A/N: This is a smaller chapter to close off the night of April 12th.
NOTE: I personally hate Mary-Sues, and I was trying to think of a way to just really solidify the fact that Shannon is not a Mary-Sue. And as I started thinking about it, I figured out how to do it. W/o spoiling too much... you'll get to see a different side of Shannon, and of Joseph and Tommy as well in this chapter... it's a more serious and emotionally intense chapter. You've been warned ;)
Emotions Come Alive
Carrick chased his partner across the deck. "I know yer mad, but slow down a bit will ya?" he yelled. "It's bloody cold out here!"
Joseph ignored him and kept walking faster and faster. "Ain't my problem, speed up a bit why don't ye?" He broke into a run, suddenly overcome with anger at his partner for screwing up their plan that had seemed so brilliant at first.
Carrick always has to be in charge of everything; he gets first pick at everything... if he'd just let ME be the dealer and HE played we'd have the bloody necklace and Astor's money and wouldn't even have had to go pilfering through the cargo hold in the first place... He was so utterly furious that he swore nothing in the world could slow him down, that is, until he crashed straight into Tommy and Shannon.
"YOU! WE KNOW WHAT YOU'VE BEEN UP TO YA GOOD FER NOTHIN'!" His younger brother grabbed him by his shirt collar and threw him down against the hard wooden deck. "STEALIN' FROM THE OTHER PASSENGERS NOW, CAN YE SINK ANY LOWER, MAN?" Tommy's face was beet red and his eyes seemed to hold an electric red twinkle of fury in the darkness.
"GET THE HELL OFF A' ME, YA SCUM!" Joseph shot back, scrambling to his feet and shoving his brother away.
"I'M THE SCUM? I'M THE SCUM?" Tommy roared, plowing back into his brother. "I'M TWICE THE MAN YOU'LL EVER BE BECAUSE I MAKE AN HONEST LIVING AND I WORK HARD, YOU JUST TAKE AND CHEAT 'TA GET WHAT YE HAVE!"
Shannon just stood against the rail, eyes wide as she watched her boyfriend finally have it out with his estranged older brother. She was shocked speechless. Suddenly, Carrick charged into the action, finally catching up with his partner.
Seeing the fighting, he immediately intervened. "What the bloody hell is going on here?" he shouted, throwing the two brothers apart. Tommy toppled over to the left side of the deck and Joseph to the right, before they went and attacked each other again. "STOP IT! RIGHT NOW!" Carrick roared, pouncing into the middle of the brawl.
All three men punched, kicked, and yelled at each other... losing all sense of what they were doing in the action. About a minute or so into the fight, Joseph's left foot met Tommy's jaw, causing him to let out a loud yelp of pain. Shannon couldn't watch any longer, she couldn't take seeing the love of her life and his brother beating each other senseless.
"STOP IT! ALL OF YE!" she cried out, scorching hot tears stinging her eyes. "YER ACTING LIKE CHILDREN!" she scolded them.
"YE WANT US 'TA STOP FIGHTING, THEN GET YER DAMN LOVERBOY OFFA ME AND OUTTA ME SIGHT FER GOOD!" Joseph growled at her, his head sticking out from underneath Tommy's leg.
"PLEASE JUST STOP!" Shannon pleaded. "TOMMY HE ISN'T WORTH IT...I WANT TO GO BACK TO THE CABIN!"
But Tommy couldn't stop. Five years of being so utterly infuriated at his brother for abandoning their family unleashed itself, and Tommy didn't even recognize himself anymore...he was overcome by something otherworldly as he pounded on Joseph repeatedly. "I HATE WHAT YOU ARE!" he roared, slamming his brother into the deck over and over again. Even Carrick had sensed that this wasn't his fight, and had quietly stalked away, muttering something about going to sleep.
Shannon broke down into shuddering sobs and dropped to her knees. "STOP IT! THOMAS CHRISTOPHER RYAN YOU STOP IT THIS INSTANT! I CAN'T WATCH YOU TWO FIGHT LIKE THIS...YER BROTHERS FER GOD'S SAKE!" she screamed at them, pulling on her boyfriend's suspenders to try and get him off of his brother, who was now looking to be on the brink of losing consciousness from being slammed against the deck so many times.
Tommy ignored her, unable to stop beating on Joseph. He didn't care that his brother was no longer fighting back. Or that he was causing his girlfriend intense emotional distress. He needed to satisfy his darkest urges that had been pent up since Joseph first left five years ago... he'd thirsted for so long to beat the living hell out of his brother if he ever saw him again.
"GET...THE FECK...OFFA...ME..." Joseph wheezed, trying with all his might to roll out of his younger brother's grip.
"NO! YER GONNA PAY ONCE AN' FER ALL FER BEIN' SUCH A SORRY EXCUSE OF A BROTHER...OF A SON...OF A MAN!" Tommy roared, punching his older brother in the gut as hard as he could.
"THAT'S ALL YE MEN DO IS FIGHT!" Shannon screamed, getting up and running back inside, her long teal skirt billowing after her in the freezing sea winds. She ran all the way back to their cabin and collapsed on her bed, weeping. It was too much for her, everything that had been on her mind for the past few days came flooding in at once, overwhelming her.
Homesickness and fear overcame her, and she broke into hysterics, not even caring that Mr. and Mrs. Hannigan were now wide awake staring at her. "I can't take this anymore! I can't! I'm a fool fer leaving Ireland...my family...my home... fer a man who clearly can't control himself!" she screamed into her pillow.
