Ash fell like snowflakes through the late Christmas sky, coating the cobblestone below in a blend of Small Heath blown remnants of the churning factories and the delicate flurries falling down from the open heavens. Through the sky consumed in a hue of deep indigo, the snowflakes fluttering down from the clouds hidden within the evening's shadows, twinkled as they caught the glow of sparking embers and reflective lantern light.

They landed upon the shoulders of a man bathed in a darkness that not even the approaching twilight hour could match, their flakes of frozen crystals clinging to the wool of his long black coat. Dusting the fabric that kept his flesh warm in the blistering winter winds, in a breath of purity that hadn't descended upon the tarnished soul in quite some time. But as the snowfall continued its glistening tumble upon the Birmingham streets, the wind simply blew the flakes wherever they may fall, not sparing a single soul in their ethereal descent, no matter how tainted that soul appeared to be.

Thomas Shelby's tracks printed themselves behind him in the dusting of light snow, marking his steps as though the light of the hidden moon might just pierce through the dense indigo sky and illuminate his trail for his cerulean eyes to find. The streets were scarce, nearly abandoned as the souls who had homes to reside within and families to celebrate with, were surely indoors and out of the frigid cold that threatened to cling to his very bones.

For despite the fabric lined with warmth and comfort that Thomas wore tailored to perfection upon his strong physique, the material was no match for the winds that gusted through the night. Howling its presence through the atmosphere that stung with the vicious cut of the biting cold, tearing through exposed flesh and freezing over any source of moisture found. For Thomas's cigarette nearly froze to his lips, as he lifted the stick burning with its own delicate source of heat and took a drag, exhaling a cloud of smoke that intertwined with his own breath left frozen and visible before his eyes.

Perhaps, his presence had caught your eye through the thin sheen of the linen curtains or maybe, it was simply that Thomas's presence was emphatically felt. An intangible sensation that you could feel in the depth of your chest whenever the second eldest Shelby brother came calling, as though Tommy had gone and all but left a part of himself residing within the beating strings of your heart and whenever he came back around, it pulled with a force that alerted you to his presence that had returned to make sure what he'd left behind was surely being taken care of.

It pulled you away from the warmth of the flickering fireplace, illuminating the family room with a citrine gleam that heated the walls but it was the laughter and shared smiles of those you celebrated the holiday with, that heated your soul. But as you rather felt Tommy making his way down the cobblestone, under the blanket of darkness that permeated a cold so ghastly you feared for those less fortunate left out in its clutches, you abandoned the warm for the cold.

Stepping out of your house, you were instantly met with the unwelcoming embrace of the December season. Having slipped from your family's company before they could even realize you were gone, you hadn't grabbed your coat hanging from the hook nor the comforting warmth of the boots that would keep away the cold of the collecting snow. You stood simply in the deep burgundy dress pulled out just for the holiday, with a cardigan wrapped tightly around your frame that was already beginning to shiver out in the source of pure and unscathed frigid cold, and wool socks that rather absorbed the chill off the cobblestone rather than banish it from your flesh.

But even as you felt the fluttering of your lashes that blinked away the cold pricking of tears in your eyes, watering from the bitter winds that lashed against the exposed flesh of your face and felt your teeth begin to chatter softly, it didn't deter you from venturing further into the cold and meeting the man approaching half way.

"Tommy?"

His name froze in the air before your watchful eyes, the delicate breath fanning back against your nose blistering red from the pierce of numbing temperatures, but even the cold couldn't stop the slow expansion of a slightly surprised but nonetheless pleased smile, that began to spread across your quivering lips at the sight of the Peaky Blinder making his way towards you.

Dusted in the falling snow, encircled in a breath of hazy smoke exhaling from a thin part in between his full and slightly pouted lips, Tommy stood out amongst the growing shadows of the collected night. A feat nearly impossible to most, for he wore a shade that nearly made him disappear into the evening's presence without a single trace of his existence left behind and yet, Tommy managed to stride down the cobblestone in a shade of ebony and be the most captivating sight for miles to come.

