soundtrack: sptfy.com/bbf17

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟕:
𝐛𝐚𝐛𝐲 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭 𝐦𝐞 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧
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"Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image." —Genesis 9:6

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Tommy Shelby went to the war, and something else came back. Trixie understood that, as well as one could understand the night sky while still living lightyears away from the stars. She hadn't been in France—and those who she knew, she knew in singularity. Luca was before: he had gone to war and he hadn't come back. Tommy was after, so dead now that she struggled to imagine him as having ever been a boy.

Without going to the moon, one can only know so much about what the moon is like. It shapeshifts and disappears, it rises and sets. Trixie could imagine the war as much as she pleased, but she didn't know anything until the day in the woods, and even then, she was living in terms of approximations. Trixie had left John with Birmingham that morning, same as she'd ever been, and they'd driven an hour out to the Midlands before pulling off near a clearing in the woods.

For the entirety of the drive, the gun had rested on Trixie's lap, heavy like a paperweight, wrapped in a gingham cheesecloth as if the two of them were off to the countryside for a picnic and not something inconceivably worse. Trixie had been avoiding looking at it.

It was rather silly, wasn't it? She had been the one to initiate this trip, and had done so for the express purpose of learning to shoot a gun. The rest of the Peaky Blinders handled their weapons with such ease: John and Arthur waved their guns around as carelessly as if they were pencils. But now that she was actually an hour out from the city, Trixie could suddenly think of nothing but her father.

"Be kind to the women you see today, Trixie," he'd said, every day without fail since the drafts had begun. "Their husbands and brothers and fathers and sons are off fighting, and war is a beast that devours."

Devours lives. Devours souls. Devours men, killing the lucky ones and spitting the rest out. Guns had done that, and a gun in her hand could do exactly the same. There was no war—not in the sense of treaties and kings and armies, but there were certainly soldiers, even if their uniforms were peaked caps instead of helmets, even if their empire was a racetrack and not a continent. This was her enlistment.

"Trix," John said. "Are we going or not?"

She glanced over at him, and noticed that he'd turned the car off. "We're going," she said, forcing the words out of her mouth in spite of their weight. Trixie unbuckled her seatbelt and tucked the gun gently under her arm so she could get out of the car.

As John slammed the door and headed to the boot, where he dug out a burlap sack of bottles. The noise they made as he jostled them was a menace. Trixie grabbed onto the picnic basket of sandwiches she'd brought them, including tea for her and whiskey for him, and made quick work following.

"You seem nervous," John remarked. "You nervous, Trixie?"

"I'm not nervous," she lied. "I'm just careful."

He laughed. "Sounds like the same thing."

"It's not," said Trixie. And it wasn't, not really. Nervous and careful were different animals, she was just lying about which happened to possess her.

In the clearing, he arranged the glass bottles in a line across an abandoned tree trunk. "About as high as a man's stomach," he explained. "You wanna aim for the torso if you have to shoot. Tommy says you'll never have to kill someone."

"Tommy said that," Trixie deadpanned. "Is that to care for my dainty, feminine constitution, or does he not think I'm capable?"

John sent her a boyish grin, and Trixie found herself imagining what he'd been like before the war, too. Probably the same, but maybe a little more sober. "Do you want to kill someone?"

Trixie shrugged. "Sometimes. Depends on the person, really."

He held out his hand for her gun, and Trixie passed it over. "Don't get too trigger happy," he instructed, loading the bullets into the chamber. "Can't have you roaming the streets of Birmingham like a cowboy with a vengeance."

"Don't think the hat would suit me, anyway," said Trixie. "If I learn to use the gun, do I get one of my own of those?" she asked, pointing to John's flatcap. "With the razors."

"They're for the boys. Wouldn't look good on you. anyway."

"Why not?" she asked, pitching her face up in mock-offense. "My hair's short, anyway. I'd look better than some of the men." After a beat, she added, "By that I mean Arthur."

"Don't let him hear you say that," said John. "Not until you've learned how to use this thing, at least." He passed the gun back to her and she weighed it carefully in her hands. It felt heavier. Much heavier. More than the sum of the bullet and the revolver combined.

"Why'd they cut it so high up?" Trixie asked. "The tree, I mean."

John shrugged. "Maybe it'd rotted."

This certainly won't help, Trixie couldn't help but think. "Is this how you learned?"

John pulled his own gun from his belt, though it was already loaded. "Nah. Poll taught us boys in an alleyway, had us shoot at a scarecrow. I was good, yeah? Better than Arthur. But Tommy—Jesus."

"What about Tommy?" Trixie said.

