The fire burned, but their eyes blazed brighter. Blisteringly blue like the searing end of a flame, dangerous and deceptive as their cerulean hues softened the saturated glow of the citrine roar. For the currents of azure flowed like the running path of the canal, seemingly calm and inviting, but stormy seas lingered beneath the surface. A whirlpool of trouble residing in the form of chiseled sapphire eyes, just waiting for its tide to crash ashore and sweep the poor, unsuspecting souls who remained beneath their suffocating waves.

He strode in with the night, cloaked in his long black coat, like he carried the secrets of the shadows behind on his trail. He nearly vanished into the haze of ebony stained indigo, like a mere ghost wandering the cobblestone streets, a soul lost to the abyss of Small Heath.

But as his foot stepped over the threshold, the orange blaze of the flickering fire that enveloped the Shelby parlor, discovered Thomas Shelby like a moth to a flame. Illuminating him in a washing glow of contrasting light, as if the fire awaiting his presence at the gates of hell, had seeped up through the floorboards and shone down upon him like a heady glow from the heavens instead.

For it crept along the lines of his expression, sinking into the crevices of his swaggering frame, and nearly made it seem as if every taint of sin, every evidence of hardship, every trace of callousness, was softened and eradicated by the gentle touch of the roaring fire's beam.

The last of his cigarette, a mere burned out end, had been tossed behind him and left to clatter to the darkened cobbles as he made his way into the Shelby home. His last exhale of tainting smoke tumbling over his bottom lip, like a thick cloud of ashen haze that burned with the flickering bite of a thousand embers but appearing like the exhale might just feel like a cold fog rolling over an abandoned field. Seeping into the atmosphere already laced with the scent of stale cigarettes and flickering warmth emanating from the crackling fire.

He didn't remove his cap, keeping it snuggly in place low over his eyes as he strode further into the room. As if the razors woven into the stitching of thread, sharp silver slashing through the density of knitted charcoal tweed, were a menacing threat meant to intimidate her. But Thomas Shelby's crown of a king, didn't frighten her. Not when she herself had enough Shelby blood running wildly through her own veins to terrify the whole bloody world.

The tension that engulfed the Shelby parlor could be cut with all the razor blades the Peaky Blinders adorned, and still, not a single breath of relief would ooze from the wounds. It was palpable, clutching onto each and every trace of oxygen that dipped down into the lungs of those who occupied the small space, until their breaths were tainted with the thick presence the rigidness had to offer. As if it beat with its own bloody pulse, the thumping sensation low in the background like a searing snare drum, building towards the explosion of a bomb lingering still and dormant in the center of the room.

She watched him, just as he watched her. Like two predators of the wild, lions circling in wait. Paws beating the Earth perfectly in tandem with one another, until one finally made the first pounce. Calculated and calm, an illusive demeanor that radiated from the flesh of both beings, all the while, eyes boring into the other like they had the power to burn holes straight through like a cigarette put out on the skin.

No words were spoken, although many haunted the dense atmosphere with the echoing whispers of thoughts gone unspoken, but voices were silenced and stilled as they both awaited to see who might just strike first.

Her mane was that of his same raven locks, but unlike the shaven, fringe swept classic cut of Thomas's own, hers cascaded like an ebony river down the curve of her spine. Curls swept up and lost in a stream of thick tendrils, softened by the scent of honeysuckle and faint jasmine, but ruthless and sharp in their spotless black hue.

In the rain that would hit the cobblestone street of Watery Lane, it could resemble that of ink dripping down her back, bathing the fabric she adorned and her vulnerable flesh that awaited below in a jet-black substance that fell darker than even the darkest of nights. But tonight, as not a single droplet of rain fell from the clouded and smoke obscured evening sky, her curls were taut as if they absorbed every ounce of the tension in her muscles and reflected the rigid emotion there in the binding fall of raven tendrils.