He owned these streets and yet, there had never been a more prominent moment that spoke of such commanding power than right in that very moment. As Tommy, a man with a hardened exterior and battered heart, walked through a flurry of something that had the profound strength to soften even the most inured and callous men, he appeared as if these streets had always been his own and that not another soul in all of England could captivate them in the way in which he did.

"What are you doing here?" You inquired as he stepped closer, knowing your words would fall upon his sense of sound, you smiled as Tommy lifted his head up and allowed the cast of his cerulean gaze to overwhelm you like a rushing tide. "I thought you weren't going to be back from London until tomorrow?"

Tommy's peaky cap, constructed of soft heathered tweed, sat upon the edge of his forehead as though despite the nipping winds, he'd pulled it upwards knowing how you'd spoken of how hard it was to see his eyes when he wore it so low. It absorbed the flakes falling from the open heavens, unscathed white descending from a void of darkness spread vast over the city. But through the dense indigo that bled into ebony above, his eyes held a light that would have left the moon futile and insignificant.

Tommy's orbs of blazing azure, never failed to leave you breathless as you fell beneath the cast of their strong current, but there was something about witnessing them amidst a twirling breath of winter, that made them more beautiful than ever before.

For they burned brightly with a hue of cerulean that no human being had a right to hold and yet, Tommy possessed them in the core of his irises as if they were sapphires on display. They were chiseled from an ice that could've only come from the cold that surrounded you and yet, they broke through the vortex winter as though they had the very strength to go and banish away the unrelenting chill. They were orbs of running currents that made the waves of blending blues shimmer, more than the twirling snowflakes falling down ever could, and glistened like that of the North Star bathing the lost souls upon the Small Heath cobblestone. He gazed at you with a rush of blue toned waves, engulfed in an icy hue of cerulean that should've cemented your bones where you stood, but as Tommy looked at you in that moment, you had never felt warmer.

The edge of Tommy's lips, wrapped around the stub of a cigarette streaming steady smoke into the frosty atmosphere, twitched. As if the motion of a smile lingered beneath the surface of his chilled and stoic remaining flesh, begging to be freed from its confines and revealed for all that it was. But Tommy didn't often let it free, not anymore, not since France had gone and all but wiped away the very notion of such emotion from his shattered self being. He instead simply pulled the cigarette from between his lips, pursing them softly before throwing the burning stick to the snow dusted pavement, extinguishing it with a simple step of his heel. Lifting his chin back up, letting the cast of his strong cerulean gaze wash over you, Tommy proceeded to venture another step forward and let his shoulder lift in the motion of a sheepish shrug.

"I left a day early," Tommy explained in a calm voice and it never ceased to amaze you the way a man torn apart by war and such blatant turmoil and disruption, could evoke and encapsulate such serenity and composure it was left palpable to those who stood beneath the cast of his voice. It was bewildering and beautiful just the same, the steady river in which his low rumbling, Birmingham infused voice flowed. "I wanted to make it back in time to give you this."

Before you could even part your lips in an effort to inquire Tommy of what he even spoke of, you watched as his hand concealed in a glove of dark ebony leather, slipped into his coat pocket and withdrew a single box. It was small and nearly seemed as though Tommy could simply crush the object in the palm of his hand, should his finger flex just strongly enough. But it captured the light within the snow blown shadows and reflected against the delicate wrapping. A paper that shimmered the finest gold foil, as if it were golden leaves coiled around the box and tied together tightly at the top was a ribbon of deep staining red. It was a small box and yet, it was the most beautiful gift you had ever laid your eyes upon.

Your eyes flicker up from the box extended in Tommy's gloved hand, as he stands nearly a pace away and peer through your lashes at the man whose shadow engulfs you in a smoke and bergamot infused breath. "What is it?"

