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djs-sideblog-for-pog-trains · 2 months

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so. um. @mean-scarlet-deceiver's post about thomas and henry's relationship has been living in my brain rent free for the past month and i have been turning over a scene for just as long.

so. i tried to write it. i hope you don't mind, jobey. and also you're right. they are Hard to get right. if i had to put an era on this i'd call it BG (Before Gordon).

about 1.5k, full fic under the cut

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Thomas keeps shooting glances at the sheds as he bustles around the yard.

It… the hired help from the other railway, the engines who are slightly too full of themselves for Thomas’ liking (and he’s made sure to let them know as such) have been talking loudly all morning, as they were getting ready to take their trains, about… the new engine.

Henry. Even if he couldn’t have remembered Henry’s name, the other two have been saying it loudly enough to carry around the yard that Thomas certainly has the picture now. And… Thomas’ lip curls as he hears their newest comment as he goes past.

“Hey!” he calls, boiling over, and the two hired engines look at him. “It’s 9am already. Are you going to actually go take your trains, or are you just going to sit and preen all day?”

“What would you know, little Thomas?” one of them calls back, all smarmy and smug. Thomas’ lip curls even more into a full on frown. Eugh. Tender engines.

“About running a railway on time?” Thomas snaps back. “Clearly more than you! Are you waiting for Sir Topham Hatt to personally invite you, or?”

They huff and sneer and pout at him, but they do still steam off one by one. However, they each shoot Henry a knowing and cruel side-eye as they go that makes Thomas bristle, despite himself.

Henry is still in his berth in the sheds. Well, he’s half-in, half-out. He only seemed to have made it so far before he… stopped. And he’s been going all sorts of shades of red as the others’ gossip had gotten louder and louder as he waited for his driver to return with an engineer of some sort.

Henry isn’t looking at Thomas now, but his eyes had snapped to the tank engine when Thomas had spoken up. He’s instead closed his eyes, puffed out his cheeks, and seems to be trying – and trying hard – to… to what? To move?

Thomas tries not to stare, as he moves trucks into the siding they’re expected to be found in. Why is he trying so hard?

Eventually, Henry does actually move – but he… Thomas frowns again. Henry moves backwards, back into the shed. The wheesh Henry lets out as he comes to a halt is limp and weak.

Henry has been here, what, all of a month, maybe two at this point. Thomas hasn’t heard… many kind things, actually, so far, which is weird because look at him. Henry’s huge – Henry’s the biggest engine Thomas has ever seen, and he’s surely powerful to boot.

But Henry… Well, Edward said that Henry is sick, and sick often.

“Why?” Thomas had asked, as they had approached the shed. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Thomas,” Edward had reprimanded, and that’s when Thomas had realised Henry was in earshot, and clearly trying to pretend he wasn’t.

And that had been that.

Thomas had seen Sir Topham Hatt come out of his office at the station to watch Henry’s comings and goings, and more often than not with a stormy expression on his face. And Thomas didn’t get that either. Problems get the stormy expression. Troublemakers get the stormy expressions (Thomas would know). And Henry seems… too…

Thomas biffs his truck ahead of him as he turns his thoughts over.

Too… quiet? Too wallpaper? Too chameleon? Too…?

He snorts to himself. Whatever Henry is, he’s too much of it. And certainly too much of it to be a troublemaker, not like those mainline engines. It’s not like Thomas has gotten to know Henry yet, and it’s not like Henry has given him the opportunity to, either: but Thomas doesn’t get the impression Henry wants to be trouble. But he has to be… there has to be something wrong here, otherwise the Fat Controller wouldn’t be so upset.

Thomas hears a sniff from behind him as he backs down his stretch of track, and realises it’s come from the sheds.

And Thomas sighs quietly. …Then again, if nothing was wrong, Henry wouldn’t be so upset either.

“Those two,” Thomas says, before he can think, and Henry has gone absolutely silent, eyes flicking over to Thomas as Thomas pauses on a nearby siding for just a moment. “Bloody wankers, the pair of them.”

The silence holds for another second or two, before Thomas is rewarded with a shaky laugh.

“…I noticed,” says Henry.

“All those mainline tossers, really,” Thomas continues, and he keeps talking even as his work takes him all around the yard, speaking up so Henry can still hear him. “I almost wish the Fat Controller wouldn’t hire them. Sure, we need more wheels on rails, but they don’t seem to know a blazing thing about this railway.”

Henry – in the shadow of the shed – purses his lips, before he lets out another sigh, another limp wheesh of steam.

“I would hardly say I do, either,” he says miserably.

Thomas frowns, and comes to a halt a little too sharply with a big woosh of steam.

