A/N: ****extra warnings: some sexual content which will be added to the tag. i did not put it there before because i never expected to write it. it's nothing explicit because i dont really write smut and im not super comfortable with it. i considered deleting the start and not posting any kind of sexual content but i don't know, maybe you guys could tell me what you think about that if possible please?
in addition, i wanted to say that this relationship will not always be fluff and light as shown in this chapter. i know in peaky blinders, you can't really expect constant happiness (or much at all really) so if this seems dark or a bit cruel, then im only following the show's depiction of how toxic these relationships can be. thanks as always for reviews/favourites, any feedback at all!
eight
Spinning beneath wild flashes of colour, I felt his arms clamp around my waist to hold me there, in the bolts of electric blue, shocks of red, mellow splashes of purple and swirls of yellow from the lights and his breath was warm against my cheek, my jawline too. His lips pressed against that gentle dip between my breasts. His stubble scratched against the softness of my skin, rubbed in all the right places. He held me so that we would not be lost in the ebb and flow of this crowd around us; the rhythm from the singers on the stage rippled though my limbs, rippled upward into my brain and shook it around so much that I pecked him and pulled at him and I felt arousal – mine and his, his and mine, intertwined; one could not be separated from the other, anymore.
Somewhere along the line, my eyelids lowered like blinds, snapping shut at the pressure of his rough hands cupping against the parts of me which had once been unknown, cupped for blissful friction.
I thought about Yaxley even if I never wanted to think about him, especially not in that moment with hands pressing hard, holding there, so that my legs became jelly and my breath stuttered. Despite all that, I thought about how Yaxley once made me think that love – the act of it, the physicality of it, the manifestation of it – was composed of force and repulsion.
But it was not like that in this glorious cocoon with Alfie, whose broad form shielded us from the crowd behind him, just enough that he could hitch my thigh that little bit higher against his hip, rub that a little bit closer until I unravelled and I felt his warm hand grip my chin and turn my eyes toward him so that he could see it, so that he could revel in it.
His eyelids had lowered, too. I peeped between his blinds and saw the sort of black desire which could not be solved in this bar, not with all these people pushing around us with drinks and loud shouts. He shuffled me, half-limp, toward the front of the bar and whistled for a lad to bring a car around. I had never been drunk, but I felt the swirl of something more in the dense warmth of that backseat while some lad from Bell Road drove us toward Ivor Square.
Again, Alfie slipped a hand beneath the hem of my skirts. I shot him a warning glance and tilted my head toward that lad whose gaze was elsewhere, catching Alfie by the wrists. He smirked and touched a spot still tender so that I jolted, squeezed his wrists tight.
"Are you all right, Willa?" he asked loudly. "You look a little flushed, darlin'."
The lad from Bell Road glanced behind, not quite enough to notice more than he should. "Ms Sykes?"
I turned red and mumbled, "Y-Yes, thank you – t-the bar was just a little hot."
"It was indeed," Alfie hummed; his fingertips moved forward, and I really had to grip his wrists tight to hold in an awful sound which sat somewhere between a breathy moan and a shocked yelp. "It was indeed, Willa."
His eyes followed mine. He watched all my movements as if that brought him more pleasure than anything else. He leaned close against the cradle of my eardrum, licked at the lobe, and said, "I could fuckin' take you – and take you now, in this fuckin' car, and I don't give a fuck about that lad bein' there – but, oh, Willa, if 'e tried to look at you while you're like this, I'd kill 'im – I'd kill any man what looked at you, sweet'eart, because that's just for me, you understand? I'm the only one what gets to see you like this. Ain't that right, my girl?"
Then came more pressure, that delicious pressure which soon turned into slow, languid circles that made me melt against him, the coil held tight in my stomach.
He said, "You're mine, Willa. You understand that, don' you, darlin'?"
I mumbled weakly against his throat. "Alfie – please –…"
"You beggin' me, sweet'eart, yeah?" he asked, pressing a kiss against that unnoticed spot behind my ear before his hand moved faster beneath my skirts. I looked at that lad in the front and thought about how he might glance behind at any moment, which oddly thrilled and worried me all at once.
Suddenly, Alfie gripped my chin like he had before, held it so tightly that it hurt, twisted me toward him – and somehow that was fine, too, because I found that I liked his roughness and his demands, liked that he liked to be in control, at least in this context.
"Eyes on me, Willa," he ordered lowly, spoken just between us, like gospel. "…God, my beautiful fuckin' girl…"
I could not look away from him even if I wanted to do it, because the coil had sprung itself loose and I went slack against him, trembling, breathing into him, but he merely stroked my hair and held me as if I was tired from the night – and that was not entirely untrue.