Shaking his head, he spun the chamber of his revolver around once, and it clicked as it went. "Tommy got the damn thing on the head his first try. Like he was made for it."

"Nobody's made for it," Trixie objected, and then caught herself. Nobody's made for killing. Not that fast, not that easily. No man was made for it, maybe, but then again—Tommy Shelby didn't think himself a man.

He had to have been once, though, before he'd been shipped off to the trenches. Somewhere in the past, Tommy Shelby had been in love with a girl named Greta Jurossi, and he needed a heart for that. John had called him a lothario, said he could've changed for the better—now, he was as lost as lost could be.

"Do you know Greta Jurossi?" she asked, fiddling with the chamber of her own gun and feigning nonchalance. "Tommy mentioned her, from bef—"

"Before the war," John said. "Yeah, I knew her. How do you know?"

"He told me," Trixie replied, suddenly ashamed that she was picking at this scab. "He said she got sick and died, but that he'd loved her."

John sighed, and began loading and unloading the bullets from inside his gun. "She was a Communist, actually. She and Freddie Thorne were in the same year as Tommy in school, before he dropped out. She had a sister, I think, Kitty, but I don't know what happened to her after the war."

"Oh," said Trixie. "He was happy with her, was he?"

She knew what she was asking. Judging by the look on John's face, he understood, but Trixie didn't bother disputing it. They'd known each other long enough now to trust in the other's discretion. "He was happier, in general. Kind of man who—fuck, I don't know. He'd save up money to buy her flowers. Charmed her parents, even though they hated us Small Heath boys. Used to believe in something." He sighed. "All that's gone now, though."

"Yeah," Trixie remarked. "Do you actually think we would've gotten along if we'd met before the war?"

John tugged on the hem of his jacket. "Maybe." Then, "Can I be honest?"

"With me? Always."

"I think he likes you now. I think you interest him. I know this whole—this whole thing with the engagement is about those bloody coppers and those fucking guns, but for Christ's sake, Trix, you're wearing our mother's ring."

"I'm what?" said Trixie, nearly dropping the gun in the hurry to inspect her hands.

"Jesus!" John hissed, pulling the weapon away from her. "It's fucking loaded, you're gonna shoot yourself in the foot."

"I'm wearing—your mother's wedding ring?"

John nodded, pointing at her finger. "Where else would that have come from?"

"I don't know!" she cried. "I don't understand why he's giving me an heirloom ring one minute and buying me out of the company the next."

Nobody said anything for a long moment, and Trixie almost didn't realize why. "He's buying you out?"

Trixie sighed. "Look, he said I can come back to visit, he just—doesn't want me in the way anymore, I guess. Said he'd find me a house somewhere out here, and uh. Yeah, just doesn't want me coming back."

"I'm gonna fucking kill him," John muttered.

"Wait—"

"I'm gonna fucking kill him!" he shouted, kicking one of the unused bottles across the clearing so hard that it shattered against the tree trunk. "You're the best fucking accountant we have. He's always preaching to us about business—business before the Pub, business before the kids, business before sex. And he can't get over himself long enough to—" John gritted his teeth.

"Maybe the ring was a consolation prize," Trixie offered pathetically. "I knew he didn't like me anyway, John, it's fine."

"It's not fucking fine, Trix. He can't do this to you."

"He's offering me more than enough in return."

"He can't do this to us," he clarified. "You're not going anywhere."

Trixie sighed. "It'll be alright," she said. "I'll make it be alright."

John gritted his teeth. "Have you told Polly?" She shook her head. "Polly's the only person who'll tell Tommy what to do, but you're the closest second I've ever seen."

"I know," said Trixie, even if she didn't quite believe it. "Now could you hand me my gun?"

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Beatrice Price went into the woods that morning, and something else came back. Something pushed up against the threshold diving man from more. Something that understood how men could break like bones and heal wrong. Trixie had still never been to the moon, but she had seen it up close through a telescope and memorized its face.

The first several bullets had been misses, getting ever closer to the glass bottles on the horizon. The bullets rocketed out of the barrel, the ensuing snap louder than she'd ever imagined it being. They'd breaked for lunch without a single hit, and by the time she got back, she was still distracted by the ring on her finger.

Trixie huffed, dropping her gun and pulling the thing off. She tossed it into the picnic basket and stifled any worries of scuffing it. None of that mattered right now.

When she lifted the gun back up, Trixie did not feel human. And this arm of hers—elbow to wrist to trigger—did not feel human either. She had come to the boundary of what mankind was made to be capable of, her back to her father, her back to her mother, her back to all the dead boys who had left for war and never come back. If they called, she couldn't hear them. In the glass of the bottles ahead, she could make out the Peaky Blinders' kingdom, their crowns and their power. It was easier to understand how Tommy could think himself God when she bore the weight of something like this. Elbow, wrist, trigger, bang. She winked one eye shut and zeroed in on the target.

