There was a reflection, staring straight back at you in the golden gleam of the Garrison's bar top. But even as you knew you should have, you didn't recognize the woman who's eyes burned with strained vacancy. As though the orbs that were once saturated in a hue that emboldened her irises, had simply been drained of it's life, of it's shade, of it's very soul.

For they stared back at you, with an emptiness that was all-consuming. For not a single wave swirled within their gaze, not a tinge of depth or shimmer of light. They were simply embers that had been snuffed out on the side of the cobblestone, their exuberance and precious illumination extinguished, as if there had never been anything within their crevices to begin with.

Blinking your lashes wildly, as though it might just be able to swipe the image from the reflected surface, you looked away from the woman, for you knew the truth. You knew exactly what had been in her eyes, you knew what had been there and with it, you knew exactly what had been lost. Ripped from your clutches before you ever had the strength to retrieve it.

Your fingertips, painted a sleek burgundy red that nearly matched the shade that stained your lips, dug through your emerald embroidered coin purse. Brushing skin that had been frozen by the unforgiving Birmingham cold, against soft and silky fabric that nearly erased any trace of the lingering chill. But as your fingers danced along the bottom of your purse, searching for coins to pay the good barkeep for the whiskey coming your way, the cold that had just about been banished from your flesh, returned ten fold in a vicious gust of a spine tingling breath.

For as the frosted doors to the Garrison opened, letting the blow of winter's ever present icy wind seep along the hardwood, in walked along the trail of frigid air and ruthless Birmingham smog, a presence even more piercing than that of the falling November season.

Perhaps, you should have known immediately that he was there, felt his presence looming in the atmosphere like the threat of an impending storm and yet, your fingers abruptly paused in their pursuits and your breath hitched ever so faintly, as you felt the profound shadow of Small Heath's king cast across your shoulders. For his aura stole breath from lungs as though every inhale was up for the taking, but perhaps, for Thomas Shelby, there was nothing he couldn't have if he so desired it.

The sharp clatter of two coins hitting the bar top resounded beside you, drawing you back down to reality as Thomas stood to your right. His sudden company overwhelming, even as he'd yet to venture a word spoken into the shared air. One on top of another, Thomas placed the money down and as you peered over out of your peripheral view, you watched as his left middle finger pushed the coins forward for the barman to take. His hand vanished from your view as you watched his right hand dig into the pocket of his jacket, slipping out a worn pack of cigarettes and you watched as he pulled a single stick from the pack along with a box of matches.

"I thought all your drinks were on the house." Your voice was the first to break through the nearly impenetrable feeling void, that had settled with an intimidating presence between the two of you.

For even as the Garrison echoed with the inebriated voices of those who inhabited it, there was something about being in Thomas's company that nearly felt as though he had the very power to stop the world from turning. As though the gold pocket watch he always adorned, controlled time itself, leaving all of you up to his will.

For all of the men, nearing the edge of belligerency and the point where more beer and whiskey ran in their veins than blood, suddenly did not feel as boisterous or distracting. As though the noise, the mere atmosphere of the pub that reminded you in each and every crevice of it's wooden interior, of your roots here in Small Heath, faded to the background. Leaving you engulfed in a bubble, one that was dense and nearly suffocating as Thomas had the effortless ability to attract all of the focus, all of the air the room could provide.

Even after all this time having known the second eldest Shelby brother and even after the years that had passed since your last set of shared words, Thomas Shelby had the very same effect on you as he did nearly a decade ago.

The bright gleam of sharp citrine illuminated the soft flesh of Thomas's expression, as you turned your head to catch a better glimpse of the man who had clearly chosen to keep you company, watching as he lit his cigarette and extinguished the flame by shaking the thin match with a single flick of his wrist.

He was adorned in a suit perfectly tailored to his physique, something you hadn't expected anything less than and yet, you were still surprised by just how damningly alluring he looked. In a charcoal grey, that nearly rivaled that of the streets and their perpetual melancholy essence, and the way it clung to his frame just enough so that it could accentuate all of the features that made him an imposing man to meet. But the intimidation that oozed from his pores as though it was a tangible thing, came from more than just that of how he dressed. It came from the way he carried himself, the way his face could be stoic like chiseled stone while his eyes, they could tear you apart without batting a single eyelash.

