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prettypeppermint · 5 months

Text

swan song.

for t. shelby. a continuation of 'the gift of silence. (how sweet the sound)'

Sacrifice was your greatest gift. It clung to your name like a drawn bowstring, pregnant with prospective yet surmounting to nothing. You gave to your family until their deaths pried your outstretched palms away; you gave to your future self through tired feet and hard-earned sweat. Now, you've given to Thomas Shelby. Your very own love language.

You would give just about anything to take it all back.

He was kissing you--tasting you. He was asking for more and more of you every day through his longing gaze and patient fingers. You hated making him wait for something unattainable.

He wanted you a certain way--pliant, moldable. Soft.

He wanted you only to take from you. He wanted to collect you piece by piece.

A giver and a God.

"Tell me," he muttered into your mouth, tasting the way your thoughts grew sour on your lips. He read you in a way not kindled through love but through years of hardened business.

You pulled away half-heartedly. Your mind wrapped around him and you needed air.

"Say you love me," you ordered, staring into the core of his glacier-capped irises. There was no hope--no apprehension. You've digested every unspoken word already. You knew.

He peered down at you through his heavy line of lashes. "What--are my acts of service not enough?" he said lowly, an air of an insatiated euphemism in his voice.

A swell.

A silence.

An atonement.

"I love you." His finger traced a lock of hair into the canyon of your ear.

"I don't believe you."

A scoff seared through his teeth--a breath through the cornice of his lips.

"I've been thinking recently. During the day; during the night"--you began walking aimlessly around his office, fingering book spines and swiping the dust off of ledges--"during that ungodly hour before work. And thank God I have, because now I know you've been lying to me."

Thomas analyzed you--dissected every syllable. He listened.

"When you look into my eyes, I see nothing but her in yours."

It always goes back to Grace.

The lack of pain in your voice irked him on a deep, almost irrational level.

"At first I was hurt--confused. But now"--you circled back to him--"now, I feel nothing. I am nothing." You waited for him to interject despite knowing he never would. Sometimes, you were too painfully clear of his character; of just how much control he had over you; of how many ways he could hurt you while protecting you--love you while losing you.

"Then I realized: I'd rather be yours than nothing. Isn't it sad--a lass like me? Maybe I should first learn how it feels to be my own--to know every crease of my skin and grow comfortable in my flesh how you've grown so comfortable in mine."

The man you loved, whom you had sacrificed for one final time.

Your muscles yearned to reunite with him, but you held your arms to your sides in protest. "Thomas Shelby, you love me how a man should, but not how a woman should feel loved."

And now you'll spend the rest of your life chasing a notion--a concept--made only somewhat tangible by a man who could give you no more than all of him. Now you'll lose yourself searching for someone to search for you. Now you'll see him in all the men who fail in forgivable ways and love kindly.

A piece of him you will keep; a piece of you he will throw away. Until the next.

"You love me," he states, seemingly unphased. "And I love you."

"You don't know what love is, Thomas. How could you, when you've never loved anyone more than they've loved you?

"That's the ultimate testament of the caliber of a man's heart. It was never me, Thomas. It's her name you whisper in your sleep. Hear it. Accept it. Remember my voice saying it. Cling to it for the rest of your goddamn life so you never tell another woman you love her again."

For the first time, he noticed, you sounded defeated.

For the first time, he saw the vices of Birmingham shade your rural clarity.

Your voice sounded different without the usual fight in it; it revealed the exhaustion you forced down with cigarettes every morning and night. Suddenly the violet shadows under your eyes introduced themselves. Suddenly you looked 5 kilograms emaciated.

It was then that you became another woman in Thomas Shelby's life. You were no longer of the Kilkee coast or the sweetened countryside. You were ruined, and now you were just like the rest.

No girl who ever got tangled up in Shelby business ever makes it to London.

A swell.

A silence.

An empty impenitence.

"Goodbye, Thomas."

While he waited for you to fight for him, you once more decided to give.

Twice more, he took from you.

You wanted to feel his warmth against your lips once more. You had suddenly wished you'd savored your last kiss. "I hate what you've made me," you whispered.

He hated how the words sounded--how they tainted your tongue.

"You hate what you've become for me," he corrected.

You gave him a lonely, far-off stare, as if you were looking straight through him. He knew he had lost you.

You ignored his previous remark: "I hate how you made me think it was safe to fall in love with you."

You hadn't realized your eyes had welled up with an undeniable glaze until you felt a drop of glass wetness fall from your cheek. "I hate how you've turned me into another one of your women."

