king and queen of birmingham
Arrow House resounded with the ever-present descent of rain. Soft torrents blowing in from darkening storm clouds obscured somewhere off in the shadowed distance, as the droplets that were kissed with the chilling touch of the entering winter season, endeavored to cleanse the blood from the gravel. Crimson settling into the crevices of loose sediment and rigid stone, while the midnight rainstorm merely made puddles out of the bloodshed, saturating the pebbles until the memory of what had happened out on those back steps would remain long after the precipitation ceased.
Night engulfed the mansion that stood as if not a single soul resided within its gothic presence. Shadows climbing the walls like twisted ropes of dangling ivy, broken only by the faint cracklings of lightening that loomed beyond the horizon and the fields left dormant in the cold November clutch. Silence echoing up and down the corridors, like all those who lodged in its quarters had discovered peace in the dark waning hours of the evening and the first breath of a new tomorrow quickly approaching. But the silence that engulfed Arrow House, was a contradiction in of itself.
For the halls might've been quiet, the voices of all those that had once graced the pristinely cleaned floors gone, the barrage of live instruments humming in every corner of every room erased as if their notes had never been strung at all. But as midnight settled in a rush of chilling rain, Arrow House stood anything but silent.
Secrets resided beyond the evergreen painted walls. Underneath the golden frames and the sleek brushed mahogany, past the fortune that adorned the house in a luxury the eyes of a Small Heath citizen had scarcely known, echoed the voices of lost souls. Like ghosts trapped in the walls, spirits clambering to get out. But it was not just the departed that cried out for freedom. The living suffered inside of these immaculate surroundings too.
A man; broken by a life crafted both by the devil's hand and his own, shackled to this place like he might never escape what it was that kept him tethered to this cursed place. Just a man, with air in his lungs and life in blood, walking these corridors as though his soul had abandoned him long ago and he strode a ghost in his own reality.
The pungent scent of his Sweet Aftons led you to him, an odor he wore like the smoke that coated his lungs, flowed from his pores and made up the very particles of his flesh along the way. It was a scent that made you think of home, when it was just a crumpled-up box of half-soiled cigarettes swiped off the streets and lit with a single match on the edge of the canal. When it was the scent you looked forward to smelling every evening you snuck out to see him, when it became the scent to overpower your first lousy flat and overwhelm your wardrobe like it stitched itself into the lining of your each and every dress.
When it was just you and Tommy against the world, when Tommy Shelby was still just Tommy Shelby.
But now, it was the smoke that clung to your Japanese silks and one-of-a-kind mink furs. It was the scent that battled the aroma of crackling cedar from the grand fireplace and the expensive tinge of amber that now coated your flesh. It was just smoke now, sharp tobacco that became of Thomas, as if in the creation of his very foundation the scent was woven like threads of soft tweed layered throughout.
You discovered him in the kitchen, the abandoned quarters that no longer echoed with the clatter of dishes and the rushing of waiters, but rather the stark silence that followed Tommy around like he was the shade of melancholy that dusted the world. His cologne had nearly faded from his flesh and yet, the sharp burn of the familiar spice still lingered in the air. Like the intoxicating burn of a fresh whiskey flowing down your throat, the sting that pricked along the trail of your senses, was welcome in the ache that followed.
Your footsteps made not a single sound as you tiptoed along the cold tile, the heels that had bitten into the flesh of your ankles in the previous evening's hour, now swung by their silver straps as you carried them in the curve of your fingertips. Brushing every so often against the slick satin of your gown, a shimmering sheen of sapphire gliding down your frame until it engulfed your body in a wave of pure and unscathed azure only the seas could envy.
It trailed along the kitchen tile like it was not extravagant fabric, but rather that of the ratted and torn threads you'd adorned in your life long ago. As if the rain that had fallen upon your exposed shoulders but splattered like teardrops against the thick straps wrapped around your shoulder blades, was not sewn by nimble fingers but that of your mother when you hadn't a penny to spare. Like the satin that exposed the traces of bloodshed in the tarnishing droplets at the very hem of your gown, was not the dress adorned by a woman who'd journeyed up in the world, but the one who was still back in Small Heath.
