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The black hand was a mark of death.
It was a point of no return for the recipients. A threat that had proven unbeatable.
And one had just been stamped over your name. Painted pretty on a greeting card and dropped in your mailbox as if it didn’t signify the end.
You thought about calling him. About hounding anyone who would listen just to get the words out of your head. You knew why, you knew who. You knew every in and out of what had brought this on. Still, you hadn’t expected the mafia.
The Peaky Blinders could sweep street urchin dust easily under the rug, or conquer a power hungry Irishman and his measly influence. That was nothing. That was lightwork.
This was suicide. Clean-cut and pre-determined. Inescapable.
Calling wasn’t enough. It was too insincere for something so heavy. You and Tommy were far from ideal. Most days you barely functioned at all. But, you’d made a vow to grit your teeth and get through him. You’d made a vow to be his. And above all your frustration, your pride sat sure and steady.
Your love for him, too. Whatever it meant to love Thomas Shelby.
The large doors of the Arrow manor felt unfamiliar, though they were still technically yours. You’d been staying elsewhere for a while, bored into madness by the solitude and sick with worry over his constant bartering. The walk through the halls felt like punishment, like it was costing you something vital every second you wandered the space that was meant to be warm. That you were meant to be home in.
You found him in the bedroom, agonizingly tracing the hedges at the front of the house with his eyes. He held whiskey in his hand, the bronze of it deep and devastating through the clearness of the glass. You didn’t drink much when alone. You’d almost missed the sight.
When he turned, the glimmering lapis of his irises nearly knocked the balance out of your knees. Thomas Shelby was never shocked, never caught off guard.
But, in this moment, he looked lost.
Your presence was so unexpected that, for a second, he thought he’d imagined you entirely. It gutted you quietly, that he was so sure you’d given up on him. Your exhaustion and your anger had been a storm, an argument, time spent away. But it’d never been finality. It had never been a conclusion. Not to you, at least.
“I got a black hand.”
His face didn’t shift with surprise, didn’t morph in any way at all. He only nodded, all knowing and omnipotent like the prophetic bastard he was at his core.
“You’ll be protected.” The tired rasp of his voice drew your attention to his rolled sleeves, the slouch of his shoulders. “I’m dealing with it.”
You hummed, the absoluteness of your disbelief twinging the air with a bitterness that was reminiscent of the air just before you’d left.
“Dealing with the Italian mob?”
“We managed one Changretta.” The incident was a sour one. The place where this ordeal had begun. “Polly says our odds are favorable.”
The predictions of Polly Gray were unforgiving, and as far as the Shelbys were concerned, were to be treated as inherent truth. Still, the facts were cold and glaring. This was a threat of immeasurable damage.
“Polly’s been wrong before. Your men are outnumbered.”
“Polly’s the only fucking hope I’ve got.” He raised the cup that he’d yet to finish, trying to chase the fear he was choking on with the burn of familiarity. “What do you suggest I do, eh? Let them come? Let them kill us?”
You sighed, finding the exchange almost humorous with how unchanged he remained. How unwilling he was to bend for anything or anyone. Most people couldn’t see past the calm he projected, couldn’t get a peak past the stoicism. But there were cracks. Obvious cracks to anyone who knew him like you did. To anyone who saw him. He was a brilliant man, and an enviable leader.
But he was a scared person. That’s what it all boiled down to in the end.
“You look like hell, Tommy.”
He flinched ever so slightly at the sound of his name in your mouth. It looked like it hurt, like it was the kind of ache that felt so good it nearly made you relinquish your life.
“‘Course I look like hell.” He poured the last swig of that ambrosial mahogany past his open lips like an emphasis of his surrender. “I’ve got Italian gangsters breathing down my neck and I’ve been sleeping in an empty fuckin’ bed for weeks.”
His dragging steps led him over to the aforementioned piece of furniture, collapsing into a seated position on the foot of it. You felt the urge to touch him burn the nerves of your fingers. You wanted to comfort him, wanted to be there like you always were.