"Oh they are," Thomas remarked, his words funneling out through the thin part in his lips, along the soft current of ashen smoke. Fanning across your cheek in a breath of warm tobacco and something chilling, like the faintest tinge of mint, before dissipating into the atmosphere before your eyes. "but yours are not."

For most, there might have been a slight curl of the lips, wrapping around a mirthful tone in which the words fell. But Thomas spoke with very little jesting to be discovered in the foundation of his comment, only the faint furrow of his brow as he spoke in a way that you knew was meant to impress or perhaps, intimidate with the stature he'd accumulated here in Birmingham.

For he was a man who didn't pay for his suits or his drinks, a man who made the cobblestone streets part like the red sea when he came strolling past. He even appeared like a king, with his crown of razor blades snug on his scalp and perhaps, it was for that reason that he regarded the world as he did. As though he was simply above it all. Above the very people determined to keep a bookmaker of gypsy blood, who deemed himself a Peaky Blinder, down in the mud and the smoke, never to see the light the world just so happened to offer.

Thomas's left hand reached forward, tapping against the two coins sitting untouched on the bar top, as a silent reminder to the barman who was pouring a drink for another. Pulling his hand back and plucking the cigarette from his lips, he turned to look over at you. With his elbows resting forward on the sleek golden surface, slightly hunched as his strong and broad frame casted a shadow, Thomas regarded you with a hidden expression.

For it was buried within the stilled lines of his face, a man who very rarely gave things away. But you could still remember the days when you didn't have to read him, didn't have to pry. You remembered before the war got a hold of him and made it impossible to see the real man lingering beneath the scarred and tormented surface.

"Take it as a gesture of good will." Thomas remarked and as soon as the words spilled smoothly from his lips, along a new stream of smoke, you couldn't hold back the grunt of bewilderment from sounding in the base of your throat.

You eyed Thomas with a knowing look, as the barman slid two tumblers of amber liquid towards you, proceeding to narrow your eyes cynically at Thomas's quite comical choice of words. "Good will, from Thomas fucking Shelby, the world must be going mad."

The faintest twitch could be observed in the corner of Thomas's lips, just as you began to turn away from his concealed expression, watching the mere ghost of a smirk threaten to spill across his full and slightly pouted lips. Your eyes abandoned the man who held a lifetime of history for you and fell down towards the sleek glass tumbler holding the whiskey you ordered.

Reaching forward, you watched the way your fingertips trailed along the rim of the translucent glass, resembling the slow seep of blood along the purity of fallen snow. As the burgundy of your nails stood bolder than that of the burning Irish whiskey that glistened a deep honey amber, you listened to the tumbler slide along the golden bar top, as you dragged the glass towards you.

"Now when did you start drinking whiskey, ey?'

Thomas eyed you as he himself, began to leisurely sip his own serving of the stinging liquor, bemused by the fact that he hadn't ever seen you drink more than a sip here or there of the drink, before he went off to war.

Your fingers tightened their grasp on the tumbler and without answering his amused inquiry, you simply brought the rim to your lips and allowed the liquid resembling that of melted down copper, to run through the crimson stained nature of your parted lips and burn down your throat in a single stream. The scent that you'd associated over the years with Thomas Shelby himself, as it fell from his breath and across the span of your flesh more times that you could count and more than you wished to recall, washed over your senses.

That was the thing about whiskey, it was a tumbler filled with memories of a man who held your heart for the longest time, a notion that had inflicted a pain unlike any you had ever been acquainted with in your lifetime, when he took the possession and destroyed it without a second thought. Whiskey brought the pain to the surface as though the wounds that lined your torn through chest, had never been scabbed over or even begun their long journey to being mere scars. The pain was rather throbbing raw and exposed like the knife had just been pulled from the cavity. But just as the taste and smell brought you back to a time, lost in a past you'd give anything to get back, the whiskey dulled the ache.

