Work Text:
"Why exactly do they call it bareknuckle fighting if your knuckles aren't actually bare when you fight?" Simon asks.
Tom laughs, then he curses, then he laughs again, his eyes crinkling at the corners as Simon dabs his hands with antiseptic. He's just taken the wraps off, the long white strips like hospital bandages that Tom binds his wrists and knuckles with before a fight. They usually come off bloody when he's done, though it's usually someone else's blood and not his own; his hands are usually bruised underneath them, yes, but tonight his left hand has bled straight through the linen. And like he has for the past few months, he lets Simon treat the injury.
Tom lives in a room above a pub that's only free from dust because the publican's wife is both house-proud and fond of him in a rather matronly manner. Simon has met her once or twice, on the back stairs that lead down into the alley, past the kitchen door and bypassing the pub. She's mostly polite but it's clear she disapproves and Simon can't say that he doesn't understand why: Tom's the nearest thing she has to a son, after all, and he's moderately certain that she only tolerates his presence because she knows he patches him up after his fights. The look she gave him tonight as she passed him the water jug through Tom's open door said she'd rather he be elsewhere, but she'll turn a blind eye if he just makes him right.
"I'd say it's got something to do with us not wearing gloves," Tom replies, the sardonic tone ruined entirely by his bright smile, then he hisses as Simon dabs ointment on his knuckle. He asked him once how he could fight all night more or less bare-handed without a word of complaint and then do nothing but gripe at basic medical care, but he just shrugged and said it was a different kind of pain. "I've seen how your sort does it, you know, all padded up so you don't make a mess of your pretty faces. It doesn't seem all that sporting."
Simon's gaze flicks up from Tom's hand to meet his eyes. "Do you want to fight me, Tom?" he says, and for once Tom's face turns serious. He frowns.
"No," he says. "No, I don't." He leans forward; he's sitting on the edge of his bed and Simon's on the chair that he's pulled over from the rather weathered table and the height's not right so when he rests his forehead against Simon's, he has to lean up to do it. In the end, it's easier for him to stand himself up and then straddle Simon's lap, though the chair creaks ominously beneath their combined weight; Simon might be slim but he's also quite unreasonably tall, and Tom...well, Tom is not a small man, either. He's six feet of muscle over bone under bruises that Simon tries hard not to touch except lightly, with his mouth or with his fingertips, though sometimes he doesn't quite succeed in lightness. Sometimes, Tom seems to like that.
"You know what I want," Tom says, by his ear. He slips his unbloodied hand to the back of Simon's neck, resting at his collar, and his fingertips at his nape make him shiver. Then he turns his head, and the stubble at his jaw rasps against Simon's clean-shaven cheek and Simon wraps his arms around his waist.
He does know what Tom wants. He's known for some time, because it's never been a secret, and the assumption is that it's something he can never have. Something they can never have.
But he thinks tonight he might give it to him.
---
The first time they met wasn't the first time he saw him fight.
He'd actually been coming to the fights for weeks by then, since the day one of the other members at his club invited him along. They'd been fencing for the best part of an hour by that point, both of them rather sweaty and dishevelled though most of the other members would have been ashamed to be seen in such a state, and evidently the good-natured competition of it spurred his partner on to make an invitation. Perhaps the fact that Simon fought with such vigour was the inspiration, or just that the fellow - new as he was to the club - was in the market for acquaintances a little higher on the social ladder than he was himself. Simon didn't care what the reason was, frankly - he might have been rich, relatively speaking, but that didn't mean he wasn't often bored. He might have been rich, but he understood that didn't mean he could do precisely as he pleased. Rather the opposite, in fact.
The fellow's name was Hennessy, and he and his father and his younger brothers had been making a name for themselves in the ownership and operation of a fleet of omnibuses. Simon had met the elder Hennessy, as it happened, and had made a small investment in his company, which had provided the son with an opening for conversation at the club. And, once they were done with their summer afternoon's swordplay and were making their way out of the hall to change, Hennessy mentioned the fights.
