Chapter Text
Tom hopes he's managed to get away without a shovel talk following Fitzjames's inconvenient intrusion into their evening out, and unfortunately he's correct. Instead he has to deal with something far worse from his crotchety and highly overprotective boss: fatherly concern. It's not something he's ever had a reason to prepare for before.
The first time the topic comes up, Tom is reminded that working for Francis Crozier is never truly a calm experience.
There are days when there's not much to do except re-organise whatever the grouchy author has managed to fuck up in the few hours Tom hasn't been around to handle him (he's asked his boss not to touch the filing cabinet without supervision… Crozier took this as an explicit instruction to attempt to find a receipt for a taxi from 1999 to settle an argument with his husband at eleven o'clock at night, and Tom nearly had an aneurysm at the mess the following morning), but the man maintains a healthy schedule of speaking engagements, seminars, and various other appointments which need to be attended to alongside the whole writing books thing. He's been working on his memoirs recently, and dredging up memories of his military career has made him less than pleasant to be around. Tom gets it.
He does like being around his boss, generally speaking. Other people might find Crozier self-righteous, abrasive, or belittling at times, and he certainly can be, but Tom's been through enough in his life that he's never taken it all that personally. He's learned that if someone's being an arsehole to you, generally speaking, then it usually means they're upset about something else (or are just a prick, there's always that possibility). He'd been pretty much the tea boy at the publishing house which handled the Captain Rawdon books when Crozier first rudely demanded something from him - a photocopy, maybe? He can't remember now - and had turned a ruddy purple at being met with Of course, sir. And what did your last servant die of? before letting out an ugly snort of laughter at the deceptively polite sarcasm from the young man.
He'd confronted Tom about his clearly fake CV a few days later, after doing some pointed snooping which said he wasn't used to people talking back to him. Tom had shrugged and just asked him if he meant to do anything about it, because he could make coffee for wealthy wankers just about anywhere (at that point he was still making minimum wage, and he'd prefer to be doing it in an office rather than a supermarket, but someone had to be bringing money in at home so it didn't really matter either way). Crozier had snorted that same, half-cut laugh and asked him if he'd ever considered trying his hand at being a PA. It had been a total shot in the dark based on the fact Tom wasn't intimidated by The Francis Crozier - he hadn't known who he was beyond vaguely recognising the name, in truth, and still hasn't read any of the Rawdon series - but it had turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to either of them.
So when Crozier sidles into the office on a dreary Wednesday and pretends he's looking for something on the bookshelf, in a way which might appear subtle to anyone else, Tom's immediately on alert. He's been finalising the man's schedule for the next month all morning (building in breaks that Crozier would protest at if he knew they existed and making sure to pencil in time with Blanky - Crozier's best mate from the bad old days - and his home-grown cannabis strains to vent some stress), and tries to maintain his concentration as he checks the draft deadline dates with the editor for an unnecessary third time. If Crozier's skulking about like an unsubtle ginger tomcat in his own home, then he must be up to-
"So, Thomas." Crozier's tone is self-consciously casual, and his glasses are perched precariously at the end of his nose as he peers at a battered copy of The Big Sleep. When Tom glances at him out of the corner of his eye, the book is upside down. Shit. "How are things?"
Oh, bollocks. He knew nothing good would come from Fitzjames running into them at Erebus.
"Fine, thank you sir." He keeps his eyes on the screen and tries to figure out his next move in order to escape whatever awkward hell this conversation is bound to devolve into. Crozier never asks how he is, not directly. It makes them both deeply uncomfortable to have their emotions enquired after. Fitzjames must have put him up to this. "Blanky called and asked if you'd be amenable to watching the grandchildren on Saturday afternoon. He and Esther are going to a… relationship workshop."
He really didn't need to know details about the shibari event the Blankys will be attending in lieu of spending wholesome family time with their eldest's twins, but then Thomas is never skimpy on the details. Sometimes Tom wishes he'd worked out how to take out shares in brain bleach as a younger man - he'd be rolling in it by now, and could retire to a tropical island where the only geriatric sex he had to deal with would eventually be his own.
"Christ, will those two ever stop finding inventive ways to string each other up? They're still at it like bloody teenagers," Crozier mutters to himself, and Tom forgets that he's working on a distraction for a second as he bites the inside of his cheek in an effort not to laugh. "Tell him that'll be fine, I'm sure James will be delighted to play the doting grandmother to someone who appreciates having their hair put in pigtails."