It soothed the pain like it's own intoxicating balm, the burn of it's undiluted alcohol cauterizing the wound until the agonizing hurt, no longer oozed freely like fresh flowing blood. It blurred the memories to a point that they simply bled to a collection of images, many in which you couldn't sort between reality or a vivid dream you'd had night's prior.

You knew the whiskey could never fully erase Thomas Shelby or the traces of him left behind, from your mind, from your broken heart, from your very soul, but it made the prospect of the pain he'd managed to leave behind, somewhat bearable.

Setting down the empty tumbler with a soft clink against the reflective surface of glinting gold, your tongue ran over your lips that tasted of the whiskey that tainted your taste buds, before grabbing your purse with the answer to Thomas's long awaited inquiry teetering on the edge of your tongue.

"Ever since gin went and broke my fucking heart."

Standing from your seat, sweeping the soft cotton of your skirt from beneath you, your eyes fall over the sight of Thomas's slightly furrowed brow. The strong line of a dark raven bending into an expression of slight bewilderment from your response, taken aback by the sudden shift in your demeanor.

For there was never anything about Thomas Shelby's conviction that was "soft" and yet, there was something about the interaction thus far that hadn't yet broken through the surface. The concealing barrier that coated the extent of the true nature of pain and heartache and unrelenting burden that waited below, like thrashing waves prepared to soak the next soul in whole. It had ultimately been as impersonal as one with such history could present, a mood in his words that hinted towards mirth and the slightest hint of his dry wit. But then your response had come along and shattered the glass, letting the tone drop sharply into the cold waters below, until neither one of you was left unscathed to the harsh truth.

Your heels remain steady on the scraped floorboards beneath you, but suddenly it feels like the Earth is surely swaying back and forth with the softest infliction. For you're nearly an inch from Thomas now, threatening to steal the breath of his next exhale, but you linger for a mere second as words that should've remained as your own, fell from your lips like an unstoppable current flowing free.

"But you wouldn't know the first thing about breaking hearts, ey Thomas?" You didn't look him in the eyes, you didn't dare. You simply lowered your lips towards the proximity of his keenly entuned ear and whispered the words that should've been kept as a mumble only yourself could hear. "Since yours is already broken."

Pulling back, feeling the gust of air soar through your chest as you take a step away from the man who had drained it all, leaving you breathless in that moment as your crimson coated words traveled delicately to reach him. You move to walk right on past him, close enough that the powerful scent of his cologne assaults your senses in a breath of rich spice and intoxicating memories, but far enough that your body hasn't the chance of brushing along the edge of his arm. The sharp patter of your heels just begins to sound in the atmosphere thick and chilled around you, when warmth wraps its presence around your upper arm and refuses to release.

It startles you, the sudden pressure applied to your limb that abruptly stops the rest of you in your tracks. As if your arm is the epicenter of all the functions of your body or perhaps, it is merely his touch that has the power to override every thought, every action, every part of yourself that suddenly obeys him as if its more his than yours.

Twisting on your heel, eyes snapping downward to witness the careful curl of thick and calloused fingers coiled around your bicep, you pull with all your might. You know the effort is futile, for even as Thomas's grasp is less than tight and abrasive, its stronger than any hold you could ever wish to simply squeeze through. But still you try, for you know any moment now, his eyes will call upon you.

For you can feel them, the sharp rays of cerulean burning into your flesh like it's the cast of the hidden sun. Stripping you of everything that you have, everything that you are, every ounce of strength you have to fight and it is in that moment, that you make the mistake of looking up. Abandoning the sight of his hand clasped firmly around your arm, halting you where you stand, giving up your better judgement and last shred of common sense, as you peer up through the soft sprawl of your lashes.

It's a sudden clash, the collision of your weary gaze with the strength of his own, feeling as his eyes freeze you to stone. For everything you once loved about the man was still there in the core of his eyes, the blue all but immortalizing the past while the rest of him, simply faded away with the incoming tide of a harsh new reality. As though the waves hit the sand and the man you knew was merely washed away and the man who stood before you now, was a stranger.