When Thomas didn't move, or walk closer to you, or even soften at your unraveling, you felt sour all over. Suddenly, you wanted it to hurt.

"No one has ever loved me in my entire life," you said to yourself, almost inaudibly. It sounded so ridiculously girlish and naive, unlike anything he had ever heard you say before.

A swell.

A painful one in the grit of your heart.

You felt heavy as you slowly turned and left his office.

†

He found you passed out in the chapel, your chest sprawled across the altar, your palms still clasped together in weak prayer. A mistiness clung to your eyelashes. He was once again reminded how much he loved how you looked in your sleep: like a soft lull of the shore had washed over you and cured a light peace into your soul.

He stood over you, counting your breaths and watching your lungs expand with life just to expel it. You smelled of ash and rosaries and beeswax. A tear rolled over the apples of your cheek and onto the peak of your nose.

"Silly girl," he rasped lowly before sitting on the floor and pulling your limp form into the cradle of his chest. His palm met the crown of your head to pull you further into his weight, his other hand hooking around the lonely bend of your waist. He felt his shirt seep with moisture, and he knew you were awake.

"She was a piece of my past I can't go back to take away," he said, his chin resting atop your head, voice bitter yet smooth like coffee on a good day, "But if any part of her had led me to you, I wouldn't go back to change a moment of it even if I could."

Your shoulders shuddered silently, and your sobs permeated directly through his chest and into his heart. He always knew just what to say, to the point it scared you.

"Give it time," said Thomas, petting your head in rhythm with your heart, "Give it time."

While you gave, he invested. He invested in all the times you've chipped away at yourself for him, and he kept them in his heart until the next time he would use them--like a business transaction.

But could you blame him for loving you how he knows best?

To understand his love was more than enough. Yet, your consistent upturned and empty palms rendered you greedy.

He collects your wet cheeks between his hands and brings you to look up at him. In his eyes, you saw the end of a road.

Was this all there was? Maybe so.

"Let's get married. Right here, right now"--he swiped his thumb across the slick of your undereye--"That way you'll be mine to keep. No more goodbyes."

You felt the Lord's eyes on your kneeling form. An odd feeling of shame and acceptance washed over you and clogged your chest.

It was then that you knew: loving Thomas Shelby was never going to be beautiful. It wasn't simple or painless or any of the things love should be. And it would never be the same kind of love that it was yesterday.

But what could you do? What could you do if you loved him nonetheless?

If you would always be loved how broken women are loved?

109 notes · View notes

lilyrachelcassidy · 2 years

Note

Hi! How are you?

How about tommy shelby being in a marriage with a younger reader , who he often cheats with lizzie , the reader starts living life with parties , friends , shopping and affairs of her own , tommy falls for her but she always rejects his affections .

I never saw something like tjat and i tought it would be interesting

Thank you!

[Additional] summary: Five stages in which Y/N tried to make amends in her relationship with Tommy but failed miserably.

Word Count: 5.7k

Warnings: coarse language, cheating, mentions of alcohol and drugs, some graphics, ANGST (with happy ending my babes)

Distant

I. rancor

When he opened the front door to their house, midnight walloping on the wall clock, Y/N could immediately tell where Tommy had been. He soon walked into their bedroom, the place that had carried so many memories along with it, good memories actually, those of the time before their relationship had begun to deteriorate. Tommy would stain them now when he would dare to come back to her after the hours' bash, reeking of cigars and courtesans.

The one courtesan she had in particular on the mind - bloody Lizzy.

The envious, little bitch would do anything to demolish the beautiful bond Tommy and her shared, barging and creating a wall of interspace with the last cell of her bloody existence between the two of them. Y/N knew, at the same time, she wasn't barking up the wrong tree and her assumptions about Lizzy were indeed correct; her nostrils could detect a cheap, rancid scent of Lizzy's perfume from miles. And when Tommy would come up late at night, the same scent was invasively clinging to his body, the smell almost smothering for Y/N.

"Are you asleep?" asked Tommy, innocently, as if he had just returned from something that lacked culpability that he was actually dealing with. Taking off his garments, leaving only briefs on, he crawled over to her side of the bed. His breath was huffing down her neck, softly and gratifyingly, but the only thing Y/N could think about was that the mere hours before, it was at somebody else’s neck.

Or other parts of the body Y/N wouldn’t like to think about.

“No, not yet,” she replied, deceptively faking a sweet tone. “Where have you been for such a long time?”