"What's wrong?" John badgered. "You wanna be a fuckin' Peaky, you gotta learn to shoot, Trix. You can't be chickenshit."

Elbow, wrist, trigger. Men weren't made for destruction like this—neither inflicting nor enduring. Killing had been around since Cain, yeah, but nothing killed quite like a gun.

You can't be chickenshit. Trixie squinted at the line of bottles. Elbow, wrist, trigger, bang. She squeezed the gun to remind herself where her own hand stopped and the weapon started, only to squeeze to hard and send the damn thing firing. Elbow. Wrist. Trigger.

Bang.

The bullet flew forward, slicing through one of the bottles in the line and shattering it. Trixie forced her eyes to stay open, to watch as it tore through the glass and sent it flying back in pieces. She fired again. The bullet hit the next bottle over. Trixie imagined that it was Billy Kimber, imagined that blood might spatter across the other clearing, imagined him collapsing backwards, dead.

"I'm not chickenshit," she said, mostly to herself.

"No," said John. "You're not."

So she shot down the bottles, and fought to keep her hand steady. When all the glass had been sent to pieces, and John had gotten bored of trying to shoot the birds down from trees, they'd returned to the car and begun the journey home.

"You're getting married," Trixie said, once they were on the road.

John coughed on the whiskey he was sipping from his flask, and Trixie snatched it away from him to screw the cap back on. She would've felt bad if he'd remembered to tell her the news himself, but maybe it was better this way. Maybe she could use it to distract him from her approaching departure. "Polly?" he asked, like he already knew the answer.

"Polly," Trixie confirmed. "But only because you forgot."

"I didn't forget," John said. "I'm just...having second thoughts, is all."

Trixie fiddled with her own ring—well, Tommy's ring, below the cheesecloth covering the basket. "Second thoughts?"

John shrugged, pressing hard down onto the gas and letting up intermittently. Some part of him looked woefully ashamed. "Polly and Tommy are against it," he said. "And—I know it's not their marriage, and fuck Tommy for what he's doing to you, but I can't help wondering if they're right."

"Right about?"

"Right about Lizzie."

"Oh," Trixie said, dropping the ring. "John, it's not bad that she's been a prostitute. As long as she's kind and can care for the children. And she'd—she'd stop working, yeah?"

"She would, yeah," said John. "Poll says I shouldn't let a whore near the children."

"She said that?" Trixie squawked. "Are you joking?"

"Not joking."

Trixie sighed. "Well, I know she loved Martha. I know you loved Martha." She sighed. "But you know you can't replace her, and you're not trying to. The kids need someone to take care of them, John, and you're not gonna do it, are you?"

He hesitated. There was a correct answer here and they both knew it, and they both knew it wasn't the truth. He shook his head. "No," he said. "No, I'm not gonna."

"Lizzie Stark would be something," Trixie said. "If she can fix them lunch and tuck them into bed, that's better than letting them run feral in the streets."

"Oi!" John objected, looking over at her incredulously. "Are you calling my kids feral?"

"Are you going to call them well-behaved?" Trixie countered. "It's not their fault. They've been left to their own devices. You haven't even signed them up for school yet. They're gonna spend every day playing by the Cut until they get pistols of their own."

He waved her away. "They're kids!"

"Is that what kids are supposed to do!"

"Lizzie'll want them to go to school, anyway," John said. "She's been trying to do a typing course. She wants to become a secretary. I offered to help her pay for it."

"Good man," Trixie commended, patting John gently on the shoulder. "So she's got aspirations. That's good. She'll be a good example." Then, gently, she added, "Your kids are a menace, John, but I'm sure she's seen worse."

"You think?" John asked. "You're not fucking with me, right?"

"I'm not," Trixie promised. "I wouldn't."

For the remainder of the ride back, Trixie tried to make sense of the ring, though her mind kept drifting back to a world where she'd known Tommy before the war. Maybe if she'd gone to school, she would've met him sooner. Maybe if her father preached at St. Catherine's, instead. Maybe Tommy would save up to buy her flowers, and laugh when he was happy, and care about her as more than just a legal bargaining chip. If they made it, he'd ask her to marry him for real, give her the same ring for real. Maybe life would be the exact same, with less pretending.

But there was no point in dwelling on it. Trixie watched the trees go by and thought about how satisfying it would be to kill Campbell. So satisfying, and just as easy, now. She could set up a meeting with him and take out her gun before he even knew what was happening. She could kill him tonight, if she wanted to.

