redbeard

You huddled into your coat as you stared out at it under the cover of the viaduct archway, more out of habit than because you were feeling the cold. In fact you couldn’t feel much of anything. The numbness that had flooded through you the moment the words left John’s lips, the joke you didn’t get, still held in your limbs. Like you were made of the clay the boys were always trying to escape since they came back from the war.

Except for your chest. You pressed your hand to your breast as if touch could ease the physical ache inside it. You almost half expected to feel a dampness there, see the crimson of blood well between your fingers. He might as well have shot you, it felt just the same. But there was nothing.

You closed your eyes, feeling the press of tears that refused to fall. Maybe you would feel better if you could cry. Release some of this ache in your chest, the tension in your throat that made you want to claw at it with your hands. An unseen hangman with his rope around your neck.

Fuck Tommy. Fuck him and his ambitions. Fuck him and his endless scheming and desperate need to show off to those who considered themselves above him. But most of all, fuck him for not being able to keep it in his fucking pants.

And fuck her. That wench who betrayed you all so badly only a few years previously, insinuating herself back into his life.

And now this. The final blow. There would be no coming back from this.

A shuffle at the far end of the archway roused you from your internal monologue of rage. Suddenly there was his silhouette, backlit against the wet, moonlit sky.

Fuck him.

You hunched further back on the crates you were sitting on, hoping he wouldn’t be able to see you in the gloom. It was stupid of you to come here. Of course he would find you here. You’d be coming here since you were kids. Sometimes to play, sometimes just to escape the horror of life at home, and for something more when you were older. Before war and mud and his crawling ambition ruined everything.

He’d asked you to wait for him before he left for France but when he returned it was like a different man had been transplanted into his skin. Those blue eyes that used to light up like the summer sky, always filled with merriment, now like two cold shards of ice. The smell of smoke and horses that was as part of him as breathing, replaced with smoke and whiskey and an undertone of something darker, like blood.

The day he had returned you knew he wasn’t yours anymore. He didn’t want to see you. Didn’t want to see anyone really. You knew there were whores - no one else seemed to know but you could always read him better than anyone and even now, you could tell.

It wasn’t until that blonde bitch of a barmaid - or traitorous spy as she would better be described - turned up and reawakened something in him. You could still feel the acid burn of the jealousy that had inspired in you. Why had she been able to reach him in a way that you had not? His oldest friend, his first love?

You swallowed it down, the pain just adding to the clamour of agony in your chest. Because after she had gone, after he had mourned her loss, it was like he’d woken up and seen you again. Like he was seeing you for the first time all over again.

You would never forget the moment he pulled you into the dark of the store room at The Garrison, the music blaring from the reopening party. Shouts and shrieks of happiness from all the people you loved the most in one room. The Shelby’s were on the up.

And when he’d kissed you and it was like the last six years simply fell away. Just hands and lips and tongues and skin. Whispered promises pressed against heated flesh. Whimpers in the dark as you both rediscovered what you had lost.

“It’s always been you.” He told you once, when he was buried deep inside you, hot kisses on your neck. Burning it into your skin. He repeated it like a mantra as he tumbled you over the edge again and again and again.

“It’s always been you.”

And just like old times you had begun to sneak into his room, or hide down here in the dusk, away from the prying eyes of friends and family. He wanted to keep it close. Keep it for himself. He was a man of secrets now and you were another he wanted to keep.

You acquiesced because he was Tommy. With any other you would have argued, railed against the stupidity of it. But not with him. Because no matter how much you had told yourself it was over and done after he came back from the war, the truth was that you had yearned for him. You were almost ashamed how much you wanted him. Needed him.

You stupid, foolish, woman.

“Y/N?” He called into the darkness. You didn’t answer. Maybe he would go away.

“I know you’re up there, love.” He continued, beginning to make his way towards where you were concealed.

Maybe he wouldn’t go away after all. You sighed a loud huff of resignation.

“What are you doing here, love?” He said quietly as he finally stood before you. His brow was pulled into a frown. His perennial cigarette burned between his fingers, the smoke curling in the air around you. Dissolving just like you wished you could. Or wished he would.

“Fuck off, Tommy.” You hissed, hunching further into your corner. His frown tightened, beautiful full lips pulled down at the corners.

Why was it that even when you wanted to kill him with his own cap he was still here, looking like a work of art. The edges of his cheekbones and jawline etched to scalpel sharpness by the shadows.

Fuck him.

You reached into the folds of your coat, cold hands fumbling for your own smokes. You had been here so long, your numb fingers struggled to manoeuvre the matches and so he struck one for you, leaning forward to light the cigarette pressed between your lips.

You pulled back as quickly as you could, wanting as much distance between you as possible. Afraid if he came too close you would crumble.

But no. Not this time. He had gone too far.

“Why are you out here in the cold, Y/N?” He asked again, unwilling to follow your request that he kindly fuck off. It glanced off him. It seemed these days that nothing could injure him now, throw him off balance.