"I'm sure it's less the gentlemanly thing that you're accustomed to, my lord," he said, "but it's a fine evening's diversion, if you'd care to come along."
"I'd be glad to, Mr. Hennessy," he told him, as he gave his greying hair a little towelling, perhaps because he felt it might be somewhat rude to turn him down when he had no other fixed engagement. His younger brother was in town and had taken up his customary room in the family house, but he could be steadfastly relied upon to spend his evening talking politics at his own club with his own acquaintances and so that did not require Simon's presence. Avery might have been eight years his junior, but Simon had often wished their ages were reversed; his younger brother would have made as fine a Baron Westbrook as he himself did not. As it was, Simon remained unmarried at forty-two years old, had every last intention of remaining so, and Avery or else his eldest son would take the family estate on Simon's death. Honestly, Simon couldn't say he minded that thought; after all, if not for their elder brother's untimely death, he never would have borne the title at all. He would have very much preferred not to.
Simon and Hennessy exchanged cards, Hennessy joked that he might arrive to pick him up in one of the family omnibuses, and then they parted ways until the evening. And, when the evening came, Hennessy arrived in a neat little carriage and swept him away into Southwark. Simon found he would have quite liked to have ridden the omnibus, but he supposed he shouldn't say so.
"You've never been anywhere like this, I'll wager," Hennessy said, with a look on his face halfway between amusement and anxiety, much like he was questioning the sense of his invitation. Simon just inclined his head, not quite an answer, as what Hennessy had said really wasn't quite a question and that meant he needn't lie or otherwise explain himself. He had, in point of fact, been to places like that, though he preferred to keep his memories from straying to them now that his life was so very different.
It was a sort of club that he took him to, he supposes, though not the sort he himself frequented. The carriage stopped and Hennessy led him down an alleyway between two quite sad-looking shops, into a courtyard garden that could have used at least a little tending to, and down a shallow flight of stairs to a rather solid-looking basement door. The burly doorman seemed to know Hennessy; he nodded and he let them pass, once he'd given Simon a rather thorough eyeing, though he couldn't have said if that was more because he was a stranger, rather taller than most, or dressed as if he might have cash on hand enough to purchase the establishment outright.
More stairs led down, and he could hear the voices already once they were past the door - he heard jeering, and cheering, encouragement or otherwise, and the bookmaker arguing with an unhappy customer while the current fight was fought. The place smelled of sweat and beer, pipe smoke, and something not unlike the rather pleasant stew produced by the kitchens of the hospital at which he had been formerly employed, before inheritance had ever tumbled awkwardly upon him. And Hennessy gave him a nervous look, as if at any moment he might violently disapprove, then led him deeper in.
The first fight was on the cusp of ending when they took their places at a safe distance from the ring. It was a raised ring, all the better for the viewing of the club's many spectators, and large though more or less appropriate for a boxing match. Neither of the men inside the ring were particularly impressive, though, seeming more to toy with one another than to take the risks required to win, and Simon wondered if he had indeed made an error in joining his new acquaintance there. Not because he disapproved of the activity but because he'd fought more interesting bouts himself back at his club in his padded gloves than the two fighters were displaying.
The fight drew to its seemingly interminable end and the fighters made their exit. Simon was contemplating telling Hennessy that he had to leave, and if pressed he would have told him why that was rather than making up a story. But then new fighters entered, and the bookmaker's book reopened as the two men stretched before their bout. Simon paused his deliberations in order to watch them: one was tall, almost as tall as he was himself, with his head shaved bare and arms roughly the size of the hundred-year-old oaks on the Westbrook family estate, and the other...well. He was quite different.
The second man had dirty blonde hair that fell into his eyes and a smile on his face that lacked any trace of arrogance; Simon had assumed that was a trait these men must necessarily share, and found he was wrong. His physique was muscular, his face and neck and forearms tanned up to the lines where his shirt must have lain during the day. He was perhaps twenty-five years of age to his opponent's mid-thirties, gave away at least four inches in height and perhaps three or four stone in weight, and by all rights he should have lost that fight, but he did not. When the bell rang, Simon watched him move. He watched the muscles shift in his bare chest and in his bare back, he watched him bob and he watched him swing, with his heart beating hard all the while. The fact was, Simon had always known where his tastes lay. The fact was, he was unsurprised that he found this man attractive. What surprised him was that his attraction hit as hard and as swift as the fighters' fists did, and he could not look away.