They were brother and sister, twins to be exact. Separated only by that of a hundred and twenty-seven seconds. He was her protector, and she was his forever confidante. He was her guiding hand, but she was his north star. She was the rush of cold water to his blistering flames, and he was the calming voice to her chaotic mind.

Her eyes were a chip off of Thomas's own icy block. Orbs of cerulean, bold and chilling in their unscathed blue surfaces, with only the running churn of a cold current beaming beneath the layer of frozen azure that coated their shared gazes. A glimpse at the two of them in the very same room, and there ceased to be a soul that could refute the relation between the pair. But no matter the way their eyes could burn with the same intoxicating, icy heat of bold sapphire chiseled blue, the way their locks of raven threatened to disappear into the embrace of the night, or even the faint sprinkling of freckles that dusted their cheekbones, they had differences that separated them as well.

For where Tommy's suit was always immaculate, with not a stitch out of place, tailored to fit his physique like a glove, she was all free-flowing fabric and bare feet. Where his features were all sharp lines and chiseled bone, hers were soft curves and youthful glows. Where his were calloused hands, hers were calloused soles. Where his was a calculating mind, hers was a vexing tongue.

She had always been the wild one. Like a mare in the open pastures, one that went with the winds and refused to take the reins. She was a free spirit, so much so that it was almost as if she were just that. An angel: the ghost of a past life dancing downwards from the heavens and taking home in the body of a new, without a single anchor holding her to the cobbles and smoke infested streets.

Free.

She was unshackled by the weights of this world, floating through each day like a gypsy with a dream. Thomas always loved that about her, in his heart he knew a part of himself even envied her perhaps. The way she could move through this life as if not a single bullet could scathe her, not a word could touch her, not a thing that the world could ever throw her way could dent and deter her wild and carefree spirit and heart.

She was a wild one, his twin sister. The other side of the same coin, but different as two souls could be. But they knew each other as though they were one. Two blistering flames intertwining into a single fire, crackling with the secrets of their souls that they unearthed as if they were their very own to hold.

They were different, the two of them, but also just the very same. Thomas knew her stubbornness well, for it mirrored his own. She wouldn't be the one to speak first, just as he always declined to be and so, with a frustrated sigh, he found himself digging in his pocket for a cigarette as his lips parted, opting to be the one to break the void.

"That man won't marry you, I'm telling you this now."

If she had been popping embers in the hearth before, his words doused the coals in an accelerant as Thomas could feel her irritation and heat radiating off of her, as though she were fireworks about to go off.

"And how would you know Thomas, ey?" Her brow arched with chilling ease, as she stared down her brother as though he wasn't immune to the abrasive cold of their matching cerulean scrutiny. "It's not like the poor bloke can come ask you for my hand, not if he wants to keep his tongue that is."

She regarded Thomas's demeanor, his maddening sense of calm and composure, the way he carried himself through this life as if not a single thing meant a damn thing to him. He was too aloof for his own good, she rather believed on occasion. For the more flippant he approached life as, the more and more his heart began to shrink and become imperceptible to those around him. The more he brushed off like he hadn't a care for anything left in this world, the more those had a harder time truly caring for him.

Her eyes narrowed as she studied Thomas's rather relaxed stance, as he stood leaning his right shoulder against the mantle above the burning hearth, letting the flames bathe his coat of black wool in a breath of staggering warmth.

Perhaps, that was what Thomas Shelby wanted all along. To push enough people away, to hide away the last shattered remnants of a heart that beat like an ordinary human being, to fade into the abyss of his isolating suffering and simply live out the rest of his time here on this Earth alone. It did sound easier, but as she watched her brother withdraw a single white stick from his well-worn pack, all she could think was how selfish it truly sounded.

"My blessing is mine to give to any man who is willing to ask," Thomas points out in that vexing, condescending tone he always held towards her. His voice incredibly even as though the weight of the heavens could come clattering through the ceiling and still, Thomas would remain as steady as he was right in this moment. "but that doesn't mean I'm handing it out to some low life like him."