It was just different. Though petty and seemingly insignificant now, still different.
“Why did you come?”
In full honesty, that question didn’t have a solid answer. A part of you feared they’d already gotten to him, as nonsensical as that was. You’d wanted to see how much it was taking from him, to have such a colossal rapture stewing just beyond his sights. You suppose you needed a gauge on how empty he was, how much your choices had siphoned the life from him.
And, deeper than that, you’d just wanted to see him.
“Black hand’s a big fucking deal. Would you rather I called?”
He was looking up at you, the depth of the grandiose blue that stained his irises still endless, still so full of effortless persistence. It was something you loved about him, how stubborn he was, how evidently he wore it if you knew how to read him. His emotion was always stirring in his eyes, always present. It was forced to congregate there, being denied entry to any other inch of his face most of the time. Many didn’t even know he could smile, could be content.
Your expression was as sturdy as his was stone, a connection of pure will, pure endurance. It was never a competition with him, just a tether. That was what your relationship was. A repetition, a pattern. Changing shape over the years but never changing ideology. You were one of the only people he couldn’t command, one of the only people he didn’t want to command.
“No.” His hand ran itself over the other in a method that looked self-soothing. Something he did when his fingers pulsed for the heat of a cigarette. He didn’t reach for one, though. You hated when he smoked in the bedroom. “It’s good you came.”
And, as if he couldn’t help himself, he spoke again.
“It’s good to see you.”
Tommy, contrary to what the masses believed, was quite an affectionate man. In his own quiet, discontented way. What should have been common courtesy was essentially the highest honor you could get from a Shelby. It wasn’t right by any means, but when you loved one, it felt like being given Heaven itself to hear such an emotional line.
The appropriate response didn’t wander over to you, didn’t make itself known at all. You stood opposing him with nothing of value to say. You missed him too, of course you did. But he hadn’t cracked. Not yet.
You couldn’t either.
“It’s late. You should stay.” He watched you shift back and forth, the stillness of the room festering into the muscle of your legs, jostling them in a way that forced fidgeting. “Not safe to be driving at night with them after us.”
“They’re after you and Arthur more than anyone. I think I’ll manage.”
He stiffened just a little at the denial, squaring his shoulders a bit and tilting his head at you.
“Well,” He nodded briefly, as though settling on a thought. “You can stay of your own volition or I can have Frances slash your tires. Up to you.”
Your eyebrows raised at the proclamation. Something among the endless list of things he’d missed in your departure, your intolerance.
“Christ.” The image of beautiful, wrinkled Frances wielding something sharp enough to cut your wheels in her marbled sewing fingers was nearly humorous. Less so when you looked him over, when you saw how serious he was. “Don’t you think blackmail’s a little below your pay grade, Tommy?”
Your gradual outrage made him smile a bit, amused by his ability to pull the right strings, to prod the soft spots of your armor.
“It’s my company, love. I make the fuckin’ pay grade.” It was half full of humor and half full of sincerity. He wasn’t particularly good at comedic inflection, but he could do wit like no one else. This wasn’t really either of them. This was just arrogance. Just truth. “It’s for your own good.”
You scoffed, sarcasm bleeding an infectious homicidal inkling into the ice of your stare. It wasn’t full, though. He could see the fondness lurking somewhere beneath the glaciers. The comfort that the overbearing familiarity brought.
“Fine. Spare Frances the trouble.”
You’d never do anything at her expense. Tommy wasn’t cruel to those he thought useful, but he’d make her do this. You could see it in his posture, hear it in his voice.
“I’ll sleep in the guest room.”
It was the most silent shove of his hand, the most discreet and unknowing prompt you could muster. You should have moved, should have cemented your words with intention. With walking away. But you didn’t.
Couldn’t.
The exhale he breathed was long, heavy with something burdensome. He stood up, shrugging lightly.
