Archive of Our Own

my friend, blood shaking my heart

the awful daring of a moment's surrender

which an age of prudence can never retract

by this, and this only, we have existed

which is not to be found in our obituaries

or in memories draped by the beneficent spider

or under seals broken by the lean solicitor

in our empty rooms

- “What the Thunder Said,” The Wasteland, T.S. Eliot, 1922

summer, 1915

It had been a small party, really. Barely a party at all. All the familiar trappings of an ordinary evening. Granny and Cousin Isobel sniping at each other over trifle, Papa and Edith trading thoughts about the latest air raid from London. Mrs. Patmore’s leg of lamb, slightly overdone as usual, though neither love nor money would induce her to say so. Sybil can still taste the rosemary on her tongue, a sharp tang in the heavy night air. She worries at her lower lip, chasing the last of the spice from dinner. Only Matthew’s absence, the gaping maw into which only Mary refused to stare, marred the lovely evening.

Afterwards, Papa retired to his library while Mama led the rest into the drawing room for more pleasant conversation. Sybil slipped away, pleading a headache, listening to their well-crafted and achingly polite conversation rise and fall as if nothing was changed. As if the world were not tearing itself to pieces around them. She slipped out into the warm evening, intending to lose herself amongst the late-season roses, the blossoms stubbornly refusing to admit that summer was failing with every sunset.

Behind her, the house glows, brilliantly lit in the rising dark. The gas lamps and the new electric lights burning side by side through scores of windows make the house seem larger somehow, filled with all those people, servants and masters alike, waiting for the axe to fall, for the war to leap from the broadsheets pages to the halls of Downton. Matthew is already gone, commission purchased practically before Lord Grantham finished announcing the aggression on the Continent. The night before Matthew left for training, Sybil thought of asking Mary if she knew anything that would drive him to such a drastic step. But when she stopped outside Mary’s door before going down to dinner, the muffled sobs from inside drove Sybil down the stairs, questions breeding more questions.

Now, in the perfumed evening, surrounded by the last blooms of summer, Sybil finds a stone bench in the center of the garden and settles herself upon it. The lights of the house outshine the brightest stars in the sky and Sybil closes her eyes, tips her head back until her breath is coming a little thin through the tautness of her throat. She waits and waits until the last bit of the Lady Sybil Crawley drains away and all that’s left is a girl in a garden, letting night fall around her.

“Now if that isn’t a beautiful sight.”  Sybil opens her eyes.

Branson stands between her and the house. He is silhouetted by the light, heavy shoulders and bright hair, and Sybil feels her heart begin to thrum, beating a touch too quickly for a lady of quality looking at a servant. She smooths a hand over her trousers, the thin material snagging lightly under her nails. All her dresses are pressed and perfect and locked prettily away in her neat little wardrobe. She worries at an imaginary crease at her knee while Branson closes the distance between them. She simply had to be daring tonight. “Yes, the house is rather striking when it’s lit, isn’t it?”

Branson chuckles, a solid sound from slightly behind Sybil. She does not turn around, her posture consciously perfect. “The house is all very well, but that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh?” It’s barely a question, closer to a sigh.

Branson keeps walking and for a horrible moment, Sybil tenses. He could keep walking. He could walk right past her and through the garden and out the gate, never to be seen again, and oh God, Sybil, what’s happened here? But he doesn’t walk on, merely steps to the other side of the bench, past an immaculately groomed scrub. He inclines his head toward her. “A beautiful girl alone in a garden on a warm summer night. I grew up hearing songs sung about things like this.”

Now Sybil laughs, artless in her mounting panic. “Love songs about English girls in English gardens? I can’t imagine those fit too nicely with your political inclinations.” He looks quite handsome in this light, the green of his uniform blurring in the dark. He would have been a handsome child as well. Solemn-faced, learning slow, sad verses at a mother’s knee. “Besides, I thought all Irish songs were tragic, and there’s nothing tragic about tonight.”

His smile is a ballad, sung in a language she cannot understand. “Oh, I wouldn’t say that.”

There is a gap, sometimes, between the person Sybil is and the person she has agreed with the world to be. The Lady Sybil Crawley is a marvel, sweet and soft-spoken, elegant, coy when necessary, a clockwork figure that runs on history and duty. The other Sybil is a diffident creature, peeking out at odd moments, latching on to Gwen’s struggle or a local election the way a terrier defends a favored toy, holding on with everything its got. Sybil is no longer certain on which side of gap she will find herself on any given afternoon. Here and now, in the pale moonlight, the gap between the Sybil who should laugh politely and shake her head at the chauffeur's presumption and the Sybil who wants to do something else entirely is wider than ever.

Branson takes pity on her, smiles tight and courteous. “You’re right, my lady. It’s a lovely night.” Sybil’s throat feels raw suddenly, as if she’s been screaming and has only just stopped. “I should be on my way.”

“No,” Sybil says. “Stay, please.” Branson looks at her, his sweet face a mask, and Sybil can’t let him leave, not like this. “Only it’s so pleasant to talk like this with a friend.” She smiles at him, searching for something she cannot name. She’s been looking too long, so she looks away, observing the minute changes the evening chill has wrought in the garden. “And we are friends, aren’t we, Branson?”

Branson chuckles behind her, a very different sound than before. “Are we, my lady?”

She turns to meet his gaze, never one to run from a fight, and something bites into her ankle. She cries out, jerks her knee up. Branson starts forward and nearly collides with the bench. By the time he is in front of her, Sybil can see the problem.