He shouldn't have won, just on relative size, but he did win: he swung and his opponent went down to the mat with an almighty thud, and he declined to get back up again. And while some of the other men there cheered, while others jeered and still others swarmed their way back to the bookmaker, Simon turned to Hennessy.
"Who is that?" he asked, with a nod toward the ring that Hennessy's gaze followed.
"That's Tommy Quinn," he replied, with a look of relief that Simon was not, in fact, appalled by where he found himself. "You can always rely on him to put on a good show."
"So he fights here often, then?"
"Every Thursday, regular as clockwork." He leaned a little closer to be sure that he was heard above the crowd. "Should we find a table and I'll fetch a drink? There should be another fight or three to come yet."
Simon nodded. They sat; they drank from tankards of really quite unpleasant beer; they talked a little when they could make themselves heard above the general din. But Simon's eyes were drawn more than once to Tommy Quinn as he made his way around the room. His cheekbone was blooming into a tulip-bright bruise and his knuckles were scraped; his shirt was back on and he barely seemed to cease smiling as he pushed his hair out of his eyes. For a second, now and then, his gaze seemed drawn in Simon's direction, but despite the adolescent stirring in his chest, he was under no illusions that he had in fact been noticed. At least not in the same way that he'd noticed him.
He spent a pleasant enough evening there with Hennessy. They made conversation as best they could over the rather rowdy gathering, talking business and - perhaps too freely - about fights they'd been involved in in their youth. Simon said polite hellos to Hennessy's acquaintances who stopped by the table to say their own and after the fourth fight, after Tommy Quinn had evidently left the club, Simon made his apologies and took a cab back across the city. He arrived home after midnight and he went straight up to bed, but he found himself far too wide awake to sleep. He found himself too disconcerted.
For the first time in some time indeed, once undressed and stretched out underneath his sheets, his hands strayed down between his thighs. For the first time in even longer, there was a particular face he conjured when he closed his eyes and brought himself to climax; it was Tom Quinn with his too-long hair and his brilliant smile. He didn't think they'd ever have a chance to meet and so it would be safe to think of him that way.
He was, of course, quite wrong.
---
They didn't meet that first night, or indeed the next time he attended; he met Hennessy for fencing at the club the following Thursday and another invitation to the fights came up, which Simon accepted quite readily. And yes, the man who had lately been haunting his late-night thoughts was present, but no, they did not meet.
He had hoped that seeing him again might dull the attraction that he felt somewhat, but afterwards he couldn't say that it had worked. Quinn had won his fight that evening, against a similarly gargantuan opponent, with a similar kind of brutal flair, and Simon found to his regret that all it did was exacerbate the situation. The same could have been said of the following Thursday, and the Thursday after that, until he'd attended five consecutive weeks. The face that he saw in the mirror each morning, the face his valet shaved before he dressed and ventured out to face the day, might have been older then than the last time he'd entered into such a folly, but the foolish sentiment he felt was very much the same.
On the sixth such Thursday, in the sixth such week, he told himself he wouldn't go. It was an entirely counterproductive endeavour and he knew that much without a doubt: although he was an exceedingly minor baron, whose fortune came chiefly from previous generations' good investments rather than any work that he'd done personally, he did in fact have several business and charitable interests to oversee that did not allow much time for daydreaming or scandal. He told himself he would not go, that he had resigned himself on his elder brother's death to this awkward life he led, but still he went to the fight club. He took a seat at an empty table. He ordered whisky from the bar and then he sat back, alone, to watch. He understood that he was lost but not yet how lost he would become.