And she wanted to. But she wouldn't. They didn't need a dead Crown Agent bringing more attention to the city.

The itch to pull the trigger again was tempting, but useless if not dangerous. She'd take a bath with the rose salts instead, maybe, and finish the last few chapters of Wuthering Heights.

"The fuck's happening here?" John muttered, honking at a string of cars blocking the front of her apartment. Trixie leaned forward, trying to see around him if there was any explanation of the ruckus.

"Is that my chair?" Trixie asked, watching one of the men on the sidewalk lugging the furniture towards a nearby caravan. "That's—am I being robbed?"

"Hold on a second," John ordered, stopping the car in the middle of the road with a screech. He shoved the door open and climbed out, strutting up to the building.

She hadn't learned how to shoot just to be left behind. Trixie followed, slamming her own door behind her, picnic basket in hand. She chased John up the steps, watching as men—men she recognized—hauled crates and furniture out of her apartment. "Hey!" she objected, but the men didn't listen.

At the top of the stairs, she collided straight with Tommy's shoulder. "Beatrice," he greeted.

"What the bloody fuck do you think you're doing?" she asked, watching as Curly dragged her bookshelf through the front door. Tommy offered her a cigarette, raising his eyebrows nonchalantly. Trixie smacked his hand away. "Tell me what's happening."

He sighed, and took the cigarette for himself. "Better dig out that pretty silver dress. We're getting married this weekend, Beatrice."

Trixie blinked at him and then laughed, waiting for him to confirm that he'd suddenly developed a twisted sense of humor. "Like hell we are," she objected. "This was not part of the deal," she muttered, taking a step closer and cornering him.

Tommy could threaten her all he wanted, and he could buy her out, and he could ruin her fucking life, but she would not marry him in the aftermath of it all. "What I say goes," he reminded her.

She stared at him, mouth open, and before she knew what she was doing, Trixie raised her hand and slapped him across the face. "Don't you fucking talk to me like that."

He took her hand gently in his. Trixie wanted to push him down the stairs, but she knew that would likely get her killed, too, or at least send Birmingham into unrest. "I will explain, alright? But not here. Your neighbor's been by enough times, he's looking for a reason to make our life more difficult."

"There is no our life," Trixie hissed, trembling from the effort of keeping her voice low. "You bought me out, didn't you? There's Thomas Shelby, and there's the rest of the world. I like where I'm standing, and I've no interest in switching sides."

Tommy took a deep breath. "Beatrice, I promise you that I will explain. And if you want to leave, I will let you leave. But you cannot be living with a copper next door, under Campbell's thumb."

"What happened to the Lees?" she asked.

"I will explain," Tommy reiterated.

"And what if I don't like your explanation?"

"Then I'll buy you the bloody house today, alright? I'll get you out of here."

He seemed so confident that his explanation would satisfy; Trixie almost wanted to make a scene just out of spite. Instead, she inhaled slowly. "You're going to drive me to your house right now, and you're going to explain what's going on. And if you don't, I'm going to take the loaded gun in this picnic basket and start shooting."

Trixie could tell that Tommy was analyzing her, trying to gauge how serious she was, but even she wasn't sure if it was a bluff. "Alright," he said. "I'll get the keys from John."

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

When they were back at Watery Lane, Tommy unlocked the door for Trixie and then stood dumbly in the living room. "Tea?" he offered, for no apparent reason.

"I don't want tea," she snapped. "I want to know what the fuck's going on."

"Upstairs," he said, gesturing towards the staircase with a nod. Trixie followed begrudgingly, maintaining the white-knuckled grip on her picnic basket as she ascended. It didn't surprise her when Tommy led her to his room, but it did feel odd, and she felt out of place. Maybe that was why he'd brought her here—she'd be more pliant to his news if she was already caught off-guard.

Well, if he had done it to make some kind of assertion, Trixie would have none of it. She sat down on his bed as if it were her own and waited.

"I had a meeting with Campbell today," he shared. "Considering what happened in the Church. It's come to my attention that you're not safe under his surveillance."

Trixie rolled her eyes. "Of course I'm not. We knew that. In the best case scenario, he thinks you're in love with me, and in the worst case scenario, he knows that I've been fucking lying to him."

"I need you safe, though, Beatrice," Tommy snapped. He raked a hand through his hair. "Listen to me. That—that Copper had promised me that you will pay if I break another deal with him. Understand?"

She blinked. "I've heard. But I thought you were taking care of it."

"This is how I'm taking care of it."

