cross my palm with silver (line our pockets with good fortune)
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VII. All That Glitters
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On their walk back to Garrison Lane, Naomie returned to the topic of the races.
She'd never gone to the big races before—or, well, she'd never been properly invited to one. While she had tagged along with her uncles and cousins a couple of times as a child, crouching under the stands and curiously watching her male kin make mischief, she doubted that counted.
Thinking of yet another question, Naomie turned to Thomas with wide, eager eyes. "Can I bet?"
"You can do whatever you like," he replied genially.
"Are you going to bet?"
"Me? Nah, I don't bet on the races. No point."
Naomie contemplated this. "Then… how about making a bet with me?"
"With you?" Thomas glanced at her, his eyes amused. "I don't have the habit of making bets that I know I won't win."
"But I haven't said what it is, yet!"
"What is it, then?" he asked, gesturing invitingly with his cigarette.
Naomie showed him a dimpled smile. "If any other horse wins, then you get to ask something of me. But if little brother wins, then I get to ask something of you."
Thomas raised his brows knowingly. "You already have something you want, eh?"
She nodded eagerly, turning a little so she could gauge his response. He didn't look adverse to what she was saying so far, and she was at least mostly sure he would agree to her condition. It wasn't much, really, for someone like him, even with how busy he was. "I want to go for a drive in your nice car. And I want it to be a long trip too, not just a little twirl around town."
"You want to make a bet so I'd take you for a drive," he repeated, as if bemused.
"I've never ridden in a motorcar that nice before," she explained. And the few times Naomie had been able to ride a motorcar at all, it was never for very long — but she had loved every moment. Although motorcars were no horses, they were fast all the same, even more so when they were as modern as Thomas's. "It's hard to ask you on normal days, since you seem so busy all the time."
Thomas stared straight ahead, an indiscernible look on his face. Then he let out a short breath, smoke blooming from his parted mouth. She couldn't tell if it was a scoff or a laugh.
"So, how about it? If you win, you can ask something of me as well," Naomie coaxed. She swung his arm a little by the corner of a sleeve. "What do you think, Thomas? You keen?"
"A long drive, huh?" Thomas said, his eyes returning to her face. "Tall order. But I suppose I can figure something out."
She laughed, delighted.
They continued to walk next to each other in comfortable silence, until something occurred to Naomie. She turned to him again. "What will you ask for, if little brother doesn't get first?"
Thomas didn't immediately reply; he first took a deep draught of his cigarette and held the smoke for a moment before letting it out in a slow, leisurely exhale. She waited patiently for his eventual response, which was a pensive, "No point in saying it. Your little brother will be first across the line."
Naomie blinked at him, confused. "I thought you didn't make bets you knew you wouldn't win?"
Thomas gave her a long, lingering look that made her ears turn hot. "Who said I wasn't winning?"
Naomie turned her face away to hide the heat stubbornly trying to carry over to her cheeks and determinedly focused her attention on his actual words.
Which… actually, it really did deserve thought. How could Thomas still be winning if he'd lost? Sometimes she couldn't understand the things he said at all, and she was about to tell him so — but she stopped, looking around distractedly.
Thomas glanced around as well.
A crowd of men rushed by as if escaping from something, some of them laughing and jostling each other. As the men passed, someone else in a peaked cap came trotting towards the two of them, calling for Thomas.
While the new arrival spoke with Thomas in low tones, Naomie studied him a bit. The sliver of a razor blade on his jauntily perched cap gave him away as a Peaky Blinder, but he was a bit familiar, too, like she'd seen him before. Her stare must have attracted his attention, because the man started to stare back at her. His eyes were a vibrant, electric blue, even under the shadow of the cap.
The pieces clicked into place. This must be the third Shelby brother, whose name currently escaped her. Satisfied she'd figured it out, she finally looked away from the man, only to realise that Thomas had been watching her. Their eyes met.
"And Arthur was looking for you, too," concluded Thomas's younger brother.
"Arthur?" Thomas's eyes flickered away. "What for?"
"Dunno. Said it was important."
"Huh," said Thomas, consideringly.
Well, Naomie recognized her cue to leave when she saw it. She touched Thomas's elbow to get his attention. "I'll get going then, Thomas," she said, hefting her satchel higher on her shoulder. "If you're going to see Arthur, can you remind him he needs to refill his incense before it runs out?"