His body tensed marginally, something most people wouldn’t have noticed but a flinch that had become indicative for Y/N within three years. Maybe Tommy could be an excellent master of counterfeiting emotions but his body signs would divulge the truth, guilt stiffening his movements in the slightest.

“Have been off to work with Arthur. Had to deal with Solomons’ people.” He was forging himself under a duvet with her now, one of his arms coiling around her waist.

Y/N’s heart sank; maybe a naive part of her still believed that he wouldn’t lie. “Oh, okay.”

“What have you been up to today?”

And then she told him about the hard way she had tried to busy herself in the vast, barren mansion: she had written some bits for the new novel she had been working on for a couple of months; she had responded to some of his relatives from the extended family who had asked for urgent contact; she had quaffed enormous amounts of coffee while watching the enchanting landscape spreading before their house. She decided to omit the parts when she had felt so lonely, no friends nor family members caring enough to pay a visit, her only companion being Mary - their maid - who owned a rather stiff lip.

In utter earnest, she wished to run away some days, bolting like a stallion in the center of overwhelming grassland and never looking back.

“I was thinking,” Y/N took up again. “Maybe we could go to dinner tomorrow? A new restaurant has been recently opened - ‘L'Arpège’, it’s called. It’s French and I thought-”

“I can’t,” Tommy interrupted, his voice cold but guilty at the same time. “I have a meeting tomorrow... with some clients.”

“Oh...” Another surge of disappointment pierced through her. “May I come with you then?”

“You know, I’d love you to come. It’s just that...” He started fidgeting with words - an attempt to think up an excuse, Y/N realized quickly. “It’s a late-night meeting, Y/N, I just... wouldn’t want to drag you into that. There will be a lot of men, dangerous men. I just think it would be better if... you stayed out of it.”

‘So Lizzy could join you?’ Y/N thought to herself.

She really couldn’t determine what was boiling in her. Anger? Disappointment? She had been far over that emotional state of actually caring for his fabrications after the first time she had caught him cheating, sitting in the pub, his arms tangled around the woman she had learned to abhor.

From that time she had felt numb, indifferent to what he would say. So why, why would those little pangs of pain still sting her so badly, stripping her from the last remnants of dignity?

“I understand,” she said, her voice uncontrollably lower.

“I’m glad you do. So how about I arrange a horse ride for you tomorrow? I’m sure Curly would-”

“I’m okay, Tom. I’ll manage,” Y/N said quickly, butting in, somehow aggressively. But she didn’t pay too much mind to her outburst, really, as unconscious tears started brimming in her eyes. She couldn’t fall apart; not now, not before him. “Goodnight.”

“’Night.”

After a few hours, Y/N was still awake. Sulky tears already settled, their wet traces desiccating on her skin.

Irrepressibly, she wondered what it would be like to free herself from that agony.

Perhaps, there was the only way to find out.

II. replay (three month earlier)

Y/N was walking down the dim-lit, dungy alley making her way over to The Garrison pub, where Tommy was carrying some business meeting with Arthur and Polly.

She wished to make a surprise for Tommy with her arrival, mollifying his work time with her come-up. After all, he had been working so hard those recent days, returning to their home at bizarrely late hours, his face smudged with weariness and lethargy. Y/N pitied him, really, and had hoped to help him with swarms of paperwork; but he would never accept her offer, always explaining that he wouldn’t want to interlace her with his job.

And she understood.

His attitude towards her had changed too; he wouldn’t be that kind, considerate man she used to remember back in the days. Instead, he was pensive and aloof, and no longer would he try to make those little romantic gestures he used to in the beginnings of their relationship. Y/N didn’t blame him, however; she could tell that he was overworked and perhaps occupied with the assemblage of duties he had on his mind.

Nevertheless, that didn’t discourage her from trying to ease his time. She had a whole plan set in her head - promptly, she would get him out of the meeting, excusing his withdrawal with some urgent family case. Then, they would go over to the bank of the river - the place of their first meeting - and would sit at one of the close-by benches, the pale lantern light irradiating while they relished watching the river water glistening in the moonlight. They could munch on a couple of cookies, Tommy’s favorites, which Y/N had prepared especially for him...

Almost nearing the pub, Y/N sighed at the thought. She could already see the luminous lighting of the place, silhouettes casting shadows, contrasting against the dark streets of the gloomy area. The light sound of chatter and drunken jabber could be heard from that distance, livening the rest of the deadly neighborhood that was probably asleep.

Y/N was humming a song under her breath as she approached. A small smile was welcoming her face, the enthusiasm bustling within her. The cookies were pleasantly rattling in her purse as she stopped in her tracks, face to face with the pub window, and she looked in, attempting to spot Tommy in the middle of the teeming crowd.