There were moments you felt like an imposter, as you adorned silks and satins women could only dream of, but undeniably dreaming of the thin muslin and worn-out comfort of wool past its prime. When your nails were glossed in the deepest sheen of a wine-soaked crimson, but the callouses of your past were still embedded beneath the surface of your fingertips. With your tendrils fashioned into the latest style of the season, but missing the days when your locks were free and tangled, smelling of the rain and the wind and the sweetness of the pastures. Inhabiting a mansion far too grand for anyone's own good, but still remembering the cramped bedroom with the leaking roof and creaking floorboards.
Sometimes you felt like an actress, playing the part of a woman high in society, when you knew your heart still resided with the poor back in the place you'd been raised.
But Thomas, you mused as you studied him in the sanctity of the shadows, he fit this role as if it had been crafted for him. He'd never had a second of hesitation in climbing those societal steps, not an ounce of sentiment for the way he used to live, any lingering residue of contentment from the streets that had made him who he is today. This was what he dreamed of, when he was one of eleven living aboard the January or when he hadn't two pennies to rub together.
Thomas Shelby was born with an ambition soaring through his veins, like it was a wildfire never bound to be extinguished. He'd always looked to the future, always beyond the horizon, always past the smoke and the smog and the bloodshed that littered those cobblestone streets. Tommy looked at the world and asked, why not him?
Swallowing a breath, as your tongue brushes along the soft terra-cota stained tint of your lips, you tiptoe out of the shadows and towards the dim light that illuminated his frame. It dangled from the ceiling with a rather futile, citrine glow. A hazy beam that made the particles that danced in the atmosphere like they were caught up in a waltz visible, but when it came to Thomas, the light failed to bask him in a sufficient source to break through the night's density.
But even in the murky illumination that was bound to strain your eyesight come morning, there was something about seeing him in a moment like this, that accentuated what had always been beautiful about the man.
For gone was the tuxedo, sharp and impeccable ebony tailored to his physique like a leather glove, discarded and pushed aside in the night's midnight hour. The soft fringe that brushed along the bridge of his forehead, once styled was now askew and tousled by the rush of wind, the hardening of rain and the roughness of fighting fists.
His flesh, from the softly freckled curvature of his striking cheekbones, to the strong and firm grasp of his hands, were no longer bathed only in the ghosts that littered along the lines of his palms, but rather that of fresh wounds. Cuts tearing through the skin of his knuckles and a bruise beginning to blister an angry blue along his lower jawline.
Even in this lackluster light, even with dried blood caked to torn knuckles and evidence of violence etched across his face, Tommy Shelby was still the most mesmerizing man you had ever known. Not even sin or bloodshed or the tainting erosion of the demons that tore his mind apart piece by bloody piece, could ever seem to diminish the beauty in which Tommy possessed.
Because beneath the blood that laced his fingerprints like an embedded fixture of his foundation, beyond the past that haunted him like the rusty hands six feet under came back to claim his newfound light, in spite of all of the sins that you couldn't defend that stained his ledger a searing red, Tommy was still just a man. A broken, tortured and somedays dangerously lost man... but one nonetheless.
It was never more apparent than it was tonight, when a trace of his humanity and the last scrapings of what lingered in the near empty cavity of his soul, made an appearance for all to see.
For even as Arrow House was bathed in the glittering light of wealth and power, he stood a beacon of the past for a split moment in time and you swore for a second, you saw the man you'd fallen in love with all those years ago. He might've been adorned in the finest suits that made him an imperial mark amidst a sea of ordinary mortals, he might've had a new addition to his title and higher standing in society, but when you heard his voice cloak your shoulders like the comforting blanket of safety, flickers of a light once thought to be extinguished reignited in front of your eyes.
Perhaps, the man that had approached you earlier into the evening, was drunk out of his mind. Perhaps he merely lacked the common sense that the woman he was accosting was Thomas Shelby's wife or maybe, he was simply arrogant enough to believe he could place his hands on what belonged to Tommy. Either way, the man hadn't stood a chance, even if he had been in his right mind.
For it wasn't often that Thomas Shelby lost his calm sense of control, it was more his brother's knack for inciting violence that could've otherwise been handled with a few spoken words. But when it came to you, Tommy's fuse was a bit more delicate.