Neptune had very much not appreciated the ear ribbons, when they'd been attempted. Tom has to admit they were quite cute for the first thirty seconds, but getting covered in mud while chasing the dog around the rainy garden as he zoomed about trying to get them off without the necessary thumbs hadn't been worth the momentary aesthetics. Fitzjames disagreed, of course, though thankfully didn't attempt it again.
"Now, though, really. How are things?" Crozier apparently refuses to be distracted, for once, and Tom tries to control his flinch as his boss lowers himself down carefully into the chair beside him, wary of arthritic knees. He never used to flinch at anything, and now he has to work to contain the involuntary reactions that have started slipping out since he began unpacking the shit he's spent a lifetime repressing. Fucking therapy. "At home, I mean."
"They're fine, Mr Crozier." He's not sure why they wouldn't be, he's fairly sure he's given no indication that there's anything wrong - aside from finally beginning to deal with the fallout of everything that used to be wrong. "Like I told you, I've given back the keys to my old flatshare and I'm at Edward's full time now. Much nicer than never seeing anyone at home 'cos they're all on swing shifts."
"So you're doing alright, being with someone all the time?" Crozier takes his glasses off just to fiddle with them, and Tom mentally pencils an opticians appointment into the schedule because he'll probably bend the thin wire frames out of useful wear altogether before too long… just like the last three pairs. "Only, I know you're a solitary sort and it's a big adjustment to-"
"Was it a big adjustment for you, Mr Crozier?" Tom finally gives up on pretending to type and looks at his boss sideways, wrists still resting on the desk like he's ready to start working again at a moment's notice (in the way Ed makes concerned, carpal tunnel flavoured noises about. How strange to have someone care about something as inconsequential as his typing comfort). It wouldn't do to let on how antsy this conversation has him feeling, nerves creeping up his neck and leaving his skin just that little bit too tight. "Because I recall us having this discussion before Edward and I moved in together, and you had glowing things to say about sharing a house with a partner then."
"Yes. Well. James does tend to direct a conversation with his very presence," Crozier rubs a stubby finger across the bridge of his nose, as if to deflect an oncoming headache. He gives off the distinct impression that he's not enjoying this conversation any more than Tom is, so Tom doesn't see why he's forcing either of them through it. "Yes, it was an adjustment. I know you're not hiding bottles in your sock drawer like I was, but it's still a challenge to go from being a free agent to being… observed."
Tom does understand that part, now Crozier puts it so plainly. He doesn't feel like he has anything to hide from Ed, necessarily, but he used to be able to go home and crawl into the single bed in his tiny room and just dissociate if he wanted to leave the world behind for a while (look at him, mentally using the correct words without chastising himself, Dr Peddie would be proud). Now he gets a concerned look from his boyfriend if he gets home and immediately disappears from behind his eyes - gets a hot cup of tea pressed into his hands and some rubbish cooking show popped on the telly and not… bothered, but not left to vegetate outside his head like a useless lump of traumatised flesh (and the t-word too, he'll have to make a note in his stupid workbook. Maybe he'll get a fucking sticker). Ed doesn't make him do anything, but he doesn't let him sink into nothingness for entire evenings the way he used to if he was stressed either. And Tom doesn't want to - not like before, at least.
It's… better? Objectively he knows that. Subjectively, it's just different. He imagines Francis not losing entire nights to the bottle with James around must have felt much the same way.
"I think it's… it's better than being on my own." He tries not to phrase it like a question, because much as Crozier is a grumpy bastard who's happy to harangue Tom for other people's mistakes because he knows he can take it, he's also the closest thing to a father Tom's ever had, and with that comes obligation. The urge not to disappoint him comes into being fully formed, birthed from the crease between the man's sandy brows… and is just as quickly chased away by the relief of his phone starting to buzz. "That's the publisher, if you'll excuse me."
He can feel Crozier stare at him for a few moments too long after he answers the call, before the old man heaves himself up and exits the office once more. 'Leaving him in peace' would be a strong way of putting it.
