Chapter Text
It’s a tired old brick building. The kind the world forgot about a long time ago. So covered in soot from the chimney’s and nearby factories that the red hues of the bricks has turned a dusty redish brown, like a blood stain left untreated for far too long.
The outside stairwells are all covered in rusting yellow brass, the walkways lined with old frayed rope for laundry to swing and dry from.
But Tommy moves along the inside of the building, slipping through shadows and empty halls.
The interior stairwell made of beautifully curved and carved wood that has ago chipped away and left straggly like withered bones, the walls covered in white tiles that have since turned yellow with stain, leading him to a long dimly light hall of faded blue.
He moves steadily down the passage, hands in his jacket pockets, eyes cast down low beneath his peaky cap.
The hallway is empty except for him, but a suddenly creak emerges from the silence as he reaches his destination.
Tommy’s eye’s shoot to the sound, a woman – a housewife, peaking out through the crack of her door to spy. It only takes a glance from his cold sharp eyes for his message to deliver and her door to quickly shut.
As everyone in Small Heath knows… It isn’t smart to look at Thomas Shelby the wrong way.
His mission now uninterrupted, Tommy moves close to the door. An old rickety thing with a stained window up top and a brass number nine nailed onto the front of the door.
He raises his knuckles and knocks once. Holds his breath for the beat of two and knocks once more. It’s late and he knows she’ll need to be certain it’s him.
The sound of heels clicking against wooden floorboard fill’s his ears after a long heartbeat, muffled behind the closed door.
Then it opens, slowly the faint glow from inside showers his face as Tommy glances up from beneath his cap to meet her eyes and quickly slips inside with mutual understanding.
Before the door pulls shut, the latch clicks, and the hall of the building is suddenly bathed in near darkness once again.
You watch Polly roll her eyes as Tommy moves through the betting shopping, slipping past the crowded room as he adjusted his cap and heads out the front.
“He’s up to something. Thinks I don’t notice, but he’s not as clever as he’d like to think.” Polly says under her breath.
You glance up at her from the pile of coins your counting, unsure if she’s talking to you or herself. But all confusion is quickly cleared as she glances your way and continues.
“Sneaking around all day, gone until late into the night. He forgets who ran this business for the last four years. I’d think he got himself a girl if he actually smiled once in awhile. No, he’s up to somethin’ and surely wasting all his money on whores and booze.” She’s flustered, irritated, you can see it in the fire of her eyes as they drift back out to the door Tommy just escaped from.
It’s anger on her breath, but you know her well enough to know underneath it all is concern. After the war no one came back the same. Least of all Tommy.
You finish your stack, scribble down the tally, and move onto the next. That’s what you do here at the betting shop. Count the bets, count the winnings make sure everything adds up.
You were always good with numbers in school. You enjoyed the logical predictability of them. And you appreciate the job. After the war broke out and all the men went away, Polly and Ada took over the business.
As the wife of Tommy’s closest childhood pal - Will, the Shelby’s had known you for years. First as Will’s girlfriend who would tag along with him, Tommy and Freddie. Then as Will’s wife just before he left for the war.
Polly hired you on shortly after the men left. Just a few days a week at first, but after tragedy stuck and you lost everything, she kept you on daily. Polly said she needed the extra help, but secretly you knew after losing Will she wanted to keep an eye on you.
Killed in action, the letter said. But you had heard Arthur and John talk about Will at the battle of Somme, talk of an explosion that buried nearly all the tunnelers. He never came home. That was the hardest part. You never got the say goodbye.
The only man you ever loved. You had met William in grade school. He stood up for you when a boy made fun of the holes in your jacket and the knots in your hair as if his shoes didn’t have holes of their own.
William grew up poor on Watery Lane with The Shelby’s and Thorn’s. Bare feet street kids who were as tough and mean as an unchained guard dog.
But Will was sweet on you, for reasons you still don’t entirely understand. He took it upon himself to look out for you and as you grew, that friendship easily transformed into love.
Your mother died when you were young of cholera, your father a laborer who was often out of work and had little time or interest in raisin a child on his own. Will was your everything…
Until he was gone.
You had been inconsolable. Refusing to eat or get out of bed, and Polly and Ada had looked after you. More family to you than your own kin.
But as the months passed and a year nearly slipped away, you slowly pulled your life back together. But you learned things, things only loss and grief can teach you…
That some wounds never heal. That you can still go on living with a hole in your heart. That the world doesn’t stop just because yours came crashing down around you. You take everything one day at a time.
Some days are better than others. But you don’t think on the future, now that your dreams have turned to dust. You hold onto what you still have and try to carry on.