A single thorn, black and perfectly shaped, has found its way into her skin. Sybil winces. “I always did prefer peonies to roses. Now I see I am perfectly justified in my opinions.” She reaches for the thorn, but Branson’s hand on her wrist stops her.

He sinks to his knees before her, grass whispering under his weight. He reaches behind him, fishes for something in his trouser pocket. “Peonies over roses,” he says and grins up at her, blue eyes in a sea of green. “It’s very egalitarian of you, my lady.” He bends his head over her leg and Sybil catches her breath. This is how storybooks start. This is how they end.

“It’s a matter of time,” Sybil says. Branson looks up, face alight, and Sybil hurries on. “Peonies last longer. Roses fade so quickly.”

A pinch and then Branson holds up the thorn, borne aloft in white linen folds. He offers it up to her, a question. A dare. Sybil reaches out for it, plucks it. It swims in her palm, a hint of red at the tip.

Branson is still at her feet when she stands. His hair falls across his forehead and Sybil can see a sheen of sweat at his temples. If she were to put her mouth there, the skin would taste slightly salty, like the memory of the sea. Like her upper lip after a difficult walk. She has never wanted to put her mouth on another human being before and the thought drops through her, settles roughly behind her stomach. “Thank you, Branson,” says Lady Sybil and Branson blinks up at her in surprise. “Good evening.”

Branson manages to call out, “My lady,” but it’s too late, Sybil’s gone, fled to Downton, a beacon of light in the darkness. She rushes up the stairs, past Edith, past Carson, and flings herself into her room. When Anna knocks at the door, Sybil sends her away. She strips off her clothing and heaps it on the vanity table. She crawls into bed, heedless of what’s proper for a young lady to wear for sleep. She doesn’t clean her teeth. She doesn’t plait her hair.

Sybil holds the thorn to her, closed fist rising and falling with her chest. Her ankle throbs where Branson touched it, where Nature reached out and pierced her, like a serpent. Like a kiss.

She lies in the silent room a long time, wide awake.

autumn, 1915

Lady Edith has begun driving lessons. Lord Grantham thinks it’s a useful diversion and privately, Branson agrees. The infrequent trips to Ripon aren’t enough to keep his mind occupied. The books in the library no longer captivate his interest. Newspapers cannot hold his attention. How can they? What chance do ink and paper stand against flesh and blood?

He doesn’t know if it is only in his imagination or cruel fate, but after the night in the garden, Lady Sybil is everywhere at once. In the library, reading P.W. Joyce’s Concise History of Ireland. In Ripon, handing out pamphlets outside the Magistrate’s offices. Lingering on the front lawns when Edith takes her lessons in the automobile. If he wasn’t well acquainted with the scuttlebutt downstairs about the warmth, or lack thereof, between the ladies Crawley, Branson would assume Lady Sybil was waiting, fidgeting and impatient, for her sister’s safe return. But he does listen to the servant’ talk, there’s no point in pretending otherwise, and she never appears pleased to see Lady Edith.

She waits in the entrance, a book or handful of lace-work dangling forgotten at her side. Branson helps Lady Edith down and her sister pounces. “Where did you go? What roads did you take. You were gone awfully long today, weren’t you?” He idles on the driver’s side, pretending to polish some unseen spot on the pristine handle. Lady Edith attempts to answer until her patience snaps, and she demands to know the source of Lady Sybil’s curiosity. Branson holds his breath, dreading an answer that never comes. He waits until their voices fade into the house to breathe out.

Summer fades. Autumn deepens. Mrs. Patmore calls in help from the village as canning season begins in earnest. Jams and marmalades, pickled eggs and walnuts, nothing is safe from the chapped, efficient hands of the kitchen staff. Branson takes to drinking his tea on the servants’ stair to avoid the billowing plumes of steam emanating from the makeshift cannery. It’s there that he finds that Lady Sybil has penetrated yet another of his shrinking domains. She loiters at the head of the stair, then slowly makes her way down. To see Carson. To fetch Daisy. To deliver a message to Bates or Anna or William. Not for him. Never for him.

“It’s not right,” says O’Brien, sipping at a cup of black bitter tea. Branson sits across the long table, his palms pressed flat on the scuffed wooden surface. He keeps his eyes on the paper in front of him, monitoring the rumors of revolution in Russia. Next to him, Thomas sniffs in agreement. Branson’s nails catch lightly against the table and he relaxes his hands. “Eavesdropping on us like that. It’s not lady-like. God only knows what she’s repeating upstairs.”

“Oh, leave Lady Sybil be,” says Anna. “She’s lonely, poor dear. It must be difficult on all the ladies, living down from London. There’s not many her own age in these parts for the likes of her.”

O’Brien frowns, her mouth a pinched line. “Well, I think it’s disgraceful. She should find something else to occupy her time.”

“She should be married, is what I think,” says Bates. Branson starts, shaking the table, and Bates catches his eye.

“Steady on, Mr. Bates,” says William, “Don’t let Mr. Carson hear you taking liberties like that.”

“It’s true,” Bates says without dropping Branson’s gaze. “She’s a lovely, healthy young woman. Best thing for her is a husband and a family of her own.” In that moment, briefly, wildly, Branson hates Bates. He’s an eejit, a doddering old fool, and if he doesn’t stop talking, Branson will put his fist straight through him. Bates is frowning openly now. Branson realizes his open palms have closed without his notice. “All right, Mr. Branson?”