Tommy can't conceal the faint twitch of his lips and the way they threaten to spread into the growing curvature of a mirthful smirk, but blinking in the passing seconds, he clears his voice as he holds the gift further out for you to take. "It's your Christmas gift, now go on," Tommy urges in a soft but authoritative tone, practically pushing the neatly wrapped box into your hands left frozen to the open evening air. "Go on, open it up ey?"

Peering at him one last time through the deep sprawl of your lashes, you obey and take the box from his grasp. The foil having absorbed the chill of the surrounding night, but the velvet of the ribbon remaining soft and smooth as you untie its elegant bow. Leaving you to wonder just who's hands wrapped this gift, as you had a hard time imagining Tommy Shelby of all the people on this Earth, sitting behind his desk and taking the time to wrap a Christmas gift with his own two hands.

The top of the box shimmies without much effort and as you lift the lid away, your eyes are met with the most delicate twinkle of a jewel toned stone amongst a sea of gold. A necklace, with a chain of thin gold and a golden pendant no larger than the very pad of your thumb resides within the box and you can no longer determine if it is the bitter winds whipping at your flesh that sparks the tears beginning to gleam in the corners of your eyes.

"Tommy--" You exhale in a breath you would've doubted even met the air, let alone Tommy's ear, if it weren't for the evidence of your whisper freezing out in the atmosphere before your very eyes.

"I saw it and thought of you," Tommy murmurs in a low voice, his hands tucked away in his pockets and you're quite surprised he hasn't already lit a new cigarette to give his hands something to hold. "The gem matches your eyes when the sun hits them in the morning."

No matter the draw of the expensive pendant held carefully in your hands, the call of his words falling upon the very core of your beating heart, is stronger. For immediately, your eyes snap upwards and stare at Tommy at a loss for words. All this time, you'd been falling in love with the sheer strength of his own eyes, the blinding color that you'd never seen another soul in this world possess and all the while, Tommy had been looking at your own as though they illuminated his entire world.

For to most, your eyes were a single shade, a simple color on the spectrum and yet, Tommy saw this matching gem and the way the most delicate streaks of light danced across its surface and thought of a moment in which you hadn't the ability to see for yourself what your eyes looked like. For it was only Tommy who had the capability of witnessing the rising dawn cast a gentle light across the span of your face, as you woke beside him wrapped tenderly in the warm nestle of his sheets and safe embrace of his arms, witnessing the way the color of your irises glistened with hues far beyond their single shade.

"What did this cost you Tom?"

Even as Tommy Shelby and Shelby Company Limited for that matter, were moving up in the world, expanding into London and more legal pursuits, you still felt unsettled when Tommy proceeded to spend money on you. For you'd known him all your life, you'd known him back when he hadn't a penny to his name or shoes upon his feet, you'd known him back when you shared your lunch with him back on the bank of the cut, when you skipped a class that you hadn't studied for. You'd known Tommy Shelby before he was Tommy Shelby and you'd loved him all those years too.

Tommy took a step forward, cutting down the last pace left lingering between your bodies and with a soft furrow of his brow, he replied in an emphatic and incredulous breath. "Fuck the money. Ey, fuck it, you deserve it love."

There was a passion in Tommy's tone that couldn't be ignored and couldn't be concealed. For it was a part of his very soul, this belief that you and his family and all of those on Watery Lane, who had been told they weren't enough for the rest of the world, deserved just the very same if not more. You'd remembered it from your youth, this dream and rather strong-willed conviction in which he spoke, all the way to the moment he went off to France believing in something, but coming back with those very foundations shattered. But he'd never lost the feeling that those around here, deserved just the same as everyone else, no matter the class or society they were raised within.

"It's beautiful Tommy, really, truly," You smiled up at the man, who at times could certainly make your heart ache, more so ever since he returned home a different man left battered and bruised by the acts of war, but could spark such contentment and everlasting love in the core of your heart, it didn't quite seem possible. "It might just be the most beautiful piece of jewelry I've ever received. Thank you."