Grinding to a halt, the engine cut off and Alfie slipped the lad a couple of quid for the fare, even though the boy was just a baker – and even if his shirt still reeked of rum because of it. The boy blinked at the thick wad of cash. Alfie hardly heard his gratitude sputtered out, because he was already rushing me from the car, hauling me into the house and we never made it beyond the hall; he had been too impatient, he tore my skirts and pushed me against the wall; and it was all roughness and all demands and all swirling colours behind eyelids lowered like blinds.
ii
Sometimes, I liked to feign sleep because I noticed that Alfie had a bad habit. Often, in the dead of night, he would rise from the bed and slink off toward the bathroom, only to return and flop alongside me. If I had rolled away from him or moved even an inch, he would pull me against him, tuck me against his chest and rest his chin over my head, then curl himself around me. I would test him and attempt to wiggle away with a soft sigh, as if totally unaware.
He always pulled me back. He always held me against him.
He nuzzled me, too.
Drowsy after all that happened in the hall and with only a couple of hours of sleep on top of it, I murmured, "Getting comfortable, are we, Alfie?"
He paused behind me, momentarily taken aback that I had been awake all along. He cleared his throat. "Just checkin' you don't 'ave lice, darlin'." He lifted a hand to brush it through my hair and then said, "Hm, yeah. Looks all clear."
I smiled to myself, scooting away from him. "All clear? No need to hold me, then, is there?"
He hesitated before his arm tightened around my waist and he hauled me back against him. "Well, I should prob'ly check a little more, y'know. Oh, think I spotted one, I did."
I turned awkwardly in his arms to look at him, eyebrows scrunched together. Alfie pretended to pluck something from my hair. I huffed and slapped lightly at his chest, shrinking away from him. He pinned me gently beneath himself and ruffled at my hair even more, widening his eyes. He let out a gasp and crooned, "Proper infestation, this, gonna 'ave to shave ya bald, Willa, like we did some o' the lads on the frontline –…"
"Get off, Alfie, you weigh a tonne," I grumbled; my laughter betrayed me.
"Oi, be gentle now, I'm sensitive 'bout me size, I am," he replied, "Didn't mind me on top of ya earlier, did ya –…"
"Alfie!"
"If I recall, you very much enjoyed it – ain't my fault you got lice, is it? Need a scrub, you do, and I'd be kind enough to offer my assistance in that area, bein' the gentleman that I am, hm," he said huskily, pecking at my jawline again.
Out of the blue, he hissed and recoiled from me, his hand darting away to brush his hip. I lifted myself onto my elbows and rubbed his shoulders, feeling how he had completely cramped up against the mattress. In the thick silver of moonlight, I glimpsed beads of perspiration on his forehead, lips pressed into whiteness. I traced the bumps of his spine to soothe him and mumbled words in my old tongue which I had hardly spoken since I left the wet fields in my ninth summer.
Now it was his head tucked beneath my chin and my arms around him, stroking his arms and clucking like some hen to comfort him through the tremors that ran through his spine and radiated in his hip. He had always hated that I saw him in pain – he thought it made him feeble. Still, he allowed those gentle touches which lasted until the pain blurred into a distant hum and he could straighten himself out, like some porcelain doll with stiff limbs cracked.
"Thank you, Willa," he muttered, his humour lost.
I brushed the back of my hand against his cheek bristled in stubble. I scratched at his hair and pretended to pluck out some imagined louse. "Your lice are my lice, Alfie."
"Very romantic, that," he replied. "I'm swoonin', I am, knees bucklin' –…"
"Go to sleep, Alfie."
He was quiet for a very long time. Just before I drifted off, he muttered, "I think you're a little bossy when you're tired, ain't ya, Willa?"
I rolled away from him; his arm latched onto me quickly, pulled me back against him.
iii
Ripley Lane had a cluster of odd shops all strewn together with laundry-lines and balconies overhead for the flats. Settled at the end of its long row was a shop with funny trinkets in its windows, stood between a whole cluster of bottles and ointments, along with some bizarre spices and foreign herbs. I had sent Johnny a letter almost a week after Alfie had suffered that spasm in bed and he had finally answered with some advice he had received from kin – your kin, Willa, he had called them. I lied and told him that I had pain in my own hand rather than tell him about Alfie and his issues. I hoped that Johnny would not have any dreams which might tell him otherwise.
