asgardchrysalis

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A Talk

Who: Mary Crawley and John Grey
What: After various revelations, Mary and John need to have a talk
When: Early April
Where: The farmhouse
Rating: PG-13, probably some discussion of sex and sexual orientation

After the mission with the half-orcs and Jim's return and admission that had he died (again), Mary's been feeling a bit down. Not only was the mission a disaster in her eyes, Jim had chosen to go through the pain of death yet again, something that made her ache for him. The subsequent revelation that he had slept with John earlier before their relationship had begun has left her with a lot to process. She isn't really mad, just confused and uncomfortable about the whole thing. Jim assures her that she is the one he wants to be with, but she can't help but question that in the light of this information.

Mostly, she needs to speak with John in order to try to understand everything - and how she could have possibly gotten it so wrong. Mary leaves a note for him on his door inviting him to tea later that day. She knows that Jim has spoken with him already, and she hopes that he shows up and isn't trying to avoid her at all. Mary likes John a great deal and simply wants to sort things out.

The tea and some biscuits are prepped when she hears the knock at the door. Mary opens it and smiles to find John on the other side. "Please do come in."

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John supposes he should expect some sort of message from Mary sooner or later, and doesn't know whether he's dreading the day it comes or not. Understanding that Mary should be told about these things doesn't make it any easier to process the fact that she knows.

But Mary is his friend. A dear friend, and such a thing is in short supply in this city. So when he receives her note, he supposes that whatever discomfort he may be feeling at the notion is worth setting aside for the sake of that fact.

Trying to act very calm, cool, and collected, feeling anything but, Lord John makes his way across the city to their farmhouse for the tea that she has so graciously invited him to. Pausing one last moment to collect himself before he enters at her request, offering his best attempt at a natural smile.

"Good afternoon, my dear," he says. Producing a small bouquet of wildflowers tied together with a delicate lace ribbon. "For the hostess," he adds, with a gentle dip of a bow.

"They're lovely," she says with a grin. "Thank you." His manners are so top notch, which is just one of many things she likes about John. Mary embraces him and kisses his cheek before taking the flowers from him.

"Please make yourself comfortable," she tells him while she goes to look for a vase to put the bouquet in. This is going to be more like a visit than any sort of accusation or confrontation. She doesn't want that.

Make yourself comfortable.

John gives her a bright smile and tries his hardest not to think about being made a similar offer here in this farmhouse. Back before it had been much of anything. I've got a little nook where we'll be more comfortable, Jim had said, and that had been it.

And of course, now she knows about that as well.

John steps across the room and takes a seat as invited. Only the fact that he has had practice in guarding his expression and emotions keeping him from appearing as apprehensive as he truly feels.

"I hope you are well," he offers, because it is the polite thing to say, and because he finds himself needing to make small talk to hide his nerves.

"Well enough," she replies with a sigh. Her mood is tempered by a number of things that aren't his fault. Once she arranges the flowers in the vase, she brings them over to the table and places it on top before sitting down across from him.

"How are you feeling?" she asks as she starts to pour both of them tea. "Were there any ill side-effects from... the death?" Small talk will probably be her own sort of shield before she can finally get down to the business of why she's asked him here today.

Well enough. A very English answer if ever there were one, John thinks to himself, and reaches for the tea she pours for him once it's set out.

Yes, small talk about his death. Death together in the arms of her lover, a man who he had technically slept with himself. A fact which she now knows herself. Does she know that John has feelings for him, he wonders? Does Jim himself know? He'd like to think he isn't quite so obvious as that, but who knows at this point.

"I am well enough," he counters, using her own words right back at her. He had died, and then been thrust back into the city as if it had never happened. No support system so to speak, and now he's wondering whether he'll ever be able to associate himself with two of the closest friends he's made here again. So yes, well enough.

"The gods saw to it that we were taken care of," he reassures her. Which hardly says anything, but again -- small talk.

She does know. She's trying not to think about it that way. Jim did say that she was the one that he wanted to be with and that John was his friend, which was part of why he stayed until the end.

That's a vague answer, but maybe John doesn't want to talk about his death. Mary can't blame him in that respect. Perhaps they ought to just get on with it instead of trying to chat.

After fixing her tea with one sugar and a bit of cream, she glances back up at him. "I'm sure you know that Jim told me about... you and him," she says. Her face doesn't show any indication of anger or betrayal.

John isn't honestly certain how much to say about his death. How much Jim honestly has told her about it, all things considered. The whole matter had been -- intimate. How could it not have been, considering the nature of the moment? But they had shared it together not only out of circumstance. And at least in John's case, not only out of friendship.

He takes in another leveling breath.

"He did speak to me regarding the fact that the pair of you had -- conducted a conversation upon the matter of our past -- intimacies," John replies. Watching her face for any indication of her own sentiments on the subject herself.

