CHAPTER FORTY THREE.

               A WIND WHIPPED THROUGH Small Heath, battering against the doors and shutters of each home, rattling the windows as though there was no tomorrow in sight, as though it could break down the greying bricks and blow over the terraced houses if it tried hard enough. One might think that it could, what with the city still raw from the aftereffects of the war and how it had wrecked communities with its nightmares and terrors having the ability to split families down the centre. Except only a fool would assume this ― the poverty―stricken city that Birmingham was had its ups and its downs, and it just so happened to be that its monarch stood on the blurred line between those two contrasts. Thomas Shelby, and his band of silver razor blades and peaked caps. It was his city that stood in the midst of this storm, and his city he intended to keep. And whilst it stood the tests of November wind and rain, he remained inside, in the golden haze of light that the Garrison Pub was enveloped in.

By his side sat Felicity ― the girl that held the other part of his crown in her little fist, the girl that kept him on the boundary in between good and bad.

Neither of the two had their kingdom on their minds right now; Tommy was occupied with the golden―haired angel beside him, and Felicity was just as distracted by him, although she tried harder to hide such a fact.

"You drank all the fucking whiskey, Tommy!" She soon whined as she reached across the table and plucked the bottle up by its neck, brandishing it at him with a frown. . . one that just so happened to have her lips curled upwards in an amusement that she was trying to not show to him as she looked on with faux disapproval.

Tommy laughed. "Is that a problem?"

"Yeah, I wanted some," Felicity said, her tone turning slow and mocking. "Why else would I care?"

"Well, I could tell you'd had enough, darling."

The golden―haired girl pouted. "No, I hadn't," she objected, taking to unscrewing the bottle's cap and tipping it back so that she could at least have whatever few droplets were left. "It's barely ten o'clock, anyway. I could've had plenty more."

"It's closer to eleven. . . and anyway, you get tipsy from just a single drink, believe me," Tommy countered, amused, plucking the glass from her grip and holding it out of his wife's reach. "Come on."

Felicity pursed her lips together, shook her head and rose to her feet. "I'm going out to ask Harry for another drink," she asserted.

Tommy returned the expression, but didn't stop her. "You do know you can just ask at the window, don't you?" He queried as she edged behind him, making her way towards the door.

"Of course I do, I served you for a good year, didn't I?" She smirked, tugged on the handle of the door so that it swung inwards, and disappeared behind it.

"Felicity, I'm not taking you home shit―faced!"

It wasn't long before her face popped back, with her golden curls showering her face like a curtain: one that she would briefly try to push behind her ears, before giving up completely, as she turned to her husband. "Why not? I've done it for you plenty of times."

He raised an eyebrow. "That isn't true."

Felicity pulled a face, but didn't go any further on that particular part of the matter. "Still, I'm asking Harry for another bottle. I'm in dire need of some company who aren't reeking of beer or trying to stop me from drinking my own, even for a little bit." And with that, she flashed him a wide smile before heading over towards the bar, leaving the door rocking back and forth on its hinges.

"Polly still reckons you've met your match in her, eh, Tom," Arthur commented, a short burst of laughter coming from him as a combined result of both what had just gone on in front of him, and the fact that he had been steadily drinking for the best part of two hours.

His brother smiled, and shrugged. "Perhaps I have."

"Can't keep your woman under control, you can't," John added, his own amusement showing.

"More so than you can, John―Boy."

John frowned. "Just because me wife has some spirit―"

"―and you have no balls," Arthur interrupted.

The youngest of the three smacked him. "Marrying a wild woman doesn't mean anything of the sort," he argued. "At least I've got meself a wife, you're still about with all the whores, Arth. Even Tommy's settled down or some shit."

"Nothing wrong with that."

The remaining brothers stayed, sitting in one another's silence as the storm outside raged. For once, neither had any intention to talk of the business, of the shop and the workers back on Watery Lane, as all of them were far too tired to speak of such a thing. With Arthur in one corner, John in the next, and Tommy on the other side of the table, closest to the door, the three stayed quiet. They hadn't any need to speak, and neither minded.

"Esme's due next week, y'know" John started up after a while, being the first to get restless and sick of the silence.

Tommy shot him a questioning expression. "I bet you only knocked her up so you could get christening presents and whatnot."

His brother appeared offended for a fraction of a second, before shrugging. "What can I say? It's a good plan ― Polly always does, and if I make Ada feel guilty enough, she'll do so too."

"Not anymore, she won't," Tommy returned. "She'll use her own kid as an excuse, and then who'll get you that little gold matchbox?"

"Since when did 'aving a kid mean you can't pay for others?"

"If you have enough, you can't fork out coins for your nieces and nephews. Too expensive."