She'd been courting her man for nearly seven months, a secret she'd kept with her very life. It was irony at its finest really, because it wasn't easy keeping secrets in a family that specialized in exactly that. Her tongue had been tied with the weight of a hundred different stories, a hundred different facts, a hundred different secrets that had bound her to silence and loyalty over the years and yet, when she found someone she rather loved, she had to keep that secret like she'd never kept one before.

Her brothers could do things that could bring their whole family down, Ada could gallivant in the shadows with a communist and turn her back on the family after he'd passed, but one little secret like finding someone she might just like to share her life with, and she couldn't trust the lot of them with that kind of knowledge.

It was funny really, how her one little secret could cost the life of an innocent man should they discover his intentions, when her brother's hand was stained red with the blood of so many others and yet, he was still here without a single slap on the wrist to say otherwise. It was funny, in that unbearably unfortunate and maddening way that nothing about it was funny.

"And you just happen to know him better than I do, huh?" She spit out like venom lacing the tip of her tongue, dripping down the curve of the letters that sliced through the dense void of warmth and contempt, like the blade of a razor. "To know who might be worthy enough to marry me, since clearly I'm not the one to make that choice. All because Tommy fucking Shelby knows the whole bloody world, every dirty little secret of the universe."

They'd paid him a visit that morning, one in which she'd had to hear about from her Aunt Polly. Her three brothers, storming down to his place of work like they had the power of the devil burning on their heels, all so that they might just put the fear of God into the poor man. She supposed she should've been happy to know that it was only threats and the blades adorning their crowns of snuggly woven tweed were never used, but she was livid when she learned of their intimidation tactics. This was why she'd guarded her precious secret with her life, because she knew as soon as Thomas Shelby got word of it, that his bloody hands would snatch it away from her in an instant.

She'd always felt that she was held to a different standard than the rest of her siblings, especially her younger sister Ada. Even though her fiery sister was younger by a handful of years, one could have sworn that the way Thomas treated the elder Shelby sister, that she was surely younger than Ada. Because he went easy on Ada, easier than any of the others in the Shelby clan. Maybe it was because of the rebellious fire that burned in her young, maybe it was due to the fact that she was a young mother now, a widow too. Or maybe, it was simply Thomas's soft spot for the younger Shelby girl.

But when it came to Thomas's own twin sister, it seemed that he expected more from her or maybe, simply wanted more for her. But she always felt a trite stifled, like she hadn't any air of her own to breathe within the family, as if Tommy managed to control even that. She wondered if perhaps her brother merely wished that she was more like he was, maybe he'd expected that she would be. But being twins didn't mean they were alike in every way that mattered, it didn't mean that she had to be. And she worried, as she regarded her brother with cynical eyes, that Thomas Shelby might never get that notion through his thick and rather stubborn skull.

"One day you'll thank me."

Thomas couldn't claim he didn't see the way his sister's eyes nearly rolled into the back of her head, smoke steaming out of her ears like smog churning out of a Watery chimney. For he knew the signs of her flickering flames, their bold and blistering presence that blazed inside of her chest, with each one of his words and mannerisms simply dousing the fire in gasoline.

Tommy swept the cigarette back and forth across his lower lip, thankful for the way it obscured the twitch of his amused expression he strived to keep concealed from her angry eyes. For he'd always found her display of vexation to be rather amusing, even when she was only seven years old and threw her feet down upon the cobbles so roughly that it was a wonder the Earth didn't shake, or the way her face would beam a harsh hue of red he feared more times than not that she might just pass out. But he knew when she caught sight of his smirk that toyed at his lips when he knew he'd pushed her every last button, that it only made the anger that ensued even worse.

For if there was anything about his sister's anger that he truly disliked, it was the way she wasn't afraid to bite back. She was scrappy, like a beaten dog who no longer cowered against the cold and soddened cobblestone, but rather fought back with snarling teeth and a vengeful spirit. She might not have worn razor blades like her brothers, but Thomas knew better than most, just how spot on her aim was when it came to throwing her words like daggers.