“If you want.”
It was the predecessor to something far grander than you were prepared for. He moved forward, and still, you stayed put. His walk was slow, a practiced ease in his steps that read like a man time bent around. He was right in front of you before long. So close that his air was yours, that the heat of his body permeated your personal space. It was reminiscent of more passion-filled times, the delinquent days of your relationship.
It simmered, warming the spot that sat so deep within your stomach, only he had ever managed to reach it.
“Sleep with the maids if you feel inclined. But, when that clock hits twelve,”
He gestures to the gift on the wall, something bestowed to him as a sign of gratitude. It had always seemed significant to you that he’d chosen to put it in the space you two shared. Not in his office, or somewhere easily on display, but somewhere his.
“I’m leaving this room, and I’m comin’ to find you. No matter where you end up.”
It was inexplicably difficult to maintain your indifference when he spoke like that. When he looked at you with such a ravenous ownership. That ring he’d put on your finger bound you to him in a way that even you didn’t know the full specifics of. Just that it did. Just that you were his, even in your mild bouts of self actualization. Even in the times you didn’t want to be.
“What if I don’t want -”
“Don’t fuckin’ start. You want it.”
His tone was low, ushered out of his mouth and into the open arms of your awaiting ears. The words bounded back and forth in your head, echoing like they were something holy.
“Could go years without seein’ you and I’d still know what you needing me looks like.”
Each syllable was like a knife, pierced between the bones of your ribcage and crooked just the right way, just enough to snag your heart. It felt like trying to breathe underwater, like anything you were pulling in just stayed. No exchange, no oxygen, no life. Just him. Just the absolutely incinerating feeling of standing so close.
“Tell me,” You could practically feel your ears perk, your pupils dilate Ready to answer whatever he was asking of you. “When you were sleeping in Ada’s spare bed, did you miss this?”
You had.
You’d missed it more than you’d anticipated. The warmth, the comfort. The want. The cold had been bone-deep most nights. Torturous.
“Did you touch yourself thinking about how good it is when you’re not being difficult?”
The callout was staggering, air crawling into your lungs with such an immense stutter that it should have been impossible. He was so shameless. Always cunning and always aware of his own footsteps bypassing where the limits sat. Thomas Shelby didn’t have limits.
He’d practically said it himself. He made the limits. Others just followed them.
And, due to the seemingly permanent vacancy of where your oxygen was meant to be dispersed, your speech came out quiet as a whisper. Fully saturated and essentially dripping with all the pent up desire that had been forced to bubble unaccompanied for weeks. It was barely there at all, something silent for only the two of you to bask in.
“Fuck you, Tom.”
That was the line that reeled him in, made him close the distance. His mouth tasted like high-end whiskey and the cruelest purgatory. Somewhere you’d always end up no matter how hard you fought against the tide.
An indecent noise sprung from the confines of your aching chest, dissolving into the kiss of the man you could never manage to free yourself from. He gave you one of his right back, gruff and aged. It was heavy with a mass you related to, something that’d been brewing.
He spun you, forcing your steps to walk you the short distance back to the bed. He pushed you down, the impact making you bounce slightly. It loosened the tension you’d been carting around in the time spent alone. That newfound space prompted a brief laugh to leak from your open lips.
He raised his eyebrows, but a hint of a smile twisted wryly at the corners of his taunting expression.
“Happy now, eh?” The last bit of your legs were extended, hanging a little off the bed. He got on top of you regardless, stooping down to be just barely touching his nose to yours. “Thought I made you miserable.”
It had been a sentence of great regret. Something you’d said in a fleeting moment of exaggerated agony and a need to hurt him.
As if you could. As if you’d ever want to.
“You do.” You ran your hand beneath the sagging button-up, feeling his skin like you were clinging to life itself. Like he was your tether to anything fulfilling. “But I said yes, didn’t I?”