Thomas gave her a grave nod. Naomie grinned lopsidedly at him and began making her way back to the Garrison, where she knew Grace was sure to be waiting for her.
Tommy put a hand on the top of his car, then stopped. Being accosted by Officer Moss had distracted him from something. Something important. What was…
He began to pat down his coat, then his other pockets. Nothing. A moment of delay—just enough for a thought—and he was twisting around and striding back into the Garrison at a pace just short of a run.
Tommy all but burst into the snug.
Grace stared at him, a serving tray perched on her hip—she had been in the midst of clearing glasses away. She looked startled, either by his sudden entrance or by the look in his eyes.
The sachet was in her hand. It hovered just over the sticky surface of the tray, taunting him.
"Give that here," Tommy said, curt. He extended his hand impatiently.
Grace paused, brows furrowing a little. "Do you mean this, Mr Shelby?" she asked, tentatively raising the tiny pouch she had in her fingers.
In lieu of replying, Tommy took a wide step forward and just about snatched it from her. His hand clenched into a fist around its familiar shape, its familiar weight.
"My apologies Mr Shelby, I… I thought it was your aunt's," Grace supplied cautiously. As mild as her expressions usually were, it was clear she was taken aback by his actions. "I was about to put it away for her."
The way she looked at him, like she was trying to measure if she'd done something wrong—it occurred to Tommy to wonder what sort of storm his face had set itself into, that she felt she had to explain herself for doing her job.
Clearing his throat, Tommy slipped the sachet into his pocket. "Very good," he said, face blank. He gave Grace a brisk nod. "Carry on."
Turning on his heel, he left the Garrison, barely paying any mind to the late-night denizens that nodded to him in greeting. Moments later found him sitting in his kitchen, meagre as it was, his coat and jacket abandoned over the back of his chair. The warmth of the newly-lit furnace broke over him in waves, making a valiant effort to chase away the chill that still lingered on his clothes and in the shadowed corners of the small apartment.
The sachet sat innocently on the table, next to the dram of whiskey he'd poured for himself. Tommy stared at it, tapping a finger against the surface of the table in a slow, thoughtful rhythm.
If the charm actually works, the imprint of their skin may sway your heart…
If the charm works, she'd said.
If the charm works.
If not, it would simply be a token to bring him restful sleep—in other words, something Tommy sorely fucking needed, something he'd come to rely on quite heavily in recent days. Perhaps to an unwise degree, seeing as how he was now loath to be without it.
But—
The imprint of their skin may sway your heart…
If the charm did work.
Tommy reached out and curled his fingers around the pouch. He hefted it in his palm, still looking at it contemplatively.
Then, with a swift jerk of his arm, he tossed it into the furnace, where it fell soundlessly into the coals and was soon engulfed in flames.
He knocked back his whiskey and got to his feet. No need to take unnecessary risks. He'd spent many months haunted by the ghost of France; one more night would not kill him.
Tommy woke with a rattling, full-bodied gasp, his arm thrown out as if to fend off an assailant.
It took him a moment to register where he was. Wall. Door. Bed. The lantern-light of the tunnels replaced by the uncovered kerosene lamp he'd used to heat his clay pipe. Outside the windows, the streets were dense with the kind of blackness that meant hours yet remained before the sun would crest over the horizon.
He sat up. Still shaking with adrenaline, he reached for his clammy neck, half-expecting to feel the grime of the tunnels there; then his abdomen, where he could still feel the tortuous slide of a knife.
Nothing. Nothing but the scars they'd left in his brain.
Glancing at the clock revealed that he hadn't managed even a couple hours of sleep, however poor the quality. Tommy pressed his hands against his eyes until he could only see pinpricks of light. How had he lasted all those months like this? How the fuck had he ever thought that he could go back to it, even for a day?
He'd initially tried to put head to pillow and hope for the best. But that proved wildly unsuccessful, and a couple of hours of staring at his ceiling, wide awake, had been enough to make him reach for his old provisions of whiskey and opium.
Well, he'd slept, then. And it hadn't taken him long at all to return to the tunnels.