"Are you fucking with my wife?"
The words rang clearly in your recollections, the sound of Tommy's voice fresh like an open wound. For his tone nearly dripped with the venom that laced his tongue and yet, the composed breath in which they met the open air, sounded like the velvety cascade of smoke that escaped his exhale. He was the only man you'd ever known who had the inexplicable ability to place the fear of God upon the bones of another, all the while, having not a shred of faith lingering inside of his own damned and forgotten soul.
Tommy Shelby was pure class, even as the gangster in his blood boiled beneath the surface of his pristine and unscathed suit of immaculate ebony. He made not a scene, not a harsh word thrown for more ears to hear and not a drop of blood spilled to stain the hardwood floors. Tommy simply withdrew the half-burned cigarette from between his full and furiously pouted lips, glanced at you imperceptibly out of the corner of his eye, and ushered the drunken man out of the drawing room to be dealt with in his own way.
You could take the man off the streets of Small Heath, you could take the blades from his cap and place him amongst socialites and politicians, but you could never take the gangster out of the man.
The soft, near imperceptible patter of your bare toes came to a stop against the tile, as you let the train of your gown whirl freely around your ankles like a rushing tide of radiant sapphire. Crossing one ankle over the other, as you rested your hip against the edge of the countertop sitting diagonal from where Tommy continued to brood in silence, the only sound threatening to break through the barrier was the gentle clink of your ring against the sleek marble.
"You know," Your words tiptoe across the void, like dipping your toes cautiously into the abyss, letting them graze against the surface of the water before plunging beneath the shrouded depths that awaited. "I haven't heard you call me that in quite some time."
A crack in the surface appears. A meek chisel in the ice that coats the air, for it isn't enough to cleanse the tension from the oxygen saturated in its intensity and denseness. It doesn't thaw the chill that permeates Arrow House or even begin to stich the tender tears in your relationship, but there is something about the candor of your chosen words and the calm and lighthearted tone in which they carry, that extends across the frozen surface like a lifeline. An olive branch fastened into a plaited rope, strewn across an icy void, waiting for the drowning hand to reach out to hold.
Tommy barely moved, never once letting his body shift from its position sitting slouched on top of a second countertop, with a cigarette burning between his bloody fingers and the other hand holding a cardinal doused rag. The only hint of acknowledgement at your presence and the words he hears clear as day fall from your lips, is the nearly imperceptible lift of his chin a mere inch or two, as he peers up at you through the sweep of his long lashes.
A thin curtain of deep raven, saturated and dark as they patter ever so slowly against the bridge of his cheekbones, sweeping upwards through the tanned whisper of freckles sprinkled over his flesh. But just as indigo claims the night and eradicates every last trace of daylight, the blue of his eyes emerge like a cold moon ascending up over the horizon line. Basking the sun kissed land in a cool exhale.
Tommy's orbs steadied their gaze upon you, stilled as though for a split second the currents ceased to churn, a single breath when the waves that ebbed with the flow of the universe calmed and the blue was simply that. But with the gentle blink of his sight, the storm returned to the current of his gaze, the rightful swell that always seemed to captivate them. The layers surfaced, every wave of cerulean toned blue that swam through his irises returning brighter in the insufficient lighting. Embers of flickering azure, glistening like the crackling flames of an inextinguishable light, but flooding over you like an icy tide.
With the faintest purse of his lips, an expression lost to eyes that didn't know Tommy like you knew him, and the slightly brusque arch of his brow that you could read, as if the words of his exasperation were sprawled right there in the flesh.
"It's what you are, isn't it?"
His gaze abandoned you with that, letting the calm and quiet nature of his slightly edged voice dissipate from the shared air, as his sight returned to his torn knuckles and Tommy let the smoke of his next drag fill in the place of his words along his lips. The faint hint of dismissal in his tone, the exhaustion that coated his short words and the wheels you could hear clinking inside of his head from where you stood adjacent, didn't surprise you.