It was that night when they met, once he'd realised that Tommy Quinn would not take to the ring and fight that evening. He found it out from Hennessy, who had arrived there separately from him, for once, and was pleased though somewhat bemused to find him there, and he had just started to consider that he might make his way back home when a man approached his table. He looked up straight at him, and found with a thud of his heart that it was the man he'd been so disappointed that he wouldn't see.
"I've kept seeing you around these last few weeks," Quinn said. His voice was rough - he was a Londoner through and through, it seemed, with a hint of gravel to it that could, Simon supposed, have been the result of injury. He had his right arm tucked up in a sling that Simon couldn't in all good conscience have called particularly well tied, and his eyes seemed to smile almost as much as his mouth was. "I hope you're not disappointed I'm not fighting tonight, Mr...?"
Simon stood, and he watched Quinn's eyes follow him up. He watched the expression on his face change from his usual smile, amused around the edges, to something brighter and perhaps a little surprised, as it dawned upon him exactly how tall Simon actually was. He had, over the years, grown used to such reactions.
"Westbrook," Simon said. "Simon Westbrook." And they both started to hold out their hands to shake on their introduction except it was Quinn's right hand that was in the sling. Quinn laughed and held out his left hand and they shook like that, awkwardly, hands warm and grip tight.
"I thought someone might have introduced us by now, Mr. Westbrook," Quinn said as he stepped in a fraction closer, making himself heard over the noise, but the nearness of him made Simon's chest feel ridiculously tight. He still had Simon's hand in his, and his eyes were a much more vibrant blue at such short distance. "Hennessy's been keeping you all to himself, though. Did he tell you who I am at least?"
"He did, Mr. Quinn," Simon replied, and Quinn positively beamed at him.
"You can call me Tom, Mr. Westbrook," he said, and for a second he worried his bottom lip between his teeth. One canine was crooked, Simon saw, and he had a small scar across his chin, a bruise across one cheekbone that had faded down to yellowish, and his nose had perhaps been broken more than once, but nothing about it ruined the general makeup of him: he was an attractive man. He was blonde-haired and blue-eyed, well-built, confident and full of cheer, and he had Simon's full attention. Frankly, he had for weeks.
Then he cocked his head, his expression turning faintly mischievous. "Can I call you Simon?" he asked.
Simon thought, albeit briefly, about telling him no. He thought, equally briefly, about telling him his name was actually Charles Simon Phillips Westbrook, Lord Westbrook, Baron Westbrook. Instead, he nodded faintly and he told him, quite straightforwardly, "Yes, you can call me Simon." And actually, Quinn - Tom, he supposed - looked faintly surprised by that, as if someone had told him precisely who he was and his response was therefore unexpected, as if his enquiry had been joking and he had anticipated some manner of arrogant response, not this.
"Simon," he said, and he gave Simon's hand one last squeeze before he let it go. "I'll be back fighting again next week, if you're interested." And he shifted his right arm in its sling as if to demonstrate why he wasn't doing so that night. "If you are, I might buy you a drink."
"What happened?" Simon asked, and ignored for the moment the fact that he seemed far better equipped to purchase drinks, if indeed such a thing were in any way advisable. "Was it a fight?"
Tom laughed. "This?" he replied. "I suppose you could say so. I had an argument with a beer keg and as you can see, the keg kicked my arse." He shrugged, and he adjusted the ill-fitted sling that really couldn't have been doing him much good at all, and Simon frowned slightly at it.
"If you'll allow me, I could assist with that," he said. "The sling, that is, not your picking fights with brewers' apparatus." And when Tom gave him a nod, looking somewhat curious though his smile had not dimmed, he stepped a fraction closer. Perhaps it would have been best to move behind him to untie the knot at the back of his neck, but he brought both hands up instead as he stood there before him, rested his forearms on Tom's broad shoulders and untied it from in front as his own cheeks flushed with warmth. He refolded the fabric, making the fact he had some experience in that area quite clear, and then eased Tom's injured arm this way and that until he had the sling fitted snugly with his forearm much more sensibly supported. He squeezed his shoulder, on a whim, and then stepped back again.
"Is that better?" he asked.
"A lot," Tom replied, looking even more curious. "Is this why you come to fights? To help brawlers in need?"