But his eyes, damn the eyes that spoke of where your heart had once resided, they stood the test of time and the erosion of war and pain and unimaginable suffering. A capsule perhaps, to a lifetime you only ever remembered in the faintest corners of your dreams and recalled only when the will to fight them became too weak.

Thomas withdrew his cigarette from the easy balance of his full bottom lip with his right hand, breaking the all-consuming contact of his scrutiny only as he turns to stub it out in the nearby ash tray, letting the last stream of smoke roll out from between his lips as if merely an exhale and not an ounce of energy was wasted in the process. For the smoke faded from view, tipping over the edge of his accentuated lips like the flowing current of a waterfall, before abandoning the atmosphere in a disappearing breath.

The pads of his flesh, warm and calloused with scars far beyond that of which your eyes could see, were forceful and yet, as they grasped your arm that was bathed in soft burgundy, his touch held a gentleness beneath the stern hold. As though Thomas knew he had the sheer force to shatter you, that his hands could do nearly enough damage as his lack of words could and so, he held you carefully as he moved you towards the snug.

"What the fuck was that about, ey?"

The penetrating sensation of his voice resounding through the small space, just as the sharp click of the door closing faded from the air. You knew Thomas well enough, in a different life it seemed like more and more these days, to decipher the tones that saturated his words.

For even as his brows looked to you with a harsh furrow, the blue of his eyes appearing to darken a shade or two as they stared at you without so much as a flutter of a lash or cleansing blink, there wasn't a hint of anger that fell from his lips. It wasn't aggression or even the modest trace of irritation that flooded his breath but rather, an incredulous tone. It was the sound of his head trying to wrap around the words you'd thrown at him out at the bar, trying to understand, trying to decipher you as you could do so easily with him.

You weren't sure what to say, unsure if you even had the breath left to speak the words if you had. For you stared at Thomas, who'd since retracted the cap from his head, hiding his crown away in the safety of his pocket, leaving strands of soft raven messed lightly in the fringe that brushed faintly along the bridge of his forehead.

You stared at him, and it was as if every single thought, every single word you'd held inside of yourself all this time, was right there. Aching to be freed, yearning to break through the barrier you'd put in place to protect your heart and you couldn't help but wonder, if it was finally time. But the longer you gazed at the man whose scrutiny was all-consuming, you felt breathless and meek in his presence, with the weight of such candor lingering on the tip of your tongue. Like perhaps, the words you kept safely inside of yourself were meant to remain there, as not to inflict the pain you carried onto another. Onto a man who you knew, carried more pain than you could ever know.

The words began to teeter off the edge however and you knew the instant your breath drew in, that you couldn't stop their release, even if you had wanted to.

"After all this time," You shook your head, the image of his face contorting through the sheen of tears coating your vision. "You still don't know."

Thomas didn't move, as your voice met the open air on the current of a whisper but reverberating off the surrounding walls as if an echo chamber clutching tightly to a scream. He simply stood there, inches away from you, so very close that the warmth of his deep exhales were felt along your flesh.

"I wrote you letters every day you were over there," You stared at Thomas, up through the dampening strands of your lashes that fluttered only because the weight of his unrelenting scrutiny seemed to force them to tremble. But you didn't look away. You didn't blink away the tears brimming your lash line, you didn't cower beneath the fall of a blue so formidable it threatened to sweep you under its tide. You simply peered up at Thomas and spoke the words you had to say.

"Sending 'em off just hoping you'd get them and maybe my words would be the thing to bring you home."

Thomas had written you back in the beginning, responding to your letters in relative time. It gave you something physical to hold onto when your worried thoughts began to spiral. You could remember the nights you laid in bed, only the flickering candlelight illuminating the walls, and the hours you'd spend rereading them over and over again. Running the pad of your finger along the curled ink of his rushed but nonetheless beautiful penmanship, absorbing the words he'd written as if they were a balm to the wounds aching upon your heart that missed him.

You couldn't remember when it changed, what day of what month it had taken place in, but just as soon as the letters appeared, they abruptly ceased to come. As though the man who wrote them no longer existed. It had been a quick demise, one letter a month, to a letter with only a few words, until nothing came at all. Something inside of Thomas fractured and broke, leaving him unable to write to you like he once had.