She scanned the insides of the room: so many familiar faces she used to come upon so many times. They were all laughing and chanting, beer pints happily cradled in their hands, apparently enjoying their heedless time. Y/N’s gaze traveled further, slowly and carefully, over to a distant corner - Arthur was sitting there, laughing at something John had murmured into his ear, the contents of his pint dangerously rocking from one side to another; next to him were also Polly, guffawing, Finn, Ada, and...

Oh, what the fu-

Y/N’s heart spun at an unexpectedly fast pace and dropped into her stomach. Not sure whether she was seeing properly, Y/N pinched herself on the arm, checking if what was displaying just before her eyes was real - but indeed, Tommy was rested on one of the very seats of the mushy sofa. One of his arms was tightly wrapped around Lizzy, from what she knew his secretary, tugging her over to his side, their bodies menacingly close to one another.

For just a moment, Y/N thought - no, hoped - that perhaps she was hallucinating, her tiredness hazing the reality from her. Maybe she was overthinking that. Maybe it was just a friendly hug, Tommy’s drunken stupor rendering him more neglectful of holding his usual, cold composure towards the others.

But she was wrong, she realized, when Tommy leaned towards Lizzy, his grip tightening on her arm, eyes sparkling and warm. And he kissed her, passionately, not the way he would use to do that with Y/N now. His lips zealously landed on Lizzy’s, the hungry desire detectable in the action. Visibly, he was enjoying himself, and so was Lizzy whose hands were roving all over his body, eventually stopping at his head and playing with some random strands of his silky hair.

Y/N's heart was going a million miles an hour, and she suddenly felt it difficult to swallow. Her mouth went dry, and there was a lump of a fist size in her throat. Bitter tears quickly started accumulating in her eyes, and she swore she couldn’t breathe for a moment. All she wanted was to curl into a little ball on the swampy floor and lie there forever.

Instead, she just stared into the window, not taking in whatever she had just witnessed in front of her. The tears were streaming down her face, her eyes becoming puffy within seconds.

So he was cheating. For how long? And why?

Was it because of her? Had she done something wrong?

All of the thoughts gushed into her head like a flowing waterfall, and Y/N hated herself for having that much negativity garnered in her.

Clasping the hand on her mouth and preventing a nasty gasp from escaping from it, she turned away rapidly and ran away from the place. She was taking long strides, wishing to be back at home and able to writhe under a warm blanket, crying until the emotions were sucked out of her. Little was she aware of where she was heading as the tears fogged her vision, the flux of despair washing over her.

He had stopped caring.

He was indifferent towards hurting her, and so naively did she believe in his lies, vindicating him from his get-together with Lizzy.

She had trusted him. And now, she hated herself for being far too gullible.

III. rust

“You sure you wanna do this?” asked Isaiah, his fingers toying with the hem of Y/N’s skirt. His eyes were fully dilated in lust, and he was probably just asking as a matter of precaution, inspecting whether Y/N was actually serious about her quest and whether the revolt against his boss was worth it.

She nodded fervently. “Yes, I am.”

It was all about to begin - tit for tat Tommy had triggered her to do. Within months that had lacked intimacy and communication, Y/N had learned to become impassive. If he didn’t need her, nor did she need him.

“And Tommy won’t find out, yeah?” he asked.

She nodded, breathing deeply. “Certainly.”

At that, he tilted slightly and planted kisses all over her neck, his minty breath tickling the hair on her skin. “As you wish,” he whispered into her ear, his tone shoving a couple of steamy images in her head.

Y/N wasn’t sure if that was what she actually wanted. A part of her, the more moral one, told her warningly that whatever she was intending to do was not good and unfair towards her husband to whom she had sworn unconditional commitment. The other side, however, justified her motives; if he could act promiscuously, why couldn’t she? She really couldn’t decide how to feel.

In the meantime, Isaiah was just casting off his shirt and carefully unbuttoning Y/N’s blouse. He was in the midway of taking care of their clothes, clearly unbothered with keeping up loyalty to his boss. His lips, more chapped than Tommy’s, were all over her skin, igniting a great passion in every place he kissed. The soft moans were slipping from her lips while she laid underneath him, the pressure of his weight making her pleasantly warm.

When Y/N encountered Isaiah for the first time was during one of the Peaky Blinders’ gatherings that Tommy had called up in their house. Of course, one of the participants of it had been Lizzy too, though she had restrained from throwing herself at Tommy in Y/N’s presence.