Branson stares down at the newsprint without comprehension. “Fine, Mr. Bates. Just don’t know if I approve of discussing something that doesn’t concern us lot.”

Bates nods at that and looks away. Branson’s pulse pounds in his head, his chest. He shakes his newspaper flat, smoothes down the creases. He listens to Daisy and William chat about how the autumn harvest is coming along on the neighbouring farms until the weight in his stomach eases. Upstairs, Lady Sybil is smiling at her sisters in the drawing room. Upstairs, her parents must be thinking about how charming she is, what a sweet little wife she’ll make some suitable peer. What credit she’ll bring the Crawley name, married off to a baron or a knight. Branson pushes away from the table. He staggers through the side entrance out into the cold night. He sucks in deep lungfuls of frigid air, hands flexing at his sides.

A week later, Branson comes across Lady Sybil in the kitchen, giggling at a joke Daisy’s mangling. She looks so happy, a girl chatting with someone her own age, trading silly stories back and forth. Branson should be relieved. He should find Anna and tell her she was right. He should not want to nudge Lady Sybil’s shoulder, to draw her attention away from little Daisy until she sees him and only him. She glances at him and smiles, soft and open. The sight of it makes his teeth ache. He spends the rest of the day on his back in the garage, fingers slicked black with grease and oil, reducing the world down to bolts and gears.

Autumn is colder than usual this year. It’s colder than Ireland, in any case, or it certainly seems that way to Branson. He keeps a small brazier in the garage when he’s working, paying for the wood and kindling out of his own pocket. It’s a terrible hazard and makes the tiny room too hot to be comfortable for long hours of engine work, but it’s his brazier and his garage, and in there, he’ll do as he damn well pleases. He enjoys the ritual in the morning, lighting small fire, watching the flames grow as he shivers, waiting. It’s the only act of defiance he allows himself in his work at Downton. Although, if he is honest, that might not be strictly true any longer.

Today, when he opens the door to the garage, ready to lose himself in steel and petrol, the brazier is already blazing. The heat hits him like a slap, overwhelming after the frigid morning air. For a panicked moment, Branson thinks he left the flames to smolder all night, already searching for clean rags to smother any stray sparks. Then he sees her.

Lady Sybil sits on the sideboard of the Renault. She’s curled over her knees, plucking at the laces of her boots. Her cheeks are flushed. Her lips are parted. Her hair has begun to curl in the too-warm air. The sight of her nearly drops him on the spot. “Branson,” she says and he closes his eyes against his name in her mouth. She stands and produces a book from beside her. “I’ve been reading this.” She gestures with the volume. “It’s a collection of essays. Well, vignettes really, and I thought you’d--” There is a bead of sweat at her throat. Branson swallows. There is only so much a man can be expected to stand.

 “My lady, you can’t be here.”

She looks confused at first, tips her head to one side. Her smile falters a bit, then recovers. “Why? Are you ashamed to have a woman in the garage?” She can’t know what she’s saying, but Branson grits his teeth nonetheless. When he doesn’t grin back at her, Lady Sybil steps forward. “Branson, what’s the matter?”

“You can’t be in here, my lady,” he says. There is no room to negotiation in his voice.

Lady Sybil takes another step, closer to him. Branson can almost smell the rose water in her hair. “I think you’ll find that I can go anywhere I choose at Downton. Including here.” Her chin lifts and Branson looks at the ceiling, the floor, the door he foolishly shut behind him, anywhere but at her mouth. Lady Sybil continues, “Besides, it’s not as if we’re doing anything wrong. We’re friends, aren’t we? I can come here to speak to a friend.”

Branson keeps his gaze elsewhere. “I’m sorry, my lady--”

She ducks into his line of sight. “Oh won’t you please call me Sybil? How often must I ask you--”

“--but we are not friends,” he finished. When she doesn’t answer, he dares a look. She’s hurt now, on the edge of angry, and Branson hates her and her wretched name and his own traitorous body. “We cannot be friends.”

Sybil nods, a sharp movement, her mouth tight. “Of course, forgive me, I must have been mistaken. I thought--” She shakes herself, squaring her shoulders back. “I’d appreciate it if you could have the car ready immediately after dinner. Granny gets so cross being kept waiting.” Her voice has gone cold, clipped consonants with perfectly modulated tones. It’s heritage and tradition. It’s money and education and Albion in a way that Branson can’t presume to want.

Lady Sybil brushes past him, all regal bearing and wounded pride, and Branson reaches out, without consideration, without thought. He wraps his fingers tight around her arm, and she feels so small in his hand. Lady Sybil stops and meets his gaze, chin up, eyes wide. Her tongue darts out to wet her lower lip, a flash of pink in her pale face. And Branson breaks.

He steps into Lady Sybil, hands spreading wide across her upper back. He slips his mouth against hers, gets her lower lip firmly between his own. She gasps, mouth opening, and in that moment Branson doesn’t care about his position, doesn’t care about losing his place and his livelihood and the inevitable return to Ireland, doesn’t care about anything because Lady Sybil-- perfect, darling Sybil-- moans, pulls his tongue into her mouth, and sucks. Sucks. Soft little tugs that make Branson’s hands clench down on her hips, make her whimper against him. A slow, wet sound.

