katabasis | [PSL] in this sense the open jaws of wild beasts will appear no less pleasing than their prototypes

[PSL] in this sense the open jaws of wild beasts will appear no less pleasing than their prototypes

The bread that is over-baked so that it cracks and bursts asunder hath not the form desired by the baker; yet none the less it hath a beauty of its own, and is most tempting to the palate. Figs bursting in their ripeness, olives near even unto decay, have yet in their broken ripeness a distinctive beauty.

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The imperfection of the conclusion could easily sit there on top of his skin, itching like some infected scratch if he let it. Because there are versions of events in which he can opt to do nothing for those men, but that isn't one in which any of them are even here to begin with. It certainly has no bearing on the reality which they're a part of. Best to draw one line in the sand until it's resolved; maybe later they'll have the luxury to draw another.

He's quiet for some time beside him, studying the backs of the men ahead and them then tipping his face to glance at Thomas' throat, the fray of his shirt collar and the sturdy sinew of his bare forearm, nut brown between the dying light and his color from working in the sun. A rooster calls from the hen house and the horses in their lean to shelter whip their tails at flies. Oglethorpe's youngest boy screams and laughs from the porch, thrashing in the circle of a woman's arms as he's tickled. The sound carries through the still air, easily heard over the note of men trudging up from the fields. James touches his hand to the ruddy back of Thomas's neck. thumb drawing the edge of his hairline.

"When do you expect Marshall will come speak with you?" It matters. Ideally, McNair will need to be goaded before then.

In the midst of everything, the reason they're having these back and forths, the reason Thomas feels, is because James his here and they're alive when they're together. He feels his touch and smiles, bright and earnest, sighing a little into it. He hopes that James's touch always makes him feel so elated even when they're as old as they can wish to ever be.

"After dinner."

A little while, then, as they have the time still to meander to set things up, then eat. The overseers take their meals in shifts and prefer not to disrupt the convicts' own, some strange animal respect about it that isn't always afforded to the African slaves. He has an idea about how to go about it with Marshall and he hopes it works-- will they have to kill all the overseers? No pang of guilt comes at him over that thought. The boy's laughter rings across the fields.

Humans are spectacular. The things they do to each other.

"Good." That's plenty of time to accomplish what needs doing - to make sure that the two of them have something to talk about. "When the time comes, you're the one who's convinced me to be civil before now."

The length of his stride won't put up with being stretched. Even so it doesn't take them much longer than anyone else to make their way to the yard or the long, squat room where they take their supper. The need to sit - immediately, at the first available space - has been folded in under the appeal of speaking to McNair directly, granting him the ability to fetch a bowl and cup of water before making his way between the rows of tables and benches studded with slump shouldered men.

James slings a leg stiffly over the bench and sits down across the table from McNair. George goes sharp along all his edges then leans harder into the conversation happening beside them ('--and I tell you, I'm sick of salted pork and mealed corn. What could possibly be wrong with salted pork and potatoes or anything other than this godforsaken--'). For some time, James is happy to let him do it. He turns his body by a half degree toward Thomas instead, line of his arm and shoulder a barricade McNair is clearly all too happy to respect. They talk about the heat. James fusses over the half healed flesh of Thomas's wrists. It's only once the manifesto being recited down the length of the table has reached its pitch ('Shut the fuck up, Barnaby.' 'Don't tell me what I can and can't say, you--') and some of the tension has gone out of George McNair's shoulders that James turns his attention on him like a knife's point.

"How much longer do you think he can get away with it?" he asks of Thomas, as if he isn't looking directly at the man in question.

Edited 2017-08-21 05:28 (UTC)

(There is probably a phrase for early 18th century Good Cop Bad Cop and Thomas probably knows it. Pretend it's here.)

Right now? a voice in Thomas's head is more than a little concerned with the speed, in case he needs a few more conversations after this to work on Marshall, but he tells himself it'll be fine, and that it's a mistake to leave James on edge for so long, anyway. His anxiety, after all, is largely due to being so unpracticed at this.

Piracy must be exhausting.

He is halfway through eating, spending it quiet as is his custom when he and James aren't seated off on their relative own, sopping up soggy cornmeal with a piece of bread. When James asks his hostile question, more men than just McNair go still. This place is its own contained universe; people talk, people theorize. Whether or not anyone knows real details, there are hunches, and there are those who've been keen on this confrontation. Thomas makes a note of who.