She bites her lip. If anything, it's made her insecure about she and Jim's relationship now that she knows she has a rival. If John were a woman, Mary knows she would easily best him. It's entirely different since he's a man. She has no way of competing with a man when it comes to something like this.

John seems uncomfortable, and that's not her intent, but she's not really sure of how to make it better. "I'm not... upset about it. I do wish he had told me sooner though. I didn't know he had those sort of feelings, and of course I questioned whether what he says he feels for me is genuine or not."

John cannot help but feel uncomfortable, given the fact that Jim had effectively outed him to her without his consent to do so. Of course he understands why, and he bears the other man no ill feelings on the matter. But there is a reason that John has kept the secret of his sexuality so tightly guarded from even those he considers closest to him.

John's gaze remains firm on the teacup in his hands for a long moment before he replies, "Forgive me."

He feels as though there are ants crawling their way about in his stomach, but Mary is one of his dearest friends, and he knows there are several things they must address, in order for their relationship to truly settle itself once more.

"Forgive me, my dear," he repeats again, "that I did not inform you myself. The fact of the matter is that -- I was, and perhaps still am, very much afraid of what it is you must think of me."

Mary's brow furrows and she puts her cup carefully back down on the saucer.

"Do you mean what I must think of the fact that you are... a homosexual?" she asks. "I know such people exist, John. It does not shock or disgust me. I do not think less of you."

That might surprise him, she knows, but she's surprisingly accepting of quite a few things that would scandalize most people in the 1920s.

John blinks, unfamiliar with the term, though he understands what it is that it means. Homo -- from the Greek, of course. Clever, in a way. And yet he isn't certain that he likes it very much at all. Not that sodomite he supposes is really any better.

He glances back up to her from his tea at her reassurances, the look in his eyes at once guarded and painfully open, for a man such as himself. This is not an easy topic of conversation. It is a secret he has guarded for most of his life, after all.

"Does society really change so much, in so little time?" he asks softly.

Jim, he understands. Jim is from a future that John can only begin to understand, but Mary. They are similar, their lives are built upon the same traditions and structures, and there is only -- what, a century and change between them?

"Not so much," she admits. "It's still a crime, though men don't hang for it anymore. I wouldn't say that men who have those inclinations are very open about it, for obvious reasons."

John must be wondering why she feels so comfortable with this. By all rights, she's a typical conservative aristocrat and has just admitted that society still doesn't accept gay men. She'll try to explain herself.

"At Downton, we have a servant, one who has been with us since he was a boy. He's done various jobs, but at present he's a footman. I know he has his eye on valet or butler; he's very ambitious, you see." Here, a slight smile. "Mr. Barrow has never confirmed his preferences with any of my family, as it wouldn't exactly be a proper thing to do, but we know. All of us do, even my father. As far as I can tell, Mr. Barrow has not engaged in... activity, but my father would never turn him in or sack him if he had, so long as he wasn't flaunting it. Our servants are practically family."

It feels odd for her to say that, but it's true. The person she's found herself missing the most since she came to Asgard is her maid, Anna.

"That is to say, I have known men like you. I don't think you are demons, though Mr. Barrow's personality does leave something to be desired." She shrugs. "My son is fond of him though, which bodes well for his future employment."

She takes a sip of her tea. "I don't think it's really any of my business to tell you who you should love any more than it is for anyone to tell me whom I should should love."

He wouldn't say that it's particularly reassuring to know, but at the same time John does feel more at ease, that Mary does at least understand where he's coming from. That the way of life he has known, for better or worse, the laws he has lived by and under, that they were not thus overturned in a day, as though they had not mattered in the first.

He sits politely listening to Mary's story of her Mr Barrow, unable to help the feeling that he would have liked to have had a friend like Mary, back in his own time.

"I appreciate you saying so," he says, offering her a soft smile in return, before glancing back down at the tea in his hands. "In a perfect world, would that everyone considered these things the same way as you do, my dear. It is not a particularly comfortable feeling, to live with the fear that those you care about might shun you so for something that, as far as I am concerned, you have very little control over."

She exhales a small laugh. Mary actually knows how he feels being worried about being shunned.

"This place is much different from either of our homes," Mary says. "I rather think you could be very open with another man and it would not be frowned upon." Picking up her teacup again, she takes a sip. "There's something else I must ask though. Do you... have feelings for Jim?"

Mary's not sure if she wants to hear the answer, but she really needs to know. Jim seemed to think that John wasn't interested in him like that, but Mary's not so sure.

John glances up at Mary at the question, watching her carefully. He has to give her credit for coming straight out and asking him plainly, in as direct a manner as she has. But he also has to wonder himself whether she really does want to know the answer, either way.