Perhaps, it was that Tommy didn't do well with overwhelming praise no matter how deserving he might be in the moment or maybe, it was simply that when he was in front of you, especially after a week-long visit to London and Camden Town, Tommy couldn't keep his hands from you. For he inched forward and cupped your face carefully in the grasp of his hands, the leather of his gloves cold and nearly coated in a sheen of midnight blown ice against your flesh, but Tommy's lips descending upon your own were warm.

Tommy kissed you as he always did when he returned home, whether it be on business or when you stood meeting him on the train platform, after a war that took longer than the two of you had ever fathomed it might stretch. He kissed you with a tenderness that seemed out of place for a man like him, a man whose history was spotted red and heavy with a pain that could never be alleviated. He kissed you slowly at first, savoring your taste and the scent of your perfume that melded with the cold blow of the wind across your flesh, as though he might just be reminding himself that this was real and that you were truly his to hold. Tommy kissed you with the tenderness of a gentleman, until the gangster inside of himself revealed itself and he couldn't help but ravish you as though you held the very thing his body craved.

Listening to the faint pop of your lips pulling apart, a feat that even after all of these years, still pained your heart to do, you peered up through your lashes at Tommy. "Why don't you come inside? Have a cup of tea, step out of this cold, warm by the fire and celebrate with us, yeah?"

Tommy's eyes could conceal the secrets of the world and yet, when it came to the secrets of his heart, he never had much luck obscuring them from your watchful eye. For his expression remained still, but the waves within his orbs began to churn.

"Your family," Tommy stopped himself. Perhaps, searching for the right words or rather preparing himself to speak the truth he knew you knew as well as him. Shaking his head, he exhaled a deep breath that fanned itself in a frozen cloud across your flesh. "They don't want a man like me spoiling their Christmas."

Your family never approved of the gypsy boy down on Watery Lane, the blinder who fixed races and as your father so liked to believe, held the city hostage under their domineering rule. But you loved him still. You loved him before France, before the death and decay and the clay that could never be cleansed from his lungs, rattled his head. You loved him without shame, without penance, you loved him with everything you had. Even when your family threatened to disown you, claiming he hadn't a shred of goodness in the depth of his soul, you loved him still.

Because no one knew Tommy as you did. For the world had left him a shell of a broken man and yet, your Tommy was kind and he was gentle. He loved you with a conviction so very fierce, that not even the devil himself could take it away. He had sins staining his soul that you knew without naivety, would certainly tear you separate ways come the day you were called up to heaven and yet, there was a goodness inside of him that could have only come from the good Lord. Tommy Shelby was not a perfect man, he was flawed and tormented by demons that you couldn't begin to fathom living each and every day with, but you didn't seek perfection.

You sought out a man who loved his family so ardently, that time and time again he would always make the decisions that were not always the easiest, but the right choices to keep them safe. Even if it meant putting his own life on the line. You sought out a man who held respect for those even lower than him, for he never once looked down upon the people of Small Heath even as he and his family slowly began to make their way in the world. You sought out a man, who was brave in ways most men could only dream of becoming and who loved so deeply that once the remnants of his aching heart committed to a single soul, it was damn near impossible to shake it. You weren't seeking the perfect man, you never had been, for perfect didn't exist. But Tommy Shelby did and to you, that was more than enough.

"But you forget that it's my Christmas too, Tommy." You smile softly, reaching forward with your right hand not holding the opened box and touch upon his cheek in a gentle caress. "And I want you there."

"I'm not ashamed of you Tommy, I'm not ashamed to say that you're the man I love."