Tommy wondered, briefly, if the nightmares had somehow gotten worse than before. More vivid. But no, it was the same as before: the same screams, the same shovels, the same choking sense of terror knotting a noose around his throat. The only thing that had changed was that he was no longer used to waking up with a cry caught behind his teeth. For a while, he had been able to close his eyes and know rest, and that had made all the difference.
He'd once thought he would be satisfied with just one more night of proper sleep. Now Tommy understood what a fool he'd been: he should have known that to have had peace and lose it would leave him far more wretched than to have never had it at all.
He cleared his throat just so he could hear something other than the steady beat of picks and shovels against dirt. And again, louder, when the sound would not leave. His hands, cold and clammy, slid up into his temples.
For several long minutes, Tommy sat on the bed with his head in his hands, waiting for the shovels to stop.
He waited. And waited. And waited.
Abruptly, he stood. Grabbing a coat, he strode out the door like the devil was at his heels, with only the briefest pause by a table on which he'd left a neat bundle of cloth.
Even in Small Heath, hardly anyone was out in the streets at this time, and anyone who was would know better than to ask him what he was up to. He stalked through the streets with purpose, until his feet brought him to a familiar boarding house with a clean-swept doorstep and darkened windows.
Standing in the middle of the empty street, Tommy stared up at the unlit corner window, and fell into thought.
She was asleep. At this godforsaken time of night, of course she'd be asleep. He considered knocking, but that would wake the whole house; it would give too many tongues too much to wag about, and it wouldn't do to let it get out that Tommy Shelby was anything other than perfectly invulnerable. And it was beneath him to throw stones at a window like some sort of juvenile.
What had he really hoped to see here? Even before he set out, he'd already known she'd be asleep. It was ridiculous to expect a repeat of that very first evening, for her to appear to him in the dead of night like some sort of magic trick.
Still, in a voice barely above a whisper — just to try it, just because he could — Tommy murmured, "Naomie." Then, remembering the old stories, twice more: "Naomie. Naomie."
He waited for a beat. Two. Three. Four.
As expected, nothing happened.
Just as Tommy turned away, about to return to his flat, he saw out of the corner of his eye a glint of a light.
He glanced over his shoulder.
Lit by the faint glow of a single candle, a small face, washed white by the moon, appeared in the window he had just been watching. It stared blankly down at him. Tommy stared back, and then nodded at the boarding house's door.
The face at the window soon disappeared. Several long moments later, the door quietly clicked open to reveal Naomie, barefoot and only in her nightdress.
"Thomas, what…" she whispered, rubbing her drooping eyes with a fist.
Seeing gooseflesh begin to rise along her bare arms from the chilly night air, Tommy brought down the package under his arm. Before the first shiver finished its course, he had already drawn the pale yellow shawl around her shoulders and tugged it closed under her chin.
Tommy brushed his thumb over the dip of her throat. Through the thin silk, he could feel the temperature of her skin, still warm from sleep.
A gift of something gold to pass a witch's threshold. He retracted his hands and put them into his pockets. "Can I come in?"
Clutching the sides of the shawl, Naomie stared dazedly at him. "Okay," she mumbled.
He wasn't sure that she was awake enough to know what she was agreeing to, but he still followed her through the door and up the stairs. He had to catch her elbow once, to keep her from stumbling into the stair rail in the dark, but they were soon in her room with the door closed behind him.
Naomie immediately made a beeline for the bed, where an empty nest of blankets awaited. She burrowed into it, still bundled in the shawl.
Tommy paused for a moment at the doorway before he slowly made his way to the only chair in the room. He sat there for a while, watching the flutter of her lashes as she tried and failed to keep her eyes open.
"How did you know I was here, Naomie?" Tommy finally asked, his voice low.
"What d'you mean? Y'even woke me up." Naomie squinted her eyes open at him, her head leaning against a particularly tall hill in her blanket pile. The scowl forming between her brows was interrupted by a wide yawn. "Why're you here?"
"I'm in need of a new sachet."
"The love sachet?" Her lashes, dark and thick, rose again, just enough that he could see the glint of black underneath. "What happened to the old one?"
"Fell into a fire," Tommy replied, steady.
He watched Naomie laboriously digest this piece of information, her nose scrunching from the effort of forcing her tired mind to work.
"I don't have the right kind of herbs," she said at last, blinking at him a bit helplessly. "You'll have to wait 'til the market opens tomorrow."