"I think we've talked about this," Thomas says, marginally better at being manipulative than he gives himself credit for. It is the kind of non-answer that tailors itself to all kinds of listeners; people who think he's a spineless fop are going to imagine him shrinking away from his dominant lover, people who favor him will see it as threatening in its apparent disinterest. A hand on a leash not inclined to hold it too tightly.

George has gone tense, jaw clenched, glaring now at Thomas like he's been punched in the stomach.

Right now. At least in part. It's possible that while surrounded by watching eyes and straining ears, McNair won't rise to the bait. That he'll wait to bristle until later when the circumstances can be contained to just the two (the three) of them. Maybe this is just one half of a confrontation and the second part can happen in broad daylight. Maybe James can say whatever he cares to in this moment. Maybe George won't do anything to stop him this time.

(There's a small, vibrant, vicious spark at the thought. Good. Shut up and listen.)

"Don't look at him," he snaps, whip sharp and low enough that it shouldn't carry but does. He leans forward by a degree. "He won't be of any use to you. Why, when you could be watching the thing that's dangerous, would you be looking at him?"

McNair is quiet and still as a stone, though his glare does stray in the direction it ought to--

"But you've a habit of that, don't you George? Saying the wrong thing. Biting the wrong hand. Rolling over at the wrong command." For the wrong master. "How long have you been here? You have so much practice being incompetent."

The quiet is spreading, butting up hard against where Barnaby is still fucking talking, and there's a muscle in McNair's cheek that's flexing and popping. He looks at James, then past him, expression schooled bland and flat and pointedly impassive.

James laughs at him.

It doesn't feel like an act. It feels real, and an instinct to diffuse tension wars inside of him with something that wallows in it like satisfaction, because watching James be beaten was worse than experiencing it himself. McNair could have claimed responsibility instead of trying to shuffle it elsewhere-- it would have ensured Bettina's safety, giving them someone certain, instead of casting the strange shadow he did.

That must be it, he realizes distantly. What Bettina sees and what makes her capable of sitting alongside James and Hannah and not dragging her heels for her brother's sake. Her brother will do anything for her but he's lost something, after all these years. The fight's gone out of him, even if the anger remains.

Is she sad about it? How could she not be? Thomas's heart goes out to her, suddenly, in a way it hadn't before. He'd let his own spirit be worn down, needing to retreat into himself to survive, to win the battle between wanting to take something sharp to a vein every morning. But he'd been alone. He tries to imagine James or Miranda being with him (because he has no siblings, no family with which to understand that bond) and one of them losing their will completely. He can't quite envision it, too counter to reality and to them, but the idea is enough to stir up keen sympathy.

Barnaby is going on and on, still. Over the tense silence, over James's laughter.

"You know that's why everybody's sick every two months, like clockwork I'm telling you, it's this much fucking pork, your insides stop up without anything green," Barnaby's saying, his single voice impossibly loud in contrast, "next time I swear I'll bring it right to the-- oi, there going to be a fight?"

"No," snaps George. Every pair of eyes is latched onto him or James or darting between the two. "No."

The sharp, razoring chuckle flattens then is swallowed up by the density of the quiet. "No, of course not," he says. "Do you know the meaning of the word, McNair?"

For a split second, he can be legitimately angry at the way the other man is so fixed in this state. It isn't cowardice - it isn't stupidity - it's nothing at all. And it's dangerous. Not for George (who cares about him? seems to be the most valid question present; certainly not George), but for his sister. He stabbed a man to death for her. Can he really be content with half measures now?

James presses, staring McNair down the length of his nose. "You know what you're risking with this, don't you? You can say no all you like, but it won't stop me and it won't keep the truth from coming to light."

It's not a threat - just honest -, but it must drip with the intent of one up and down the length of the table. It sounds like he wants to wrench McNair's head from his neck. Or maybe, maybe to the right ears, it sounds like a threat to what must still matter to the man. A possibility made into horrifying reality. James had been in the main house for eight days. The likelihood that someone knew something and slipped it to him must be extreme enough to be worrying. Maybe James can tell the truth whenever he cares to. What exactly is stopping him from going straight to an overseer directly after this?

The texture of George McNair's stillness changes dramatically. He looks straight back at James, the purposefully blank set of his expression gone so rigid it might be weaponized. He knows how easy it is to ruin a person here, doesn't he?

