes in the warmth of another living human body under his fingers, his thumbs drawing slow circles up Jimmy’s neck like they have a life on their own. He can feel the sensation of his muscles moving, of his breath catching in his throat, of him not flinching away from his touch – he can feel it for days afterwards, high on the lingering sensation, recalls it every evening when he lies in bed, treasures it like a gift given to him through fate.
It makes it so much worse when the first touch Jimmy initiates between them is to push Thomas away, followed by yelling, fury, disgust. Thomas, still hazy from the feeling of his lips against his own, of a smooth, sharp jaw underneath his fingertips, tries to argue his way to an agreement. It doesn’t work, and he is left with a mountain of guilt threatening to overwhelm his confused mind.
At the fair, when they win the tug-o-war, Branson helps him up, offers him a grip around his fingers and a hand to the back, even mirrors Thomas’ smile. They are both heady on the victory of course, high on winning, and if Thomas enjoys it a bit more to be treated so much like an equal among the others, even if just for a handful of seconds, well – it’s only another layer to weigh down his conscience once they are back to usual.
The fists to his face and knees to his stomach are a nice change of pace, in a way. They aren’t confusing, they aren’t hiding a secret or pretending to be something they aren’t, their touch is straightforward in its movement and meaning, and Thomas finds relief in knowing, knowing with absolute certainty, that he deserves each one of them. He’s atoning for his sin, and when they stop, ending upon a vicious kick to the ribs that leaves him coughing and gasping in the dirt, wheezing around every bruise and cut as his vision tumbles in and out of focus, he can’t help but feel as if he has been freed of burden.
After the beating, when Jimmy comes to sit next to him, when he reads the paper and sends a tentative yet real smile Thomas’ way, he not only knows that he earned them, but that he’d do it again in a heartbeat if it meant getting more of Jimmy’s attentions.
The small touches that follow are more than Thomas had ever dreamed of hoping for. First hesitant, they grow more and more confident. The footman begins to stand closer to him, lifts his hands to pat Thomas on the back, nudges him with his shoulder, or, on one memorable occasion, takes his hand to pull him out into the backyard for a smoke.
It’s wonderful, it’s perfect.
(Enough to push away his heartache.)
When Jimmy leaves he takes Thomas’ heart with him. Saying goodbye was about the hardest thing he’s ever had to do in his life, and the victory of keeping his job feels hardly worth it in the face of losing the one thing – person – that had meant something to him in this wretched place. He feels hollow, empty, when he stands in the servants’ backyard and watches the carriage go.
It’s only days later, when Anna accidentally brushes his arm going past him, that he realizes that besides Jimmy’s beautiful face and uplifting company something else is missing: his touch.
He tells himself he doesn’t need it. It’s a sentimental thing, all mushy and intimate, a thing for lovers and family. Everyone knows he doesn’t do either of the two, that he’s above such a things, meant for more than domestic relationships. He tells himself, if there’s one person who isn’t sentimental, it’s Thomas Barrow. (Jimmy would argue, tell him It’s the opposite, really, you’re about the soppiest man in all o’ Yorkshire, but he isn’t here, is he, so he can bloody stuff it.)
His body has different ideas. It craves touch like never before, bodily contact in any form and capacity possible, and with a fervency it almost makes him sick. His skin crawls, his bones ache from dusk until dawn reminding him constantly of his loneliness, of things that will never be his.
One time, when he walks past the boot room, he sees Bates taking Anna’s hands in his. The bastard’s touch is so gentle and careful, so light and full of awe it makes Thomas’ stomach turn. With averted eyes and an ugly twist to his lips he makes his way past, silent and unseen, through the hallway and up the staircase to the green baize door. Subconsciously, his feet turn left on the bachelor’s corridor instead of right, and before he can stop himself, he finds himself standing in front of the nursery. He can hear giggles behind the white door, muffled words and small thumping sounds. He figures, after a few minutes, that it’s Sybbie teaching George how to play with her horses while trying to make click-clack-galloping noises with her tongue. It’s the sound he himself always makes when carrying either of them on his shoulders or back, and hearing her earnest attempts at mimicking Thomas of all people is enough to soften the edges of the ache around his heart.