"Thank you for what exactly?" She scoffed with a furious furrow of her deep raven brows. "For scaring off any man who might just love me? For shielding me away from the world like I'm some bloody object in safe keeping? What might I be thanking you for brother, enlighten me."

Thomas despised this tone, the one that saturated her words like a cool rush of venomous rain. She could see it in the way he peered up through the sprawl of his still and unnervingly unwavering lashes, as his hands paused in their action of igniting a match to light his cigarette. That look piercing through the sheen of cold and impenetrable ice, like the disrespect ailed him and all he wanted to do was reprimand her for it. She hated that look and yet, it thrilled her just the same. Because although it made her feel like she resided beneath the scrutiny of a parent, small and weak under his eye, she couldn't help but find the joy in pushing it to the very edge, until he threatened to break.

Because Thomas wasn't the kind of man to lay a hand on a sibling, especially not a sister. He wasn't the kind of man to take her across the knee like he was a father scolding a child, not when only a matter of minutes separated their ages. Thomas didn't have to reprimand and punish in a way that left visible marks, he bit back in the way of words.

For no one played the game of a biting tongue and cruel words, quite like Thomas Shelby did. Except for her. With his calm demeanor that coated his harsh words in a layer of deceptive peace, a low and chilling breath that combatted her explosive tenor, and fiery manner of speaking. If Tommy wanted her to be more like him, he didn't have to look much further than that of her fearless words, spewing them at him with as much regard as Tommy himself held.

They fought like fire and ice. His words could puncture like blades of finely chiseled black ice, while her words could burn like the touch of crackling coals. And when they collided, not a soul was left unscathed.

"For having the fucking sense that you lack. For thinking about your future when you clearly haven't."

She shot up from her seat then, loose flowing fabric of billowing cotton swirling around her thighs, like a whirlpool of menacingly deceptive peony. For her bare soles hit the floorboards of the house with strong conviction, worn and slightly scuffed beneath the pads of her toes, approaching Thomas with every bit of fire that crackled its presence deep within her chest.

"You think you can control every bloody aspect of my life Tommy," She bit with a tone that wrapped an incredulous breath around the weight of her words. "as if it isn't even me-own!"

"Mucking it up, fucking up every chance that comes my way to make even a bit of something of me-self, of me-own fucking life!"

She loathed that look in his eyes. That imperial gaze of cerulean that beamed as though the universe bent down and whispered in his ear that he was right, that her words might never reach him or make a difference. She hated the way he looked at her like he was better than she was and bloody well knew it. She hated the way she could speak until her lungs were simply lit ablaze and her legs could hold her there in front of him until her knees threatened to buckle, but still feel small beneath the cast of his formidable scrutiny.

But perhaps, what she hated most of all, was the way he didn't bat a single lash. Simply bringing the flickering flame that ate its way down that wooden match, upwards to ignite the cigarette dangling down from between his lips, as if her words fell upon the surface of deaf ears.

"After the bloody half-arsed job you've done of it, I reckon I can only salvage what's left, ey?" Thomas mumbled around his newly lit cigarette, extinguishing the match and tossing the charred remanent into the fireplace.

A scoff falls from her lips and coats the room in a breath of bewilderment and chilling vexation, as she narrows her eyes at Thomas. "You think you know what's best for every person in this family, but you don't."

Thomas's brows of deep raven furrowed at her words, not out of irritation but rather out of some unfounded basis of amusement, as he withdrew the stick from between his lips that clouded his face in a cloud of pungent ashen smoke.

"Is that so?"

No, maybe this was what she truly hated the most. That smirk that toyed at the very edges of his lips, like a ghost of the smile he once adorned before France went and decayed the parts of himself that were once pulsing with a strong beat of love and warmth. Maybe she hated it because of the way it emboldened the notion that he was far superior to her, even as only a few measly breaths separated their places in this life. Maybe she hated the way it made her feel like he was staring down at a child, amused by a temper tantrum being thrown.