"I have never had much luck in love, you see," he says, after a long moment. Taking in a long breath and letting it out slowly, playing his long, delicate fingers against his teacup before he continues on to ask, "You have been here in Asgard for some time now, have you not? Did you ever have the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a Mr. James Fraser, perchance? Or Claire, maybe? His wife. She may have been going by the name of Randall, to begin."

It's a long story, and not even he knows the half of it.

That's not an answer, but she'll play along for now and hope that he's going to long way around to get there.

"Yes, I did meet Mr. Fraser," Mary replies. "Scotsman, right? I never met his wife though. Did you know them back home?"

He's asked the question to several other Travelers, to little effect, and so it is that he is somewhat taken aback at the fact that Mary does know of Jamie. His surprise showing unguarded on his face for a moment before he puts himself back in check.

"As a matter of fact, I did," he replies, flashing her a soft smile. "Mr Fraser and I are long-acquainted now, through one means or another. We had formed -- a particular sort of friendship between us, you see. To put it simply, Jamie was my prisoner. And being his Warden, I held a certain responsibility over those men within the walls of Ardsmuir. But the men saw him as a sort of leader you might say. So in the effort to make peace with my prisoners, for I was not their enemy, and I wanted them to understand that, Jamie and I..."

He shrugs slightly, before continuing, "We passed a fair amount of evenings together. Getting to know each other. He is... A very handsome man, of course. But very kind and just. He would sacrifice everything he had for his men, and I -- admired that in him. I do."

He flashes his eyes back up to Mary, gauging her reaction as he says, "I fell in love with him. Much to my chagrin. And much to his disgust, it's unfortunate to say. I never meant to make anything of it, but one slip almost cost us everything we had. It was nearly five years again before he trusted me again. So you see..."

He sits forward in his seat, steeping his fingers on the table before himself. "Whether I have feelings for Jim or not is irrelevant. The two of you have each other, and I am happy for you. And I would be happy to remain in your friendship. The pair of you. That is, if you are both amenable."

Mary concurs about Jamie being a handsome man. It had been quite striking to see him walking around in a kilt, looking better than any of her Scottish relatives ever had. Imagine her disappointment when the first thing he'd mentioned was a wife.

Her eyebrow raises as John tells his story, Mary expecting it to go one way, and then slowly frowns as it goes another. "I'm sorry," she says. "I don't expect that it is easy for men of your persuasion." The fact that having sex with a man is criminal in his time is only part of his worries.

She places her teacup back on its saucer. "Both of us wish to continue being friends with you, John," she continues. "We enjoy your company."

Mary doesn't think his feelings for Jim are irrelevant though. Knowing that there is the possibility that John and Jim might eventually decide they're better off without her will still gnaw at the back of her mind.

John doesn't suppose that she does, for that matter. Or else she would not have asked. It puts him, all of them to some degree, in rather an awkward position.

"I am glad to hear it," he replies, reaching to take a sip of his tea, as much to give his hands something to do as anything. "Your friendship, both of yours, it does mean a great deal to me here. Yours in particular my dear, for you and I, we are -- of an understanding, shall I say."

He raises his teacup to her and flashes the briefest of smiles. A very proper British salute, before he sets his cup down once more. Keeping his eyes fixed on it for a moment longer before he continues on, doggedly.

"Yet now that I have thus bared myself to you, I would ask your honesty in return."

He fixes her a markedly direct eye. "Knowing all that I have told you, do you enjoy my company still?"

"We are," she agrees, raising her own tea cup in response. Mary is still sipping from it when he asks for her honesty.

"Yes. I do," she says. "Honestly, it's rather trivial whom you wish to love or sleep with. Frankly, it isn't my business." It means a bit more to her because they happen to be sharing a man in this instance, but in general she doesn't have an issue.

John raises his eyebrows in response to her words. No one from his time would think in such a way, certainly not if he were to be sleeping with another man, and certainly not if he were to have slept with their lover, past tense or not. But he appreciates that Mary seems to be taking it all in stride. He was being honest himself in that as far as he is concerned, no matter what his feelings for Jim are concerned, he is with Mary, and that is what matters now.

"Well," he says, flashing her another, softer smile. "I am glad to hear it."

His eyes dropping to the teacup in his hand as he continues, "James Kirk is a good man. He was worried for your loneliness, should the fact that he had shared such a thing turn me from our friendship, but the truth of the matter is that the pair of you, your friendship, has been everything to me, in this place. I would wish for you to know that, if nothing else."

She's taking it in stride and taking Jim at his word that she is the one he wants to be with. If things change, her laissez-faire attitude might as well. But, she has to at least try to trust both of them. Mary likes both of them very much and does not want to lose her friendship with either of them.

"That's very sweet of him," she says with a small smile. "It's been my great pleasure to know you as well, John. You are probably the one person here who most understands what it is like to be from my time and place."

They might be separated by nearly 200 years, but a lot of things had remained the same.

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A Talk

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