At this, John appeared truly offended. "That'll just be rude of them, then!"

Arthur and Tommy turned to one another, sharing a look of amusement as John continued to scowl, before promptly turning his attention back to his drink, and seemingly forgetting about the whole conversation. And so the other two were left to their own thoughts ― an occurrence that perhaps should not have happened, as it led to the raven―haired man finding himself thinking of the Woods family and all of the troubles that came with it. . . the troubles that should have left them all be, all of those months ago. With John Woods leaving them be physically but not mentally ― what with him having a part in the hospital and leaving that horrid pink tissue upon Felicity's breast bone ―, Tommy couldn't help but continue to worry about whether or not he'd make yet another unwanted appearance.

"What's troubling you, Tom?" Arthur asked gruffly after a couple of minutes as he tipped back the bottle, eying his brother as he realised that there had to be something on his mind, or else he wouldn't have turned as quiet and brooding as he had in such a short space of time.

Tommy shook his head in return, tilting his head towards the door, where Felicity was beyond it. "Not here."

"She's gone for a minute," Arthur was quick to object. "And whatever you have to say, I won't say a word of it to her afterwards. Not my place, see."

John nodded, agreeing with the elder of the three, as he too joined in on the conversation. "Trust us, Tom," he affirmed. "You do with every other fuck up. This can't be any different."

Arthur shot him a disbelieving scowl. "Shut your mouth, John," he instructed, for once taking on the role of elder brother. "He can't have fucked up, not with her. They're so in love it makes me fucking ill."

"Felicity's as clueless as the next person," Tommy pointed out, ignoring both of his brothers' words. "She doesn't know her father hasn't a single part of his heart reserved just for her. She'll tell him she does, she knows it, but she doesn't believe it. Not really."

He paused for a moment, his thoughts passing over and settling on the golden―haired girl, as they had a tendency of doing. And at the thought that she might come to harm by her father's hand once more, Tommy inhaled sharply. "I want him gone. I want him dead and in a grave, a shallow fucking grave. I want him gone and out of her life for good, forever."

"That's easier said than done."

"Don't you think I know that?" Tommy returned. "Do you think I don't know that my angel of a wife would lose her fucking head if I touched her father, because she's all too nice? He's given her nothing but hell but I know that if I did anything stupid about it without telling her, it'd break her. She'd be more hurt if he died than if he fucking shot her again, I swear."

It was true, and all three men that were in the room knew it. Yet before either brother could comment, tell him that it'd be worth him talking it over with her rather than firing the pistol first ― measure twice, cut once and all that crap ―, the door reopened and the woman herself stepped over its threshold, brandishing a bottle of white rum and a happy grin. 

"I have booze!" Felicity announced to the room, giggling to herself as she stumbled over to her chair and almost tripped over Tommy's in the process. 

"Booze you don't need," he was quick to declare, but she held it far from his grasp as she unscrewed the cap, already sensing he would try and snatch it from her in an attempt to stop her progressing to being anything more than tipsy.

"Don't be such a spoil sport," Felicity pouted once more, and tipped the bottle back before handing it over to John. "There, Johnny."

Tommy sighed. "Come here, for Christ's sake," he said and, despite her protests, managed to snake and arm around her waist so to pull the girl further into him.  "If you're sick on me, though, I won't want you, so mind that."

"Uh huh, you promised to love me in sickness and in health," Felicity objected, beckoning to John to return the drink. "So you're legally obliged to do so. Or is it religiously? Or morally, or―"

"Alright, that actually is enough," Tommy declared, using his free hand to grab the bottle from his brother before the blonde could retrieve it, lightly pressing his lips to her forehead to distract her. . . she hated, in her less than sober haze, that it worked. 

"But―"

"No, I know to get you home the minute you start rambling on about something or other," he told her with a soft laugh. 

Tommy secured the cap back onto its body, left it on the table before him before rising to his feet, helping Felicity up with him. His brothers followed suit and so the four left the private booth, exiting the Garrison and going back out into the howling wind that threw itself around the dismal streets of Small Heath, Birmingham. 

And one might have thought that even the wild wind and rain stopped its reign of terror for a little while when the city's king stumbled out, his queen on his arm. 

And they'd be right.

AUTHOR'S NOTE!

i'm currently crying that there's only five chapters left of this book. . . no one talk to me. although, despite the fact that i'll hate not writing for felicity anymore, it means i'll be able to focus on my other fics! which you should definitely check out bc idk they're cool. kidding. (no i'm not) so yeah that's the only good thing to come out of me finishing this book >:'(

( also happy eight years to peaky blinders! )

anyway ― i love you all so so so much!