"Well fuck," says Barnaby. "As I was saying then, a man's body requires certain things and some moderation of others for a healthy constitution, salt being the latter. I know a physician who would tell you just the same."

James's anger is the kind that makes men shrink back - even men like these, who've grown used to being abused and beaten, who often forget what pain and fear look like without them being pointed out. George is tense, but so are so many others. Plenty of men look poised to spring away, pull back benches and make room for a brawl, look eager for it.

(James's anger is beautiful.)

"You don't know any physicians," says Mr Browder, Barnaby's voice doing nothing to ease the choked feeling holding all other conversation at bay. For half a moment it seems as though that's it, this awful spell is broken, but then a man from some lengths away-- Romans 14:8-- pipes in aggressively, "You can't leave it there, we have to know--"

Thomas stands up.

More than one startle results in it, abruptly (but strangely gracefully) leaving the table with his empty plate and walking to the open doorway to just about meet the girls coming to collect dishes and flatware. Behind them is an overseer, wandering close in a vaguely curious manner about the odd stop-and-start quiet from the normally noisy hall.

Stiltedly, conversation resumes, while Hannah and Thomas exchange a silent look.

Somehow that's the instant where something penetrates past the flat barrier of McNair's expression. Thomas gets up and George doesn't start, but he does look after him. The moment he does, the very second he can't fixate on them as a single unit, all the seams in his composure start to pop. James can guess what's passing through his mind - Thomas is a good person, isn't he? That he usually does so much with so little incident. But he escaped once, didn't he? (--Do the men here know about the man Thomas killed while he was away?) And surely even if Thomas appeared to be the most benign man in the world, McNair is smart enough to wonder whether his relationship with the ghost of Captain Flint points to some sharper underlying nature.

James watches as McNair's attention visibly oscillates between the two of them, clearly uncertain which he considers the more immediate threat: James, who is quite literally within arm's reach; or Thomas, who clearly has some connection with one of the girls from the house. Before the conversation limping around them can hope to recover, James fetches up his and his neighbor's (who starts as if struck) plates. He reaches across the table and takes McNair's as well. "Let me take care of this for you, George."

With an audible pop from his knee, he hauls himself to his feet and clears the plates away. If Thomas and he are the last to arrive and among the first to leave, let McNair have all that time to torture himself over what they could be saying to someone (what Thomas will tell Marshall).

There was no intent for dramatic timing-- Thomas won't abide anyone being punished for strange behavior; not James, not even George McNair, and he's incapable of setting aside this particular habit. Nudging them all back into a semblance of innocence in front of authority. There have been men who think it's cowardice (Benjamin certainly did, God rest him), but it's something else. Preventing injustice in the only way he can. The measure of control he allows himself, one he's managed through desperate work, passive-aggressive like his silence.

To do it while speaking of such action and forwardness is dizzying. He feels the need to do more, say more, aching in his hands. But it's just a phantom, and Thomas says nothing. He helps Hannah pile things into a basin and exchanges a look with James, his smile soft and affectionate, like it might be any night.

The overseer who comes to wander the perimeter of the mess isn't Marshall, but it's no-one particularly worrisome. A man who does his job without flinching but who seeks out no added sadism. In this place, practically a saint. What does that makes Marshall, who allows them to cut corners, who laughs and who looks stricken when something happens to a man or woman he's friendly with? More layers of moral obligation.

Please, he thinks. Just let this bloody conversation work out.

"You look like you're going to collapse," Thomas tells James once he can do so out of anyone else's earshot. Frank because that's life (that's also him), and because he's a little worried. James isn't used to constant labor like Thomas is, no matter that piracy is a physically demanding occupation. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Marshall beginning to make his way over, meandering unhurried from the houses for the overseers.

Hannah has a soft tsk for James as he adds his small collection of plates to the basin. He's certain there's something on the tip of her tongue - Why not take up all their plates while you're at it? maybe -, but it's channelled so effectively into the flat look on her face that there's no need for her to say it. He raises an eyebrow; the girl responds by rolling her eyes back to her work.

And if the venom he'd spit at McNair had ever been anything but manufactured for the moment (it was - real: boiling up from the middle of him the moment he'd been allowed to recognize it), it's folded elsewhere now. Not gone, just compacted back into the forward energy of doing something: his hand briefly at the small of Thomas's back, an eye for the overseer at the edge of the hall as they step away, then all his attention turning as a compass needle to hone in on the vague shape of Marshall wandering up from the bungalows.