This was Tommy, focused on a thousand different matters but always struggling to concentrate when it came to you. It wasn't that he didn't care or that he hadn't any love in his heart for you, but rather that he was swept up in the fast paced, never-ending life he'd constructed for himself. He was the master of his own disaster in a way, for he resented the long hours and the endless pursuit of danger that sought him out at every turn and yet, he couldn't stop. He didn't want to stop, he didn't want to quit reaching higher and higher up that ladder, until one day he might just reach the bloody gates of the eternal place he'd long ago been locked out of.
The expansion into London all those years ago, had started the strain. But as the years went on and more wealth lined his pockets, with zealous ambition clouding his head, the more you craved the past that Tommy was so eager to leave behind and happily forget. With one looking for change and the other wanting it all to slow down and stay the same, your marriage felt like a string pulled taut.
Letting your gaze falter from the sight of Tommy, your eyes sweep over your bare toes that peek out from beneath the swell of your sweeping gown, before lifting with a sigh. A bowl resides idle on the countertop your hip leans against, less than half filled with lukewarm water. For a split moment, you ponder the notion of simply leaving Tommy to tend to his wounds in his self-conducted silence alone, but something far stronger than the urge to leave him be tugs at your thoughts, and perhaps even the strings of your heart that had always belonged to him.
With one last sigh, letting it trickle past your lips as your teeth relinquish the tender flesh from the inquisitive bite that had ailed them, a habit Tommy had always pointed out growing up that you never seemed to leave in the past, your feet begin to patter soft steps against the chilled tile. Glossed nails of rich wine cradle the porcelain bowl as you retrieve it from the marble countertop, listening to the minimal water begin to slosh back and forth within its eggshell toned prison, as your heels turned, and you strode in bare steps towards Tommy.
The rag once woven of soft white wool, now dyed a darkened hue of deep crimson, sits uselessly in Tommy's unclenched left fist, as he's more concerned in lifting the cigarette to his lips than the blood that still continues to slowly trickle from his open wounds. The tips of your toes stop just as your skin nearly brushes against the shined tips of his shoes, and the cloud of his scent overwhelms you, like you're suddenly unsure what tide of his might just drown you first.
Tommy's shirt of pristine white is now soiled in the splatter of blood and the dampness of sweat and fallen rain. His sleeves once cuffed with links of monogrammed silver, are now harshly rolled up to his elbows, where the accentuating curve of his biceps strain against the tightened fabric. Unbuttoned to where you can just begin to see the rays of an ebony stained sun beginning to rise, his attire is as relaxed as Tommy Shelby gets now and days.
But there is something about seeing him like this, never mind the blood splatter and foul mood, that feels intimate. Like you're seeing him in a light that no one else gets to witness, a side to the man that sounds like a mere myth.
"Tommy Shelby O.B.E., still throwing punches in his own backyard." The bowl clinks as you set it down beside his reclined torso that leans against the countertop, watching the water slosh and the exhale of smoke cloud around you as it leaves his lips. "I thought those days were over, but here we are."
Snatching the damp rag from Tommy's lackluster clutch, you dunk it in the lukewarm water and wring out the excess, before taking his right hand carefully into your own. The cigarette still balancing between his full lips, withdrawn from his left as Tommy's gaze lifts and he peers up at you through his lashes. You don't meet his eyes, instead letting your sight focus on the torn flesh of his knuckles, while you feel the cool tide of his scrutiny descend upon you.
The bewildering contrast of a warmth that threatens to burn your flesh like the scorching sun, all the while, blisteringly cold as if the ice might just penetrate the scalded wound and cauterize it with a single stare.
Tommy doesn't flinch as you gingerly dab the flesh that pulsates with a crimson beat. Pain was an old friend that he knew all too well, bullet wounds and a war survived had Tommy well accustomed to the sensation, but perhaps, no physical pain could ever match the pain that ensued inside of the mind you feared you no longer knew like you once had.
"Brings you back, ey?" Tommy murmurs in a low and smoky Birmingham rumble. Standing so close to him that you can nearly taste the Irish Whiskey on his tongue, you swear you can almost feel the vibrations of his low burr.
Your eyes flicker up at his words, something in his tone that had softened just enough that the serrated edge of the letters no longer felt as if they might just slash your hand. There was something in his quiet breath that sounded the tiniest bit reminiscent, as if there had been a small puncture in his brick wall and he was allowing himself to say what he felt, even if only for a minute in time.