But Y/N had noticed their sneaky glances from across the room and the fueling smirks on their lips. That was all confirmation Y/N had had to receive.

At that moment, she hadn’t been thinking clearly, plainly acting on her impulses - after the meeting, she had secretly grabbed Isaiah by the robes and hauled him to the guest room where they had made out until the air was sucked out of them. She hadn’t felt guilt nor shame, only a sweet taste of vengeance coursing through her body.

Today was their fourth get-together. Yet it was somehow different than the previous times - they had never crossed the level of carnality other than kissing and touching.

Blame was margining with her reasonable thinking and acutely reminding her that she could be so over that jealousy; she didn’t need to do that to herself in order to punish Tommy. At least for her, she did punish him in her mind.

‘But he cheated too,’ Y/N told herself. ‘So it’s an eye for an eye, basically.’

Isaiah’s mouth was on her belly now, a growl rumbling in his chest, and he was placing kisses all the way from her breasts to her abdomen, the intense want pooling in her lower parts. Y/N found herself reaching down to wrap her fingers in his black hair, gripping roughly and arching her back. The tension within her was unbearable.

His eyes flickered up to meet Y/N’s gaze once more, briefly, asking for the ultimate permission to take her tongs off. The breath was heaving in both of them, their chests falling and raising to the intermittent heartbeats.

“Do it. Please.”

IV. ravage

“Hello, love,” said Tommy, cheerfully, entering the threshold of the office where Y/N was currently working on her novel. A moss woolen sweater was enfolding her arms, gray sweatpants pulled on and strapped around her waist; the homy outfit she would wear only around the house and still manage to look absolutely glamorous. Her hair was twisted in a loose bun, the glasses sitting on the bridge of her nose with a seamless dose of sophistication.

She gave him a half-smile when he approached her, pecking her cheek, but didn’t tear her gaze away from the typewriter where a virtually written page was scurrying to the last dot. Her fingers were briskly flying from one button onto the next one, and when she was finished, she purred in gratification and riveted to her husband.

“Done?”

“Yes.” She stretched her arms above her head, smiling, whereas Tommy leaned on the verge of the desk. “A good day too?”

He nodded in response, a faint smile gracing his lips. “So I was thinking, maybe we should go to that restaurant you were talking about earlier,” he said, without preamble, his tone disclosing a certain assertion, not a hint of invitation Y/N wished for.

He wasn’t asking her out; he was informing her of his plans with her.

A lava slide of anger and resentment swept away her rationality. How the fuck could he kick her around like that, ill-treating her for a couple of weeks, and then deciding on what she should do after Lizzy had probably met up with her other client, consequently cock-blocking him? There was that particular self-assurance with which Tommy had told her, or ‘offered’ her, a dinner that had tossed her patience aside; she wasn’t his possession after all. And she wanted to make a fair point out of that.

Something in her expression apparently crumpled because Tommy was ogling her with interested eyes, a wary eyebrow raised in query. “What do you think of that?”

“Oh, so now you’re asking,” said Y/N in a huff.

He frowned. “What are you on about?”

Unsuccessfully thwarting herself from a word vomit, she stood up so that her face could level up with Tommy’s, her eyes raging. His, on the other hand, were confused and in no apparent cognition of the upcoming tantrum. “In the last weeks, you did nothing to acknowledge our relationship. To acknowledge me. All I did was try to go out with you, or do something together, whatever you wanted. But instead, you dismissed all of that. And I don't understand why it’s so bloody difficult for you to include me in your life.” She took a pause, eyes filming over with hands flinging all over the place. “And now you are inviting me - no - telling me, that you decided to finally find some spare time for me. Oh, how generous of you.”

“You know the company is giving me a hard time. I go the extra mile to make things work, and that’s your effing gratitude?” he said angrily, and now with a hint of indignation tainting in voice.

“Oh please, give me a break,” she snapped, even more furious and glaring. As never, or at least never in front of her, Tommy’s face was incandescent, and his jaw popping from all the heavy clenching. “I saw you with Lizzy back in the days, snogging back in the pub. Were you working then too?”

He blinked, thunderstruck, his mouth opening as if he wanted to say something but lacked words for that. The steely glare was locked on Y/N, perhaps transfixed with how he should respond to the crude truth he had no idea his wife had found out about. Ultimately, he pressed his lips together and took a step forward. “Perhaps if you weren’t so incongruous and childish, maybe I wouldn't need Lizzy for anything. And not behaving like a fuckin’ nun, Y/N.”