Simon arched his brows. "Not precisely," he said. "But I'm pleased I could tonight."
"Are you going to patch me up the next time one of these blokes hit me?" His smile brightened. "Or the next time I pick a fight with brewers' apparatus?"
"I could, yes."
"You know I'm kidding, right?"
Simon smiled faintly. "I know," he said, "but I could; I'm quite good at it."
"You're a doctor?"
"I was, yes."
"Struck off?"
Simon laughed. "No, I assure you I retired from the profession in excellent standing. I'm afraid another duty called."
"Something more important?"
"Something different, let's say. Unexpected."
Tom nodded, as if perhaps he actually understood. Then he reached up and patted Simon on one shoulder, Tom's left hand to Simon's left shoulder, which meant he had to take a step in closer - almost a little too close - and then reach across his chest.
"Come back next week, Simon," Tom said, his tone suddenly more serious, suddenly lower and closer, and Simon swallowed what he hoped wasn't quite visibly. He was close enough that he could see the faint creases in Tom's lips, the striations in his eyes, the faint shine of stubble at his jaw that he'd have liked to brush his fingertips against. "Maybe have a bet on me, yeah? I usually win."
"Do you ever lose?"
"I've lost once or twice."
"I'd prefer I didn't see that."
Tom smiled, that mischievous look back in his eyes as he squeezed Simon's shoulder once again, warmly, and then stepped back. "Then I'll be sure to win, my lord," he said, and then gave him an exaggerated bow, and a quirk of his brow, and Simon chuckled as he shook his head and watched him walk away.
Tom Quinn knew who he was and he had ventured to tease him despite that. It had been some time since anyone had dared, and Simon couldn't say he hadn't enjoyed it.
Perhaps coming there that night had not been his very best idea. But as he left, quite contrary to prior expectation, he knew without a doubt he would return.
---
True to his word, Tom did win his fight the following week. And afterwards, still standing in the ring, his opponent's blood still staining the wraps at both his hands, he grinned and made another bow in Simon's general direction. Hennessy tried to stifle a laugh, as if it might cause him offence, but Simon just shook his head and smiled, and waited.
It was a few minutes later when Tom reemerged, having stripped the wraps from his hands and donned both shirt and jacket, and perhaps he'd splashed some water here and there. His cheeks were still flushed from the exertion of his not-quite-legal fighting, and his bottom lip was slightly split; he kept dabbing at it with the back of his hand, except it was clear that it had long since stopped bleeding. His knuckles looked bruised, though he tried to hide his hands behind his back or in his pockets when he caught Simon looking. Simon supposed that bruising made sense, given the nature of his occupation, though attempting to hide it made much less sense to him. After all, he could hardly be in any doubt that everyone gathered in that room knew precisely what he'd just done.
"So, can I interest you in that drink I promised?" Tom asked, once Hennessy had disappeared into the crowd to make a bet, and Simon gestured to his half-full glass and flicked the rim to sound a muffled chime. "I'll take that as a no, then," he continued. "Can I interest you in a walk, then? I find it's best to keep moving when I'm done and it's too damned hot in here tonight. Don't you think it's hot in here?"
In point of fact, Simon did think it was hot. He could feel an uncomfortable prickle of sweat at the small of his back and his neck felt sticky underneath his collar, and it was tempting to go with him out into the cooler night air. He could hear his brother's warning tone inside his head, though, counselling some degree of caution: what if Tom Quinn fancied himself a mugger, or a thief, or maybe something worse than that? What if someone that the family knew saw the two of them together, as unlikely as that event might at that time have seemed? What if, what if, what if, said Avery inside his head. And when he raised his glass again, as if the whisky that still remained inside could excuse him from the trip outdoors, Tom just swiped the glass from his hand and downed what was left in one quick gulp. He grinned as he put it down, wiped his mouth on the back of one bruised hand and said, "Sorry, did you not mean me to do that?"
Simon shook his head. He tutted, though that did nothing to hide his amused smile, and he stood himself back up from the table.
