At Your Service

Afterwards

After the fair, days and days seemed to pass, merging into each other and all becoming one long, boring blur of light reading, drinking, occasional cleaning and playing cards. Suddenly, the work all came crashing back down on them, as the Crawley family returned a week earlier than planned. You can imagine Carson's flustering. He had all of the staff working over time to get everything perfect, even though the whole house and everything it contained had been swept over, polished, and dusted at least seven times since the family's absence. But that wasn't going to stop Mr Carson, as he had to take a chair upon hearing the news with only one day's notice. Apparently the letter had gotten lost in the mail, Mrs Hughes wasn't pleased, which left everyone in a very irritable mood.

In an odd way, Jimmy was glad he could get to work. Not because he was bored, but because it gave him something to really put his mind to, and avoid all the other thoughts that had been swirling about mischievously in his head since the moment Thomas had turned and walked away down the road that night. Everyday, he had been battling with himself, and it had been the most irritating pain he'd ever experienced. What made it worse was that everyday, whenever he spoke with Thomas or he sent a smile his way, the pain would only grow, and he constantly felt wary of this ache in his chest.

Jimmy was a little glad though, as was Thomas, as they seemed to have both managed to get over the awkwardness they'd been swamped in before their conversation at the fair. They laughed with each other a lot, almost as if they were trying to turn the whole situation into something comical, something that was just a joke, like it didn't mean anything. But that bothered Jimmy.

Although he was of course relishing in the fact him and Thomas were now on talking terms, he simultaneously felt like he'd gone back to square one with him. Those barriers that Jimmy thought he'd started to break down a bit had gone right back up. Thomas was a very closed off person, he knew that, but it was now as if whenever he got asked a direct or even indirect personal question, he'd find a way to just shrug it off, ignore it and move on to some other topic of conversation.

Another thing Jimmy had noticed, which was probably bothering him most of all, and what made up the majority of the weight that he felt his chest was taking each day. Was that Thomas had been talking to Anna a lot more. He didn't why it was happening but it was, clear as day; he would often walk in on them chatting quietly in the servants hall, Thomas often looking very serious in first few brief moments where he hasn't noticed Jimmy enter the room. But then that smile would break on his face, and Jimmy almost felt bad about asking what they were talking about, in fear the smile may then disappear.

These conversations had Jimmy feeling very conflicted. On one hand, he was sort of glad Thomas was able to confide in Anna about whatever it was he clearly needed to. He was glad Thomas was able to find some sort of comfort in her words, that obviously seemed to lift his mood no matter what was going on. But on the other hand, and this is something Jimmy took a very long while to realise, he was jealous.

When the word jealous had settled in his head, he immediately denied it, pushing it out his head as quickly as it entered. It stayed like that. For a while. Until of course that evening, he once again walked in on a particularly delicate conversation as Thomas seemed to be gripping on to his chair for dear life in frustration of some kind. And there it was, that annoying pang of jealousy that would just not leave, and only formed an uneasy feeling stuck in his throat and made his hands flinch a little in anger.

Why was he so jealous? Yes, alright, he had come to terms with the fact he liked Thomas, very much so, that he had accepted and had come to terms with. But don't you only get jealous when you love someone? Isn't that something that only happens when you'd want to switch places with who you're jealous of? And that was true, he did want to switch places with Anna desperately, because he wanted to be the one to listen to all of Thomas' troubles, that was what a best friend was for right? Anna wasn't his best friend. So why wasn't he talking to Jimmy about whatever had him so worked up seemingly every single time he saw him (well, the first few seconds of seeing him at least).