Tommy glanced away. Examining the far wall, which held a cross adorned with dried bundles of wildflowers, he said, "Don't suppose you have any of that incense left?"
Naomie gently shook her head, expression apologetic. "I sold the last batch to Arthur today…"
He closed his eyes. "I see."
"Is it the nightmares?"
When Tommy opened his eyes, he found himself the subject of Naomie's sleepy, inquisitive gaze. He silently studied the way her hair, mussed from sleep, fell into her face in soft, disordered curls.
In the end, he didn't respond to her question. He supposed that in itself was his answer.
Seeing her lashes begin to droop again, Tommy got to his feet. "I'll let you get back to sleep, then," he told her.
Face blank and hands stiff at his sides, he headed for the door. Just as he was about to step over the line of pebbles circling the base of the door, Naomie let out a big sigh.
"Stop."
Tommy stopped.
Another sigh, softer this time. "I didn't say I couldn't still help."
He turned his head and looked at her.
Naomie extricated an arm from her cocoon and patted the bed next to her. "Come here."
Tommy didn't move for a long moment. Then, with careful, measured steps, he made his way to the bed, and, under Naomie's expectant eyes, sat on the edge of the bed.
"Are you inviting me into your bed now, Naomie?" Tommy said quietly, searching her face for some indication of what she was thinking.
Such words, heavy with insinuation, would normally have her flushing a lovely red, but it seemed she was too tired to even react. She only looked at him sternly and said, "No shoes on the bed."
Tommy slowly reached down to undo his laces. Feeling the bed begin to shift, he glanced back to see Naomie negotiating her nest of blankets.
"You can sleep here," she said. With great difficulty, she finally pulled out a quilt from amid the pile, which visibly deflated with the loss. "I'd like to see what nightmare would dare to come find you tonight."
Tommy looked into her dazed eyes and saw no insinuation there, veiled or otherwise. He had come here without expectation, but he could not quite say he could have ever expected this. She was inviting him into her bed—purely to sleep.
Seeing that he was still sitting in place, just watching her, Naomie turned towards him. "You don't want to?" she asked, tilting her head in the manner of a drowsy cat.
Wordlessly, Tommy took the quilt from her outstretched arms and stretched himself out in the bed. Naomie reached for the candle by her bedside and blew it out.
In the dark, he could hear only the rustle of sheets and the indistinct creak of the bed underneath. A soft, warm body curled up by his side, so close he would only need to turn over his wrist to hold it.
And then a soft, languid voice rose from the quiet, humming into his ear a song he almost knew.
"The king to his hall, and the steed to his stall,
And the cit to his bilking board;
But we are not bound to an acre of ground,
For our home is the houseless sward.
"We sow not, nor toil, yet we glean from the soil
As much as its reapers do;
And wherever we rove, we feed on the cove,
Who gibes at the mumping crew.
"We care not a straw for the limbs of the law,
Nor a fig for the cuffin queer;
While Hodge and his neighbour shall lavish and labour
Our tent is as sure of its cheer…"
The tune, nostalgic and pensive, eased into the tense lines of his shoulders. By the time Naomie's voice drifted into wordless humming, Tommy had already surrendered himself to the welcome embrace of sleep.
He had not dreamt at all during the time the sachet had accompanied him, but he dreamt now.
Before him was a vast expanse of land that sloped gently out towards the horizon, cut into two by a shift as sharp and sudden as a knife. To his right, the field was ripe with wheat that stood taller than he, their heavy golden heads nodding with grain. To his left was a heath barren of life and pockmarked with deep wounds, a no-man's land that had no end. And in between, a narrow trench so full of mud it was impossible to tell how deep it went.
He could not see what lay within or beyond the golden field of wheat, but atop the scarred heathland, in the far distance, he could see a magnificent palace of gold that looked not unlike the only glimpse he had ever gotten of the Versailles.
Without conscious decision, almost by habit, his feet brought him into the trench. He began to walk down its long, narrow channel as if following the line of a tightrope, one shoulder brushing against stalks of gold and the other exposed to the bright, cold sun. The mud squelched under the heels of his boots, undulating in the manner of a living creature.
He walked without knowing time, the sun's position ever unchanging.