Branson’s breathing too hard, too fast for just a kiss. He cups her face, square hands tangling back into her hair. She hums, still nursing at his mouth, sending thick, heavy shocks to his prick. Her hands skirt his shoulders, his chest. She clutches at his clothing, fists her small hands in the over-washed cloth, pulls at him. It hurts now, the throb in his body, the vicious bite of need he feels. He fumbles behind her, opens the car door. She tries to take her mouth away and he bites into her lip, feels it fatten in his mouth. She winces and he’s pleased at that. Good, let her feel it for a while. Her hands thread into his hair and twist, too-tight, painful in the haze, and he can’t. He can’t.

Branson barely needs to lift her up into the car, Sybil’s already up, pulling him after, hands tracing his waist, palming at his ribs. He settles over her, careful not to rip at her dress, not to ruck it up like he wants. He puts his weight onto her and her head tips back, her neck a long, white line. Even in another life, one where Branson isn’t fisting his hands in her skirts, one where they met in a drawing room and not in a car, even then Branson cannot conceive of not putting his tongue to her pulse, feeling the thrum against his lips. She’s making these sounds, a tiny stream of oh oh oh that make his skin feel too tight. Makes him ache to give her what she’s asking for. What she needs.

“Goddammit.” He pushes at her hands, pulls his mouth away. “Sybil, love, no.” She whines underneath him and his cocks twitches, eager to slake her yearning, to fill her empty places. “Sybil, feckin’, no, stop it--” He grabs her hands and pins them still beneath her breasts. They’re both breathing hard, the heat of their bodies making the air between them thick, heavy with sweat and desire. Branson licks his lips and Sybil arches under him, gaze fixed on his mouth. He squeezes his eyes shut, grits his teeth. “We can’t.” She shifts again and he tightens his grip on her wrists. “You’re too- you don’t know what this is.”

“I do,” she breathes. She loops an ankle over his calf, tugs down. “Branson, oh please, don’t--”

Branson groans, pulls himself away. The air in the garage is still too warm, but Branson sucks in great lungfuls. He sways a little, his blood redistributing itself. Behind him, he can hear Sybil removing herself from the car, latching the door shut. He waits until he’s calm, until he is back in control of his body to turn around.

Sybil looks--Branson can barely breathe. She looks wrecked, colour high in her cheeks, her hair falling down around her shoulders. Branson can see the slick of damp on her throat where his mouth has been. She’s trying to smooth the creases out of her skirt. Her hands are shaking. Branson moans from the back of his throat.

Sybil looks up. Her face is a mask, placid and polite. It’s only now, only here that Branson can see the rage seething under the gentile quirk of her lips. If she asked at this moment, he would cut out his beating heart while she watched. “Good night, Branson,” she says and sweeps out into the cold noon sunlight.

Branson holds still, listening to the crunch of her step on the gravel until it fades away. When he can no longer hear her, Branson wrenches open the car door and falls inside. He presses his face into the still-warm seat covering. He bites down hard on the inside of his cheek as he rips open his trousers. Branson sucks in his breath as he grips himself, pathetically hard even now. He turns his face into the soft curve of the leather. The car still smells of her.

It doesn’t take long.

winter, 1915

It starts with the dreams, flickering images behind sleep-shut eyes. The south gardens in the sun, a porcelain doll from years ago, a half-remembered conversation with Mama. Once Sybil passes an entire night dancing in the Great Hall with the Prime Minister while the Minority Whip leads the opposition party in a chorus of "Underneath the Japanese Moon." Harmless, fleeting fancies. All these things flash and twirl, weaving in and out of each other, logic left far behind in listless drifting dreams.

Then the dreams shift and slide, away from the silly and the safe. The smell of engine oil. The heat of a brazier. The softness of his hair parting between her fingers. The heavy, drugging weight of him, pressing her down, down, down into a car seat, onto a garden bench in the moonlight, between the cool sheets of her bed. Sybil wakes, shaking and tense, her spine a cord of silk twisting over and over on itself. Sybil wakes, her breath caught in her throat, her chest tight and aching. Sybil wakes, alone.

She could bear it if it were only dreams. In the dark, in her empty bed, Sybil can conjure any number of excuses, countless explications. They're only dreams. A child's refrain, but one to which Sybil clings as she sits against the headboard, arms around her knees, waiting for the memory of his mouth to fade from her skin. Only dreams, as harmless a birthday wish and with as much power. She breathes through them, trembling, and waits for daylight.

She could bear it if it were only phantom flashes in the dark, but the dreams are growing bolder. In the library, Sybil reaches for a volume a touch too high and gasps when the memory of his hands along her waist slams into her. She turns to answer Edith's question at luncheon and clenches her fists, the texture of his uniform flitting through her thoughts. Passing by the parlour windows, Sybil can see a glint of chrome flashing in the distance, Mary returning from Ripon, and she bolts, taking the steps upstairs two at a time, trying to outrun the tug in her belly. It's nothing, she assures the new housemaid when she emerges. Simply a passing dizzy spell, nothing of note.

But it isn't a dizzy spell and it doesn't pass, and Sybil keeps dreaming, heat and teeth and skin and something she can't name, a feeling eating at the inside of her, gnawing away at her rationales, at her mantras. It is as if that evening, that awful, wrenching, perfect evening in the garage, lit something inside her. As if a brazier spark caught at the corners of her clothes and now she's burning, hot and anxious and powerless to name what has changed within her.