"Good. We want McNair to think he has a chance." He doesn't feel like he must look. Not anymore. He would've been happy to lie down for a week when they'd first quit the fields, but now the prospect's remote enough that he can just ignore it exists at all. Besides, maybe Marshall will be more receptive to what Thomas has to say if the man next to him looks positively miserable.

"He's not going to pick a fight with you. He doesn't want to end up punished for it." They'd put them both in the 'isolation' box Thomas was locked into for fighting-- worse for James, in trouble so soon, a thought that makes Thomas think he might just kill McNair if he tries something. Which would not be helpful. (Or feasible, probably.) But George is so adverse to punishment he'd sooner throw James under the bus and put himself and his sister in a precarious situation than just endure it himself to spare her entirely, and so Thomas is fairly certain he won't start anything now.

But there's merit, probably, in Marshall seeing how run down he looks. Like if anyone did decide to come after him, he wouldn't last. Thomas touches the side of his face like he's too concerned to touch anywhere else; he doesn't have to put much acting power into that one.

"I'm not chaperoning something, am I?" asks Marshall, loud and indelicate some meters away, plodding along closer.

"No," answers Thomas once he's a little nearer, instincts of politeness drilled in earlier and deeper than a decade of torture, somehow. "Do you mind if he's here, though?"

"Naw, I don't mind no Captain Flint, do I." The overseer shrugs. "C'mon and take a walk, though, I have to go 'round the fence anyway."

Honestly, he's fine - upright and happy enough to walk if it doesn't involve moving in a direction where he'll be expected to pick up a fucking shovel when he gets there. But he doesn't say anything of the sort to Thomas - not as Marshall drifts close enough for conversation. Instead as he falls in line a half step behind Thomas (easy because his legs are shorter), he wonders if there's something he could say to get McNair to do something. Surely there must be a combination of words or some leverage that could be applied that would crack the man out of the corner he'd backed himself into.

Why it's important, he doesn't yet know. Maybe it's as simple as wanting an excuse to shake the man insensible for what his cowardice did (to him, to Thomas). Maybe he wants Bettina safe (which isn't possible as long as McNair clearly knows something; eventually someone will get curious enough to ask the right questions). Or maybe it's something else entirely. Maybe it's the ghost of something lingering behind his shoulder, saying Stay, stay, stay. The question sits there at the very edge of his mind, gnawing like teeth at a bone as he drifts along in Thomas's shadow.

And waits. And listens.

"But see, this is why no one likes him," says Marshall.

Edited 2017-08-24 06:42 (UTC)

Thomas catches himself before he bristles, knowing better when it comes to Marshall, simply feeling rough at the edges over this mad day.

"What exactly did you anticipate me doing this evening?" He asks instead, drier than perhaps James has ever heard him, dehydrated edges of it crackling with accusatory deadpan innuendo. The overseer barks a truly shocked laugh and swerves away temporarily, as though so taken aback by Lord Hamilton so much as suggesting a rude joke. He grumbles about what a classless motherfucker Thomas secretly is, but it's in tangibly good humor.

(Everyone is shocked about his pirate lover except for this one particular overseer, who seems to think it makes sense.)

"So what's this about, really?"

Thomas sighs and crosses his arms, reluctant. This is not surprising; he doesn't like making waves, he doesn't like snitching. Feeling compelled to do it is significant. Marshall is aware of this.

"I know it was McNair who threw James's name out about the fire," he says eventually. "He's made it obvious. His friends and a few others who've decided to feel one way or the other about me, or us, are making it difficult for--" he shrugs, shoulders tense. This uneasy feeling while he's so worried about James's recovery doesn't have a name in words. Marshall is listening to him with a frown on his face. "I don't know. I don't really sleep, because the doors are bolted now, and if someone decides to try and make a point in the middle of the night there's no getting away from it."

No sound for a while except their footsteps over the packed earth ground. Marshall glances over his shoulder sidelong to look at James, not for need of confirmation - whatever strange relationship he has with Thomas is not one of doubt - but warily contemplating.

He's supposed to be looking miserable, but James can't stop the smile that tugs crooked at the corner of his mouth. He has to turn his face, looking back toward the long building they've just left until the urge to laugh passes.

It takes longer than just the interim following Thomas being so pointedly crude. There's nothing inherently untrue or funny about what Thomas is saying, including the part where someone could very well decide to come at either of them in the night (not McNair, but a friend--), but there's something about the moment that strikes him as irrationally pleasant. Listening to Thomas talk, how frank he sounds, makes something heavy in his chest go light and brilliantly sharp.