"I didn't," he said, "but since you have..." He motioned to the stairs. "Lead the way, by all means."
They went up the stairs to the club's guarded door and went out into the courtyard. They left the courtyard and its drunks and its half-hidden couples' half-hidden amorous displays and went out into the street. Perhaps Tom was a good six inches shorter than him but he kept good pace and they walked together, side by side, past the row of long-closed shops. He caught glimpses of them in the glass frontages here and there: Simon himself was tall and broad-shouldered though slim through the waist, older, and gaunter, with greying black hair instead of blonde. He'd always had a kind of elegance about him, people said, since he'd been a boy, and he supposed he understood then a fraction of what it was they meant, as he walked beside him. Tom's steps were heavy and blunt where his own seemed to flow, though he couldn't see how that mattered at all. Not when he had to fight the urge to stop him, to seize him by the arms and kiss him on the mouth, in front of all the passing carriages. It had been some time, perhaps more than twenty years, since he had allowed himself to feel that way, and frankly he was unsure why he did.
Tom led him to the river, past the hospital where he'd once worked, in simpler times that had at the same time seemed so much more important. He spoke about it briefly, before he could quite keep himself from doing so, about the fact he'd been engaged in surgery when a family man had come to bring the news of his elder brother's death. Tom spoke about going there once, to have his broken arm set, and Simon wondered if perhaps in some other life they might have met some years ago instead instead of now. He wished they had, and then again he wished they'd never met at all.
Tom led him to the river. There were three drunk men singing half-familiar songs in mismatched keys while they passed a bottle hand to hand, and he suspected the women whose gazes he made an effort to studiously avoid were selling something more than flowers, but Tom seemed perfectly at ease. He leaned down, his thick forearms to the railing that overlooked the Thames. Then he turned his head to look up at him by gaslight.
"Why did you come with me tonight?" he asked, and the light on his face seemed to make him perfect in that moment, bruises and split lip and all. He looked young to him then, younger than he ever had before, perhaps because for once he wasn't teasing, perhaps because for once he wasn't smiling, and Simon thought he should consider an excuse - any excuse - to leave him there before this took an awkward turn. But he made no excuses, because they were not more in his nature then than they are now. He just settled his hands on the handrail, squeezed tighter than was warranted, and looked out over the water.
"I came because you asked me to," he replied.
"What if I asked you to do something else? Would you do that, too?"
"That would very much depend on what you asked, I think."
"If I asked you to come back next week."
"I think that we both know I'll do that if you ask me to or not."
"If I asked you to take me home, then."
"I'm sure we could find you a cab somewhere nearby."
"If I asked you to come with me."
"I would have to ask why."
"You know why."
He stood up straight. He stepped in close. He lifted one hand, and he squeezed Simon's shoulder, and all that Simon could do was tilt his head to watch him do it while his heart throbbed hotly in his chest.
"You've come to watch me fight for seven weeks now," Tom said. "I'm really not that good."
"You're very good."
Tom's mouth twisted. "I'm good for third on the bill on a Thursday night," he said. "Don't get me wrong; I like the attention. But I don't think it's my fists you're admiring." He smiled wryly, quite unlike his usual smile. He let the pad of his thumb skim the bare skin above Simon's collar, and his heart seized in his chest like a knot.
"Am I wrong about that?" Tom asked him.
"No, you're not," he replied. Because he had never been a liar, no matter what else he might have been over the years. In one respect, he could always live up to expectations.
"So come with me."
He did.
---
That night, he went back to Tom's room, but he didn't stay. They had a drink of cheap whisky while sitting at the table near the window by the light of a flickering lamp, telling stories neither man paid much attention to, and when Tom kissed his mouth, he tasted of that whisky. With his fingers twined in Tom's blonde hair, Simon found it difficult to think there might be any better taste in all the world. But still, after that first drink was done, he tore himself away.
The following week, he came back. Tom's wrist was stiff from an awkward punch and so Simon bandaged it for him, Tom's shirt off so it wouldn't get in the way, or at least that was the excuse Tom made for it. When he was done, he touched him, slowly; his fingertips brushed the margins of his bruises, over his chest, his arms, his ribs. He pressed his mouth to his collarbone, his pulse racing, his hands very nearly trembling. Then Tom moved, hopped up onto the table and pulled him in close by his jacket's lapels.