“Of course you do,” he replies, indignant. Henry’s a big engine, he should- why would he say that? Sure, Henry hasn’t been here long, but he’s a big engine, he should know plenty. “More than them, anyway.”

Henry sighs. He doesn’t argue, but Thomas’ fire flickers in annoyance as he can read of Henry’s face that Henry doesn’t agree either.

“I mean, you wouldn’t have been bought if-”

“Don’t.”

Thomas’ mouth hangs open for a second, before he closes it, blinks, and glances at Henry.

Henry looks even more upset. Great job, Thomas.

“I’m just saying-”

“Well, don’t,” Henry cuts him off again, sounding grumpier. And he’s gone from miserable to grumpy – that’s a win in Thomas’ book. “I’m particularly not in the mood to hear how I’d be more useful as a tin can.”

“The only tin cans around here are those self-important mainland pricks,” Thomas shoots back, and Henry side-eyes him – suspicious. “I’m not convinced they know what a timetable is, let alone how to read one. What kind of engine hangs around in the sheds when there’s work to… be…?”

Thomas trails off, and Henry… actually laughs. It’s tired and it’s bitter, but it’s a real laugh and it’s better than miserable.

“…Well, I want to assume you’re going to go work. When you can.”

“Optimism,” Henry says dryly. “I admire that in an engine.”

Thomas scrunches up his face. “I don’t understand you,” he says bluntly, in a way he’s sure Edward would scold him for if he was with them. “You’re miserable in the sheds, you’re miserable out on the line, you’re miserable doing nothing and you’re miserable pulling trains.”

Henry stares at Thomas for a moment, before his eyes flick away.

“If I could get out of this yard and actually pull trains, I’d do it in a heartbeat,” Thomas says, far more dreamily than he’ meant to, and he cringes a little, chuffing out of where he can see Henry’s face, because he doesn’t need to hear an earful about it from another big engine.

“…You’re small,” Henry says, slowly, not accusatorily nor really condescendingly. He sounds more …confused than anything. “…And you’re useful, here.”

“And?” Thomas snaps back, defensive. “I could be useful anywhere.”

Henry’s silent for another moment, like he’s really chewing that statement over.

Then, eventually, he surprises Thomas by saying, “…I suppose you would be better than those two.”

And Thomas lets out a sharp bark of laughter, shooting Henry a grin as he goes by, and punctuating it with a hoot and a whistle – delighted. The enthusiasm makes Henry blink, before slowly, a smile of his own spreads across his face; one that sharpens to match Thomas’.

“You’re most certainly right! And besides. You let them get to you, you let them win,” Thomas agrees. “And they’re far too useless for that.”

Henry laughs again. Thomas lets out another peep-peep and a woosh of steam of his own, pleased to have earnt it. Footsteps crunch over the gravel of the yard, and Thomas spots Henry’s driver returning with a couple of engineers in tow before Henry does, and replies to their hellos as he bustles past.

“Hello, lad,” Henry’s driver says to Henry, patting his side. “We’ll have you right as rain in no-time, alright?"

Henry sighs again, but does actually smile back at his driver.

His driver blinks in fond surprise as the engineers get to work finding the newest problem. “You’re in good spirits, all of a sudden.” Then, he glances at Thomas as the tank engine goes past. “Making friends?”

“More so finding the only engine in this yard with a thought in his smokebox, it seems,” Henry says dryly, loud enough for Thomas to hear, and that makes Thomas snort in amusement.

He does call back, “Hey, now, be nice to Edward!”

And the engineers and Henry’s driver alike seem relieved when the two engines laugh together.

Thomas watches them work to get Henry’s steam up, and Henry’s finally pulling out of the sheds a good half-hour later. Thomas whistles goodbye as Henry chuffs away.

He smiles with the satisfaction of a job well done when Henry, completely of his own volition, whistles a goodbye in return as he disappears off down the line.

Then, Thomas returns to his trucks, and gives them a good biff once more, ignoring how this time, they really shriek. He – and Henry, he imagines – can’t wait for those mainlanders’ contracts to run out.

#ttte #thomas the tank engine #ttte henry #ttte thomas #ttte fic #dj's writing #i never realised how much i rely on nodding as gestural filler in my writing until im writing engines who cant nod #i hope a) you don't mind and b) this is good #i wanted to draw this originally but it eluded me badly #i dont know if Henry would actually be that forthcoming about his self-depricating comments but ALSO he's very miserable #and probably is trying to make Thomas leave him alone via making him uncomfortable. this however does not work #mostly bc thomas doesn't believe in pity parties. unless they're for himself.#excuse the tag ramble. im thinking about them hard

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