Whump Wednesday - 27 - BBC Ghosts

Title: A Good Thing [AO3]

Fandom:BBC Ghosts

Characters:Thomas/Nigel, Julian (mentioned)

Prompt: Nigel giving Thomas a massage - by this lovely anon here.

A/N:It’s been such a joy to finally write some Norne again - I missed the boys! Thank you so much for this prompt, anon! Your fic went into a different direction than I originally thought but I hope you enjoy what I came up with.

Prompts are open,so if you want me to write a story for you as well just send me an ask with the fandom, characters and your prompt. I’m writing for Ghosts, Yonderland, Horrible Histories and Bill at the moment.

Six Idiots Whump Wednesday / Fluff Friday masterlist is here.

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A Good Thing

Nigel found him by the lake.

It was always a bad day when Thomas sought refuge there, far away from the others. He only did that when he was truly upset, truly hurt, so whatever had happened, whatever the others had said or done, must have gone beyond their usual mockery.

At least he’s not in the lake, Nigel thought to himself as he carefully approached Thomas. He had been afraid of lakes for as long as he could remember, ever since that day the children in his village had thrown him into one trying to teach him to swim and he’d nearly drowned. While Nigel would walk into hell and back for Thomas – and yes, that included the lake – he very much preferred to talk about whatever had brought Thomas here today with both of his feet firmly planted on dry land.

He reached Thomas’s side and softly cleared his throat, not wanting to startle him.

“There you are,” he said quietly. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Without glancing up, Thomas curled in on himself and whispered a barely audible, “Sorry.”

“Hey,” Nigel said softly. He sat down next to him. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Thomas mumbled before he turned away and hugged his legs close to his chest – the very picture of misery.

If Nigel hadn’t been worried before he definitely would be worried now. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember even a single instance where Thomas had turned away from him like that. He lovedspending time together. It didn’t matter if they were sitting next to each other on the lawn at night, watching the sky for shooting stars, or standing on opposite ends of the common room, each of them lost in a conversation with someone else but still acutely aware of the other’s presence just a few feet away. Thomas was always drawn to him, especially when they were alone and away from prying eyes. Then nothing stopped him from gazing at Nigel’s face with unabashed love and letting his fingertips slowly, reverently trail down its side, mapping every line and scar and sore without shame while waxing poetic about Nigel’s eyes and comparing them to a summer’s day or the ocean’s waves reflecting the sun.

Nigel loved those moments. There was something incredibly sweet about the way the words all but tumbled out of Thomas’s mouth whenever they were together. Thomas loved with every ghostly cell of his body; utterly, completely and leaving no room for doubt whether his affections were genuine or not. No one had ever looked at Nigel the way Thomas had, neither in life nor in death, and it broke Nigel’s heart to see him shrink away from him now as if Nigel was the last person he wanted to see right now.

Fearing he had done something to upset Thomas, Nigel thought back to their last interaction that day but nothing stood out. It had been a perfectly ordinary morning like any other – well, ordinary since the beginning of their courtship, that is. They had woken up together in Thomas’s room where Nigel spent most of his nights now. He could still feel the weight of Thomas’s head resting on his chest and the sensation of Thomas’s lovely curls tickling his chin if he concentrated hard enough. His cowl had still been around Thomas’s shoulders – “It’s almost like having a blanket again,” Thomas had sighed blissfully the first time Nigel had wrapped it around him – and Thomas had smiled up at him in that sweet way of his that Nigel loved so much when he woke up. Feeling his heart swell with love, Nigel had leaned down and captured that smile with a kiss.

They had joined Alison for breakfast a few kisses later and then gone their separate ways like they often did during the day. Nigel had followed Walter and the other villagers outside to the gardens for yet another one of Mick’s renditions of the day he’d met the king while Thomas had been ushered to the common room by Pat and the Captain for What I Would Wear If I Could Today Club. They had meant to meet up in the kitchen again at noon – only Thomas had never shown up so Nigel had gone looking for him.

Except now that he had found him he was at a complete loss as to what to do. He was so used to Thomas wearing his heart on his sleeves all the time that he had no idea how to approach him when he was like this, all closed off and distant. Perhaps he shouldn’t have approached him at all. Maybe Thomas just needed to be alone for a while. He got like that sometimes; quiet and reflecting. He wouldn’t utter a single word for hours but still welcomed Nigel’s silent presence next to him, his gentle touch.

