#that whole sequence i wanted to do quickly but it was very fiddly to write

[not-poignant]

hello :))) for the meme - the wind that cuts the night (<3) - 17

17. What was the hardest scene to write?

*thinks* That's such a long time ago now (7 years) that I don't actually fully remember that well.

That being said the scene that required the most research, hand down, was Elliott's garden. All those plants I used are coastal tolerant plants that can handle ocean winds directly coming off the sea.

I knew that like... 'coastal tolerant' doesn't necessarily mean 'literally living on or near sand dunes', and that ruled out most plants. I probably spent, all up, about 8 solid hours over 4 consecutive days researching plants, images of houses that used those plants (so I could see how close to the sea they were), what the plants looked like flowering, and of course I had to look through over about 300 different species of plant to narrow down my list.

To this day, for something that amounted to like, a fairly short description of the plants re: Alex describing them to Elliott, that's like...the most research I ever did for that fic. Once I had the research done, writing the scene was from memory pretty easy. But the research was intense!

~

From this meme!

[likehandlingroses]

for the commentary thing, the Christmas gift giving part of Enter Ellis ch. 5? i can never get enough of it it makes me cry ✌

Thank you! <3 I’m so glad you like that scene. 

“You first,” he said, hoping Richard didn’t question his enthusiasm. It was routine for most people, he supposed—giving and receiving gifts on Christmas. Just another thing he’d assumed he couldn’t ever understand. Not because he didn’t want to, but because there was a cog missing, a piece that he needed to set things in motion: people who wanted something from him that they were willing to return. 

A simple thing, really, but he hadn’t had it until now, and he intended to enjoy it all the more for finding it at such a late hour.

So this whole sequence is loosely inspired by a post I saw referencing a Downton Abbey guidebook (I think one of the Jessica Fellowes ones) that made some comment about Thomas buying himself gifts to open when everyone else did on Christmas...which of course, made me lose my mind (note: I have never read this passage, cannot confirm its tone/intent or whether it even exists, but the thought of it broke me). So I needed to give him a chance to give and receive a real gift!!

Richard grinned at the excitement in his voice, and he didn’t argue the ordering of things. He handled the unwrapping with care—his hands still trembled, went right when he wanted them left—but he managed it without too much trouble. He lifted the lid of the small rectangular box, revealing the dark blue pair of gloves inside. 

I read after I had written this that in some places/in some contexts it is considered Bad Luck to give gloves as gifts, but I think my research concluded that it’s okay as long as the other person gives a gift in return so! We are good, no bad luck here :p 

Thomas searched his face hungrily as Richard took one from the box, but for the moment his expression was inscrutable. 

“No buttons…” Richard murmured, slipping it on as easily as the man in the shop had promised he would. They made all sorts since the war, he’d told Thomas, after so many men came back with shaking hands, with stiff or missing fingers.

It was a funny thing, really—Thomas had struggled with his own gloves for eight years, never thinking anything of it. Now he had a pair of his own upstairs—chestnut brown, he could pull them on in his sleep. 

This was the thing that really pushed me to pick this gift--because Thomas also has an injury that should (in theory) make a lot of things difficult. And so as he recognizes Richard’s own struggles with fiddly things, and goes, “I need to fix that,” it inevitably leads to him finding a solution to a problem he was just Ignoring in himself. And that’s one of the themes of this chapter, that they help each other through their own blindspots. 

“They go on easier,” Thomas explained, as Richard reached for the second one and slipped it on, studying the effect. “But they’re still sharp, I think.”

“They are, very.” Richard’s voice shook. “Thank you, Thomas.”

Thomas doesn’t just want the gift to be utilitarian--he wants to give Richard something that looks nice, something he’ll want to wear. And he gets Richard’s taste right, which to him is equally as important because what’s the point if Richard doesn’t want to wear them? 

He pulled them off and folded them carefully back into the box before closing the lid again. Only then did he fix Thomas with a wide smile. 

Richard in this chapter is more closed-off than in others, so pointing out those deliberate moments where he’s trying to compose himself was how to convey what he’s really feeling. 

“Now it’s your turn,” he said, pushing the present towards him—a parcel that looked suspiciously like a book (though not nearly so thick as the novel Baxter had gotten him). 