Blinking, staring into the frigid abyss of a breathtaking cerulean blue, you feel the corners of your lips beginning to twitch with the ghost of a timid smile. "To the day I first met you? It does, yeah."
"What did you always used to say about that day?" You inquire in a soft breath, continuing to dab gently at his wounds, as you tiptoe along a pathway to the past that you hadn't ventured down with Tommy in the longest of times.
"That it was the day I knew I was going to marry you."
As per Tommy fashion, his words carry with them a weight, for very rarely did Tommy waste a breath on words he didn't mean or care to share. He spoke with conviction, with such sureness and belief, that you couldn't help but believe each and every sentiment that fell past his lips. It was a gift you supposed, something that became increasingly vital in Tommy's strategic life, having the ability to conduct conviction and emotion to a level that made all who listened start to believe in what he had to say.
But what they didn't always see, what they didn't always get to have, was the truth residing in the currents of his churning gaze. It was a timid light, a mere exhale of fog over the sea's azure horizon, but it was enough for you to know that when he spoke to you, he meant every word he said.
"I almost didn't go down to the canal that day, you know," You muse softly, your lips beginning to increasingly curl around the letters your tongue forms. "My mother wanted me to stay inside, with the skies rumbling with thunder and a storm not far off, but I hadn't listened."
You nearly miss it, as your eyes do a double take and bounce away from the cleansing of his bloodied and bruised flesh, but you see the shadow of a smirk tugging at his lips. You knew a remark teetered right on the edge of his tongue, a sarcastic retort just begging to be freed, but while Tommy restrains, his eyes still glimmer with a faint glint of youthful mirth.
"I thought the worst I'd find myself was stuck in a bloody storm, soaked to the bone. I hadn't anticipated I'd find a boy beating some poor bloke to a bloody pulp."
Tommy peers up at you with a knowing gaze, "Hardly a poor bloke, a fucking drunk who deserved it and he walked himself home, weren't a corpse left to weather the storm."
"All I know," You say with a soft grin. "Is that that blue-eyed gypsy boy who wasn't much older than I was, was bleeding. And even though I didn't know his name or his story or if he'd try to harm me too, I found I couldn't leave him there on his own."
Tommy had been thirteen at the time, two years older than you were and a good foot taller as well. He'd been clothed in thin linens, a jacket that looked like it belonged to an elder brother as it swallowed up his already lean frame, and his shoes were stuffed with newspapers to keep his toes warm and dry.
But his eyes were kind. You'd never seen a shade of blue like the one you'd witnessed for the first time that day. It was a hue of blue all their own, as though he'd stolen it from the sky and the sea and everything blue in between, and still created his own. Tommy blue, you'd mused as you got to know the boy who would soon become your entire world.
His locks were shorter back then, they couldn't cover up the bruise beginning to form in a blistering shade of black toned purple, from where he'd head-butted the man who you'd learned tried to swipe the money he'd had in his pocket. His knuckles were torn and caked in dried and fresh oozing blood, and he smoked from a worn and rain-soiled packet of cigarettes.
"So even when you were bloody and I was cleaning you up with the sleeve of my favorite cardigan, you knew you were going to marry me?"
"Even then." Tommy hums softly beneath his breath, a simple answer for a question he hadn't even needed to ponder.
Shifting his hand, as you aim to cleanse the dried blood from the crevices of his palm, the smooth metal of your wedding ring glides against his calloused flesh. The jewel cradled in the center catching in the dimly saturated light behind you.
"You asked me to marry you when it was pouring with rain," You smile softly at the memory. The tendrils that swept over your shoulders and left puddles soaking through your dress where they sat, the rainwater collecting in the crevices of the cobblestone that sloshed from your boots on the way home, the downpour that nearly threatened to sweep you both into the canal. You never knew you could love a cold rain as much as you did that day.