The feeling doesn’t last until luncheon, the warmth fading away to hollowness once more, and he doesn’t even try holding back his sharp tongue. Even Mrs. Hughes seems disappointed in him when he is done.
The advertisement finds him like a siren’s call, alluring and beckoning, a gift from the universe to ease his pain. He takes it gladly, something bright zinging through his veins, something that perhaps would have been called hope in another man.
Thomas tells himself the fluttering in his heart, the shortness of his breath – all that adrenaline kicking through his body – he tells himself it’s excitement. He’s excited, excited and cheerful as can be, when he boards the train to York. He’s excited, not afraid, when he makes his way through town towards the address they had given him. And he is so, so very excited and not afraid at all, when he opens the door and tells the pretty blonde at the front desk his name. He imagines he’ll be able to look at her and feel attraction in a few days, and the prospect elicits pure excitement inside his chest, reasonable and understandable excitement and joy and yes, hope, and not a single trace of panic.
It's not how he had imagined it’d go, not at all. (But then, what did he think would happen? That they’d pull out their magic wand and wave it all better? That he’d get off easily? It’s not very likely, considering he never does.) They lead him up a set of stairs, show him to his lodgings. It’s small and dingy, barely anything more than his room at the abbey. He doesn’t have much time to look around before he’s called to the doctor’s office.
They begin the same day – escort him to a room in the back of the building, order him to take off his clothes and strap him to a chair and countless wires. They don’t explain what will happen and he almost jumps out of his skin when the projector behind him comes to life with a quiet whirr and the filthiest pictures he’s seen in his life.
They touch him according to what they show him. The first time, he restrains himself from flinching just so. The air is cold on his skin, the leather straps of the chair digging into his body, and the warmth of the hands stands in stark contrast to it. It’s almost, in a sense, welcome – not really wanted, no, but welcome, needed, and he endures it. After a handful of seconds something seems to switch inside him. The fingers, so warm and careful and slow, leave trails of goosebumps across his skin, pet him and caress him, and the burning want, the need need need he’s tried to suppress so fruitlessly crashes into him like a wave. Relief floods his system as he finally, finally is touched again, touched with intent and care and attention. He barely notices when the hands wander downwards, so absorbed is he in the sensation of it – touch touch touch, his body chants, silencing his mind – but then, suddenly they leave him, let go just as hot lust shoots up into his belly. They get replaced by suction cups, cold and heavy, and before he can react in any way or form pain races through his bones, sharp and fiery and excruciating.
Each time a shock is sent into his system it’s followed by soft hands petting and stroking him, fondling and caressing until they’ve driven him to the point of panting and moaning and pleading. Then: the next jolt of electricity. It’s agony, his pleas quickly turning to real begging things, desperate and devoid of any sense of pride.
It takes a while for his mind to catch up on it. It is so confused by the relief these human hands should bring – the relief they do bring – and the torture they herald that by the end of the first session he is barely anything more than a befuddled, drooling facsimile of a man. It takes his entire strength to pull on his clothes and find his way to his room, and only when he has lain in the dark for endless silent hours, brain ticking away mindlessly with each minute, does he manage to wonder – that’s it? That’s the cure?
He shouldn’t have worried. Over the course of the next days, filled with shocks and touches and pain, pain pain pain, he feels not only his want for a male hand upon him slowly but surely wither away, but all his longing for human contact. He himself seems to wither away somewhat, retreating into a husk he can’t reach, doesn’t have the key to and doesn’t want to because that part must be the one he has been shunned for his entire life and that’s why he’s here, isn’t it? To see it shrivel away and die, so that he can finally live in peace.
It's a weekend straight from hell and when it’s over he is so exhausted he doesn’t even look at the receptionist on his way out.
He nearly boards the wrong train, but then the salesman who he’d gotten his ticket from stops him with a polite smile and a hand to his arm. It makes him flinch away, violently. Thousand burning hot needles rush from his elbow to every part of his body and it’s all he can do not to throw up then and there.