It's one thing for Thomas speak so certainly between the two of them. It's different to be so driven with one of the men who could run them into the ground if he really cared to.

By the time Marshall glances back at him, James has mastered the lines of his face enough to look back. Tone pitched low in the dark, he says, "You can understand why I'd rather not be put in the position of having to defend myself."

Let the man interpret that however he likes - that James doesn't trust himself to be able to mind their safety, or that he's too sure and isn't fond of the idea of being taken to task for harming someone so soon after his initial beating. Marshall's clearly spread predisposed to a certain strange amount of sympathy and likely his imagination will do better work than being explicit with him might.

Indeed Marshall makes a short noise that must border on agreement because after a moment he follows it with, "Look, who said what isn't really your business, though I can see where the thought comes from. But I can't very well just leave the door cracked when someone asks, now can I?"

"I'm not asking you to leave the door open," Thomas says. "I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm telling you because I don't know what to do about it, and you're as invested in keeping fights from breaking out as any of us are."

It's his job, after all, in addition to making sure each and every person remain here, human-shaped property. If someone ends up brutalized in the middle of the night or concussed from a fight - particularly while Oglethorpe is away - the overseers will be in just as much trouble, if not more, than the convicts involved in any given altercation. It's a failure of attention paid as much as anything else.

And here's the fine line, effectively encouraging an overseer to watch them closer when they're in the midst of something so dangerous-- but it's the sort of gamble they have to make. They have to push to get the results they want.

Marshall makes a noise of assent but doesn't say anything else just yet, keeping pace with Thomas and staring at the fence as they walk, frown over his expression. It's a long while with no talking, but Thomas stays as he is, giving no indication of impatience, something that he hopes James notices so that no one ends up on edge.

"You know how it is," he says after a while, his voice lower. "With how parameters shift around with all of it." Thomas hums in agreement - reference to some conversation or other predating James's presence on the plantation. They must have had a number of them, to have this level of ease between them, even if it's necessarily manufactured on Thomas's part; their difference in rank, one human and one not, prohibits anything real, or honest, even on a surface level.

"Andies has it out for you." Marshall twitches his head, indicating James without properly looking back again. "Both of you."

"I know."

"I can get something going but you have to be fucking careful. I mean it, real fucking careful."

It isn't like with McNair or any of the other men with whom he shares the exact same measure of non-agency. James is content to haunt the fringe of this conversation, letting the spans of quiet lengthen to the rhythm of shoes on dirt and the rasp of small insects in the dark. There's nothing benign about him trailing after them - even quiet and slow, there's a rough edge to his shape and how aware he is of everything that comes out of Marshall's mouth -, but it's far more guard dog lying on the step than wolf stalking in shadow. Real fucking careful.

Saying anything feels like it might sever whatever line is being drawn between the two of them. So when Marshal actually does look back at him, clearly expecting some kind of answer, James just gives him of confirmation. See? He can even keep his mouth shut here.

Marshall expels one heavy breath, scratching his forehead vigorously enough that it's clearly just something to do with the hand not tucked into his belt. "Better if it gets done before he gets back from business then," he says, as if a note to himself. "Andies'll throw fits otherwise and that's too many questions. --So keep those noses clean through the week end."

Idiot, thinks James. That's four days without Oglethorpe's improving presence on the plantation. Plenty of time - to sort what needs to be sorted; for the residual exhaustion to wear out his body; for them to prove their worth to the African slaves; to make ready.

Thomas doesn't say That's the idea, about being on their best behavior, but the look he gives Marshall expresses it easily enough. He's always well behaved-- though that may be a reason some people don't like him. His quiet orderliness contrasted with the fact that he's gotten out once before, and now here he is with Captain Flint, an unreal and twisted storybook reunion none of them understand. What is he doing with this pirate? What is this pirate doing with him?

"Thank you," Thomas tells him, the weight of his sincerity almost tangible. Marshall grumbles something indistinct in response, shrugging off anything genuine as though for fear of accidentally brushing up against something alien.

Quiet, for a while. Then Thomas says,

"So you don't have to tell anyone, I'll have to complain at you now about the state of James's injuries, and ask to talk to Annie."

Marshall swears.