“He hasn’t told you anything?” Polly pipes up again, glancing your way as she flips through the betting slips for the day.
You nearly crack a smile with the question.
“Course’, the man’s a regular chatter box, I tell yeah. I can hardly git him to shut up. I’m tellin’ yeah Pol, after a long day’s work all I want is some peace and quiet on my walk home, but yeah know Tommy, can’t seem to shut him up.” You answer, sarcasm thick on your breath as you shoot her a playful sideways glance.
You don’t miss the devilish grin that spreads across Polly face with your joke as she sparks a match and draws it to the cigarette at her lip.
“Most days he doesn’t say more than a few words. Makes sure I get home safe. Checks the building, the windows, the locks.” You answer her truthfully. When Tommy came back he was a changed man.
Completely different from the lad you grew up with, not that you were close before the war, but still, anyone could see the difference. And that bothered you almost as much as the fact that he wouldn’t leave you alone.
Everywhere you turned he was checking up on you, making sure you had enough food in the apartment, insisting on walking you home from work.
You hated it. You thought it was his way of controlling things. You didn’t want Tommy with his broken eyes and razor sewn cap, you wanted your Will.
But then you came to realize Tommy had made Will a promise back in France to look after you if he didn’t make it home. Tommy couldn’t bring his best pal home, but he could look after his widow, make sure she was safe and had the necessities Will would have taken care of.
Knowing he was honoring his friend, warmed your heart in a different way for Tommy Shelby. And made you realize you had an allie in your grief. You weren’t the only one missing Will.
“He cares about you.” Polly notes, wrapping the stack of betting slips and moving to the stack of pounds.
“He misses Will.” You correct her.
Your breath heavy with a loss you’ve come to believe will never fully leave your heart as you fiddle idly with the ring on your finger.
You still haven’t had the heart to take it off for good. You’re his wife. Just because he’s buried in the mud somewhere doesn’t change that.
Polly turns to you this time, her work on hold for the moment as her lips smile, but her eyes grow heavy.
“We all miss him, dear. But at least he left us you.” She says, reaching softly for your cheek with a mother’s touch.
That’s all you can say. Anything more would be too much. Nearly a year later and it’s still too much.
Polly turns back to counting the stack as you do the same. Your heart a little heavier than at the start of this conversation, but you’ve grown accustom to the weight of it.
You push all thoughts of Will from your mind. Sometimes it’s all you can do to not feel crushed under the weight of it and begin counting your slack again. The rhythm of the numbers distracting your mind and your heart.
“I tell yeah though, that boy is up to somethin’.” Polly adds, the glint of her eyes darting to you briefly as if she knows it all and what she doesn’t she’s damn and determined to find out.
You look at the clock by your bedside. Watch the old brass hands as it ticks the seconds away – tick, tick, tick.
A sound in the distance catches your ear as your face turns to the front door of your apartment. You gaze at it as if it holds the key.
Your ears perked as the old tell-tailed sound fills them. The clicking of shoes against the old wooden floors of the hall.
He’s coming…
The first time it happens you blame it on the whiskey and a loneliness that’s been building inside you for far too long.
After a long day at the betting shop and raking in a sizable loot, you headed over to the Garrison with the rest of the Shelby’s.
It wasn’t a nightly affair, but a frequent occurrence none the less. They treated you like family now that you have none and for that you were grateful.
Blame it on the whiskey they say, and you understand why. One too many glasses of that amber colored liquor and you were giggling like a school girl alongside Polly, swaying on your feet.
Tommy lets you lean against his side, his arm around your shoulder most of the walk home so you didn’t twist your ankle wobbling along the cobblestone in your heels in the dark.
You got it in your mind that night that Tommy needed a woman, bout time he settled down. Well it wasn’t quite your idea exactly, but when Polly brought it up, it sounded like a right idea to you.
Luckily Tommy had had enough whiskey to smooth out his edges, or he would have shut you up right quick. But instead he lets you carry on most of the way. Offering up an occasional, “uh-huh” and “hmmm” past the pull of his cigarette.
Feigning interest you know he didn’t really have. Tommy wanted no one since he came home from the war. Small Heath’s most notorious flirt in his youth and devoted fella to Greta.
Everyone thought he’d be back to chasing tail once he got home, but Tommy showed no interest in games of that kind anymore. Damn shame far as the women of Small Heath were concerned.
You get back to your apartment easy enough, slow and steady. No one dare mess with you when Tommy’s your shadow.
But the thought hasn’t lost its amusement as he leads you into your tiny apartment. The one you and Will rented out together right after you married.
Right after he enlisted. A month before he shipped out. The last place you ever shared a bed. Your first home. You couldn’t part with it even when he didn’t make it back.