"Stay the night," he said. "Who's going to miss you, the butler?" And Simon chuckled, and he kissed him, pressed their mouths together fleetingly. He couldn't say he wasn't tempted, even if Tom's bed was very much not meant for two, or even meant for someone quite his height. But he went home, and he changed out of his rumpled suit, and he came with his cock in his own hand instead of, as he considered might have been, in Tom's.
The following week, he went back again, and then again the week after that. Tom fought almost every Thursday, except when he was injured; when he was, they watched a fight or two from some peripheral table and then left together, went back to his room above the raucous pub together, and Simon stripped him of his shirt to check his injuries while they talked of this and that. Tom was only too happy to let him.
Weeks passed that way, in stolen touches and bright conversation, though Simon knew he shouldn't let them. Months passed that way, though each morning he ignored another letter, ignored telegrams, reminding him of his responsibilities. He should have long ago returned to Westbrook, to the family estate and his late brother's widow, his younger brother and his wife and sons. His excuses, he knew, were wearing thin, and it was not in his nature to conceal it; he told Tom that one day quite soon he would have to leave, and he would not return for several months. And once those months had passed, it might be that he could not return to Southwark. The responsibilities of his rank lay quite elsewhere, though Tom made it clear he would prefer that he eschew them. If he'd asked him to, he wondered if he might have, and he's not sure he wouldn't.
He remembers coming to Tom's room in the daytime, just once, in his own carriage with his old doctor's bag, and in the daylight in his room with dust motes dancing in the light, Tom took off his clothes. He didn't stop at his shirt and Simon didn't make him stop, although he knew he should.
"Do I look different in sunlight?" Tom asked him, naked, his bruised hands at his hips. And perhaps he did, at least a little - the sun caught at his hair and the stubble at his jaw and made it golden, and every little blemish that he had was plain to see. There were scars here and there, the origins of which he would have liked to ask about, and later did. There were bruises from the fights that he already knew about, because he'd seen them happen.
"Do I?" Simon asked, instead of replying, as his chest seemed to clench. Then he took off his jacket. Then he took off his shirt. And the bright smile that Tom gave him in that moment outweighed every second of anxiety he felt.
"Aren't I too old for you?" he asked with a wry smile, when Tom came to him across the room.
Tom laughed as he reached up high to muss his hair. "Aren't I too young for you?" he replied. "Aren't I too poor? Too knocked about?" He raised his brows. "Come to bed and I'll show you too old." And so he let him show exactly that, or else the fact it didn't matter.
Tom's fingers were calloused and not just from the fighting; Simon knew he'd done all kinds of work over the years, because he'd told him. His fingers were calloused but as he ran them over Simon's skin, bared of his clothes, he couldn't have cared less about that fact; he cared only that they made him shiver, cared only that they pressed his thighs apart and stroked his cock and seemed to know precisely what to do. There was no seem, of course - Tom had not minded telling tales of other men he'd had before, and Simon hadn't minded hearing, but this new memory they ventured forth into together.
There was a small glass jar of something slick sitting inside Simon's medical bag, and at some point he made Tom let him stand, and he rummaged through the bag to find it. Tom smiled at him from the bed, his head leaning on one hand and the other wrapped around his flushed erection. And Simon knew he shouldn't. He knew that he should put his clothes back on and leave that place because for the first time in years he'd made a petty excuse to escape from a meeting just so that he could go there. But he slicked Tom's cock with one trembling hand. Tom's own hand reached down to steady it. Then Simon lay back on the small, narrow bed. He couldn't have left had he tried.