"Branson seemed a little troubled this afternoon," announces Papa, his afternoon paper folded over one arm. Sybil chokes back a small noise, fingers fumbling her teacup. Mama looks up from her letter and purses her lips. Edith continues her needlepoint without any indication she has heard a word of the exchange. And Mary, Sybil notes, Mary is looking back at her. Sybil concentrates, sipping her tea, and nodding at Papa. He is concerned about Branson's family, what with the news from Ireland of unrest. "Would it be overstepping, I wonder," Papa muses, shaking out the front page, "if I offered to inquire about their whereabouts. You know, put his mind at ease and all that."

Mama snorts delicately. "I'd save my breath, Robert. You know how the Irish get, so hot tempered about these things." Sybil clenches her teeth, willing her cheeks to stay cool. "Besides, I'd hate to have him hand in his notice in a fit of pique and rush back to join the revolution. Not when he's working out so well." Sybil winces. Branson tendering his resignation. Branson on a ferry back to Dublin. Branson in the cobbled streets, incandescent with pride and rage. Sybil closes her eyes. Branson at the end of an English rifle.

Papa grumbles behind the latest headlines. "I wish you wouldn't talk like that. Ireland in revolt is no laughing matter. They're proper subjects of the King, and that's how they'll stay if they know what's good for them." With infinite care, Sybil replaces her teacup on its matching saucer, stands with an apology, and leaves the room. In the hallway, she braces herself on a side table, swallowing down words like home rule and independent republic and free. She lingers there, listening to the footmen down the hall and her family in the next room. And outside, the sharp noise of an engine sparking to life. The sound goes through Sybil like summer lightning.

Sybil flees to Anna in the end. Inevitable really, given Sybil’s choices for confidants. Mary is impossible, Edith is unthinkable, and Mamma tells Papa every little thing. Gwen is gone, O'Brien is an automaton, and Mrs. Hughes, well, Sybil simply can't.  She is prepared to discuss her concerns sensibly, rationally, one morning once Anna has helped her dress. But with Anna standing at attention, all starched cap and pressed skirts, Sybil’s courage deserts her. She pulls herself to the center of her bed, while Anna protests the wrinkles forming in her skirt. “Anna,” Sybil says and stops. What could she possibly say after that?

“Yes, Lady Sybil?” When Sybil says nothing, Anna hesitates, then sinks down on the side of the bed. “Lady Sybil, is something the matter?” Sybil’s voice refuses to carry the words. “My lady, whatever it is, I’m sure it’s nothing more than—”

“It’s Branson,” is all Sybil can produce before stopping to catch her breath. She feels like she’s just run the length of the house twice over and she’s barely begun.

Anna frowns. “My lady, has something happened with the car? Has Branson neglected his duties?” Sybil is already shaking her head, hands shaking and face on fire. Anna shakes her head as well, then holds perfectly still. Her face turns to stone. “Lady Sybil,” she says and Sybil wants to die. She buries her face in her arms. Anna’s voice is low and even, practical even now. “If he’s done something he oughtn’t—”

“Oh, Anna,” says Sybil, trembling on the verge of tears. “That’s just it. He hasn’t done anything at all, and I—and I wish...”

Anna's hand comes to rest on Sybil's shoulder, patting gingerly. Sybil tightens her arms around her knees and waits. When it comes to her, Anna's hand freezes. Sybil lifts her head and finds Anna's eyes. The maid shakes her head slowly and says, "Oh, my lady." Sybil sobs and drops her forehead again. Anna pulls her hand away and Sybil curls in further, wretched and alone. She stays like that, listening to Anna breathing.

"Anna," she says, when she trusts her voice not to scrape her throat raw. "I don't know why I'm-- why I'm thinking these things. I don't know what's wrong with me." Sybil reaches for Anna's hand. "Am I going mad, Anna?" Anna squeezes her fingers, solid and strong.

"No, my lady, you're not going mad." Anna hesitates and Sybil holds her breath. "Didn't-- has Lady Grantham spoken to you about marriage at all?" Sybil shakes her head. She enjoyed her debut in London, dancing with several gentlemen who paid her particular favour, but there was never enough encouragement from any one of them to merit a discussion with Mama. Besides, this was nothing like the silly flirtations in tea rooms or at dances. This was alive inside her belly, clawing for attention.

"I don't understand," Sybil says and hates how young she sounds. "I don't think this has much to do with marriage." Anna smiles at that, a small private expression, and Sybil is suddenly reminded that Anna is young and pretty. The downstairs, kitchen and servants quarters and garage, seems a vast ocean to Sybil, full of unseen shapes moving under the water. "It feels awful, Anna," she says, which isn't quite true but certainly isn't a lie. "I feel awful and strange, and I can't stop it. I have tried, you must believe me, but I see him and I can't help it."

Anna shushes her, rubbing the back of her hand. "You'll be fine, my lady. This is, well, it's fine. It's growing pains, I suppose you can call it." Again, that amused smile, and Sybil reminds herself to be grateful for this much, the first sense she's heard spoken on the subject. Anna seems to be casting about for words before deciding on, "It may seem terrible now, but once you're married, you'll be thankful to feel this way." She pats Sybil's shoulder, stands, and smooths down the bedclothes. "In the meantime, don't fret. It will run its course soon enough and you'll be right as rain, my lady."