Ouch. It stung her.

Awfully, as though he had slapped her with full force.

Or maybe that would have hurt less.

Y/N took a step back, tears of rage and frustration trickling down her face. So there he was: pinning the responsibility of his infidelity on her, absolute dearth of shame for calling his wife out and, in lieu, defending his slip with the woman who had been mounting him for no other reason but money. She felt a dull ache in her chest, and her body stiffened. Evidently aware that he had crossed the line, his eyes changed back, the distinctive traces of regret in them. His arm lifted and, for a moment, attempted to take a hold of her hand as a form of placation. But she pushed him away, the spleen raising in her chest. “I’m going back to my parents’.”

“Y/N,” he began, strained, trying to get a hold of her but in vain. She just shook her head and retreated, doing her best to prevent herself from spilling any tears for him.

“Don’t fucking try to contact me. I’m gonna leave and... and-”

“Y/N.” His tone was pleading now, and so were his eyes. He tried to reach for her again but met with another compulsion of rebuff. “I’m so so-”

“Shut it!”

Without bothering to give him a second glance and afraid that he would see how much the conversation had shaken her, she turned on her heel and dashed out of the room. Not completely conscious of what she was doing, she headed to the wardrobe to fetch some of her belongings.

Tommy didn’t chase her, and mindfully so. She wasn’t able to face him right now after what he had told her; so, he had thought Lizzy better. In shade of the relationship, she hadn’t known that she had been razing.

Her shoulder stiffed at the thoughts in her mind, horror and moroseness coursing through her body.

If he really had enough of her, she won’t be a burden for him anymore. She will happily retreat.

V. recovery: a new start

It had been two months since Y/N had last heard from Tommy. Yes, against her plea not to, he had tried to contact her. And yes, he had arrived at her parents’ doorstep a dozen times. But her family was supportive of her and the resolutions she had made, accordingly dismissing Tommy from their house.

The fact was that Y/N reckoned living with her parents as a tad shaky and inconvenient - after all, she had to obey the prevailing rules they had in their household (which some Y/N had thought ridiculous for plentiful reasons). Their watchful and condescending remarks weren’t a charm either. At the same time, however, she felt like she finally unchained herself from the venomous aura of the Mansion she had inhabited a while ago; and it hadn’t felt like home to her anymore.

And so she enjoyed her old childhood room she had left behind years ago, chalk-white walls still reminding her of the times she had drawn at them with the crayons, to enlighten the area.

Y/N was laying face-down on the satin, pukey-pink sheets, a rumbling in her stomach reminding her that she hadn’t had any breakfast yet (although, it was already afternoon). Nose pressed to the pillow, she mentally braced herself for today’s plans - proffered by her father, they had to drop in at the Mansion to fix the rest of the clothing she had abandoned.

Obviously, it wasn’t a very pleasant thought to say at least; but if she wanted to move forward, perhaps start a new chapter of her life she close the preceding one. And she wanted to do both so badly.

The doors cracked while flinging wide open and Y/N’s mom walked into the room.

“Why aren’t you out of bed yet? Are you alright?”

“Yes, ma, don’t worry about that,” she said while staking out a sitting position. She covertly glanced over at her mom who was standing in the door frame, her attire absolutely irreproachable with a corsage, her face genuinely worried.

“Crying again, were you, Cherie?” Had she? Y/N hadn’t noticed before until now when her hand touched the tear-stained face. “We can talk about that if-“

“Ma, no, please. I’ve been over that,” she said, her lip subconsciously letting out a small tremble. “I…just don’t want to talk… about him.”

Mom’s eyes were sympathetic and her mouth was moving, but Y/N had muffled all the sounds coming from the peripherals with her torrent of thoughts. She had been through that so many times; Mom, usually at the end of the day, would attempt to approach the topic in many ways. Y/N would always deny it, however, deciding that it was still far too hurtful to discuss him.

As the three o’clock was rounding, Y/N was already sitting in the rear of the car with her father behind the wheel. They had barely exchanged any word throughout the entire journey as Y/N tried to deal with her volley of emotions - anxiousness, itching dejection, a jot of bitterness? She couldn’t decide, really. But she was keenly aware of a fist-size lump forming in her throat and a sharp ache expanding in her chest.

Before Y/N could notice, a stream of tears was freely rushing down her cheeks. She secretly tried to wipe them off but she knew that her father had caught sight of her emotional outburst in the rear-view mirror. Yet he made no comment to which Y/N was extremely thankful.