I stepped into the shop and inhaled the hazy cloud of scents which washed over me. I saw a young girl with a broom in one hand, her hair like a nest. I saw her mother, too, and walked toward her with my mouth opened for speech which never came.
"Johnny's lass, isn't it?"
I blinked. I felt a little sheepish to really call myself that aloud but nodded all the same.
"Contacted me already, he did," she said. "I got it ready for ya."
She pulled out a little bag which clinked as if full of glass. Once she handed it over, I saw that it was indeed filled with small jars, black and mushy. It had a soft, sweet scent – a little too sweet, like fruit. I paid her quickly and turned for the door.
"Do give Johnny my love, eh?" the woman called out. "Not that that little prick hasn't given his love to all the fuckin' women in England already…"
iv
Rustling around the bedroom, I pulled out the bag from beneath the bed. I tried about how I could be subtle about it, tried to think about how I could convince him to let me use the ointment on his hip and back without him thinking it was out of pity for him. Once he opened the bathroom door, his eyes looked around and immediately found me on the bed with this bag in my lap. He was stood in his boxers, shirtless. I saw the scarring which scattered his stomach, two deepened lines on the small of his back, saw the raised mark on the left-hand side of his ribcage.
I had asked him about it, before.
He said, not now, Willa.
I looked down at the bag in my lap. "Alfie, I wrote a letter to my uncle Johnny. I asked him about pain – I mean, solutions for it, you know, to help with your back and your hip."
He watched me, but his expression was not open and warm. It was pinched, even annoyed. "What did you do that for, Willa?"
I felt my skin rush with heat from a feeling which was nothing like I had had in that bar the other night. But I had prepared myself for this. I held strong and said, "I just told you what I did it for."
"Solutions," he nodded, then cocked his head as if confused. Only he was not confused. I knew him too well to fall for it. "Hm. Did you tell Johnny that I got problems with me back, then, did ya? Uncle Johnny, 'ow ever can I 'elp me crippled fella, eh –…"
"Don't call yourself that."
He cast me a sardonic look. "What, your fella?" he snarked.
He knew full well what I had meant, but he liked to twist words whenever he was in a mood.
"I told him that I was having pain in my hand." I lifted my left hand and turned it toward him, showed him that scar which still marred the skin there from when a policeman had bashed a drawer against it, the scar which he often liked to trace like I had traced his spine and I found myself wondering, was that really so long ago that I had touched him lovingly? "Never mentioned you. Glad I didn't, now."
He let out a low whistle. "Why? Didn't want precious Johnny, sacred Johnny to know about me? You ashamed, Willa?"
Coolly, I met his hard stare and echoed his words from years beforehand. "I'm not the one feeling ashamed, Alfie."
He swallowed. "Yeah, well, I don't want your uncle knowin' shit about me. Don't ever want to meet 'im, neither."
Those words stung me more than I could have imagined; I asked myself, what made you so horrid in France, Alfie? My eyes ghosted over those scars and I thought that perhaps something had seeped beneath his skin and settled in his marrow to upset his temper so easily.
Alfie was always humorous and cheeky and full of affection for me.
Until he wasn't.
Until some trivial word, some insignificant movement, some thoughtless expression upset him, and then he became wrathful, and all those colours which had once swirled around us in the bar flickered into blackness; the same blackness which filled him then filled me; me and him, him and me, intertwined.
But the same acid which bubbled in his words frothed into mine and I said, "Good. At least we can agree on something, then."
Alfie scrunched his cheek between his teeth, bit hard on his own flesh.
"I don't want none of that Gypsy nonsense rubbed on me skin, Willa," he hissed. "Prob'ly 'orseshit and leaves mixed together by some old witch in some wagon to sell to some stupid fool willin' to part with enough cash for it."
I had prepared myself for this, yet I was crumbling fast before him. He heard his words and their implications, and his jaw went all tight, his forehead wrinkled with regret. I wanted none of it. I threw the bag onto the bed and heard the clinking of small jars. I stood up suddenly and stormed for the door.
"Where are you fuckin' goin'?" he called out, thundering down the stairs right after me. "Willa, it's fuckin' dark out, it's rainin', you ain't goin' out in that –…"
I grabbed my coat and reached for my scarf, but he was quicker than me and snatched it first. Childishly, I said, "Give it back, Alfie."
"I told ya, you ain't goin' out. It's dangerous," he said. "Someone could 'urt ya, Willa –…"
"Oh, I wonder how that'd feel," I spat viciously, reaching forward to snatch the scarf from him. His hand, in an automatic attempt to push me away, latched around my throat in a loose hold, but enough that it startled me and made me slap at him. "Don't touch me, Alfie!"