But perhaps, what made her want to stomp right up to Thomas and smack his cheek until every last evidence of that snide little smirk fell clambering to the floor, was the fact that he never smiled anymore.

Ever since the moment he returned home with his life left intact, no easy feat considering his weary soul rather clung onto tethered strings and was sewn together by shaky little stitches to control the bleeding, he hadn't spared a smile like he once had. She missed him, her brother, the one who raised her as both her twin brother and the father who'd abandoned them all. She missed his smile, the one that let the glimmers of a young boy still residing somewhere deep inside of himself fly free. She missed his laugh, the booming echo of infectious mirth that always had the power to unfurl a smile of her own across her lips. She missed his warmth, his tender touch, his gentle words.

Maybe she didn't hate the smirk, maybe she couldn't. Maybe that smirk that played at his lips longer than a smile had touched them in the time he'd been home, simply pained her.

"Then how come I've saved your arse more times than I ever should have, ey? Saving you from floundering your life away for some fucking man who'll leave you the minute you're up the duff."

"If I don't know what's best for you," Thomas leaned his head forward barely an inch in her direction, as if she might hear his words better and absorb them into her conscious where she might just uncover the unbridled honesty and truth that resided. "then how come you're standing 'ere running your little entitled mouth at the brother who's kept shoes on your feet, food in your belly, a roof over your damn head every day of your life?"

An incredulous breath dipped down from her lips, saturated in a tone that might've riveled that of a dry laugh, if only there was something funny about this exchange to be had. She took a single step forward, cutting the space between them down by a single pace, and even in that one shuffle of bare feet, she could feel the orbit of Tommy's being threatening to crush the air in her lungs.

"You control us like we're puppets, and you hold the bloody string."

That moment when Thomas had once found his sister's outrage to be tainted with the slightest hint of hilarity, quickly passed and the man who could strike fear into the souls of all those he ever came into contact with, grew aggravated by the disrespect that she hurled his way like blades of a razor slashing at his scalp. She might not have been afraid of him, but she could damn well show some respect for the brother who'd gotten her this far.

"Maybe because you can't make one decent decision for yourself. Always cleaning up your fucking messes, ey?"

They traded expressions in that very instance, for she found it was her lips that suddenly toyed with the makings of a smirk, while it was his nicotine laced ones that snarled with the brewing storm of anger that settled in his lungs.

"I guess you'd know of messes, ey Tom? You've sure made a fucking mess outta your own life, right?"

She didn't say all of the words that hesitated on the very tip of her biting tongue. But she could've and oh how she wanted to.

Here was a man, still pathetically hung up on a woman who'd left two years ago now. A woman who'd deceived him, a woman who betrayed him and put his entire family in danger, but still he found himself holding onto the memory of something that was never anything to be. Here stood a man, who started a bloody war with Italians down in London, already slashed and beaten and nearly killed by the reckless ambition of his never-ceasing ego. Here was a man, now caught up in Irish business that might just get him killed, another fire burning and calling out his name in the rising smoke.

But no, he was telling her that her life was a mess. Perhaps, it took someone who's own life was a bloody mess to see someone else's, and his was certainly a mess if she'd ever seen one.

The room fell deathly silent, as though the mere beats of their pounding hearts were the only pulses of life left to be discovered in that city and in the time. For that was how Thomas dealt with his anger. It boiled beneath the surface until it nearly scalded his own bones, but he never let it fully erupt and spray searing lava on the other. Whereas her eldest brother Arthur was quick to rage, never hesitating to show the blistering curdling of his blood twisting his hands into tight fists or blowing into a fit of high-strung emotion. Thomas was different.

Instead, he let the stinging heat simply seep into his words like poison and allowed his ice cold tone to engulf the air until his intensity and his intimidating sense of calm was enough to squeeze every last ounce of breath from the other's lungs.

"You mind your mouth."

The blue of his eyes turned dark, like a deep fog had settled over the once crashing waves of the icy blue sea, turning the glistening shade into something far more formidable and daunting. But she stared at him, without a single lash batting underneath the strong scrutiny of his imperious gaze, and refused to back down.