“Here we’re sweetheart,” said Father after another half an hour had slipped. Y/N shortly glanced out of the window - indeed, the stony, colossal walls of the mansion were spreading before their sight. Y/N had to quell an instantaneous urge to run away as she slowly, carefully reached for the handle and reluctantly stepped out of the car.

“I’ll be here, yeah? In case you need me.”The Father’s voice distinctly echoed in her ears but Y/N only heard that like through a haze. She merely sent him a grateful smile in response and silently received his form of succor.

‘It’ll all be gone in a few minutes,’ Y/N thought to herself, trudging towards the entrance of the Mansion. So many times had she passed that threshold, so many times had she walked that way. Was it all going to become nothing but a remote memory now?

Soon, she was heavily knocking on the door and was faced with her former maid’s smile who, with a hand gesture, was welcoming her and spurring her to come inside. After a moment of waver, Y/N finally gave in.

Strangely, she had expected the maid to show her a way to the bedroom because she didn’t belong there, not anymore; she was just trespassing like a mere guest did. But when the maid remained at the door, staring at her with a curious eye, Y/N understood the allusion - she was meant to go by herself.

And so she did.

Those stately oil paintings were still strewing the white walls and as Y/N plodded and plodded on through the high-celling halls. Her heels were almost stridently clicking on the floor, contrasting with the prevailing silence and her heavy breathing. Y/N did her best to focus on something else, anything else that could render her less nervous for the upcoming; she decided on counting.

One, two, three. One, two three...

In the next instant, she was standing in front of the mahogany door of the bedroom. It wasn’t going to be easy, she knew as much. Even if indifferent throughout their relationship, Thomas Shelby was a man of honor after all, and Y/N, certain in her conviction, was sure that he was waiting just behind that very door.

She waited a few more jiffs, bracing herself mentally, before finally swinging the door ajar and instantly beholding him, settled on the edge of the bed, and staring blankly at the brim of the glass he was tightly clutching in his hand. As soon as he heard her, however, his head snapped in her direction and Y/N quickly noticed the bloodshot whites of his eyes mixed with the steeliness of his orbs.

Per usual, top-notch elegance was radiating from him, his fossil-gray suit in an intact state and hair precisely sleeked to the back of his head. He had changed, however; he had become gaunt, so gaunt actually that Y/N could practically make out an outline of his ribs through a thin layer of his white shirt; the bags under his eyes, dark and cavernous, were giving the definite reminder of how much of a good night sleep he had missed out on; the wrinkles on his forehead marginally deepened, giving him an older appearance of what Y/N actually knew to be a true one...

It wasn’t the same Tommy Y/N had memorized the last time. Now he looked positively ghastly and it required a great composure of Y/N from quelling a gasp.

“Y/N,” said Tommy in a hoarse voice. Hadn’t she been a short distance from him, she wouldn’t have heard him at all. He scrambled to his feet at once, never tearing his gaze away from her figure as if in the trance. “Could we talk?”

Y/N wavered. Perhaps if he didn’t look as desperate and if she wasn’t so worried (yes! worried!) by his utterly unhealthy appearance, she probably would have rebuffed. But in lieu, she merely nodded and trotted to the chair opposite the bed.

Sensing a thick air between the two of them, Tommy got up and poured himself an ample slug of whiskey, and after a moment’s consideration, he also asked Y/N to which she declined. He took a few gulps before finally looking at Y/N again.

“I’ve missed you,” he croaked finally, which Y/N knew cost him a great deal since it was particularly hard for Tommy to speak of his emotions. The fingers of his free hand were fidgeting slightly on his knee as Y/N glanced up at him, streaked with utter astonishment. She wanted, so badly, to tell herself that his words didn’t matter anymore, nothing anymore did but it would have been a fat lie. She knew for that fact because it was suddenly extremely hard for her to swallow.

“Er-” She started looking around the room, busing herself with something, deliberately not gazing in his direction. “I’ve come to pick up the rest of my things, Tommy. If you want to atone for anything, I think it’s a little too late now.”

Even Y/N surprised herself that she had managed such a cold, collected tone; in fact, it was the opposite of what she was right now - jittery and emotional.

“Y/N-”

“Please, don’t” She chimed in before Tommy could say anything again. “I don’t want to explain anything. You... you hurt me, Tommy.” It was difficult for her to carry that out loud but when she ultimately did, she felt a thunderbolt of plunging emotions on her chest; and then, the tears began accumulating uncontrollably in her eyes. Quickly, she turned her face to the side, trying to conceal her waterworks, though unnecessarily so.