The mud became deeper and deeper the farther he went. It crawled up from his heels to his ankles, sucking at his feet with each step; occasionally it tripped him, and only by grasping at trunks of wheat could he right himself. By the time it occurred to him to wonder why walking had become so difficult, the mouth of the trench was far behind him and the mud was lapping at his shins.
He squinted towards the palace. Though still far away, it was closer now than it was before, and loomed grandly in the otherwise empty heath. If he wanted rest, perhaps he could find it there.
With great difficulty, he pried a single foot free from the mud. Just as he had gotten his foot onto the wasteland to his left, he heard the voice of a girl.
For a split second, Tommy paused.
A hand caught his sleeve.
He glanced over his shoulder.
From between the stalks emerged a woman, with eyes like the underside of a storm and wild, dark hair woven through with a golden crown of wheat. Still clutching his sleeve, she called, "Thomas."
Without replying, he turned away and began the struggle to lift his other foot. But as he was about to free it from the sludge and step fully onto the heathland, another, more urgent tug on his sleeve unbalanced him.
Tommy had to step back into the trench to stabilise himself. He turned to the woman again, frowning a little.
"Are you sure you want to do that?" she asked, tilting her head in the manner of a cat.
He stared at her. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Well, there's a mine right there," she said plainly. "That'd be a nasty way to wake up."
Following her gaze, he looked down as well.
Hidden in a scraggle of withered grass, right where he had been about to put down his foot, waited the barely-visible trigger of a landmine. It was the same sort the Germans had used to cover their retreat near the end of the war.
Tommy became still. Warily, he did a slow scan of the land around him and began to notice traces of buried landmines scattered everywhere he looked.
"Where were you trying to go?" the woman asked, dragging his eyes back to her.
He nodded his head towards the palace, the only structure in the entire wasteland. "Better to rest in a golden castle than go through this damned mud."
She looked at him strangely. "That's not gold, Tommy," she said, reasonably. "That's sand. And if you wanted to rest, why would you head through a minefield? You'd be a bloody, broken mess before you got there.
When Tommy turned back to the palace, he saw that she was right. The brilliant glow that he had thought to be the shine of gold was, on closer inspection, actually the glitter of sand under the sun. Just as he had this thought, the palace slowly began to crumple in on itself; first its wings, then its roof, then its body.
There was a pull at his arm. He ignored it to watch the palace break apart to reveal its dark innards, so transfixed that he almost took a step towards it. Soon, the fingers on his sleeve were replaced by an arm hooked around his, and the next, full-bodied tug finally tore Tommy's attention away from the sight of destruction.
Urged by the woman's expectant face, he once more began the difficult operation of separating his feet from the mud. It clung tighter to his boots, this time, unwilling to let him leave. He lost his balance several times, but the woman allowed him to brace himself on her shoulders and did not buckle even when he accidentally put more weight on her than she should have been able to bear.
Eventually, Tommy managed to extract himself from the trench and step onto the fertile, black soil of the field. Next to him stood the woman, her arm still curled around his.
"Come on," she said, smiling proudly. "I'll take you somewhere to rest."
Tommy allowed himself to be gently led through the golden forest. As they forged onwards, the towering height of the wheat began to shrink; first to his shoulders, then to his waist, then to his knees. It wasn't long before it shrank all the way down to his boots, and he was soon walking into a meadow carpeted with verdant grass and thick beds of flowers, vibrant with colour, scattered intermittently throughout. With a quick, amused glance at him, the woman threw herself back into one such bed.
Tommy found himself pulled down with her, sinking thoughtlessly into a pillow of tiny purple buds. He took in a deep breath of the crisp meadow air, his lungs filling with the smell of violets and herbs and the sweetness of fresh-plucked flowers. As if by magic, the weariness of his long trek in the mud began to melt away.
After a moment, the arm curled around his slipped away as the woman sat up. Tommy turned on his side, watching lethargically as she tilted her head back to enjoy the sun on her face. Her shawl fell around her in a fan of yellow silk, its embroidered flowers the same shade of purple as the real ones underneath.
He reached out to trace the fine lines of the stitches, his fingers following the meandering pattern closer and closer to her. When his hand found her wrist, his fingertips reached out to ghost lightly over the silhouette of her veins against her pale skin.
The woman turned to look over her shoulder and saw that Tommy was watching her. Grinning at him, she said, "Isn't this perfect? It's better than any bed of gold."