Tom's snippy with Edward all evening, sparking their first argument since he moved in, and can't even begin to explain that it's because he's seized with a bone-deep, instinctual fear that he's upset his boss and will somehow end up on his bad side because of it - irrationally (or so people tell him) afraid of being instantly and permanently rejected for putting a foot wrong. And then Ed gets annoyed, his lips setting into that tight line that Tom calls prissy in his head but bites back for fear of upsetting him. And then Tom starts mentally planning where he'll go if he's out on his ear with both of them that night, figuring Hartnell's floor is probably available if…
And then nothing happens. His boyfriend goes to take a shower and comes back calmed down, like he hasn't been ruminating on what a useless person Tom is the entire time. Ed gets a weird, soft look on his face when Tom tries to subtly (or so he thinks) clarify if he's really fucked up by showing a feeling or if they're okay, and gets pulled into an expressive bear hug for his trouble. Work is back to normal the following day too, without a hint that Crozier's even thought about being angry with him since they last saw each other. It takes all day for his pulse to climb down and his startle response to unexpected noises to return to normal.
After a lifetime of waiting for the rug to be pulled from beneath his barely stable feet, the idea that nobody's waiting to yank it away isn't as comforting a notion as it could be. But it is comforting, in its way.
The second time Crozier decides to broach the subject of Tom's relationship, he's trapped without an escape. They're driving to Oxford for Crozier to deliver a lecture about his take on nautical narratives and cannibalism (Tom wasn't aware people got eaten in the Rawdon series… perhaps he should actually read them one day), and Tom's at the wheel for numerous reasons. Ostensibly it's because his boss's hands get locked up with the arthritis these days, and Tom tries to keep his driving abilities reasonably fresh despite never owning a car, but in reality neither of them want to deal with the level of road rage any trip longer than twenty minutes inspires in the perpetually seething author. That, and Tom's now willing to admit he's a control freak and that it makes him feel better to be in charge of a situation where someone might get angry. Even if they are stuck in a traffic jam that he's got no sway over.
"Shall we play 'I spy'?" He suggests drily, when Crozier starts huffing and puffing in the passenger seat after they haven't moved for a while. Not a shred of patience in the man, though he'd protest that his famed military experience proves otherwise. His boss just grunts in response. "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with ba-"
"If you finish that with 'bastard', you're going in the boot," Crozier grouses, inspiring a hiccup of laughter that Tom didn't expect to hear from himself. They're silent for a few more moments before Crozier stretches his bad hip enough that it clicks loudly and inspires him to settle again. "Thank god we didn't bring that beast with us."
"Not sure he'd handle all the hanging around any better than his owner." That inspires another grunt from Crozier - one of his less irritable grunts - and he starts digging around in Tom's satchel in the footwell in front of him for something without so much as a by your leave. "We took Collins out of the city for a run around last weekend. Thought a car ride might be easier than the train, but he just cowered in the back seat the whole time, poor thing."
The dog had eventually been soothed by them pulling over so Ed could sit in the back with him, immediately depositing all its furry bulk directly into his lap as though that didn't obscure him entirely from view. Tom snapped a picture before they got back on the road, adding it to his file of things to cheer him up whenever he starts feeling rootless. It's one of the few bits of his therapy that he'll truly put his confidence in, so far, as scrolling through some silly shots of his friends and boyfriend and the occasional snap of David from uni (he's acquired another girlfriend - apparently trying to net enough women to fill both their cosmic quotas) does help ground him if things start getting a bit far away and foggy.
Therapy's still bullshit, Tom reckons, but there are some good ideas in amongst all the stuff that makes his skin crawl.
"Should bring him round sometime, let some of Neptune's energy rub off on him. Blended families, and such." Crozier emerges from his rummage with a packet of polos, tearing the paper and foil off in a long strip in a way that mildly infuriates Tom before popping one in his mouth. He offers the packet over and then drops it back in the satchel with paper still attached, which is why - Tom tells himself - he's so irritated by the next question. "I suppose he's your dog now, after all. Or are step-dogs a thing for young people?"
"If this is you trying to subtly wind your way towards asking me about Ned and marriage and children, I'd much rather you didn't." That inspires a disbelieving tsk - as if to say I would never - and Tom rolls his eyes and hopes the slightly desperate edge to it doesn't show. As if he can't read the conversational map Crozier telegraphs from a bloody mile away by now. "We all know some bloodlines don't need continuing."
God knows he would've had the snip years ago if he hadn't been gay as a maypole since he first encountered the concept of attraction (he'd been very confused by the concept of kissing girls on the playground at all, let alone the various fictional diseases one might encounter from doing so). He doesn't know his dad, obviously, but his mum's side are riddled with what Dr Peddie would call 'generational trauma' in a way he desperately doesn't want to continue. He and Ed haven't exactly discussed kids, not explicitly, but it's come up while talking about other things and he's fairly confident they're on the same page about the whole concept of family.