But the leather bound book inside had no title, and Thomas looked at Richard, puzzled. 

“Open it,” he pressed, his face the picture of anticipation. 

Thomas would have been so happy to get a second book, and I think there’s a sweetness in him immediately assuming he’s going to get Another of the thing Baxter already gave him...there’s something comforting about your friends/family knowing you enough to all circle in on the same thing. I think Thomas would love that, in a way. But of course Richard has something even better planned...

The book was filled with drawings—and it didn’t take more than flipping through the first few pages for Thomas to realize what they were drawings of. 

They were his stories—the stories he’d brought to tea, on visits to York on his day off. Stories he remembered telling, and stories he didn’t. 

The faces were indistinct, often hidden, but every other detail rang true. Soldiers playing cards in the library in a drawing with note reading, “Downton Becomes A Convalescent Home, 1917.”  A cricket match played on the Downton field (“A Game Well Played, 1920”). A dark-haired man sitting at a table with a little girl on his lap, a book laid out in front of them (“Tea With Mr. Barrow, 1924”). 

It occurred to me while reading this again that I never say whether they are colored drawings or not--bad!! But it’s weirdly fitting, in a way, that everyone reading has the liberty to imagine the colors (or lack thereof) in a different way, to see them a little differently. Because the artist/Richard also made the effort to put a haze over things, so the details that Thomas knows better than Richard can be filled in. 

Something about seeing his name made Thomas stop turning the pages, his breath halting in his chest. 

“How did you…?” 

“I didn’t do them, of course,” Richard said, misunderstanding the question, but supplying a much needed answer nonetheless (last Thomas had seen, he still took his time writing a short letter). “Asked a friend to do up the pictures. Someone like us, in York.”

It doesn’t matter to anyone but me, but I did imagine the artist as Chris. 

“But you...you told him all of it, you knew how to show him…”

He’d listened. He’d understood. He’d seen it, all of it. 

Thomas closed the book, unsure of how to begin to thank him.

Richard’s gift, for me, had to be a complement to Thomas’s, but also distinct. It had to be the same in that it showed understanding and helped Richard as well...but it also is less practical than Thomas’s, more about an idea. And that’s based a lot on the gift he gives Thomas in the canon, which is really a symbol and something that is supposed to “remind” Thomas of him. 

“Sometimes men like us...life feels like it passes without touching us,” Richard said, his voice filling the silence perfectly. “But it does. It has.”

He includes himself in the statement, and that sense of partnership is also a part of the gift. He understands those feelings, he relates to them. 

Thomas blinked back the tears that had come to his eyes. 

“And I got you gloves…”

(He says this but I think he knows in his heart of hearts that he’s done well--but at the same time he isn’t sure, because he doesn’t give a lot of gifts! But his instincts, of course, were right on). 

Richard shook his head. “You gave me what I gave you. It comes to the same thing.” 

“What’s that?”

“Seeing what someone needs, and offering it to them right-out.” Richard leaned towards him as he spoke, ever so slightly. Thomas wondered if he noticed. “That’s all a gift is.”

Thomas smiled. “You make it sound so daring.”

There is something daring in gift-giving! It can be stressful or overwhelming because Richard is right--it’s a statement to the other person about what you think they need/want, and that’s A Lot to say to someone. Especially if you are like Thomas (who might, in this situation, be a little like me), and that is just Too Much Information for someone to have on you...

“Life has to be, sometimes,” Richard said with a grin. “Else we won’t feel it.”

This is a line I’m still really happy with. There’s a cut scene from Season 5 where Baxter tells Thomas that the therapy he is doing is more likely to make him feel “nothing at all,” and she presses him as to whether that’s what he wants. I think on some level, that was true. So this is the moment where Thomas really pulls away from that retreat, from that desire for dullness. And he recognizes the value in feeling even negative/scary feelings!

And he gets a kiss!!

He was closer than ever, and a shared glance towards the doorway of the servants’ hall was all the prompting Thomas needed to find a little more daring of his own.

Another little movie parallel with the look over to the doorway--hopefully they weren’t interrupted so quickly, though! <3