The strangling weight of your wedding band seemed heavier in the moment. A molten reminder of the claim he bore on you. The signal that others should bow their heads if you were near. Treat you like they would him.
Surely you’d always known what you’d agreed to.
Some wordless alignment punctured the airflow, lowly satisfaction blending into the frequency. You could hear his smugness even with nothing to punctuate it. It just seeped from him, like he was made of it.
His nimble hands were rushing to get your clothes off, garments being stripped away without time to savor it. This was carnally driven, eagerness lining each and every button undone, every waistband yanked down. You aided the attempts, tugging at the cursed coverings until, eventually, they relented, baring the man you’d promised yourself to and leaving you just as undressed.
Unprotected, more so. Nothing to hide behind anymore.
He didn’t prolong the point, didn’t give any time for hesitancy. Tommy was never a man with inhibition. He moved with intention, moved like he knew where each step would land.
He was much the same as a lover.
You felt the head of him trace up and down a few times, the minimal beads of his pre-cum warming the weeping parts of you. You’d forgotten the mess, forgotten the little shock that ran up the length of your spine when it hit you what was about to occur.
Then, he was pressing in. Slow, easy, and life-ruiningly good.
It hurt in the most rewarding way. The way that made it clear you’d feel it tomorrow, the way that was a consequence. It’d been weeks with nothing, and now he was giving everything. You feared for a moment that your body wouldn’t be able to adjust at all. That it would be too much, too deep. Too specific of a feeling.
But he’d made it work. He always did.
And when he started moving, your hand shot up to the hardened flesh of his bicep, squeezing like a warning. Like a life raft. Like it could save you from the sensation of being whole again.
Every precise drag in and out of you felt like carving a promise into the wood of a sacred tree. You could feel him everywhere, so far within you that your heart seemed to readjust it’s beating to match his pace.
His hand came up, interlacing tenderly with yours and pinning it beside your head. It was a disgustingly intimate display of affection. Something that proved the verbal frigidity of the constant bickering didn’t represent the connection, didn’t win the fight against the pure devotion that the two of you held like an oath.
The love won out. It always won out.
A specific thrust had him perfectly on that special spot. It felt like fireflies in your head, nothing but a pleasant buzzing as your eyes shut, back arching slightly on reflex.
“Ay, look at me.”
The words were engraved into your jaw, his lips trailing kisses on any skin he could get to. You stared up at him, hazy and crestfallen from the way he gazed at you.
“You pull a stunt like that again, and I’ll have Arthur drag you back here by your fuckin’ throat. You hear me?”
“I’d like - mm -” Your attempts to match his authority with some semblance of your own was outpaced immediately by the perch of his fingers on your clit. The pattern they found was signature, one that sent you reeling every time. “Like to see him try, Tommy.”
Your words were barely audible over your breathing, approaching an edge so strong that it almost scared you. The combined stimulation of all that he was doing was too fast, too consuming after the streak of celibacy you’d been on.
Some warning chipped the bottoms of your teeth, scraped by on the way out of your mouth, but he didn’t accept it. He kept his motions consistent, coaxing you over that edge with quiet praises and promises of reform. It was like a trebuchet, hauling you into an orgasm so complete that it made your vision white for just a beat, made your fingers somehow tighter on his arm.
He was the much same, letting go of the most stunning noises you’d ever heard, searing the soft flesh of your shoulder as he exhaled them into you. It was the kind of closeness that remade you, carved new indents that only one person could ever fit into.
Him. You’d been reduced and rebuilt over and over to be a vessel for him. For all you felt for him.
He didn’t pull out, didn’t move in a way that even suggested he was going to. He just stayed as he was, conjoined and completely fused. Even as his cum started to leak out around where he was softening, he didn’t budge. He simply ran his hands over the skin he’d been separated from for too long, simply existed in a rare moment of solitude with you.
Thomas Shelby was an affectionate man. Especially when he could show it like this.