But you don’t think of that as the whiskey swims through your veins that night. Tommy moves to the wood burning stove to start a fire and gain some heat to the room for you before he leaves.
You don’t feel very drunk, but you realize you might have had more than you think as you move to give Tommy a hand and nearly trip over something on the floor.
Tommy’s reflexes are quick thanks to the war, as his arms slip around your waist to stop your fall, pulling you back up to him and on your feet.
“Easy Addy.” He cautions on a low breath.
“Let’s get yeah to bed, eh?” He says, but you don’t listen and you don’t budge as Tommy tries to take a step. Instead you gaze up at him with an easy smile admiring the softer side of Tommy.
“See, you’re not so tough and brute all the time. You can be soft too, Tommy Shelby.” You tell him as your hands find their way around his neck.
After months of having him nearly your shadow mixed with the hearty amber liquor, it doesn’t feel strange wrapping your arms around him. It almost feels familiar, like a pair of close old friends you never really were.
“Think you’re the only one who thinks so.” Tommy nearly laughs as he manages to get you to take a step toward the bed before you force him to halt again.
Pulling the cap off head and tossing it to the side, you run your fingers through the length of his hair on top, brushing it off to the side as you smile up at your work.
“You’d make some girl a fine husband. Practically respectable if you ask me.” You tell him as your hand slips from his hair and runs softly down the side of his face to lock with the other at the back of his neck.
Admiring your work, you miss the shift in his eyes as he gazes down at you, the shift in the air of the room from all your touching and hanging on him, but you feel it when Tommy pulls you closer.
Then suddenly he’s kissing you and your kissing him back, the innocence of your arms around him suddenly in question. None of it’s clear in your mind and for once in a very long time you don’t need things to be clear.
Tommy’s arms tighten around you, pulling you into the curve of his body as you both stumble clumsily back across the room, humming with whiskey - over-served from the Garrison.
His mouth is on fire and you can’t tell if it’s burning you alive or bringing you back to life, but you haven’t been kissed or touched with desire in over four years, nearly five.
With just a taste of it your body feels a hunger you’ve nearly forgotten, a hunger to be touched and caressed, to be desired. Like a school girl all over again, only you’ve had enough experience to remember what you’ve been missing.
And Tommy seems to hold the same frantic need as his tongue sneaks past the seam of your lips, tasting and exploring the flavor of your mouth as if he’s never tasted anything sweeter.
Your heart is pounding so hard in your chest you can hear it thumping in your ears as your lower back bumps into your small kitchen table.
You barely feel it, the edge poking into your lower back as you’re held there against it by his body, lost in the hold of Tommy’s grip and the wanting way his mouth moves against yours – taking anything he can get and pushing for more.
You knew you were lonely, all those cold quiet nights alone, year after year, but you had no idea how badly until this moment. As you surrender to Tommy’s advances completely.
Your body craving the way his hands cup and caress your soft curves, the assault of his mouth on your lonely lips.
Your palms roam him, needing to feel the shape of a man beneath them, the heat of his body, and the musky rich scent of him filling your lungs. Needing assurances this isn’t a dream, you aren’t alone, someone is really here.
Tommy leads you blindly, your eyes only slipping open as his lips pull away. Lashes fluttering over your hooded eyes, you find him and the look in his piercing blues sends your belly coiling tight and your breath halting at your lips for a brief moment.
A man hasn’t looked at you with such hunger and desire in so long you nearly forgotten the way it can make every sense inside your body come alive and set alight.
Make you forget everything in that moment but him and the hypnotic power of his stare – dark, hungry, and drunk off you. Like a disease, it fills your veins with the same urgency.
It’s only the flutter of movement that has the power to pull you from his powerful stare. You glance down to see Tommy’s making quick work of his trousers as his eye stare unrelentingly upon you.
Your heart suddenly pounds harder if that’s possible, as you watch his deft fingers tug at the buttons on his wool pants. The same fingers that were setting fires against the curve of your hips and breasts just moments ago.
Maybe with a moment of clarity, a moment of thought you would have realized what a mistake this is, but you don’t give it a moment, as fear and excitement sweep through your veins, moving you to act as quickly as him, as you gather up your skirt, reaching for your knickers beneath.
The silky fabric barely slips past your ankles when Tommy’s gripping insistently at your cheek, pulling you back to him and into a desperate kiss. The heat of his mouth, the taste of his lips, it’s frantic against yours as if he has to have you as he devours the taste of you in his mouth.
Your hands grip tightly at the muscles that contour his shoulders as Tommy lifts you like your weightless, unceremoniously hoisting you onto the table.