That was the thing, you never felt ashamed as you strolled down the cobblestone streets with Tommy clutching your hand or even joking about with his brothers on your way to the betting shop. You weren't ashamed of the man you loved or his family or even the life he lived. You didn't always agree with his choices and maybe you flinched from time to time with the amount of blood that stained his clothing, but you'd never wished to change Tommy. For if you did, he wouldn't be Tommy Shelby. He wouldn't have been the boy you fell in love with before either one of you even knew what love truly was. He wouldn't have been the man you waited for all those years he nearly lost his life down in the tunnels and on the front lines in France. He wouldn't have been the man who made an impossible world make a little bit of sense.

"What was it you said ey? When I asked about the necklace, fuck the money?" Tommy's lip twitched as a glimmer of amusement flashed in the currents of his cerulean gaze. "Well, fuck 'em, whoever can't or flat out refuses to accept you Tom, fuck 'em!"

Tommy no longer held back the evidence of his emotion, clear and boldly amused, entertained and quite frankly a little aroused. For you watched the edges of his lips curl upwards into a soft smirk, as they parted and the sweet sound of a breathless chuckle slipped through the space. "Where'd a girl like you learn to talk like that, ey love?"

"It's rather a shock I haven't managed to pick up worse from hanging around with the likes of you boys."

Tommy's chuckle floated along the wind blowing through the empty street and it was a sound gracing your ears like that of the call of angels. For it rang with the familiarity of a time long ago and yet, appearing with a glimpse of a future not too far out of reach. "We ought to get you inside, 'fore you fucking freeze out here, yeah?"

Smiling through the shivers consuming your body, you hand the box containing your pendant towards Tommy. "Can you put it on for me?"

You never thought you'd ever get the chance to witness Tommy Shelby fumble with the tiny latch on a thin necklace chain, in the middle of a snowy nearly midnight street and yet, the sight rather warmed your heart more than it made you want to laugh as you expected it to. Stepping forward as you hold the box in your hands, Tommy extends his hands out on either side of your neck and begins to clasp the necklace behind your tendrils. All the while, peering up at Tommy's concentrated expression, smiling at the softer side of a man hardened and roughly edged to the rest of the world. The metal is cold as it glides down your flesh and hangs down over the top of your dress. But it's the cool rush of bold cerulean, washing over you like a cold running current in the canal, that fills you with a bubbling warmth.

"How does it look?"

Tommy stares at you for a moment, perhaps to convey he's truly taking in the sight or maybe, he's simply finding the words to describe such beauty. "Like you go and outshine the fucking gem."

Damn Tommy Shelby and his ability to make you all but melt to a puddle at his feet. Smiling up at him, you lean up on your tip-toes and brush your lips against his own that mirror a fainter but nonetheless sincere smile. Feeling as his hands slid across your hips and wrap his strong arms around your frame, encircling you in his warm and safe embrace.

"Merry Christmas Tommy Shelby."

And you kissed him, until not even Tommy Shelby, could refute the magical feeling fluttering down from a snowy heaven on a late Christmas night.

A/N: Ahh, Merry Christmas Everyone!!❤🎄

To say I am so happy and proud of this piece, would be an understatement! I always pride myself on writing Christmas themed One Shots for my books that I can share with you all but I was feeling a bit nervous that I just wouldn't be able to create one for this book. Maybe because any ideas I had just weren't coming together in a way that made me proud to share it, or maybe because Tommy is without a doubt, the most challenging character I've written for. But then this idea came along, blending with a few other details I had previously planned out for a Christmas themed plot and this one was formed and I couldn't be happier!

It flowed from my fingers as I wrote it, the descriptions and emotions coming together in a way that makes me proud. When it comes to writing Christmas themed pieces, I always allow myself to go a little bit softer as the holidays are warm and joyful and showing the kinder sides of life and even for the Peaky Blinders universe and Tommy Shelby, I wanted to keep that Christmas feeling and the softness that comes with it, while still being able to keep it as close to in character as I possibly could and I believe I did just that!

I hope you all enjoyed this piece and that you all have the most amazing holiday season! Merry Christmas!❤🎄😊