His hand was tighter now that I struggled. He wanted me to be still. Somehow, I could not do more than push and scratch at him. I was not sure if he was attempting to carefully restrain me or really force me to stop, and the panic rushed through me like a riptide. Suddenly, I was motionless. I only moved to latch my hands around his and glared at him through my lashes, breathing heavily.
I let out a bitter laugh and said, "Tell me not to be afraid of you again, eh, Alfie, with your hand around my fucking throat, tell me –…"
His hand dropped immediately, but the other still held my scarf aloft. "Don't be fuckin' stupid, Willa, just listen to me –…"
"I'm not fucking stupid!" I screamed. "I am not stupid! Don't you ever insult me or my uncle or Gypsies again Alfie Solomons! I tried to help you! Yeah, I parted with my own fucking cash because I hated to see you in pain! And you know what, I wish I hadn't bothered trying to find something that might help you. I'll let you suffer because you fucking deserve your pain, do you know that?!"
I never cursed that much. I certainly never cursed as much as Alfie did, which is probably what caused his wide eyes, his mouth held apart in shock. His hand released the scarf and it dropped between us, forgotten. I thought, what was all the fuss for it in the first place?
I was tired of tempers. I had had enough of them from Esther. I never wanted to fear Alfie in the same way that I had always feared Esther. I never wanted to tread on eggshells around him. I looked at the door behind him, saw the droplets of rain glinting against the windowpane and I suddenly felt exhaustion swell within me; the hurt was there along with it.
Hoarsely, I said, "Alfie, I can't do this anymore."
"Do what?" he asked, his own words slick with trepidation, eyes flicking around me wildly.
"I'm going to bed, Alfie."
"Do what, Willa?"
I climbed the staircase. I found the bedroom as if we had never left it, the bag still there on the bed. I pushed it aside and let it fall onto the floorboards with a harsh clatter. I slumped against the bed. His temper had always been there, it was not some grand revelation between us to know it. I heard him come into the bedroom.
This time, I feigned sleep, but it was not because I wanted him to pull me against him. I wanted him out. I almost wished that I had tried to make him leave instead, but Alfie was not a man to be moved unless he really wanted it.
The mattress dipped from his weight. I felt its heaviness; felt his heaviness. He picked the bag up from the floorboards and pulled out a jar. I squinted at him through eyelids held close together, watched his silvery outline smooth and stretch while he moved around. I heard him open the lid of one jar. I heard its wet squelch and I saw him lift his fingertip against his forehead to draw a thickened line there and I did not fully understand his reasoning until he asked, "Will it fix me 'ead, too, eh?"
I was very still but I knew that he could tell that I was still there, still awake.
"Got a lot of thoughts runnin' me ragged in 'ere," he continued slowly, gently. "Makes me see things that aren't there, make me say things that I don't always wanna say, makes me meaner than I wanna be, 'especially to you, darlin'. I don't wanna be 'round me-self any more than you wanna be 'round me when I'm like that Willa, y'know. Wish I could pull out me brain and look at it, right, see what damage was done, clean it off and pop it back in. That don't sound right, does it? Sounds mad. But it's what I'd like to do."
Croakily, I mumbled, "I never told Johnny that it was for you, Alfie."
"I know, love," he replied. His voice was soft and low, a quiet rumble from deep within his chest. "I know. I thought – your Johnny is well-connected, ain't 'e? What if 'e uses it against me one day, eh?"
I blinked, pulling myself upward from the pillows, unsettled by the hint of paranoia in his tone. "What do you mean, Alfie? He has no reason to use it against you. Who would he ever tell, anyway?"
Alfie watched me again. He brushed aside fallen strands of hair from my face. His eyes were distant. "You're right, angel. Who would 'e tell?"
I had a pit within my stomach because his eyes always got that glazed, faraway look whenever he strayed toward thoughts of trenches or the bakery or boys whose eyes had been taken from them and their fathers who had come to torture him for it.
He still had the jar in his hands. He scooped out another swipe of black mush. He put it on my left hand; smoothed it into that scar there. "I wish I 'ad killed that policeman."
I stared at him, afraid to look away. "Alfie, I never meant to say what I did. You don't deserve any pain. I don't want you to feel it, I want you –…"
He was speaking as if I was not here and as if he was not here, either. He spoke in an echo and its reverb somehow never reached us; if it did, it came back distorted, unintelligible. He pulled out another scoop and placed it on a scar on his forearm. He said, "Bullet missed me. First month in the trenches. First time I got hit. I was pumpin' blood, almost passed out, and me commandin' officer said, 'chop off the arm or continue fightin', lad, before I put a bullet in your fuckin' skull me-self for disobedience.'"