That he didn’t welcome it now did not exactly reassure Nigel it wasn’t somehow his fault that Thomas was out here right now, alone and struggling.

“Thomas?” he asked carefully, knowing he had to fix this – whatever this was. “Do you want to me to go?”

Thomas shook his head and Nigel breathed a sigh of relief.

“All right,” he whispered. “Is it okay if I touch you?”

He interpreted the one-shouldered shrug as permission and lightly placed his hand against Thomas’s back. The muscles under his palm were so tense and taut it wouldn’t have surprised Nigel if Thomas was one wrong move away from springing to his feet and taking off. He slowly raised his other hand and let it rest next to the first for a moment before he gently began to knead the tension away. He started at Thomas’s shoulders and then slowly made his way down his spine, careful not to stray too close to the edges of his wound, knowing how self-conscious Thomas was about it; and how much it could hurt him.

“What are you doing?” Thomas asked at last when Nigel’s hands moved back up his spine again. His voice was quiet, almost brittle and he shuddered under the gentle ministrations. Nigel eased up on the pressure a little.

“Making you feel a bit better, hopefully.”

The noise Thomas made was not quite a laugh but close enough that Nigel felt some of his own tension bleed away. When Thomas let his head hang, allowing him access to his neck, he took the hint and lightly grazed his fingers over the sensitive, vulnerable skin there, just like he knew Thomas liked it.

“You don’t have to tell me what’s wrong,” Nigel said after a moment. He allowed his fingers to trail under Thomas’s collar, just a little. “But I want you to know you don’t have to pretend with me either. It’s okay if you’re upset – especially if it’s because of me.”

Thomas looked at him over his shoulder. Despite the sheen of tears, his eyes were warm and loving when he said, “You haven’t done anything to upset me, Nigel. I don’t think you possibly could.”

Feeling light with relief and emboldened by Thomas’s words, Nigel leaned forward and brought their foreheads together. “Just give it a few decades. I have it on good authority I can be quite annoying after a while.”

Thomas closed his eyes. He suddenly looked very tired. “Walter, I presume?”

Nigel chuckled. “Who else?”

“He wouldn’t know a good thing if it hit him in the face,” Thomas murmured before he pulled back. Then he added bitterly, “And neither would the others.”

So this was about him, Nigel thought, just not in the way he’d originally assumed.

He continued with his tender touches, hoping they would help soothe a little of the anger he could feel boiling under Thomas’s skin – anger that wasn’t directed at him like he’d feared but actually existed on his behalf. Nigel could barely remember the last time someone had cared so much to be so furious over something someone else had said about him. It was merely a guess, of course, but he was now pretty sure the others had something to do with the pinched look on Thomas’s face. They hadn’t been exactly happy when Nigel and the rest of the villagers had come to live upstairs, after all, and protested the move loudly. While things had significantly died down since then with only the odd rude comment here or there, Thomas’s bowed head and defeated posture told a different story – namely, that things hadn’t died down at all when Nigel and the others weren’t around.

Everything suddenly made a lot more sense – Thomas’s reluctance to tell the others about their relationship, the distance, greater than strictly necessary, he kept between them whenever someone else was in the room, the tension radiating off him every time Nigel and his family joined one of the Clubs.

Nigel had never minded keeping their relationship a secret. The other villagers knew, of course – there was no hiding anything from Jean, not to mention Mick had caught them kissing goodnight in front of the basement door once, back before Nigel had chosen to sleep in Thomas’s room. But the upstairs lot were another matter. Nigel was very much aware of what they thought of him and the others, and he’d never faulted Thomas for being wary of their reaction and rather not wanting to say anything.

Which was why Thomas’s next words took him completely by surprise.

“I was planning on telling them about us today,” Thomas said softly, staring out over the lake.

Nigel’s leapt into his throat. His hands faltered on Thomas’s back. “You were?”

“Yes,” Thomas whispered. He swallowed audibly. “It’s been months since we began our courtship and I thought it was time. But when I chose your cowl as my item to wear today Julian laughed and made a rather … unsavoury comment about it. About you.”

Nigel winced. He could very well imagine what Julian might have said. It was probably something along the lines of, “Oh, that ratty old, flea-and-plague-infested thing? Your standards have really gone to the dogs, mate.”

“After that,” Thomas continued quietly, voice full of shame, “I … I couldn’t find the courage to tell them anymore. I’m sorry, Nigel.”