He avoids touch from then on – stays out of touching distance, draws in on himself and leaves rooms whenever someone’s gesturing gets too animated. He doesn’t want to risk it, knows he won’t be able to stand another set of hands on his body, not so soon, not for a long time probably.
The fever, creeping along slowly but surely, makes his skin even more sensitive. There are moments when every brush of his cuff, when the slight pressure of his collar or the smooth leather of his glove are enough to make him blink back tears and hold his breath. Baxter notices, he thinks. She throws him looks, with her brows angled upwards and a worry in her eyes he’s sure he doesn’t deserve, doesn’t want.
But she’s persistent, and he’s worn down. That’s why, in the end, she wins.
Doctor Clarkson drains the abscess and Thomas shakes with each touch of his clean, wrinkled, warm hands.
A very brave person. That’s what she had called him. He’d laughed, not believing her, even as the words had seared themselves right into his heart, had made themselves at home without his consent. Even as, lying in bed that evening and staring at the cup of tea she had left on his nightstand, the words trailed through his head and turned into something he wanted, wanted to try and become.
A brave person can handle pain, can handle being cast out. He tells this himself very firmly, very many times. A brave person can get over a bit of accidental touching, a brave person doesn’t need to lock themselves into the bathroom and dry heave after having felt a hand on their shoulder once in a dream, a brave person doesn’t need touch.
(He doesn’t believe himself.)
Mrs. Hughes touches him, once. A fleeting brush of her fingers over his wrist, meant to be comforting, no doubt. But it brings with it a sense of loss, of foreshadowing and being cast out, and makes his skin prickle in discomfort.
In the same place she had touched him – still tickling uncomfortably, even days after – he sets the razor. The touch of the cool blade against his trembling skin is different, it’s so, so different from human hands and all the expectations and consequences they carry, and he revels in it.
The cuts burn, yet they almost feel like salvation. He closes his eyes and leans his head back as the water around him grows tepid from the warmth of his own blood.
It’s dark and cold, and he feels like floating. He’s weightless and at the same time unbearably heavy. Something warm pulls him down, down and up and towards solidness, realness, towards something he can grasp and feel and anchor himself on as the exhaustion washes through him and tries to drag him away.
Thomas wakes to her hand in his, dry and warm and there.
It’s the first touch he’s received in God knows how long that doesn’t hurt, doesn’t send an overwhelming wave of everything through him, doesn’t make him want to let go.
He cries, as much out of sorrow as out of relief, and Phyllis doesn’t let go.
When he’s finally coherent enough to talk, strong enough to look at her, desperate enough to cling to her hand as she makes to stand up from the chair at his bed’s side, she whispers: “It’s alright. It’s alright now, Thommy. You won’t be alone again.”
He replies, just as quietly: “Please don’t make me let go.”
And she shakes her head and tightens her grip. “Never.”
Her touches become a practice after that. A gentle hand to lift him up, a pat to his hair, a nudge to his shoulder. It’s all so much and not enough, and he melts into each and every one of her touches. It’s so much easier to accept them, to allow them and enjoy them than to fear what they might bring.
She seems to notice his reactions, seems to realize how much each single touch of hers means to him, and keeps going.
Mrs. Hughes and Andy follow her soon – it’s funny, to witness their different brands of touching. Mrs. Hughes is especially fond of stroking his hair and patting his cheeks, something that brings out long lost memories of his grandmother, and that he cherishes just as much as Andy’s quiet palms settling on his legs and shoulders and sometimes even his neck, infusing him with the feeling of being connected, of being held.
(He breaks own multiple times because of it. None of them laugh at him – Mrs. Hughes tuts gently, Andy seems close to crying, too, out of sheer empathy, and Phyllis smiles gently and lies down next to him. All of them keep touching him until his tears have subsided.)
More than once he wonders if he deserves it. The simple answer would be no, of course not, not after everything he’s done, but he’s learned, if anything, that life is far from simple, and that nothing is black and white. Perhaps not even him.