They need to deal with this, the giant stack of razor sharp puzzle pieces on their plate, before even considering adding any potential explosives into the mix. Having David down for Christmas will be a test soon enough, since for all his posturing about being a proper grown-up, the kid still requires a lot more parenting than Tom's sure his boyfriend is prepared to witness. Happy fucking families.
"So you have thought about it, then." Much like his hirsute mountain of a dog, Crozier refuses to drop something even when it's heavily implied that he should. He seems to take his assistant's decided non-answer as permission to plough on. "I hope that boy's not jumping all sorts of guns with-"
"Nobody is jumping any guns," Tom snaps, fingers twitching as he barely restrains the urge to lay on the horn just to vent some of the itchy feeling skittering around his nerves. He really doesn't want to be having this conversation. Or any adjacent conversation, for that matter. "Except you."
His boss doesn't respond for long enough that Tom takes a breath and collects himself adequately enough to glance over. Crozier is just watching him with his hands laced in his lap, and when they make eye contact he raises his uneven eyebrows as if to say are you done now? Tom swallows, abashed, and tries not to feel sick as he drops his eyes. Crozier offers him the polos again - when did he reach down and get them? - and this time Tom takes one and lets the menthol-cold air in his mouth bring him back into his body.
"Pardon me for caring." It's soft though, not sarky (well, a bit sarky), and Tom takes his hands off the wheel to crack his knuckles before resting them at ten and two again. Comforting in its correctness. Crozier's voice stays at that same pitch, not contrite for touching a nerve but not pushing a crumbling wall of temper any further. "But things are going well, though? Because if they're not, you know where we are."
"I do." He does. He might have to be really desperate to do something about it, but he does know where they are if he needs them. He doesn't have many navigational tools, so he keeps close inventory of the ones he's got.
"I mean it, Thomas." Again, Crozier pushes. He's talked at Tom - mainly back in his drinking days - about his army days, about pitched battles and pushing on despite unwinnable odds and learning that there's never really a way out but through, no matter the cost. If only he wouldn't apply it to his personal life, though Tom can't find it within himself to be too angry about it right this minute. "The only thing that'll make me cross is if you bottle things up until they're awful again. It doesn't need to come to that."
No - Tom thinks, remembering the scar on his face and his wet eyes buried in Fitzjames's shoulder and the strangeness of waking up in his bosses' house with nowhere else to call home in the world - it doesn't need to come to that ever again.
"I'm not bottling them up, promise. That's why everything's so shit." Poor choice of words, as he sees Crozier's crooked brow quirk out of the corner of his eye. He swallows a sigh and clacks the mint against his teeth, trying to come up with the least amount of words to succinctly explain what he means without inviting further enquiry. "You've done therapy, Mr Crozier."
"Ah, that kind of shit. My sympathies." He nods knowingly, familiar with the distinctly ugly suffering associated with taking out all the charred, battered pieces of person you've been trying to fit inside your skin suit and tesselate them into something more functional. It's a unique sort of purgatory and purgative in so many ways. "You said it was better with him. Is it still better with than without?"
"Much. Much better with." Tom doesn't hesitate to answer but finds that he really means the words as they spill out, and has to check he's not dreaming for a moment. Wintry sun near-blinding him off the too-clean roof of the car in front (one of his mum's friends used to take them through the car wash, which delighted David and managed to enthuse even a Tom who'd started to go inside himself by that age, and he now that he thinks about it she might have been a social worker, but that's a memory to take out of the box another time), the battered and butterfly-printed child's bike strapped to the back of the SUV to their left, duct tape on the back windscreen of the sedan on the right… It's all real here, and he's being honest. "Once I realised he doesn't know how to act like a real person either, it was easier to just… not be normal in front of him. It's nice to not be normal with someone."
He goes still when he realises what he's said, what he's just blurted out to Crozier of all people, but after a moment's pause his boss just barks a short laugh. His laugh is different since he got sober - drier and more measured, but the same rough, sardonic sound that Tom first heard upon being busy and rude when they first met. Comforting in its correctness when clearly meant with him, not at him.
"Sometimes I worry about how much you remind me of me as a young man." He shakes his head and then pats Tom on the arm, the sort of sideways affection he's always seen from good fathers in films or on TV. "James and I are aliens from the same planet, too."