You took a long drag of your smoke and pushed yourself off the crates, walking to the edge of the archway, staring out into the mist. You felt him move toward you but didn’t turn to acknowledge him.

You stared and smoked in silence for a while.

“I know, Tommy.” You said eventually, voice devoid of emotion. As numb as the rest of you.

You felt, rather than saw, him go still. There were probably a good many things you could ‘know’ and he was waiting for you to tell him before he revealed the wrong thing.

“Know what?” He said after a long pause.

How original, you thought, flicking the ash from the end of your cigarette. You took the last drag it had to offer and threw it out into the damp night, before turning to look at him.

But christ, those eyes. A sucker punch in your gut. Even after all these years.

“I know about the baby, Thomas.” You said quietly because you’d been helped to understand from an early age that quiet anger was more effective than screaming. That was why you spent more of your youth in the noisy Shelby house than in your own, quiet prison of a home, with your terrified, silent mother.

Even in the dark you saw him pale.

“How…?” He asked and you had to give him credit for not trying to lie about it. He’d known you too long for that to work, but even still, that he didn’t even try was important to you.

“John thinks it’s hilarious.” Was the only explanation you offered. Not how John had come into the snug at The Garrison where you and Ada were having a quiet drink, bursting with the news that Tommy had knocked up the old barmaid. Like he and everyone else had conveniently forgotten the role Grace had played in almost getting them all killed.

You would never forget. You were the one who was there helping to dig the bullet out of Tommy’s shoulder that day.

You knew you had given the game away the moment he said it. Because you froze. It should have been funny. Why wasn’t Y/N laughing at the ridiculousness of it? You could see it in his eyes that he’d just realised his mistake. He tried to cover it, bluster his way around it but it was too late.

Too late for everyone apparently.

You’d made an excuse and left a few minutes later, coming to hide in the wet and the dark. To lick your wounds in private. Because in one split second your whole world had crumbled.

“It’s always been you.”

Except when it wasn’t, eh?

Tommy’s face actually registered a rare show of emotion at your words. You could tell John was for it later. Poor John, he didn’t know. You wanted to defend him because he was sweet and kind and it wasn’t his fault that his older brother was a shit. A shit with a secret girlfriend and now a not so secret baby with a not so secret harlet. But you stayed silent, watching him.

“I’m sorry you had to find out this way.” He said softly, limbs jerking to life as he moved towards you. You tried to move away but only succeeded in letting him box you in against the wall of the archway.

You tried to push him away but he wouldn’t budge. You could feel the warmth of him radiating across your numb, frozen skin. He was close enough to kiss, but you would never do that again you realised with a sharp pang of sadness in your chest.

“How could you?” You asked even though you knew how. Because no matter how you fooled yourself, there was no denying that you were in fact a fool to think this version of Thomas Shelby that had returned from France was anything like the version you parted with all those years ago. That Tommy, your Tommy would never have done this.

Goodness knows what this Tommy was capable of.

“It was a mistake.” He said simply, reaching to brush hair from your face and you flinched against his touch. You closed your eyes so you wouldn’t have to look at him.

“Y/N, please…” He was pleading now, voice soft and wheedling. “Please love. It was a mistake. I don’t want to be with her.” He had your face in both hands now. “It’s always been you.”

You opened your eyes and you wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of his words. But it was like a knife sliding in between your ribs. Hot, red blood spilling out. They cut you more than any damage he could do with the glinting blade in his cap.

And finally, it was enough to break the dam within you. Instead of blood, hot, salty tears began to pour down your cheeks.

He tried to smooth them away but there were too many, falling too fast. He tried instead to pull you into his chest but you resisted. Because if you let him you knew this would only end with you under him. Sex was how Tommy emoted these days. Sex for feeling, whiskey, smoke and, when he thought you wouldn’t see, opium to make the feeling stop.

You slapped at his chest with both hands, finally succeeding in pushing him away from you as your tears continued to stream.

“It was ‘only ever me’ when she was out of the picture, Thomas,” you spat at him, rage rejoining the grief in your chest. “And apparently that’s still the case.”

You pushed away from the wall, dashing away your tears angrily.

“I hope you’ll be very happy together,” you continued, words dripping with venom and contempt. “You and your backstabbing little whore. You’ll want to be extra careful with the family this time around.”

“Y/N…” he tried one last time as you began to walk away. You paused but didn’t turn.

“I love you.” He said and you felt the sting in your chest. You closed your eyes for a moment, pressing a hand over the ache once again. Over the cracked wound of your heart. You weren’t sure it would ever heal.

You swallowed down your tears and turned slowly to look at him. He stood there in the dark, a picture of dejection.

“Yeah? Well maybe you should have thought about that before you put your dick in her, eh Tom?” You said icily, spinning on your heel and walking away.

This time for good.

Val, you were right to be worried I think! Sorry for the lack of happy ending 😳 I hope you still enjoyed all the same!

Please do let me know what you thought, in all the usual ways everyone! ♥️

Read Part 2 here

Masterlists: TOMMY SHELBY | SERIES | MAIN