Mrs. Hannigan sighed and slowly rolled out of her bed, shuffling across the room to sit beside the much younger girl. "Shh, calm yerself lassie, it's all right," she soothed her. Shannon buried her face in Mrs. Hannigan's warm nightdress and sobbed. Without her mother or her grandmothers to go to, Mrs. Hannigan was the only maternal figure she had.
...
Tommy finally stopped beating on his brother when Joseph's eyes closed and his head dropped against the deck. He was still breathing, but in heavy wheezes, and he pleaded his younger brother to leave him alone. "Just quit...ye won...dammit..."
Not wanting to cause any serious harm to his brother, more for the sake of being arrested than for truly not wanting to inflict pain on Joseph, Tommy stood up and turned to walk away. "Yer a despicable bastard an' I hate what ye are, I hate what ye made me do... now I've upset me girlfriend all because 'a you!" he spat, kicking his older brother hard in his leg before storming back inside the ship.
Upon reaching their cabin, he saw that Mr. Hannigan was standing in front of the closed door, blocking the way. "Don't go in, lad. Brenna's tryin' 'ta calm her down," he told him, pushing him back. "Let's talk, man 'ta man," he continued, ushering Tommy into a corner.
"Now I dunno exactly what happened, nor do I really care to know, but what I do know is that yer girlfriend is very upset," he started.
"I know I screwed up, I was fighting with me brother...it's a really long story," Tommy sighed miserably, slouching back against the wall.
"Don't apologize 'ta me, boyo. Go in there and comfort yer girlfriend, show her the gentle man she loves so well, not the violent beast who scared her into hysterics," Mick interjected, placing a firm hand on his shoulder.
Tommy nodded. "Yer right, thank ye, Mr. Hannigan," he said. He bowed his head as he entered the cabin, earning a stern glare from Mrs. Hannigan, who was stroking Shannon's hair as she cried into her lap. Mick shut the door softly behind them and climbed back into bed.
Mrs. Hannigan sighed. "Here, boy, yer the only one who can fix this," she said, slowly getting up and shuffling back to her own bed on the other side of the room. As soon as she'd gotten up, Shannon's head fell against her pillow.
"I'm sorry ye had 'ta see that, sweet. I don't know what came over me," Tommy whispered, crawling into bed beside his girlfriend and wrapping his arms around her.
"I...I just don't k-know anymore...I want to go back to Ireland..." Shannon sobbed, turning away from him. "C-Clearly ye can't c-control yerself..."
Tommy gently ran his fingers through her hair. "Look, sweet... I can apologize 'til the cows come back, but I realize that isn't what ye need right now. Ye need me to comfort you because I know there's a lot going through that pretty head a' yers. I know ye miss yer family an' yer home, because I do too, and that's why we need each other now more than ever. We're all we have, Shanny," he told her soothingly.
Shannon slowly turned to face him. Even in the darkness he could tell how puffy and red her eyes were. "I-I'm having s-so many thoughts an' worries...an' the last t-thing I need right now is...is all this bloody drama with yer brother an-and..." she choked up. "I-I hate seein' ye get so violent...I-I'm scared enough as it is...Tommy..." she continued to weep softly into her hands.
"Shh, sweet, it's all right. C'mon ye know I'm an Irishman, we've got short tempers... and I just lost control after all these years of craving 'ta beat me brother senseless for just up an' leavin' us without a care in the world. I'm sorry ye had 'ta see that, I promise it won't happen again," Tommy whispered, planting gentle kisses on her face as he pulled her into his chest, letting her cry into his soft shirt.
"How c-can ye be so s-sure? Ye were like a rabid beast...ye were... I hardly r-recognized ye," Shannon sobbed.
"I know I lost control, but when I promise ye somethin'...I keep that promise. I swear by Saint Patrick it won't happen again," Tommy told her gently.
"I-I'm just so scared, T-Tommy," Shannon sniffled into his shirt. "How the hell are we getting to Chicago...what if ye can't find work...what if..." she trailed off as more shuddering sobs overtook her.
"Shh, it's all right. Like I told ye before, don't worry yer wee pretty head about it, I'll figure everything out and we'll be just fine. I swear it," Tommy whispered, kissing her softly. "Just go to sleep, fill that pretty head a yers with sweet dreams an' rest yer eyes...there's absoultely nothing 'ta be afraid of, nothing 'ta worry about...just sleep, my sweet Shanny." He continued to stroke her hair until her breathing slowed a bit into a more normal, calm rhythm. "Shh...it's all right, love."
...
Joseph finally managed to peel himself off the deck, feeling like he'd just been run over by the RMS Titanic itself. He was tired and bruised as he slowly shuffled up the stairs to the first class deck and inside the ship.
He slowly but surely made his way back to his cabin and collapsed onto the sofa in the parlor room, too weak to even make it to his bedroom. "Oh God...how you've damned my despicable soul!" he shouted up at the ceiling.
"I'm going to hell and I know it... I'm good fer nothin' scoundrel in yer eyes, God... I've failed ye and I know it...I really am just a lost soul, a lost, despicable, horrible soul... a shell of a man. I'm damned," he muttered to himself, a single tear rolling down his bruised left cheek.
"I'm nothing in yer eyes, God...a shell of a man."
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