The traffic starts moving, thank god, and gives them both a way out of the conversation before things can become any more unbearably intimate. Crozier begins conspicuously fiddling with the radio in order to goad Tom into exasperatedly explaining Spotify and bluetooth connectivity yet again, and that lets the air out of the balloon compressing his heart until he's back at equilibrium. He gets Crozier to the lecture in time - five minutes to spare, even, a personal record for them - and then takes the opportunity to sit on a wall outside the building and breathe for a little while. He hasn't left his body, not quite, and that's an achievement in and of itself as he tries to wrap his mind around the conversation.
They talked about Ed. They talked about Tom not being fine. They talked about marriage and kids. And everything was okay. No meteor or smiting god reached down from on high to squash him for being so disastrously out of control as to share a feeling, and Crozier even shared one back, Tom's pretty sure. If he remembers correctly. Bloody hell.
He scrolls through his cheer up folder until it's time for the lecture to finish, and stretches to snapping a selfie with the old college building in the background to show Ed what he's up to. His boyfriend replies with a picture of his own - two thirds of his face and a wide grin in the bottom corner, Dundy and Tozer having what appears to be a slap fight over a spilled pint behind him - and that goes directly into the folder too. Maybe they don't have to be real people, any of them, as long as they've got their unreal little family worked out for the time being.
Crozier snores in the car all the way back from Oxford. Tom tucks his jacket over him when they're stuck in traffic again (because he'll only complain if his joints get stiff with the cold) and watches the old man's face for a moment under the liminal pallor of the streetlights. He doesn't think Francis would've been a good dad - to literally anyone - but he's a pretty decent curmudgeon of a substitute, all told. Not that Tom would tell him that. Maybe they do a mug with something similar on it for Father's Day… Fitzjames would have a field day with that.
The third and final time Crozier broaches the subject of his relationship, it's not even to Tom.
He's got two weeks off at Christmas - Crozier and Fitzjames insisted, given that they're well aware they'll be bothering him at random times over the break anyway - and he's wrapping up his final day 'in office' before the holiday. There are no more speaking engagements until the new year, the publisher's happy with the autobiography manuscript, and he only got a contact high from one of Blanky's therapeutic visits once during the process. Tom's shut down the overheated computer, left a very clear list of instructions on the desk about where everything from spare spectacles to the iPad charger is located, and is finishing up by giving the fridge a final clear-out before they get their big festive shop delivered in a few days. He's disposing of some leftover pasta of questionable validity when the doorbell goes, and he hears Crozier-shaped noises heading towards it alongside the shuffle of his slippers.
The next thing he hears are Ed-shaped noises, and he drops the tupperware in the bin and all but sprints to the front door.
"-hope you don't mind, just didn't want to miss the-" He's wearing that greatcoat that makes him look about twice as broad as usual and has a wide, navy blue scarf wound thickly around his neck, and his face lights up with a nervy smile when Tom appears. The paltry wisps of snow haven't stopped from earlier, apparently, and he looks far too handsome with a few flecks stuck in his hair. On Tom's bosses' doorstep, the bastard. "Oh, hi!"
"Hey." Tom hopes his eyes are conveying murder despite the smile, because Crozier already looks far too amused by this situation. "What are you doing here?"
"I texted to see if you'd be done by the time it's our slot at the ice rink, but you didn't answer and since it's your last day I thought I'd…" he hesitates momentarily as the murder registers. Tom smiles like a flick-knife. "...pick you up. Sorry, if you're still busy I'll-"
"He should've been done ages ago, but you know what he's like. You'll come in for a cup of tea." Crozier cuts him off in that tone that Tom's become used to - that particular Irish inflection which says he's asking a question he already knows the answer to - and disappears back into the house. Ed hesitates on the doorstep for a moment before Tom takes pity and reluctantly inclines his head, inviting his boyfriend inside and shutting the door behind him.
Ed deposits himself awkwardly at the kitchen island while the pair of them bicker briefly over the kettle, watching the back and forth as Tom tries to take over and Crozier complains about how his arthritic fingers don't mean he's totally useless, thank you. Tom's about to get himself in a properly fizzy flap about Ed being here in the wrong place (oh god, is work his safe place? That's definitely one for the therapist to unpick) before Crozier asks him if he'd mind - before he goes off for the break - hunting out a particular book of ghost stories he likes to avail himself of every winter.