"You stole my ring from a bloody gypsy caravan," You smirk softly, peering up at Tommy through the fluttering curvature of your lashes. Observing the way his eyes glint in the insufficient lighting, as if he hadn't even needed the bulb to burn, giving not a thought in his mind away. Unbeknownst to the fact that you'd learned to read the waves of his azure toned currents, finding truths embedded in the silent ebb and flow his gaze had to offer.
But you could see the way his lips twitched at your words, yearning to stretch into the makings of an expression scarcely witnessed on the face of Tommy Shelby anymore. But with the faintest hint of a smirk all his own, a mere whisper of emotion, he draws one more drag from his cigarette to obscure you from the sight.
Letting your gaze drop down from his scrutiny that consumes you in a bewildering tide of cold and comfort, your eyes pause on the sight of the small diamond sitting atop bloody flesh. "But it's still the most beautiful piece of jewelry I've ever owned."
You could be dripping in the finest jewels that England had ever seen. Diamonds from the heavens, emeralds of the luscious land, sapphires from the deepest seas, rubies unlike any red you'd ever seen, glistening tones of silver and gold and every hue in between. But nothing in comparison to that one ring.
That simplistic band of thin silver that was strong enough to balance a small diamond in its center. It wasn't ostentatious, it didn't beg for any attention when it entered a room, it didn't scream out its wealth for all to hear. It whispered the beating pulse of the man who'd given it to you all those years ago. It was warm and intimate and felt as if a piece of him was always with you. It might not have been worth very much, but that ring... it was priceless.
The warmth of flesh on flesh startles you back down into reality, not realizing that your thoughts had slipped away from the present and peered back into the past. Blinking away the memories, your eyes focus in on the sight of Tommy's wounded hand carefully coiled around your own, as if you'd switched places. His thumb brushes over the band he'd slid on when the world was calm and his soul was whole.
"We hadn't a thing back then," You whisper in a low breath, watching the callouses of his blood caked fingertips graze over the ring and around the curvature of your knuckle. His flesh is warm and firm and anything but soft, and yet, there is comfort in Tommy's touch. Like you'd been deprived of something that reawakened your body and set your heart ablaze for far too long, hiding it away like a long-lost treasure.
"But we sure had it all, didn't we?"
Your eyes flicker back up to look at Tommy, endeavoring to peer through the sprawl of your lashes and discover what awaits you, finding yourself the slightest bit breathless at the knowledge that his gaze hadn't ever abandoned you.
"We've come quite a ways though, haven't we, Mrs. Shelby?"
Smiling softly at Tommy's choice of words and the way his voice coils around each letter like a woven encasement of warmth and security. "We certainly have, Mr. Shelby."
Squeezing his hand ever so gently as to avoid irritating his slightly swollen wounds, you retract your touch and drape the rag over the edge of the bowl. "I remember when we hadn't two pennies to rub together, when we went to bed with no heat and I had to bathe down at my mother's because we hadn't any running water for that first month. We were skint but my god, we were happy."
"Money never did buy your happiness much, ey?"
You shrug your shoulder softly, shifting your weight from one foot to the other as you look at Tommy with a reminiscent smile beginning to grow.
"I remember the first pair of shoes I bought with my very own money, when we were just kids. They were the deepest shade of red and completely impractical for Birmingham winters, but I was so proud of them. I ran all the way down from shops to find you and show them off and what is the first thing you go and do, ey? Throw 'em right into the cut."
Tommy can't restrain the smirk the unfurls itself across his nicotine laced lips, peering up at you with a furrowed expression. "Now what would make me go and do something like that, I wonder?"
Rolling your eyes at the part of the story he'd never seemed to forget, "I might've chucked one of 'em at your stubborn head when you called 'em bloody ugly, but that didn't give you the right to go and drown 'em."
Tommy lets out a soft exhale, a chuckle rumbling beneath the surface of his breath, and it flickers warmth inside of your chest from the rare sound.
"I made it up to you though, didn't I?"
Staring at those eyes that had had you falling for Tommy the very first day you met him, you couldn't help the way your heart still lurched at the sight. Somedays, you felt a million miles away from the two kids you once were, the people you used to be before the world caught hold of Tommy. Somedays, you felt like you were drifting in opposite directions, watching him sail without a prayer to call him back.