The apology was uttered in a whisper so miserable Nigel couldn’t help but lean forward and press a lingering, soothing kiss against the exposed skin of Thomas’s neck.

“Don’t apologise,” he murmured softly. “You have done nothing wrong.”

“Then why do I feel like I have” Thomas asked, breath hitching. “You make me so happy, Nigel – happier than I ever thought I could be, than I could ever hope to put into words. And yet I can’t even hold your hand when someone’s around because no one knows.”

Nigel gently rubbed his back. “You know I don’t mind that – them not knowing.”

“ButI do, Nigel!” Thomas exclaimed. “Yourfamily knows. Mine – mine should too, shouldn’t they?”

“Why let Julian’s comment stop you, then?” Nigel asked softly.

Thomas made a wounded noise that went straight to his heart. “Because I don’t know how to stop them from saying all these awful things about you and the others. It’s like they took one look at you all those years ago and decided you were –“

“Barely human,” Nigel finished for him.

Thomas nodded and visibly fought with his emotions. “I told Julian he was wrong, about you, about them but he just kept laughing at me and – Nigel, I don’t want you to have to face that every day. Not because of me.”

His voice broke on the last word and he curled in on himself, choking down a sob. Nigel stared at the trembling shoulders in front of him and felt tears prick at his own eyes when he realised that all this time, Thomas had been trying to protect him as best as he could. Keeping their relationship a secret had never been about him being scared of what the others might think. It had always been about his fear that the constant mockery would be too much for Nigel to bear – would perhaps be something Nigel wouldn’t want to bear for him.

Oh Thomas, Nigel thought, his heart both heavy and light with love at once. He reached for Thomas’s hand and intertwined their fingers.

“I will gladly face all their ridicule if it means I get to hold your hand in front of them like this–“

He pulled Thomas backwards, very gently, against his chest.

 “–if I get to hold you in my arms during Film Club–”

Thomas let out a broken sound and leaned into the embrace like a man finding dry land after being lost on the open ocean for days.  

“–if I get to kiss you whenever I like.”

Thomas’s skin tasted like the sea beneath his lips.

“I love you,” Nigel whispered fiercely and pressed another kiss to Thomas’s cheek. “I don’t care what anyone says or thinks – my feelings are not going to change just because Julian Fawcett is making fun of the way I look.”

Thomas sniffed and turned slightly in his arms. “I just don’t want you to get hurt, Nigel. Not for me. I … I don’t think I could bear that.”

He placed his hand over his wound, unconsciously perhaps, but Nigel understood what he meant: Don’t make the same mistake I did. There is no happiness to be found in self-sacrifice.

He covered Thomas’s hand with his own.

“If we stay quiet, nothing will ever change,” he said softly.

“I know,” Thomas sighed and closed his eyes. He looked terribly exhausted and Nigel wished he knew how to ease this burden that seemed to rest so heavily on his shoulders. “So what now?”

“Now,” Nigel said, reaching up to unfasten the cowl. “Now we watch the sunset together and you get to wear what you wanted.”

He wrapped the fabric around Thomas’s shoulder as best as he could with one hand. When Thomas’s hand came up to hold it in place, their fingers touched.

“That wasn’t what I meant but – thank you,” Thomas said.

Nigel felt the gentle press of soft lips against his collarbone and smiled. He rested his chin on Thomas’s head and looked out over the lake. The dark waters were already glimmering golden in the warm light of the setting sun, creating sparkles that danced over the lake’s surface like stars.

“We’ll tell the others tonight,” Nigel said. “Together.”

Thomas tensed in his arms. “Are you sure? Even though–?“

“Yes,” Nigel said. “Let them talk. Let them mock. I don’t care. I’m tired of pretending I don’t love you.”

To prove his point, he pressed a lingering kiss against Thomas’s curls. Thomas glanced up at him, his face open and terribly vulnerable for a second before he offered Nigel a smile, small but sincere and full of love. “I love you too.”

They shared a soft, gentle kiss before Thomas relaxed against Nigel’s chest and turned his head back towards the lake. His fingers were still curled around the rough fabric of the cowl, and Nigel smiled. As the sun slowly crept towards the horizon, he silently prayed the conversation with the others would go well later.

The last thing he wanted was to see Thomas cry twice in one day because of Julian Fawcett.

I never noticed that Nigel almost drops the furs he gets from Mick in the flashback in 2x02.

It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment in the background when Mick starts coughing and it has no right to be so adorable.