He remembers how Tom ducked his head and kissed his thighs, his stubble chafing lightly. He remembers how Tom ducked his head and licked the tip of his cock, and he smiled at up at him in the afternoon sun like they were the only people living in the world, not like they could hear the noise of the street outside or the din of drinks and drinkers in the pub downstairs. He remembers how Tom eased his legs apart and how exposed he felt by that, and how that didn't seem to matter as Tom dipped his fingers into the uncapped jar that Simon had left on the chair he'd pulled up by the bed. Tom's fingertips brushed against his hole, circled it, stroked over it, pressed lightly there against it; they pressed into it, fractionally, the tip of each finger in their turn, until Tom grinned and Simon laughed and watched him shuffle closer.
"You'll be the death of me, Tom Quinn," he said, half-breathless, as Tom rubbed the tip of his cock between his cheeks.
"There's worse ways to go than this," he replied. "I can think of a hundred off the top of my head." Then, bit by bit, his cock glistening obscenely in the afternoon sun, he began to push inside him.
It was over quickly, he supposes, or at least it was that first time. Tom hissed in a breath as he pushed inside and Simon felt himself stretch open, stretch around him. Simon's fingers clutched the headboard as Tom threw one of his thighs up against his shoulder and the fit was far from perfect, not that time, but perfect didn't matter. His own cock throbbed and leaked against his abdomen as he felt Tom move. He came without Tom even touching him, not there, and felt himself pull tighter around him; he's still not sure if it was that new tightness of his rim around him or the fact of his unexpected orgasm that brought Tom to his climax, too. And then, once Tom had eased himself from in him, once he'd slipped his fingers back inside where his manhood had been, he laughed and leaned in to lick Simon's stomach clean of come. His cock kicked weakly as Tom's tongue dipped down against the slit, and he wondered aloud how they could have waited for this for so very long.
It was over quickly but as the afternoon wore into evening, as the sun began to set outside, they recommenced. Tom knelt, and he braced himself with one bruised hand at the headboard, and Simon took him from behind until he spilled himself inside him. Then they washed, and then they dressed, and they talked at the table over food brought up from the pub below, and Simon looked away as he told the tale of the last lover he'd had, as a young man; he'd lost him, he said, in an accident that had spurred him from his youthful monied idleness and into medicine, his withdrawal from which he'd struggled with for the past seven years. The way Tom kissed him afterwards said that he understood exactly what that story said.
And finally, Simon did have to leave. He'd have liked to have stayed, but they both knew he could not.
That's how it's been for months now, because there's no other way that it could be when he is who he is and he does what he does. For weeks, they have both lived beneath the shadow of his imminent departure, the delay of which has only served to prove how unfit he is for this inheritance that he was never meant to have.
But now, finally, he thinks that that can change.
---
"You know what I want," Tom says, and he does know. Tom wants him, in ways that have until now been quite impossible. Until now.
"What if I told you I plan to return to medicine," he says, and Tom frowns at him in the lamplight that makes the creases at his brow seem wide as chasms.
"Aren't you meant to be the baron of whatever?" he replies, not quite caustically because he doesn't quite have caustic in him. "I didn't think you could."
"Well, I can't abdicate the title," Simon says, "but I can certainly abdicate the responsibilities that come with it." His hands skim down to Tom's waist and he holds him there, firmly. "My brother will manage the estate. I'll return to the hospital."
What he doesn't tell him now is how much work this arrangement has taken. What he doesn't tell him now is how many hours he's spent sitting down with the family solicitors, with his brother and his brother's wife, signing ownership of all he can to them in perpetuity, or the awkward conversations that ensued until his brother understood the bachelor baron was not merely unmarried but would never wed. On those terms, his brother will act for him in all ways that he can, and Simon has no doubt that he will be every inch the noble that he himself is not.
His mouth twists. His hands flatten firm against the small of Tom's back. "I've kept my hand in with the profession, you know," he says. "Here and there. They're happy to have me." And realisation dawns quite gloriously across Tom's imperfect, perfect face.
"That means you're staying in London?" Tom asks him.
"That means I'm staying in London," he confirms.
And the warmth of the smile that Tom gives him then makes him believe it's all worthwhile.
Simon Westbrook was not born to be a baron, and he has always known that. As Tom presses his mouth to his, he finds there's no shame in admitting it.