Sybil manages a grimace. "Thank you, Anna. And please, not a word of this to Mama." Anna nods, seamlessly slipping back into propriety. Sybil tries again, her voice steady and her smile immaculate. "I'm sure you're right, and everything will be fine." Anna nods and curtseys, excusing herself to help Edith arrange her hair. When she's gone, Sybil steps over to the mirror and stares hard at her reflection. It's the same face as the day before, and the day before that. She tilts her head, letting her hair fall over her shoulders. She doesn't look any different. Nothing marks the thoughts in her head or the weight in her stomach. She passes her fingers along her throat, down her chest. Her heart is pounding inside her, but her reflection looks perfectly composed. Sybil nods, lifting her chin. Perfectly composed.

She chooses a pair of yellow gloves and skips down the stairs, deciding that a walk in the morning air before breakfast is just the thing. She steps out into the sunlight and circles the gardens twice before heading back to the house. She deliberately passes by the garage, confident in her command over herself, head high. Nothing happens. No one appears. Sybil laughs over breakfast and goes riding with Mary in the afternoon.

Her father kisses her forehead after dinner. "You're in fine form today, darling," he says. "Anything exciting going on?"

"Nothing, Papa," and Sybil wants to shout in triumph. "Nothing at all."

She lingers by the fire after everyone has gone up, enjoying the warmth. Finally, she closes her book on parliamentary procedure and signs for it in Papa's notebook. She's on the second stair when a voice from behind stops her. "My lady."

Sybil spins and nearly loses her balance. His green uniform is gone, replaced by a white shirt and a black waistcoat. He's not wearing his coat. His cravat is perfect. "Branson."

He shuffles to the edge of the stairs. "I believe you dropped this earlier. I would have called after you, but you seemed to be enjoying your walk." In his hand is one of her yellow gloves. Sybil never even noticed it was missing. "I'm sorry I didn't bring it back sooner." He's not looking at her and Sybil wants to shake him, wants to scream. He offers the glove, arm stretched out. He looks like he's offering a treat to a half-wild animal.

"Thank you, Branson. How good of you to take the trouble." Sybil marches down and tries to seize the glove. Branson lets it go a second too early and it drops to the floor. Sybil huffs and drops to her knees. She scoops up the glove and looks up, a dismissal on her lips. Branson's staring down at her, mouth open. Sybil can see his pulse beating out against his neck. Without thought, she offers her hand, and without pause, he takes it, raising her to her feet. His sigh catches a fallen lock of hair, dancing it against her cheek.

Anna was wrong after all, it would seem. This is madness and Sybil is mad, and in this moment she cannot bring herself to care. Sybil reaches out and puts the pads of her fingers, still flush with fireside heat, on his lips. He gasps and oh, Sybil can feel it, the rush of air, the edge of wet just beyond. He gasps and she bites her lip. “Oh,” he says. “Oh, Sybil.” She takes her fingers away and walks upstairs. She walks slowly, careful with the hem of her dress, up and across the hall. She catches a glimpse of him before closing the door to her room. He has not moved.

There is a smudge of something on her glove, dark and viscous. Soot perhaps, or oil. Sybil falls asleep with the tips of her glove in her mouth.

spring, 1916

It could almost be summer instead of spring, the heat sudden and oppressive after the February chill. The weather turns sharply, barely a day between the seasons. Like a light bulb flaring to life, the sun rises and the heat climbs and refuses, stubbornly, to fall.

The house, poorly ventilated in the best of times, becomes unbearable. The housemaids kirtle their skirts below stairs. Carson goes through all his spare handkerchiefs trying to keep his brow clear. The footmen pull at their collars during the dinner service, too impatient to pour the wine to care what Lord Grantham thinks of their fidgeting.

Another time, Branson would be outside, enjoying the sun. He would take the car on frivolous errands to Ripon and beyond, rolling down the windows for a breeze. Another time, Branson would be smiling, joking with the servants, flirting with girls from the village, humming along with the radio. Instead, Branson is losing his mind.

The worst part about it all is surprisingly not the hunger consuming him from within, making him snappish and short. The worst part of the whole bloody mess is that everyone seems to know. It's seeping out of his pores, coming off him in waves. O'Brien has smoked through twice her usual cigarettes, grinding the butts under her boot heels still unsatisfied. Daisy and William can't look Branson in the face, and soon enough, can barely look at each other. Even Mrs. Hughes has noticed something is amiss and has asked Mrs. Patmore to brew up batches of lemon barley water to cool down the staff in the afternoons.

Bates knows. Branson can tell. If Anna knows, then Bates know, and it's killing him to think about Bates' silent, albeit sympathetic, disapproval. Branson wants them all gone. The family should head to the sea for the summer, like proper bourgeois Tories, taking all the servants with them and leaving him in peace. But the Crawleys stay at Downton, determined to wait out the heat and abandon Branson to this torture.

He knows what needs to happen. Deep in the middle of him, in his marrow and his bone. He knows. He hates this, the unfamiliar feel of instinct rising to the fore. Branson is a thinking man, always was. His father told him he thought too much for his own good, and he never believed that until now, until this. There is no philosophy to contain this, no paradigm to frame his desires in tasteful, tactful terms. He lies awake in his attic room above the garage, restless in the humid air, and knows beyond certainty, beyond doubt, that Sybil is awake. Across the gravel path, through the great hall, up the grand stairs, down the hall, and behind her door, Sybil Crawley is awake and needing him. Her dark hair would be unbound, tumbled across a flushed face, her breath stuttering out as she sobbed-- Branson punches his pillow down and rolls over to wait for dawn. This cannot continue, he thinks as the light breaks. He cannot continue.