He took another and smeared his right cheek on a thin, bare strip where his stubble never grew. "Another one. Second. Just a scrape, but I did pass out from the hit that time. I did, yeah. I passed out."
Another on his thigh. "Pushed a lad out the way. Third."
Another on his back. "Fourth."
Another smudged the scar which stretched from his chest, just beneath his sternum. "I was sittin' in the trench and I looked up to find the sun was gone. The enemy stole that, too. Only it was a German what made it into my trench. Never 'appened before, that. Never 'appened after, neither. I was readin' one of your letters. I thought the sun 'ad left me. 'e had this – shovel, or something like it, something that 'e 'ad made into a splint and 'e was proper swingin' at me, slashin' – and I barely made it. Slashed me right up the middle, 'e did. I got 'im in the throat. Better in the throat, hm."
His eyes looked through me, beyond me.
"Bled out in me trench, this German, who I thought 'ad stole the sun – 'ow fuckin' daft is that, eh? It was different to see 'em up close, y'know. Far away, it didn't feel good to shoot a man neither, but it don't feel nearly like it does when you see' 'em there in front o' ya, up close. Feels like ya knew 'im, somehow, like 'e was just another lad on your street. Like you knew 'im, even when you didn't. Feels like you're lookin' at yourself in a different place, in a different time – but still you, somehow."
Finally, he placed another line of black on that puckered scarring on the left-hand side of his ribcage and said, "Got shot. Fully shot, no scrapes or near-misses. Shot."
"Alfie." I had not realised that I had sat up from the bed, that I had brought myself closer to him. I inhaled the sweet scent of that blackened mush. "Alfie, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to – don't do it out of guilt, sweetheart. Do it because you want to do it."
"I always wanted to fuckin' do it," he hissed, drawing in a wounded breath. His words cracked and I saw a wetness on his cheeks that I had never witnessed before; tears from Alfie Solomons. "Now, Willa. It 'as to be now, because I always wanted to fuckin' tell you and every time that I tried – you could never talk about Yaxley, you remember? Said it got caught in your throat. I couldn't talk about that fuckin' German. Could 'ave 'ad kids, that fella. But what does that matter, anyway? What difference does it make if 'e did or if 'e didn't? Still died in a trench in a country what weren't 'is."
"Why didn't they send you home?"
He was not looking at me. His lips were swollen but we had never kissed. He had bitten them enough. His eyelids were stained in red, his blinking slow and dim. "I wouldn't let 'em do it. Told 'em – give me three days, yeah, and I'll be back, I'll be fuckin' ready for 'em."
I repeated his name. I wanted to say more; but what difference did it make, anyway?
"I was ready in two days," he said. "And I still see that German lyin' in front o' me when I sleep."
His eyes met mine. There was no glazed sheen, no distance. He was here, in the bedroom, with me.
"I don't like to sleep, Willa. But I do when you're here."
v
Gently, I smoothed that black mush against his back and rubbed it into his skin. I hushed his jolts and soothed his grumbles, his shoulders tight and drawn close together. I used it on his hip, that supposed horseshit and leaves mixed together by some witch in a wagon. Soon, though, his rigid form relaxed He told me, tiredly, that it did not hurt so much, anymore.
Afterward, he lay his head in my lap. I brushed through his hair, kissed his forehead, and I whispered, "I know that you hurt in more ways than just your bones, Alfie. But there will be no more of this temper against me. I will listen when you speak about the trenches, I will listen when you speak about your days at work. I will be here when you need me, like you will be here for me."
I placed my hand against his throat, light and barely there, but enough that his eyes followed mine. I leaned close, so that there could be no misunderstandings. "But if you are ever that cruel to me again – if you speak of Johnny or the Gypsies like that again – and if you try to restrain me – I will walk out that door and you will not be able to stop me, Alfie Solomons, and you will never sleep again. I promise you that."
I kissed his forehead and smoothed the blackened mush into his skin until it disappeared.
vi
Outside Number Seventeen of Ivor Square the next morning, I found Charlotte sat on our doorstep with her pale flesh turned red, her eyes rimmed in thick lines of red. She sniffled like a child. Between her rasping sobs, she stood from the stoop and came toward me with numb legs.
Her hands drifted toward her stomach. I saw the swell there.
"It was a mistake, Willa," she whispered.