It’s a frantic game of push and pull that plays to the rapid rhythm of your pounding hearts, as if every second can’t be wasted as you tug your skirt up around your waist and Tommy spreads your legs, slipping between them.
No thought or time taken to remove the rest of your garments as Tommy grabs at the back of your stocking covered thighs, his hands rough and callused as he wraps your legs around him, his hardness and the heat of his skin pressing against you.
Your hands are roaming up the back of his neck, past the stiff collar of his pressed shirt, his short-cropped hair pricking at your fingertips, when he grabs your ass and with a single thrust Tommy plunges inside you.
You gasp into his mouth, your nails biting crescent moons deep into his skin in retribution. It’s been so long and this unfolded so fast, you’re already wet for him, but not entirely ready as your body instantly tenses tightly around him.
You’d be embarrassed by how warm and silky you were for him this quick if the heat of his ragged breath on your ear didn’t tell you how much he loves it.
“Fuck. You feel good.” Tommy curses, breath heaving as he peppers your neck with kisses, the stubble of his face burning against your skin as he rocks slowly into the warmth of you.
Letting your body adjust to the feel of him as if this were your first time all over again. But it’s not your first time, and you feel the need for more quickly come back to life within you.
Your body speaking needs of its own as you rock against him, meeting the gentle sway of Tommy’s shallow thrusts, creating delicious fiction between the dance of your bodies, urging him for more.
Without words, Tommy understands as his grip finds the curve of your hip - the fabric of your skirt bunched around it, his other hand grabs at the back of your thigh as he begins to push deeper with every snap of his hips, making you rapidly flush and gasp against him.
You grip Tommy tight, losing yourself in the moment. You hear your table moan in protest beneath you, too old and weak for the force Tommy’s giving it, but you can’t bring yourself to care if the legs fall out under you as Tommy takes you higher.
Your senses on fire, your mind focused on the feel of only him and the way you move together, the fullness of Tommy inside you, all around you.
His hips snap quickly against the sensitive bundle of nerves between your thighs, sending jolts of electricity spearing through your body as he rubs against the delicate spot over and over again in a way that sends you quickly to the brink of ecstasy.
Your arms wrapped desperately around his neck and back, you claw at Tommy for perch as you open your legs wider to him, your feet digging into his firm ass as you draw him closer with every thrust, needing more of him, all of him, everything he can give you.
Your body suddenly greedy and frantic for release from someone other than yourself for the first time in years. Clinging to him tighter as Tommy pushes deep within you, hitting that hidden weak spot that makes your toes curl and your breath gasp sharply as ecstasy rushes through you, making you lose sight of everything but him and this moment.
And Tommy seems to understand by the pitch of your voice, the shortness of your breath.
“Right there?” Tommy’s strangled hoarse breath asks, as he grips the back of your thigh higher against his hip, yanking you to the edge of the table for a better angle to please you.
Your butt rides the edge of that old wooden table as Tommy crushes you against him, his hips snapping faster, deeper. Hitting that sensitive spot buried deep within you that leaves your breath gasping sharply in his ear as he moves swiftly in and out again.
No tenderness, no restraint, and you know you can’t hold on much longer. It’s like teetering over the edge of a cliff, staring boldly down into the abyss, knowing what awaits you is heaven.
“Yes,” Your gasps out desperately, your voice fraying at the edges like your body.
Encouraging him on as your belly coils, thighs clench, your breath heavy and frantic as you climb higher and higher toward heaven. You cling to Tommy as if you can’t get close enough, your senses are on fire as he buries himself within you, thrusting harder.
Intoxicating pleasure flooding through your veins, building and mounting, until there’s so much pressure it’s almost more than you can bear as you begins to lose all sense and fall off the edge.
Tommy’s breath hits hard and frantic against your neck, and like the spark of a match, all it takes is one more deep thrust, filling you completely and suddenly you’re coming undone.
Your head falls back as a cry escapes you, the world exploding all around. The kind of delirious ecstasy you’ve been deprived of for far too long races like pulsating fire through your veins, crashing over you in waves.
Desperate sighs rips from your lips as your cling to him, your hips rock frantically, erratically against Tommy as you clench and spasm around him, trying to chase the greatest high you’ve had in years for everything it’s worth.
You feel Tommy’s fingers dig deep into the flesh on the back of your thigh, with enough force that it will surely leave marks in the morning.
His breath grunts deep, his hips losing their rhythm as he shutters and quakes against your body. Obscenities falling hot and wet from his desperate lips against the curve of your neck as he releases inside you.
You hold onto each other, a tangled knot of heavy breathes and tired limbs as ecstasy races through your veins and then slowly wanes away.