"Or what?" She quipped, with the slight twist of her lips that she knew he hated. The look glittering like a collection of stars in her eyes, she pointed straight at him because she knew he loathed the way she could crawl her way underneath his skin with that single damned look.

"You think you have this power dangling over my head like the fear of God, but it's in your own bloody head." She expressed with the faintest trail of an empty laugh coiling around her words, a breath of incredulous freedom in finally telling him what she'd held in her entire life. "I'm not afraid of you."

"I'm not foolish enough to believe you'd ever lay a finger on me or curse me out this bloody family. This power, this control you seek to use to form my life to your whim, it's all in your head."

Tommy remained silent. Smoking that single cigarette like that poor little stick might just snap beneath the strength in his fingertips, but he kept his composure. He was never a man to allow another to witness him sweat and it certainly wouldn't be his aggravating, smart-mouthed twin sister.

"Face it Tommy, you need this, you need me. You need to feel like you're making a difference, doing something, in control when your own world is falling through your fingertips like sand in an hourglass. But what if I said no more? Ey?"

She took a single step towards Thomas as her words hung stiffly in the air, a shuffle of her bare feet against the embroidered rug of well-worn wool, until she stood immersed deeper in his spiraling orbit.

"What if I severed that string you keep me on Tommy and let you go free, without me under your bloody hand?"

Thomas's expression was as stoic as the stone his bone structure resembled. For as his shoulder rested against the mantal, allowing the heat of the crackling hearth to seep into the woven threads of his long black coat, he stared at her with every single secret to the thoughts locked away inside of his head, hidden in his eyes.

Her eyes narrowed at him as she took another pace towards him, but it wasn't because she was trying him again or expressing her anger in a way she knew might irk him beneath the surface. Her eyes stared at him now, creased in the corners, suddenly heavy with the weight of concern and a brave familial honesty.

"I don't think you'd know what to do with yourself. I don't think you'd know how to handle someone saying that your way, the vision you see of the world, isn't right. I think you'd drown in the lack of control. You crave it like a drug and I wonder, if I cut that cord, just how badly you'd need it back."

It was only then that Thomas's expression shifted, as he pulled himself off from the mantal and stood straight and broad inches before her. His eyebrows arched and the chill that immediately encompassed the room was palpable, as if the door had been left open on a harsh winter night. For it threatened to extinguish the flames flickering wildly in the hearth, and she could feel the way it pattered its way up her very bones like frozen scampering feet of frightened mice fleeing a capsized ship.

"You do with your life as you please." Thomas leaned his face closer to hers, his tone scraping low to the ground with that unnerving tenor of calm composure, that rattled her bones far harsher than words thrown in the heat of an outrage. "If you don't want my help, if you don't want my protection and my guidance, then so be it."

Thomas pulled away and his brows furrowed harshly as he tapped his burning cigarette dangling between his fingers at her. "But don't grovel at me feet when your life turns into a heaping pile of mistakes and regret when you realize, no matter how badly you wish not to believe it, that I knew what was best for you all along."

The Shelby girl was a strong one, she had to be. If it wasn't because of the blood she was born with, then the world she'd been brought up in would've surely seen to it. But unlike the beliefs of her brother, strength didn't mean vulnerability was a weakness or a flaw in the makings of a human being. It didn't mean you couldn't have both intertwined inside one soul and beating heart, she could be strong and stand her ground when it came to Thomas Shelby, but it didn't mean that his words didn't slash through her flesh like hurdling razor blades aimed for the very strings of her heart.

Swallowing a breath that became tangled within the lumps climbing like twisted ivy from the base of her throat, she blinks away any expression that had previously been present across her face and feels as the vulnerability begins to seep into the glistening core of her cerulean gaze.