He does what any man would do. He applies to Carson for the evening off, who confirms that the family have no plans to venture out. He instructs one of the under-gardeners, a man with tractor experience, what to do in case of an emergency. He folds away his uniform and his starched cravat, and pulls on a linen shirt and trousers. He shrugs a worn barn coat over his braces and heads for the village.

There's only one pub in the entire wretched town, the Drum and Fife, as English as they come, but there's nothing for it. If only his brothers could see him now, he thinks. Branson settles into a snug and begins, thoroughly and mechanically, to get drunk.

He doesn’t enjoy the process, no pleasant thrum of alcohol in his veins or raucous laughter with mates. Branson keeps his eyes low, paying for each round in advance, slumping his shoulders to avoid notice. Sybil would disapprove, he thinks, signaling the barman for the next. Sybil would purse her lips and say nothing, radiating judgment and condemnation. Sybil would shout at him, ask him what he's doing. The barman sets another pint in front of Branson. Sybil is not here. Branson begins to drink.

It takes a long time and far too much money before Branson feels light-headed and unsteady on the stool. He is not a drinking man, but desperation is never a pretty sight, and so Branson staggers up and into a short bearded man. Branson mumbles an apology and heads for the door. The golden-haired barmaid has begun smiling at him and he wants to leave before that seems like a fine plan. The bearded man shoves at his back. "Watch where you step, mick."

The first punch is enough to strip her from his mind. After the next punch, and the next, his chest is heaving, his lungs bursting. It's almost satisfying enough to be going on with. It's not, in point of fact, but there's nothing else to be done, and Branson loses himself as best he can in splitting knuckles and splintering wood and motion. When the barman tosses him out into the street, not even the golden-haired barmaid is smiling anymore. Branson picks himself up, spits, and limps back up the road to Downton.

It's lit up, lamps burning in every window, casting warm squares of light out onto the dark lawn. Something flaps its wings, a bird or a bat, and sails overhead as Branson returns to the garage. Cold water and a flannel take care of the blood, but nothing in the room will stop the pounding in his head. Mrs. Patmore hides a large brown bottle of aspirin in the lowest kitchen cupboard for her headaches. Branson waits until he's sure everyone below stairs will be in bed, and heads for the house.

It's quiet in the servants' hall. He's used to noise and heat down here, the press of many bodies shouting, laughing, cursing out of Carson's hearing. The silence presses on him, as present in the hallways as an animal at his heel. He's toying with the cut across his forearm when he enters the kitchen, and only looks up at the gasp.

Branson has imagined this so many times, it's nearly familiar. Her loose hair, her pink mouth, the dressing gown belted tightly around her waist. Her bare feet. His eyes widen, taking in the pale toes. "My God," she says and Branson imagined this too. Imagined her rushing to him, hands fluttering up and down him, resting briefly on his arms or neck, touching at all the sore places on his body. "Branson, whatever happened to you? Are you hurt?" She darts away, still talking. "Of course you are, stupid of me, just look at you. Are you in pain?" She seizes a cloth from the table and presses it to his forearm, daubing with slow, solicitous movements. Branson hisses and she winces, biting her lip. Her teeth dig into her soft mouth. Branson grunts, and Sybil looks up, concerned. "What did happen?"

Branson says, "I got in a fight."

"Why?" She sounds genuinely curious, as if this isn't the lowest anyone has seen Branson in years.

Branson grimaces. "It passes the time of an evening."

Sybil leans forward and Branson holds carefully, perfectly still. She breathes deeply. "Branson," she says and he could smile at the scandal in her voice. "Branson, have you-- are you drunk?" At another time, she might sound almost delighted at the prospect.

"Not anymore, and more’s the pity.” The corners of her mouth twitch downwards. “The fight took care of that."

"Oh, Branson. Why--?"

Branson jerks his arm away. "What are you doing here, my lady?" Her back straightens at the title, like a doll on a string, and in that moment, Branson can finally admit how much he loves this woman. And he does love her, even her selfishness and her silences. She stares hard at the bruising coming up along his knuckles, a little line between her brows, and he can't help himself. "What's the matter? Can't you sleep?"

She looks startled at that, and then a flush, heavy and pink, creeps over her. She takes a deep breath, mouth pulling down at the corners. "I couldn't." She licks her lips and glances at him. Branson grinds his teeth.

"A nightmare," he says and she shakes her head.

"No." The flush is getting worse now. Her hand is still on his arm. He fights the urge to flex his hand.

"But you were dreaming." It's not a question. About a man, cries the pressure in his gut. About me. Sybil lifts a shoulder, her dressing gown pulling away from her neck. There is no pleasure in the feeling pumping through Branson, none at all. Branson sighs. He wants Sybil. He wants to stop the ache in his blood. He wants a bed to lie in, alone. He wants too many things. He pulls away from Sybil, her fingers catching at his skin. "Go upstairs, my lady."

She stands as well. "My name is Sybil." There's a trace of something in her voice Branson doesn't have the heart to examine now.

"Sybil, then." It hardly matters at this point. "Get yourself back up to bed, Sybil, before someone notices you're below stairs." He can hear his accent thickening, the hour and the strain roughening his words. "Off with you," he says and stoops a little to meet her eyes. "Before someone catches you."

He means to be menacing, to play the brigand for a change. He's hoping for widened eyes and a frightened scamper up the stairs. But Branson should know better than to place much stock in his hopes.