James does grin then, huffing out a low grumbling laugh that has Marshall bitching for an additional six strides or so. When he finally resolves to again speak above a resentful grumble ('See what I get for this nonsense, I fucking swear--'), he says, "I'll fetch her out. But you won't step a foot into that house proper, d'you hear me." As if that's any part of what Thomas asked for, but let the man have his small victories.

As they walk the fence, Marshall shifts to chatter so idle it's either to keep Thomas from asking for anything else or it's habit: talking to fill air when he could very well send them back the way they'd come while he does his work along the perimeter. James suspects it's the latter. It doesn't seem to occur to the overseer to just tell them to fuck off so they spend nearly an hour in his company while getting a thorough look at every piece of fence along the face of the property.

By the time they finally turn back toward the main house, James's pace has slowed so significantly that Marshall stops a handful of times - first to shake a stone out of his boot, then again just "Because you look sick." Also he doesn't want Annie talking sharp to him about dragging the pair of them around by the nose all evening.

"She can be particular," James agrees, sweating where he stands.

"Goddamn right she can," says Marshall and the topic of being on the bad side of women carries them all the way back to where they started.

Watching James's strength fade and continuing to walk along with Marshall is a torturous reminder of just how uneven things are. Thomas can't simply excuse them and return to the bunkhouse, he can't call for a rest on his own - Marshall seems halfway oblivious to the casual power he wields, and he might tolerate the otherwise forbidden show of autonomy. Might. Thomas can't risk it, especially not since so much now rides on getting Marshall to do this for them.

Doesn't make it easy. His heart aches. His heart screams, frustrated and angry. Outwardly he is calm, even if the way he sometimes flexes his fingers is a tell for anxiety; the fine tremor that sometimes haunts him grips his left wrist, though it isn't so visible.

This has gone remarkably well.

Annie is displeased to see the state of James, frowning thunderously at all of them, her comments making Thomas think she might launch into a lecture if it were just the two of them. He's given a towel and a fresh shirt for James and instructions to fetch a pail of water so he can have something cool on his back. Marshall hovers but not for too long, calling out that he'll take a walk by later, which Thomas assumes means he'll be doing rounds near the bunkhouse to dissuade any overnight murder attempts.

"Drink some water right now," Annie is bossing Captain Flint without hesitation, meanwhile.

It's a series of tells that must be so minor that maybe there's no one else in the world left to recognize them except for James. But to his eye, the shift of Thomas's hands and the angle at which he holds his shoulders seems painfully obvious - so much so that sitting on the step feels like a relief for more reasons than just how worn out his body is. If it'll smooth away some of the taut lines in the other man's face, he'll take every sharp word Annie has to give.

James does as he's told, drinking down the well water without complaint as Marshall recedes into the darkness. "Take your shirt off," Annie orders from where she's hooking the lantern high in the doorway. He gives Thomas a long suffering look as he unrolls his sleeves.

It takes him longer than it should. Something's come open from the labor in the field or the combination of scabbing and sweat has just reacted poorly, but peeling himself out of the shirt leaves him feeling raw and tender. No blood on the shirt though. That's a good sign. He's eager to bundle it over itself, stowing it on the step behind his heel where it can be forgotten.

"That went well," he says. It sounds so much lighter than he feels. But both can be true - that he's been hammered thin and that it's strangely easy to grin at Thomas as he shifts his arm out across his knee, holding his hand out toward him.

From behind him, Annie fixes Thomas with a skeptical stare.

For a moment, Thomas is so taken by the sheer improbability of all this that he doesn't know what to do. After everything that was taken from them and why it was taken, after James had been so wrapped up in his own hesitation and fear when they were first together-- here they are, their relationship plainly known to everyone in this isolated circle of hell. They kiss where others can see, they sleep curled together in a room full of other people, they plead their case for relief from harassment and it's taken with a grain of seriousness-- and here is James, reaching out to him.

Five years ago, when he was finally able to process what was happening to him, being moved from Bethlem to the New World, Thomas had been so infuriated and sickened by the certainty that he'd be forced to be grateful to slavery that he'd shut down. He'd left, and endured illness and branding as a shell of a person. What shall he think now? This feeling of fierce, unbelievable joy at how James has left shame behind, coupled with the weight of where they are and how they've both come to this point.

How could he ever have thought they'd have no chance at leaving? They can't die in the attempt. Death itself has already failed to separate them.