She wouldn't cry, even though the stinging threat of tears begged to be freed from their captivity. She wouldn't waver from where she stood beneath the crushing weight of his scrutiny and his apathetic words, no matter how hard it was to keep her knees from trembling under the sheer heaviness of it all. She wouldn't let him leave with these being the final words spoken in the void, echoing like bullets ringing out in a chamber.

"You know I love you Thomas." Her voice dipped down to a whisper. Maybe it was the only level she could muster now or maybe, it was simply that there wasn't a need for any harsher words or a boisterous collision of bombs threatening to shatter the atmosphere they shared. What this moment needed now, what she needed, what Thomas needed, was a certain level of kindness that neither had tried thus far.

"You know I'd lay my life down for you. All of that won't ever change." She took a tentative step even closer, until the sharp sting of his cologne burned at her senses. "But I need to live my life the way I want to live it Tom, out from under someone's oppression and control and if that means I stumble, then I stumble. If that means I wake up a fool, then so be it. But you've got to let me fall sometimes, you've got to let me make mistakes and learn from them. You've got to let me say, when I'm old and grey and still wondering how the bloody hell you're still around, that I lived a life."

There was a crack in the impenetrable air that engulfed Thomas's being, she could feel as a single chip began to weaken the exterior and as he glanced down at the cigarette burning away between his thumb and index finger, she could swear that measly crack in the surface allowed the slightest trace of vulnerability to begin to flow free.

"You're my responsibility, you always have been."

He doesn't dare look her in the eyes as he says the words, and for a moment, she's thankful. Because suddenly, she's not looking at her big brother through the eyes of a full-grown woman, but rather those of the little girl who loved this blue-eyed gypsy boy more than life itself. The little girl who idolized her twin, the little girl who missed him whilst he was away fighting in France and the one who still resided deep inside of herself, somewhere out of sight, still missing the brother who never came back.

"But I don't need to be Tommy," She urged with an earnest breath, stepping so close that the heat from the flickering flames in the hearth beside her nearly burned the flesh of her exposed arms. "Unburden yourself with this weight you carry around thinking my life is entirely yours to keep safe."

Thomas shook his head so faintly it was nearly imperceptible to the naked eye. But she saw it. The way the rigid tension that held his expression captive, finally began to ease and the darkness that had consumed his brilliant shade of azure, slowly began to lift. Taking one last drag from his cigarette, he flicks the end into the fire and lifts his head to allow his eyes to immediately collide with hers that wait for him.

"How does one do that, ey?" He breathes out with an incredulous expression, as his tobacco coated words settle into the air. So strongly it's as if she could reach her fingertips out and feel the very edge of the letters or if she had Polly's gift, she could see them floating around his frame before hearing them fall into the atmosphere along his low rumble of Birmingham smoke.

"How does one just let go of protecting someone he's known since they nearly shared the same first breath?"

This was her brother, a mere flash of the boy who'd never made it home. Like she was witnessing a memory from the past and all she wanted to do was reach out and never let it go.

"You'll never stop looking out for me and I don't think I'd ever want you to. But at some point Tommy, you've got to stop seeing me as that little girl who couldn't tie her own bloody laces or needed you to clean up me cuts and bruises. You've got to trust me."

The very edge of Tommy's lip twitches as he swallows a breath, peering down at her through his lashes of deep raven. "Contrary to what you might believe, I do trust you. It's the rest of the world that I don't trust."

She can't help but smile softly at the faintest hint of mirth making an appearance in the tone of his voice, "You've always been a cynical person."

When they were younger, they could joke and banter forever it seemed. But now, as age and life had surely found them and changed it all, just as soon as it appeared like a ghost of the boy that once was, it vanished, and a tone of seriousness returned to Tommy's expression.

"You love him, don't you?"

She didn't blink, she didn't hesitate, she simply responded in a single breath. "Yes, Tommy. I do."

It wasn't that Thomas Shelby truly hated the man, but rather that he reminded him of himself. Of the man he was before France left him a hollow shell. Maybe he saw the innocence in his eyes, the gleam of hope in his soul, the foolishness of love in his heart, as a weakness now. As Tommy knew full well how those attributes were destroyed when the grasp of the world unearthed them. But perhaps, what maimed him even worse, was the fact that this man had fought in the war. Just as Thomas had and yet, he was still somebody that Tommy knew he'd never be again.

