The exertion of climbing the stairs leaves Tom coated in a sheen of sweat, his arm heavy as lead over Sybil’s shoulders. She pauses as they reach the top, placing her palm to the curve of her stomach, allowing herself to close her eyes for just a moment. “Sybil?” Matthew enquires softly, from Tom’s other side, and she flinches, and smiles at him softly.

“Fine, all fine.”

“Nonsense. Why don’t you go back to dinner?” 

She looks between him and her husband as though he’s mad, “No, I need to -“

Tom lets his arm slip from around her, heavy and limp as a snake, “You shouldn’t have to see me like this, Sybil,” he says, with that lilt to his voice that says that no matter how progressive his political thinking some things were still men’s work, for men’s eyes.

Sybil huffs an irritated breath through her nose. “I’ll take good care of him,” Matthew promises, all smiling sincerity through the furrowed brow, the only sign of strain from the weight of the man hanging from his shoulder.

“I don’t doubt that,” she attests, weakening. She is tremendously tired, and hungry (though isn’t she always these days?) and she doesn’t wish to embarrass Tom more than he’d been embarrassed already. By her own family and friends, no less. It was she who had persuaded him to come, and now look at him - drugged, humiliated, at her own table.

“I’ll be up soon, darling,” she promises, pressing a kiss to his hot, glistening cheek, and Matthew’s already limping down the corridor towards their room as she descends the staircase.

NOW WRITE ME TOM/MATTHEW PORN OKAY?