Thomas takes his hand, tremor and all, unafraid of showing that weakness to James and pressing it into his skin. Heaven knows what kind of look is on his face, relieved and helplessly adoring and baffled and concerned. Sometimes he's very good at schooling his expressions and sometimes he's not, and this is the latter.

Annie deserves an award for putting up with them.

"It did," he agrees, inexplicably sounding choked-up. Get it together, he tells himself, and smiles. Well. That's what they're doing. He squeezes James's hand and sits sideways next to him, angled so he can help with the welts on his back. Just as soon as he lets go of his hand. To Annie, quieter: "Marshall is going to help us with something Hannah asked for. He's just not aware."

A gamble to say it so plainly, but it pays off in the way Annie's entire demeanor changes. They all understand each other.

There's something so plain and bare about the trembling of his fingers that James can't help but cherish it with such immediacy that his chest ache. Even slashed through by Annie's long shadow, Thomas looks so shockingly clear in the glow of the lantern light and the oppressive weight of the night air around their shoulders. He is stunningly present, beautifully made down to the twitch of his hand and the grey in his hair James can't see but knows is there. If this is how he seems now, in this place and shackled by these circumstances, then James can't wait to see him in the moment he's allowed to tell the world to rearrange itself.

He holds Thomas's shaking hand close, the irregular movement against his center like some living bookmarker for this instance when everything is exactly as it needs to be. Annie will tell the others what they discovered. Marshall will do what Thomas asked. The plantation's master will come back in four days and have no idea he's on the very edge of being ruined.

"Our best opportunity will be when Oglethorpe returns. There's bound to be some unintentional slack in the changeover when he does." He twitches under the first application of the cool cloth at his back, huffing out a short sound under his teeth. But he doesn't twist away.

It's too difficult to do or say anything else, at first. If he begins to speak he'll end up going on about something too soft and emotional, if he moves he'll kiss James. Instead he stays where he's sat and lets Annie hum her assent, holds James's hand like it's what's keeping him alive. James is so radiant even battered like this, and Thomas imagines he can feel that radiance in himself, reaching into his heart and bones and touching everything with its light.

Thomas takes a steadying breath, and is soon enough carefully pressing fingers of his free hand between the raised abrasions on James's back, coaxing vital bloodflow into the muscle and skin, finding knotted aches. There's no way around it hurting, but it'll help in the long run. The thought of him ending up like Benjamin is too awful to get near.

"They will be tired, then," Annie agrees. They, the overseers, and they, the those returning from travel. "Efforts made to hurry and put everything to its best order before he gets back."

Once James's back is suitably cooled down and cleaned, Annie produces salve for the wounds and hands it over to Thomas, letting him handle the application while she takes his old shirt and the wet towels to be put in with the laundry. She'll be back to collect the lantern and pot of salve, maybe talk some more. Though she is more den mother than schemer, she likes them, and clearly communicates about everything with her peers. Sat behind him on the step, Thomas lets his fingers linger at the nape of James's neck, working at the tension there, doing his best not to make it obvious he's looking at the marks on his back and imagining George McNair's teeth getting kicked in.

It should be easy to ignore the resultant sting and aches of this between Thomas's hand in his and the world of necessary things that must be done to prepare for a moment just days - days - away. But for better or worse, that doesn't appear to be how the body functions. He sweats through it with little in the way of conversation, feeling wrung out by the time Annie takes the laundry away. Can he get a razor between now and when the moment comes, is the random thought that occurs to him under Thomas's fingers at the back of his neck. He'd thought to grow his hair out again so at a distance he might be less remarkable to a stranger who knew only about runaways and not their description, but the fuzzy feather down state he's in is more glaringly obvious than just being freshly sheared--

He huffs out a laugh, startled, and after a moment, the strangest thing happens: he feels compelled to explain himself.

"I was just thinking," James says, finally releasing Thomas's hand so he can support himself against the step with it. "About wanting more time."

What a bizarre, insane thing to even cross his mind. To say out loud. But will there be another opportunity like this one in the coming days? Where they are alone with just the night around them? Will there be room for conversations in the bunkhouse after it's been rearranged, or will every conversation here forward need to be weighted toward convincing other men of the same resolution they already share? With escape right there at his fingertips, the part that comes after yawns strangely empty. He knows roughly what will fill it though, and doubts sitting on porch steps or bracing Thomas's hand in his will be much of it.

Not for some time anyway.

[PSL] in this sense the open jaws of wild beasts will appear no less pleasing than their prototypes

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