It's an excuse. It's a transparent fucking excuse. Tom glares at him as his cogs whirr, for a moment that feels like minutes as he tries to figure out a way around it, but Crozier simply looks back blankly (with a bit of a smile around his eyes, no less, prick) until Tom all but throws his hands up and stomps off to find out where the hell M.R. James has got to. He might have to take a second once outside the kitchen to eavesdrop, just to make sure Crozier's not going to instantly start traumatising the love of his life (and to let his racing mind slow down with the assurance that he's not leaving Ed to certain disaster, or opening himself up to some sort of awful humiliation), but still.
"Little, isn't it?" The click of the kettle switch, clink of mugs. "You remind me of a Little I worked with, a long time ago now."
"That'll be Charles, my father. He's in publishing." Ed sounds calm, at least. He must've known what he might be walking into here, after Tom sort of told him about the Oxford trip and had - he's fairly certain - already specified that he'd probably be too late for ice skating tonight. Perhaps this is his boyfriend heading things off at the pass, rather than waiting for the hammer to fall.
"That's the one. Unrepentant bastard, he was." Crozier mutters, and Tom knows that's his 'trying to be quiet' voice… which increasingly fails its purpose miserably as his hearing goes. Ed snorts. "Pardon my French."
"No, you're quite right." He agrees, audibly amused. "He's a massive cunt."
Somewhat reassured that they're not going to be at each other's throats by the time he gets back, Tom hurries off on his bullshit mission. The living room is only dimly lit - Crozier refuses to turn on more than a reading lamp when his husband is out, and it's only a tiny example of why Tom worries about the old man and all but stays over when Fitzjames is filming something on location - but it doesn't take him long to hunt down the short story anthology on the giant, built-in bookshelves which line the room. Crozier wasn't lying about the fact that he reads it every Christmas, and when he'd been convalescing pre-and-post rehab and too miserable to concentrate on anything much, Tom had read a couple of tales aloud in an effort to cheer him up. He's still not sure if it did much to help, but he remembers the worn spine beneath his fingers beside the sick bed as he retrieves it from the shelf now, and heads back to the kitchen in no small hurry.
What he hears on his approach, though, has him lingering in the shadows of the hallway for another moment. Just a brief one. Satisfaction brought back the curious cat, after all.
"Look now, I'm not one for theatrics." There's the metallic rustle of the biscuit tin above the low tones, and Tom knows from experience that this is a sentence being delivered either with very pointed eye contact or without any at all. "And I'm not our Tom's blood. But if you hurt that boy-"
"You're welcome to murder me." Ed cuts him off before he can finish the threat, stunning Tom where he stands like a physical blow. His feet are rooted to the floorboards, all of a sudden - nailed down and weighty as lead where he usually feels like he's one gust of wind from being blown away. He's present, whether he likes it or not. "Because if I manage to do that, then I'll deserve it."
"He's been through enough." It makes Tom's eyes sting all in a rush, the calm certainty of that sentence, of Crozier's voice as he says it. No frills, no drama, it's a statement of fact. He's been through enough.
"And I don't want to put him through any more." It's an equally factual statement. Softer and less certain, couched in the caveat of want and intention, but isn't that the best they can hope for? The best they can offer each other - to want to make the world hurt less if they can? "I'm glad he's got you, just in case I do. Wouldn't even ask you to make it quick."
"They'd never find your body, son." Thank god it's amused now - charmed, even. And Tom hears what he thinks is the clink of mugs once more.
He feels like he's stepped sideways into another dimension - just like his own, but for a whisper of difference somewhere he can't see. A butterfly flapping in the Amazon, a few more attentive teachers growing up, a brain wired just differently enough for him to be a proper person. A real person who's boyfriend and boss-slash-father figure can have a chat without him breaking into a cold sweat about not being in the room to manage it. A real person who can overhear an exaggerated threat between the pair and not panic that it hides some implied animosity he's missed. A real person who isn't about to fly away from himself at the suggestion of disaster. A real person who…
He's not doing any of those things. Is he a real person, now?
"Ah, Jopson!" Crozier shows the gap in his teeth when he grins upon his assistant's return, and Ed smiles with a mouthful of hobnob distorting his face. The scene is warm and inviting, and Tom takes the seat beside his boyfriend without dithering about whether there's more left to do before he can rest. "There's that bastard book. Can't sleep without my ghosts, you know."
"I'm sure they're equally haunted by you, sir." Ed chokes on his biscuit at the pointed mildness of the comment, and Tom pats him on the back with what he can feel is a funny little smile on his face. Something crooked and unsure, probably, but just as real as he is. "Where's my tea, then?"
Crozier shakes his head and fetches down another mug, and Tom lets himself be taken care of for a minute. Just because he can.