"Every last prayer I had Thomas, I spent on you. I lit a thousand fucking candles in the church, praying the goddamn roof off hoping God might just hear 'em." You couldn't conceal the crack in your tone, listening to it ring out as if someone had gone and shattered a glass in the room, hearing the resounding sensation of something once stable, breaking to pieces.

"And then you come home, and you act like I don't exist to you anymore. Like France had gone and blew me out your bloody head! But I am here Thomas, here standing on the shards of me broken heart that you fucking broke!"

Tears fell like acid down your cheeks, burning the flesh until you knew it appeared red and inflamed to Thomas's unwavering eyes, but still you watched him. Studying the way his brows dipped even lower, furrowing until the raven shade nearly emboldened the blue, his feet bringing him a single step closer to where you stood. His jaw tight, clenched so harshly it ought to pain him and the muscle hidden beneath the soft charcoal of his attire, tensed enough that you could nearly feel the way his body reacted in the atmosphere in front of you.

"What about me, ey?" Thomas's voice fell upon a whisper, that low and controlled tone that sent more shivers up a spine than a booming outrage could ever produce. "You think it was easy to know the man you sent off, the one you used up all your fucking prayers on, wasn't ever coming home?"

You shook your head at him, as his brows loosened their furrow and arched with an exasperated expression. "I wouldn't know Thomas, because you never gave me the time of day once you got back."

Perhaps, Thomas's silence was deafening because he knew he hadn't a word to say in opposition to what you'd just said. He couldn't fight what you both knew to be the truth.

"I would've at least liked to have had the chance to meet him, Tom, because maybe, just maybe, there might've been a little piece of the man I sent off still in there." Pressing your lips together, so tightly Thomas could see the pressure nearly eradicated the crimson lining their soft flesh, attempting to keep the extent of your fallen tears at bay if you could.

"But I won't ever know, because you came home and made the choice for me."

Thomas stared at you for what felt like an eternity, as if he'd managed to make the Earth stop turning and slow time down until it dragged on forever if he wished it to. For the blue of his eyes bored holes into you, as if he were mining for the wounds he'd left behind and it felt as the cerulean tide washed over them, that they merely poured the salt of the sea upon the open surface.

Thomas pursed his lips softly, shaking his head with a single and stern action before responding in a low, nearly whisper tone. "You deserve more, always have."

"More than what Thomas?" You implore, as an incredulous breath falls sharp from your lips the moment his words meet your ear. "More than the boy I fell in love with, the man who made me promises for when he came back from France?"

"You have this perception that because of what you do, where you come from, that you aren't worthy of someone loving you, but Thomas, my hands are just as coated, and my lungs are just as tainted as yours. You and me," You shake your head emphatically, tears glossing over your vision until you haven't a choice but to blink the tears away and let them drown down your cheeks. "we're of the same cloth, the very same cloth stained black with the coal and the smoke of Birmingham."

The silence that followed, was all-consuming. Insurmountable in a way that threatened to overtake your being, for you could feel the stark quiet settling into every crevice of yourself, until the weight of the void became too much to bear.

For your words, saturated in the tone of your angst and misery and the raw vulnerability of your confessed emotions, hung in the atmosphere like it were merely rope dangling down from the ceiling. Waiting for a hand to reach out and grab hold of its plaited surface.

Your breath stalled, suddenly unmoving as if you'd forgotten how to breathe all together, all the while, feeling breathless as if you'd just run faster than you ever had in your life. It was a bewildering sensation, feeling out of breath like you'd used it all up but standing there with the knowledge that you did in fact have air in your lungs, just that you were simply unable to bring yourself to use it.

Thomas's shadow engulfed you, the loom of his shade cooling your flesh as though you'd stepped over the threshold and into the bitter winter cold. For he hovered above you, unmoving as if the chill of his own gaze had permeated his bones and froze him to stone where he stood. But as you peered up tentatively through your lashes at the man and his overwhelming scrutiny, it was his orbs that proved each breath continued to soar through his lungs and that warmth melted the ice once thought to be coating his veins.