An uncomfortable grunt issued from Tommy’s throat and he took the next quaff from the glass, waiting for her to get a hold of herself. He had always been massively fazed when girls cried in his presence, even give it his wife of three years. Never had he understood why anyone would display their lack of self-possession in such an ostentatious way.

“Sorry,” said Y/N finally, wiping the residue of her tears with a hand. She sniffed a little, her eyes puffy, and Tommy offered her a silky handkerchief which she gladly accepted.

“That's alright,” said Tommy, giving her a final look of what he hoped was sympathy. “But please, let me just say one thing. Before, you know...”

‘-decide to leave you,” Y/N ended the sentence in her head. The mere prospect of abandoning him now, even though she had deliberated that for long days in her parents' room, was suddenly very suffocating.

With a final sniff, still keeping her gaze downcast, she nodded. After all, even though he had mauled her massively, as much as she could do in a final commemoration of their relationship.

“I’ve never intended on making you feel inferior, Y/N,” admitted Tommy, a flint of guilt flickering in his eyes, his fingers starting to draw nervous patterns on his knee again. As for someone who had always kept themself still, he seemed exceptionally vulnerable right now. “Lizzy - that was a mistake. She was a fuckin’ mistake. I... I...” His voice relatively faltered, and Y/N thought for a second that he might start crying. Thomas Shelby crying - the world was fucking weird. “All I want to say is that I’m sorry. God, if I could have turned back time, it all would have... been different. I don’t want you to fuckin’ leave, Y/N. Those past few months made that excruciatingly lucid to me.”

It was one of those moments in Y/N’s life when she didn’t know what she ought to say or even ought to feel. There was seething anger and hiccuping sadness simmering in the pit of her stomach, her head pounding loudly from all the aggregation of conflicting emotions; but there was a certain self-satisfaction raising within her - it was what she had wanted from the very beginning, making him entreat her for forgiveness, implore to stay.

“Tommy,” Y/N said heavily, her entire body tingling. “You know, I can’t do that.”

And then she looked at him again, his eyes conveying a magnetic force. They were staring at each other for some time, the desperation between the two aloft. It was all as if they were strangers to each other anew.

“Please, let me... make amends for that.”

“Tommy-”

“And I don’t mean that you have to move in with me instantly, tough as much as I’d like that. But... have dinner with me. Tomorrow night. No strings attached, just a casual dinner. In the restaurant that you wanted to visit - ‘L'Arpège’.”

“You... you remembered? After all that time?” Y/N took a dramatic pause there, her brows knitted together and almost pressing into one line. That sudden fact clouted her with a startling force.

“I haven’t been entirely ignorant towards you, Y/N. Some part of me... always looked out for you, you know. Though a better part of me was still a jerk,” he snickered and, not quite able to suppress it, so did his interlocutor. Until just now, she hadn’t been aware of how much she had missed that smile. “So what do you say?”

She noticed how his eyes swiveled with tendrils of hopefulness, how his fingers nervously anticipated her contemplated answer. Rationality, which she was utterly bereft of at that very moment, would have told her to say no; give a wide berth from that shit show. But a piece of her yet girlish tempt to discover that new Tommy who was opening himself in front of her eyes, something he had never done before, would be forcing its way to make things work.

At least, try to put them back in their rough maquette.

Y/N sighed, before bestowing him with a coy smile. “I guess, I can find some time.”

Through fucking thick and thin.

XOXOXOXOX

A/N: my dear sweet sweet anon. hi! i’m fine, thank you. foremost, let me just express my utter self-deprecation, seeing as you have sent that request a long time ago and i’m posting it just now. the work load has plunged on me since the beginning of September and I literally dropped my face off the earth for a couple of weeks. but i hope you understand.

the fic wasn’t entirely as i planned that out because a) it was supposed to be shorter, b) because I'm still lacking some twists that would have made the work even longer. so I reluctantly abstained.

ofc, I always love hearing and talking to y’all, so chat with me, request, ask me the most embarrassing questions in the comment section. whatever. and may i remind you - spooktober?! are we going to do something about that!? (a small hint: yes, we are going to either hold a little event or be graced - somehow - with another chapter of my WIPs). Lovvvvveveeee y’all xoxo

#Tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby fanfic #thomas shelby #thomas shelby x reader #Tommy shelby #tommy shelby x you #tommy shelby x y/n #thomas shelby x y/n #thomas shelby x you #peaky blinder #lizzie!!!#grr.... i never liked that... woman #plus me trying to refrain myself from using too many expletives which i did anyway #lol

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