Learning James’ Truth

There were no words spoken in their reunion. To see James McGraw again was so many ways a dream that there was no hesitation in Thomas to reach for him – to hold on to this piece of sunlight in his past that had somehow found its way into his present and cradle it as the precious treasure it was. Time fell away in that moment, leaving only warmth and welcome for something thought long lost. 

This honeymoon period was not built to last – with nearly a decade passed between them, Thomas and James had a great many things to discuss. While I have crafted various verses for what comes next, the immediate responses have been rather deliberately bypassed in each and every one of them for one very simple reason:

I fucking hate writing confrontation, and Thomas is a fucking hurricane that has just been provoked in the most dramatic and dangerous of fashions. No matter how good a man may be, to learn the things that Thomas did with the simple introduction to the fact that James McGraw and Captain Flint are in fact the same person does not result in good choices. 

Thomas will reach the point where he understands what James did, and he understands that James did not know the truth of what had happened to him, in the heat of that moment there are three terrible truths to confront: 

1. The sensation of having been abandoned by James.
   
2. The knowledge that James possessed the power to save him. 
3. The realization that James murdered his parents.

Thomas’ response to this was not rational. It was not right. But it was perfectly valid in consideration to all that he was feeling. 

He struck James. Of this I do not doubt. And how that fight escalated and ended is verse dependent but if you think for one second Thomas wouldn’t lash out at the man responsible for his mother’s death I really don’t know what to tell you. 

While he does regret the action, he has a right to that anger. He has a right to the hurt that he felt that day and he has a right to continue to have days where these things hurt him. These are issues that Thomas and James need to work through and depending on verse they may be alright, they may be buried or they may be healed, but they are a factor between them and to ignore that is a disservice to Thomas – and in its own way, to James as well. To ignore it denies them any chance at real recovery, and that is not something I am okay with.

Concerning Captain Flint

On the plantation, news was something that came rather rarely and was often treated as a bit of an event. Things were organized so that handlers oversaw specific groups, which they directed through the day and disciplined as needed. Once a month, representatives from each group would get to go to a meeting at the main house, and hear the news which they would then bring to their group and share. 

These gatherings were generally quite festive, and for that reason it was a different representative every month, so that everyone had an opportunity to enjoy them. It was a shockingly fair system, but then that was the purpose of the place – to build itself up as a humane method of slavery, but that is a whole other discussion. 

In any case, often times these meetings contained stories of piracy, for they were exciting and easy entertainment for otherwise dull and focused lives. Tales of Flint, by the time they reached Savannah, were broader and more sensationalized than the truth could ever hope to be. 

At no point did Thomas ever consider that the notorious Captain Flint might in fact be his dear James McGraw. Not so much because he believed the lieutenant incapable of cruelty – he was a Naval Officer that capacity came with the territory and Thomas never once doubted in it. Rather, the idea that James McGraw could become a man so fantastical and not do something about Thomas’ predicament was too impossible to believe. 

Even when he learned Flint killed his parents in a targeted attack he did not suspect – his father had many enemies. His own uncles might well have paid for the assassination and it had gone too far, for all he knew. So to learn that Flint and McGraw were one in the same – it was a shock. Though again, that is it’s own tale.

The Murder Of The Hamiltons

Thomas heard of his parents deaths through a handler. By that point, he had been on the plantation for some time, and had formed a sort of comfortable society for himself. While it was hardly home, his complicated sense of gratitude for being there made it easy for him to adjust and eventually come to forge relationships with his fellow castaways and even those who held control over his liberty. 

The news, when it first struck, was – difficult. The loss of his mother destroyed him. Knowing how much she had done and how hard she had fought on his behalf, in many ways seeing her as his only champion in the whole of the world, the idea that she was so cruelly taken from it ravaged him in ways that felt insurmountable. 

There were times when he felt like he could not breathe – days when he was so bitterly furious with his inability to protect her, with the way in which they parted, with the unfinished business between them that he had to find means of distracting himself. 

His emotions were so focused on his mother that his father was often an afterthought in his pain. There was so much unresolved, so many reasons for hate and dismissal, that Thomas was more frustrated when he found himself mourning the man when he ought to have been glad he was gone. 

Much of Thomas’ worst and most tumultuous periods of grief for his parents took place on the plantation, and he found ways to a tentative healing before learning the truth of Captain Flint and thus, the reasons behind their deaths – though that, of course, is it’s own issue. 

I cannot recall if I made a headcanon post about this or just went on about it with @intolerablexsacrifice but the long and short of it is, Thomas utilizes a form of classical conditioning with people who are in his sphere that he sees are in need of particular cues to respond to. The two most common cues he uses are a click of his tongue ( indicating disapproval ) or a low hum ( to indicate approval ) 

While these tricks are not something that Miranda responds to ( she saw through his game early ) the both of them utilize these against one another in a more playful manner. There is nothing subconscious about their reactions – Thomas knows when Miranda is giving him a straight up dressing down in public with a simple click of her tongue, just as Miranda knows when she has gone too far or is being teased by her idiot, constantly social experimenting husband. 

They don’t bother with humming so much – as they are married, they much prefer to use physical touch as a method of reward because it is something they both crave and are more than permitted to exchange socially. 

The difference between Thomas and Miranda clicking at one another, and Thomas clicking at James, or Peter Ashe, or even his own father, because yes he is daring enough to try that shit on Alfred Hamilton, is that with anyone other than Miranda, Thomas is training these people. It becomes subconscious to them, and it is notable especially with James and Peter, because they are receptive to it. 

Though they may not register it for what it is, Thomas is conditioning them to seek his favor – to prefer a hum over a click, to seek to avoid the sound of disappointment. Depending on the verse with James, this can be something that shifts into the same realm it held with Miranda – a means of communicating without words, without letting the world see what is really happening – a way of teasing and playing. 

Alternatively, it can remain a method of control, which shifts the power balance and keeps things from being wholly healthy between them – alternatively, it may be used as a means to communicate when PTSD is ravaging one or the other, in which case it is used as a means of helping one another navigate troubled waters and is more of a healing tool than a manipulative one.