For they stared at you, so deep you feared he might just strike through every secret woven close upon the aching strings of your heart, mining for whatever he might fancy and take on his way. The blue, imposing in a way you could feel inside of yourself, as if the shade was a tangible, living breathing thing.

Thomas's lips moved not an inch, his brows since evened into a still line bent not a fraction, but his orbs that remained stagnant on your emotional frame, shifted to and fro. Ever so faintly, it would have appeared imperceptible to any other eye if you had not been locked within his willful gaze, staring deeply as they bound from side to side in order to capture every single emotion held within your eyes.

They looked as if they searched for something more however, digging in the silence that overwhelmed your beings that stood so close you nearly shared the same breath. You weren't sure how long you stood there, feeling the burn of your aching lungs and the rapid pulse of your thundering heartbeat, as Thomas's blue eyes poured into your own in hopes of unearthing whatever it was he sought from you. But you knew the moment it broke, for it was the nearly invisible softening of the strong blue that told you he'd come up empty.

"What is it you want from me, ey?"

Thomas's voice fell upon the cast of a whisper, trailing along the flesh of your cheek in a breath permeated with a certain painted tone that couldn't be obscured from your ear. For it was felt, more than it was voiced in a loud and clear bravado. You felt the ache in his words, so tightly concealed it was a wonder that you even managed to make it out. But it was there, potent and formidable, the tone of a broken man.

For it was as if in the way his single inquiry, a plea for you to let him out of his misery, grazed along your flesh, that you could feel every shard broken apart inside of the man you remembered viewing when they'd all been perfectly aligned. There was a sensation of begging in the only breath Thomas Shelby's being could allow, for it was simply the falling of his voice, the lost and pained emotion beneath the surface that called out the fact that he was at a loss for words. He didn't know what else to say, what he could possibly say, if there was anything left to even say, he knew he hadn't the answer inside of himself any longer and so he begged for you to say it for him.

Another bout of silence followed his whispered admission, as you stared up into his eyes and pondered what he'd spoken. For you knew exactly what you had wanted from Thomas Shelby for all these years and yet, now that you had the opportunity to express just that, you found that you couldn't.

Pursing your lips together as you willed yourself a breath, you shook your head in a soft motion before parting your lips to answer. "Nothing you can give me."

For you knew the truth as much as it pained your very soul to believe. Thomas Shelby wasn't the same man you sent off, the same man you loved all your young years up until the day he left for France. He was different now. Hardened, burdened, broken and bruised. How could you expect a man whose heart had been so brutally shattered by the world, to ever have the capacity to beat for another again?

You had only ever wanted one thing from Thomas, and you knew at one point, that you'd surely had it. But now, as you stood amongst shards of your broken heart, witnessing the sight of his own merely beating to keep him alive, you knew he couldn't give it to you again.

And so, you didn't ask.

You simply walked away with your own broken heart hanging on by that delicate thread, not willing to put another mess of bloody shards and shattered dreams upon the shoulders of a man, who was very well drowning in a sea of his own.

A/N: Oof, my heart hurts a bit after this one!😭

This one shot has been kind of a crazy ride to write, if I'm being honest. I started writing it when the idea and inspiration for this piece first hit about five months ago but halfway through, right after the line that inspired this whole one shot (about gin breaking your heart) I hit a wall. I stepped away from this piece for a while, unsure if I'd ever get back to it or complete it or if it was even up to par with my other pieces and I'd even want to complete it. But then just recently, I was rereading what I'd already written along with some of the notes I'd written down for this idea and I had the urge to revisit it! And I am so happy that I did!!

This piece allowed me to really explore emotional depths and also a different area of my writing that I tend to struggle with, which is writing different scenery or locations, since this piece is set in The Garrison. I'm not sure why I struggle with it, but it gave me a new challenge for writing this piece. I am really proud of the descriptions and the emotion and the angst I was able to weave into this piece. I am really proud of myself for exploring a somewhat different side in my writing and I am really proud that I was able to come back to this piece and complete it as a one shot I am very happy with! I hope that you all enjoyed this piece!!❤