Tommy’s breath feels heavy against your neck, the sweat glistening on his face feels slick on your equally dewy skin.
When Tommy finally moves, he pulls out slowly, and it’s a strange sort of emptiness that takes his place.
Your legs are trembling as he slowly steps back from the cradle of your thighs and sets them back down on the hardwood floor, your table angerly protesting at the both of you.
You feel the absence of him between the ache your thighs. But it’s more than that, more than him…
It’s what you’ve done and the reality of it as it settles in around you.
Your legs feel unsteady as you brace your hand on the tables edge and reach down to slowly pull your knickers back up your legs.
Smoothing your skirt back down into place, you’re struck with the deepest sense of betrayal. You’ve never been with another man.
Doesn’t matter that Will’s been dead almost a year, gone even longer, you can’t help but feel like you betrayed him in the deepest way, and with his best friend no less.
Tommy Shelby, that you’ve known since you were kids, but only because you hung on Will’s arm.
Will’s lying buried feet beneath the earth somewhere, food for mealworms and God only knows what, and you just fucked his best pal against the table you shared your last meal together as husband and wife at.
You chance a glance up to find Tommy watching you carefully as he fastens the last buttons of his trousers and tucks his shirt.
He takes in the sight of you, a sadness washing over the sharp features of his face.
You don’t realize you’re crying until he reaches out, his thumb wiping tenderly at the streak running down your cheek. Only then do you notice how flushed and damp your cheeks feel.
You can’t speak as you stare back into his deep broken blue eyes that look as guilty as you feel and far more vulnerable than you ever remember seeing before. You don’t know what to say. What could you possibly say in a moment like this?
Tommy coughs suddenly as if his throats grown much too tight as he quickly turns away from you. Adjusting the cap back on his head as his gaze lingers on the floor.
“I’m sorry.” He whispers, his voice deep and heavy even as his face hangs low, unable to meet yours as if the sight of you right now is just too damn hard.
You linger there in the room, wiping silently at your cheeks, lost in an awkward moment you both don’t know how to fix, before he snatches up his jacket and turns for the door. Not another word between you.
Tommy kept his distance from you after that. Not physically, of course. He made a promise to Will somewhere down in that mud and he had every intention of keeping it.
Waiting for you every morning to walk you to work with a cigarette hanging from his lip, smoke billowing around his face as his hands rest shoved in the pockets of waistcoat.
Cap sitting lower over his eyes as he checked his pocket watch, waiting to walk you home every night when the day was done.
Making sure things worked around the apartment, replacing them if they didn’t. Making sure you were safe and no one dared give you a hard time about nothin’ without having to answer to Thomas Shelby.
But he wouldn’t speak to you unless he absolutely had to, and only about pertinent matters, never what happened.
He could hardly look at you and never in the eye. If your gazes happen upon each other, Tommy was always the first to look away.
You hated yourself back then. More than you can ever recall hating yourself before.
And not just because of what you did, disgracing the honor of your dead husband, but because a part of you wanted to do it again. And as the days went by, your hunger for Tommy grew.
It wasn’t even Tommy himself, just getting lost in someone’s arm. Feeling wanted, desired, and connected. The cold space in your bed seeming to echo louder than ever once you had a taste of what it was like not to be alone.
It’s you who kisses him the second time around, you start the fire. And to his honor, Tommy tried his best not to reciprocate, but he is just a man, and one you’ve learned is as lonely and broken as you are from the war.
The second time you don’t cry when it’s done. And by the third time, you both don’t even bother pretending it won’t happen again.
It becomes a simple arrangement. Kept secret to avoid the scandal and disgrace of your actions. Just comfort, you remind yourself when you slip under the currents of his desire, let the heat of his ocean take you away.
Two broken, lost souls seeking a little comfort, a little release from all the heartache and hardship of the world. It doesn’t mean anything else.
Will can still be everything. Your whole heart and Tommy isn’t looking to take his place any more than you want him to.
Just two broken, lost souls…
It’s the old familiar knock on the door that pulls you from your reverie. One, then hold for a beat, then the second. So you know it’s him. As if anyone else would be at your door at this hour.
You rise from the chair at your kitchen table. Fingers fiddling with the ring on your left hand. The one Will placed there and promised to love you forever.
With a heavy breath, you clasp it and pull it off. Setting it carefully in an empty porcelain tea cup on the table. This is the only time you take it off.
But you can’t wear it with him. You can’t draw Tommy into your arms, into your body, into your bed, and still wear Will’s ring.
With one last glance at that simple yet beautiful reminder of your husband, you let go of the past and all of its broken promises for just a little while, and move for the door.