Thomas was standing in his doorway, facing Jimmy, who was likewise standing in his doorway across the hall. The quarters were deserted; everyone else was still at dinner, the low sounds of their company creeping up the stairway. Thomas and Jimmy were alone.
No words were spoken. They only stared at each other. Jimmy couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He was trapped in Thomas' blue-gray gaze. There was something welling up inside Jimmy's chest. He couldn't name it, but it was the same color as Thomas' eyes. It was enveloping him, it was drowning him.
Jimmy allowed his gaze to drift for a moment- Thomas' hands, his hair, his chest, his jaw, he was like a marble statue, his elegant profile was mesmerizing, had he really never seen it before? The beauty? He gave a shake of the head and forced himself to stare back at Thomas' eyes. Jimmy didn't know what to say with his words and was hoping his gaze would do it for him, but he didn't have high hopes. His own mind was so scattered, there was nothing to convey besides the boiling ambiguity raging inside him.
Thomas knew he had held the stare too long. Had he glanced at Jimmy, and it had simply stretched on too long, and Jimmy was too polite to turn away? Or had Jimmy started it? He couldn't remember. They were across the hall from each other but Thomas felt like they were only a hair's breadth apart. He wanted so badly to close the distance, but he didn't, he couldn't. He had allowed those feelings to erupt once before, to disaster's end. The half-formed fantasies and wishful thoughts had been built up only to crumble to dust and ash at his feet. And he respected Jimmy too much to do that to him again when he'd made it clear he didn't want it. But still. He couldn't look away. Not while Jimmy held his gaze, and holding it, he was (he wasn't sure what he was seeing there; some kind of muted affection perhaps, and confusion?).
Jimmy didn't know why he was still standing there, why he was still looking. But he still couldn't move. The conversation those months ago- "I can't give you what you want-", "I know-"- seemed so far away. But he could feel that something was falling into place, like a clock you've finally tuned to the minute, at last ticking on time and running nicely, those cranks and flaws in the machinery smoothed out and oiled. Something was happening. The months of looks and friendly touches, of easy laughter, of Thomas' obvious strong passion always locked away just under the surface, of Jimmy's obliviousness, it was coming to the forefront. Jimmy knew now. He knew when he said he couldn't give Thomas what he wanted, when Jimmy convulsed in disgust and anger at Thomas' advance, when he had allowed O'Brien to manipulate him into almost ruining Thomas- it was all wrong, none of it had happened for the reasons Jimmy had thought they had happened. He didn't know if he was completely like Thomas, but he was like him enough to know, and Jimmy knew, he knew now.
He opened his mouth, he had to speak. He had to say something. He could see the utter ocean of feeling in Thomas' face, more than that, he could feel it within him, and he had to respond. He didn't know what the words would be until he said them, but he opened his mouth to try.
Thomas knew better than to allow this gaze, this- whatever it was, to continue. It took strength, but strength Thomas had by the measure, and he wrenched his eyes away. After all, it had taken strength, hadn't it, to be close with Jimmy but still so far? To be around him, to save him from danger, to help him from trouble, to confide, to share, to-
-and still know that it would come to nothing? Well, not nothing, but not enough. It wasn't enough, Thomas thought it might be, but it wasn't. Not with this. If it had been a passing infatuation, a mild attraction, of course, it would have passed. But this was... this was love. He was in love with Jimmy. He had been since he had met him. It wasn't a small dalliance, it wasn't a fleeting fancy. It was love. And it was a love he knew would never be returned. Jimmy had been kind, and understanding, and he had given Thomas what he could, but he couldn't give him what he needed.