Sybil casts aside the cloth. Branson watches it leave her hands, but she's upon him before he sees it fall to the floor. He rocks backward as her weight hits him, taking a staggering couple of quick steps. His arms lift and fit themselves around her, feeling the shape of her beneath satin and silk.

She doesn't kiss him, not really. She puts her mouth against his and pants, her forehead pressed to his. "Branson," she says, a little girl lost. "Branson, please." He breathes in, warm air passing between them. Her hands fist up, thump at his chest like she's angry. Maybe she is. "Branson, I don't know what-- what--"

He shushes her, kissing at her temple, her cheek. "I do," he says, purpose growing inside after so long adrift. "I do."

There is a certain excruciating pleasure to the fall, the sweet, obscene surety that this is the moment when the wanting ends and the having begins. Because surely the wanting will end after this. It must. Branson mouths at her jaw, her neck, trailing down and down and –

Her fingers pull at his hair, too tight, and he grunts softly, looking up to see her. Her head is tipped back, the long line of her throat pale in the lamplight. She has her teeth in her lower lip. She looks like she’s in pain. He can’t stand it any longer.

He pulls back and Sybil scrabbles at his chest, trying to pull him back to her. He closes his eyes against the rush of dizziness. “Come here, now,” he says and tugs her hand. “Come away, love.”

The night is still on the walk to his cottage, the heat still oppressive even in the dark. In a better world, there’d be a breeze, something, anything to break the heat. But the night weighs down on Branson, his palm sweating against Sybil’s, as he coaxes open the wooden door, swelled shut on its hinges.

He turns in the narrow hall, and catches his breath at the sight of her. It’s dark inside, with no moonlight to display the expression on her face, and Branson says her name, waiting for the inevitable, for the return of reason. But instead, like a miracle, Sybil steps forward, her face lost in the dark. “Perhaps,” she says, and her voice is the only true thing in the room, “you would be so good as to escort me upstairs, Mr. Branson.” And Branson, helpless, hopeless, obeys.

They tumble, tangled together, onto the hard length of his narrow bed, the rough sheets scratching against his skin. Sybil bites at his neck, her fingers tugging at his shirt, bringing it up and over his head. Branson groans, eyes near crossing with the feeling of her hands on him, when she tugs at his braces, first one shoulder, then the other. Branson stiffens, ignoring the chanting of his blood. Sybil may scorn society and all its trappings, but Branson knows the value of virtue to the English, to the elite. He knows just how much Sybil is asking him to take.

“Sybil,” he says and she tightens her nails into his back. He hisses, the points of pain stringing him higher. “Sybil,” he says and inspiration strikes. He finds the hem of her nightdress and plucks at it. “Will you let me?” he says and suddenly, it is his only wish. “Please, Sybil. Please.”

She frowns at little, and then nods, smoothing her hands down and up his sides, and Branson can’t wait anymore, just slides down her body and rucks up her dress. “Branson,” Sybil says, startled, and then she jerks, keening into the bedclothes, as Branson finds her with his mouth.

He loses time, unsure how long he listens to her pant and sob and moan. He dissolves, ignoring the thump of his pulse or the ache of his cock, lost and found as Sybil clutches at his hair, arches into his touch. He brings a hand up to the wet, wanting edge of her and slips inside. She screams, a feral sound, abandoned to her pleasure, and he bursts, spending like he’ll die from it. He falls, mouth hot and swollen against her thigh, and gives himself over to the sudden silence in his head. The whirlwind will return soon enough.

When he comes back to himself, Sybil is kissing at his mouth, searching out her taste on his tongue.

Sybil curls around him, eyes soft and hands restless, tracing his jaw, his throat, the line of his shoulders without intent. Branson plucks up one of her hands and puts it to his mouth, a parody of propriety, and Sybil hums, a low sustained sound. She burrows into his pillow, scenting his bed with her, and Branson tries with all his might to stop his own heart, to conjure his end here in this bed, this woman tucked into his side.

His heart keeps beating, through the night, listening to the sound of Sybil’s even breathing.

He wakes her before dawn, before the servants will have roused. She lets him pull her to her feet and follows him back to the house, clutching his arm, warm in the chill dark hours. He takes her as far as he dares, the downstairs corridor, and stops. She’s smiling up at him, sleepy and soft-eyed, and Branson takes her face in his hands, kisses at her roughly.

She’s still smiling as he looks into her eyes. “This cannot happen again,” he says and she nods, sweetness itself barefoot in the servants’ hall with her family asleep above. “Sybil, d’you understand me, girl?” Her eyes widen and Branson shakes her a little to keep from kissing her again. “This cannot happen again.”

Sybil opens her mouth to speak, and Branson puts his fingers over her lips. They’re warm and damp under his touch, and he aches for her. “Never again,” he says and attempts a smile. Sybil frowns and nods again, the corners of her mouth twitching, and slips away from him. Branson watches her climb the stairs and leans against the bannister, feeling rather than hearing her climb the second flight to the family rooms.

He stumbles back to the cottage. The day is dawning, thick and heavy as ever. The heat has not broken. Nothing so easy.

It will not happen again, he thinks and means it like an oath before God.

But it does.

It happens again. And again. And wrenchingly, brutally, again.

*

Three weeks later, she enrolls in the nursing programme. He drives her to York. They don't speak for the entire trip to the hospital. Then, they speak very briefly.

He comes back alone.

*

Because “flattered” is a word posh people use when they’re getting ready to say no.

That sounds more like you.

(fin)