Letting his tongue run swiftly along the curvature of his bottom lip, tasting remnants of stale smoke and the faintest trace of whiskey left behind on the warm flesh, Thomas nodded stiffly as if in mid thought. "If that's what you want, who you want, then I'll try and trust that you'll be alright. But that's the best that I can give you though, because I don't think I'll ever be able to trust any man who aims to whisk you away from 'ere."

He was a stubborn man, her brother. But still, in the most unsuspecting of moments, he could still make her smile unlike any other in this damned world.

"Is that your way of saying you love me, Tommy?"

Tommy couldn't conceal the way his slight smirk reflected in the base of his cerulean orbs, the place where his smiles always managed to shine the brightest. He straightened his stance, gazing down at her with a knowing look meant to set her straight, before letting his faint smile taint his voice. "Don't be cheeky now."

Maybe she should've just smiled and let the light ebb of mirth flow over her without another word to spare, but in true Shelby manner, she felt the prick of one last point tingling on the tip of her tongue. Pursing her lips together softly, whether to keep the familiar burn of fresh tears in the very corners of her eyes from getting any further, or to gather the breath to share the exhale of vulnerablity she had, she swallowed and peered up at her brother through the sprawl of her lashes.

"It's always gonna be me and you Tom, you know that don't you?"

Tommy stared down at her, the way her matching cerulean gaze blazed brighter than the fire crackling in the hearth beside them. Her features were youthful in a way that made it seem like not an ounce of the world had scathed her, and when Tommy looked at her now in the low cast of the burning flames, he recalled all the moments he's looked to her before. Through all the stages of her life, through all of his own, she was his constant and even now, she was still the same breath of comfort she'd always been for his aching soul.

"Yeah," Tommy exhales through the small part of his full lips, like a thread of smoke weaving through the atmosphere. "From cradle to grave, I reckon."

Watching the edges of her lips twitch, Tommy lets his left hand extend out from his side and directing his fingers towards her, he gestures her faintly with a tilt of his head. "C'mere."

His arms embraced her the second she threw her own around his shoulders, allowing his arms to coil around her waist and breathe in the soft scent of jasmine woven within the strands of her wild tendrils. They didn't embrace much these days, not since his feet returned on solid ground with parts of himself left buried behind in the mud in France. But when Tommy did let her arms wrap themselves around his neck and allowed himself to let go for a brief moment and hug her back, he saw how they used to be, how he used to be, and it made him hold onto her just a little bit tighter.

He was her brother and she was his sister, and no matter what they threw at each other, that fact would always remain the same. No matter the hurt, no matter the words thrown like daggers, no matter the sleepless nights and fiery fights, the love they had for one another, would always be stronger. For it wasn't a love that could vanish over night or be stripped by the harsh blow of a thousand words. It was a type of love ingrained in the soul.

A/N: This piece has been a true labor of love! I fell in love with this idea when it first came to me, after wanting to try a new type of dynamic I've yet to write for my Tommy pieces before, and something that would push me out of my comfort zone and give me a bit of a welcome challenge, and I am very happy with what I've created! ❤

I had this one all plotted out and I could see it vividly in my head, but it definitly took a lot of time and care to really craft it into the piece you're reading now. I have always struggled with dialogue, but with this one, I found that I was confident in the dialogue and struggled with filling in the paragraphs in between. I wanted to make sure you could feel the intensity and emotion and really see everything as it was playing out, and I am very content with the final piece here!

This piece was such a journey to write, a nice challenge for myself that pushed me and even surprised me at moments with what I was able to create (like that whole beginning, just spilled out from me honestly) and I loved getting to explore a completely new dynamic I've never writen before. I hope you all enjoyed this piece, I am very proud of myself and what I was able to create!❤