"How is a wedding going to help things?" she demanded.

"If you live under this roof, I can protect you. But you won't live with me unless you marry me."

"But I won't marry you."

"And you won't," said Tommy. "Not really. We'll burn the papers before they're ever filed. But Campbell knows that you are the daughter of a priest, and he knows you won't live here unless it's under the right conditions. These are the right conditions."

Trixie wanted to insult him, or slap him again, or flat-out refuse, but he was right and she knew it. One gun was better than nothing, and this house had at least six. Still. She couldn't let it go without being difficult. "I'm not sleeping with you," she said. "Your bed is too small."

He arched an eyebrow, and she realized the double meaning of her words. Trixie jutted her chin up, determined to appear fearless. "I know," he said. "We'll make up Ada's room for you. It's bigger. Nice window. You can read her copy of Das Kapital, if you like."

The annoying part was that she would like that. "Sit down," she instructed, without really knowing why. Just to see if he would listen. He did, settling dutifully on the edge of the bed, while Trixie stood and took his place. Reaching out for his neck, she mumbled, "You owe me for this."

Trixie drew her thumb along the line of his jaw, down from his ear to his chin, until the hook of her finger held his head up to look at her. "Four bedrooms," he said, his voice like gravel. His blue eyes were heavy lidded, and Trixie thought back to the last time she had been here, the things she'd imagined in this very bed, next to this very man. He looked now like he'd looked in her imagination.

She shook her head. "No, Tommy. Not with the house."

He seemed weak, now, easy. She wanted to start a fight with him, but she knew she would lose. Instead, she pressed her thumbnail hard into his bottom lip. "Not with the house?" he mumbled.

She craned her head down towards him. "I want my own razor blades. You're going to buy me the most expensive hat from the milliner and have her sew them in."

"You want a hat," he deadpanned, like she'd just asked him for a flying horse. Trixie seized his jaw in her grip and squeezed it roughly.

"I want you to know that you didn't make me, and I will never belong to you."

This was a kind of fight too, she supposed. Tommy's hands were flat on the quilt, his lip swollen from her touch. Here they were, two people trying to destroy each other. "You remember what you said to me in the car? After Kimber's house?" he asked, reaching up and putting a hand around her wrist.

He'd had enough of succumbing. When he stood, Trixie very deliberately did not step back to make room for his body, and so he pressed heavy against her, chest to chest. She'd never been this close to anyone, even to Luca. "Which part?" Trixie's memory of the night had been fogged by her own deliriousness, and she wasn't sure where her thoughts had stopped and her words had begun.

"It doesn't matter if it hurts," he quoted, his voice low and rough. Trixie wanted him, wanted to push him back down the stairs and give herself to him at the same time.

"Nothing else compares," she finished. "Do you think we're alike?"

Tommy's grip on her wrist tightened, but she held still. "You don't want to be like me."

"That's not my question." Trixie felt her core catch fire, felt her heart slamming in her chest. "You don't know what I want, Tommy."

"I don't?" he asked, releasing her wrist and moving his hand to the small of her back. Body-to-body like that morning on the canal, his hands on her like the morning on the canal. The same anger, she realized. The same game she was scrabbling to win.

Trixie tried not to shake. "You don't."

"House in the countryside?" he mumbled, dipping his head to the side of her neck and placing one, chaste kiss under her jaw.

"Tommy!" Arthur shouted from downstairs. "Where the bloody hell are you?"

She took a step back, trying to keep balanced. "What's going on?" she asked, horrified first at the wobble in her voice and second at the stupid question.

Tommy shrugged. "We have to get downstairs," he said. "Ceremony's starting soon."

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

A/N: HI I'm so sorry for the delay....my main excuse is being an American (it's literally a disease lol get well soon) and being so . stressed out recently but I'm back and the world is so? Weird? Anyway. My other excuse is that this chapter was being really difficult and I'm still not completely happy with how it turned out, but I think this is the best I can do for it right now and hopefully it isn't too bad.

On a separate note, I've been outlining future parts of this series and getting....so emotional. Book 2 is gonna end up around 40 chapters? I think? There's a lot of exciting stuff coming up and I hope you will all want to stick around that long and see what happens!

In other news, I'm looking for a beta reader who can help with line edits! Most of my writing is done so early in the morning and I'm really bad with proofreading, so if anyone would be interested in looking things over please let me know.

As always, thank you to everyone who has commented, voted, and bookmarked, I appreciate it so, so much. Please feel free to let me know what you thought of this chapter as well! 

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

Chapter 18 / I Do

"At this point," said Jeremiah, "I usually tell the man to kiss the bride."