But when you looked at Tommy, when you talked like you were right now, when you could feel that he was really here in the moment with you, it only seemed to remind you of the love you carried for this man. That no matter what changed in your life, no matter how much you missed the past and the man he used to be, no matter what the future shaped up to hold, you would never stop loving Thomas Shelby. It was impossible.
"Yeah," You hum under your breath, staring straight into his eyes like you were diving into the abyss and giving your body up to the mercy of the tide. "You're always good at making up for your faults."
The kitchen falls upon a wave of silence, one that completely engulfs the room until the only sound that remains, is the simply beating of two pulsating hearts. But your eyes don't pull away from his own that stay locked onto you. Perhaps, you simply haven't the strength to look anywhere else but right at Tommy.
Your bare toes shuffle a single pace forward against the chilled tile, wedging yourself softly between the tight space residing between his knees. Tommy doesn't straighten and he doesn't shift, he merely continues to lean against the countertop and watch you grow closer to him. The room is so quiet, as you pause with the warmth of his flesh radiating through the trousers that clothe his thighs on either side of you, that you listen to the steady rhythm of his breaths.
Calm and composed, as if each and every beat of his heart is meticulously planned and he knows them all. But what frightens you, is the thought that Tommy might just be able to hear the way your own heart races without a single guard in place. The thudding pulse of a quickened pace.
His chin is tilted slightly, but as your eyes scan over the sight of a blue hue beginning to form darker across the chiseled structure of his jawline, your fingers gingerly reach out. Fingertips grazing over flesh smoothed from a clean shave, across sharp bones and supple skin, a mess of tan melding with blistering blue, your palms cradling his cheek just enough to coax his head to lift further to look at you.
Like a lost diamond encased in coal, Tommy Shelby would never know just how beautiful he truly was. An enigma, the sheer look of perfection whilst wearing all the sins that mankind had to offer. He was the end result of heaven and hell fighting over the possession of a single man, a battlefield that resulted in devils left behind to haunt his mind but imparting angels to illuminate the sight of his presence and his pain in a breathtaking light.
Your left hand finds itself brushing against the soft fringe of his raven locks, fanning ever so softly over the crest of his forehead, until your fingertips can no longer resist the urge to gently run through them.
"You know," You muse in the softest breath your lips can muster, as Tommy's eyes stare up at you like his eyes endeavor to drown you whole. "If you were to ask me again today, what you asked me way back then, my answer would still be the same."
Perhaps, you'd both gotten distracted along the way, forgetting who you both were before London and Arrow House and the whole damn world. You simply needed the reminder that even as you were moving up, that Birmingham, that city and those streets, would forever be a part of your story. And erasing it from your past, would be erasing the things that brought you together.
"Still me best girl." Tommy murmurs under his breath, gazing up at you.
His lower lip might've been beginning to swell, but you kissed him anyways. Because your love had always come with a little bit of pain, and his had always come with a little bit of blood. But you wouldn't have changed a thing about Tommy Shelby and the way you loved him. Emphatically. Inexplicably. Eternally.
A/N: Ahh! I have been in love with this plot since the moment it first came to me...when I first started writing my Thomas Shelby One Shots! Yes, this one has been one I've had tucked away for quite some time now. Saving it for when I knew I could sit down and create something beautiful, something that did this plot justice. It's definitely taken a lot of patience, as I've started and scraped and restructured this plot so many times, but as some more of the dialogue and emotion began to piece itself together like a puzzle coming into place, it started to flow and I knew I had finally found the way this scene was always meant to unfold.
I always love exploring the inevitable evolution in a relationship with Tommy Shelby, there will always be change and turmoil and pain and intense love there and I love digging into those layers and blending the past and the present and the emotions that come with both.
I really love what I crafted here. The descriptions, the imagery, the emotion, the dialogue, I'm very happy with how it all came together! I feel I was really able to lift this scene to life and breathe such beauty into it. I will admit, that when it comes to dialogue, I get very anxious and second-guess myself constantly. I'm proud of the way I was able to let some of the dialogue flow where it wanted to for the sake of the scene, even though it is my biggest insecurity when it comes to my writing, but I think it all came together really well! I'm very proud of this piece and I hope you all enjoyed it!❤
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