"Almost," he said, lazily. "Except one thing."
Her pink mouth opened a little in confusion. "What one thing?"
Tommy contemplated her for a moment. Then he reached out a little bit farther, wrapped his hand around her wrist, and tugged. He saw her expression change to surprise just before she fell sideways, right into his arms.
"It's alright." Tommy looked at her stunned little face, close enough that he could count her every lash, with feigned seriousness. "I've solved it myself."
A stunned pause.
Then her entire face exploded with a bright, fiery red.
"Thomas!" she exclaimed hotly, sounding like she couldn't decide if she was annoyed or embarrassed or flustered. "You!"
Tommy smirked at her — perhaps he was grinning, he could no longer tell — and snaked his arms around her waist, pressing her closer. Though she squirmed in a half-hearted attempt to escape, the deceptively loose circle of his arms remained unbudging, a steel bar keeping her bound to him.
He didn't kiss her. She would run if he kissed her. Tommy knew that like he knew he needed her here, in this moment. So he didn't kiss her mouth, though its petulant shape tempted him, and instead buried his face into her hair so he could press a kiss there, in secret.
And he breathed in the heady fragrance of flowers, and basked in the warmth of the sun, and held close the weight of the woman in his arms. And he closed his eyes and thought, Perfect.
Tommy opened his eyes.
The air was sweet with the scent of dried herbs and flowers. The pale early morning sunlight coming through the curtain cast a soft light over the room, warming their feet which had at some point escaped the sheets.
He was in an unfamiliar bed, larger and softer than his own. There was a woman there with him. She was curled up against him, her face turned into the darkness between his shoulder and his chest. His other arm was a loose circle around her waist; her dark hair trailed spiritedly over the back of his hand, the white pillow, and the silk that fanned out behind her.
He gently brushed the hair behind a small round ear and, seeing Naomie's sweetly sleeping face, knew that he was still dreaming. So he let his eyes fall shut again, his hand returning to the curve of Naomie's waist, and drifted back to sleep.
When Tommy woke again, it was well past mid-morning; the room was brightly lit, despite the curtains remaining drawn, and he could hear the faint din of carts and voices filtering in from the street.
Under the window sat Naomie, her hair bundled into a messy knot onto the crown of her head. The sun's warm glow through the curtains illuminated the smooth arc of her neck as she bent over her desk, where she had set up a workstation of jars, tins, and various other tools Tommy could not wholly catalogue. In front of her was a large, flat pan filled with loose powder, her hands a flurry of motion over it as she deftly moulded a clay-like substance over a series of long, thin sticks. Along the far side of the desk lay a long line of similarly coated sticks, which he now recognized as the sleep-incense that Arthur was using.
She'd clearly been up for a while now. Somehow, he had already known she'd be a morning person.
Tommy silently watched Naomie work for several long minutes, almost hypnotised by the brisk rhythm of her movements. What he could glimpse of her face revealed a tranquil absentness that spoke of bone-deep familiarity, like she'd done this very thing a thousand or ten thousand times before.
Eventually, the ache developing in his neck from keeping one position too long became unpleasant enough that Tommy had to straighten. The rustle of the sheets broke Naomie out of her reverie, and she slowly unfolded herself from the chair, her arms reaching up into a hard stretch.
"You're up, Thomas?" she called over her shoulder.
Lounging against the headboard, Tommy eyed the way her body pulled itself in a long, lithe line. "Mm."
"Well, good morning to you." Naomie turned towards him with a smile that showed both of her dimples, one of her canines just barely peeking out. Tommy found himself thinking that there was something utterly charming about that slightly crooked smile—open and easily given, as if his being here was the most natural thing in the world to her. "There's a change of clothes for you, there."
Tommy glanced at the pile of clothes neatly folded at the foot of the bed and was surprised to find everything very familiar. "Are those mine?"
"Yup," said she, busily clearing away the powders on the desk. "I saw your younger brother while I was out, earlier, and he helped me get them. I thought you'd probably prefer not to parade across the entirety of Small Heath in your nightclothes."
"You would be right," Tommy said, loping towards the corner of the room, where Naomie had set up a dressing area for herself. It was a small space next to the wardrobe, blocked from view of the large window by screens that she'd draped with her multicoloured shawls.
He put down the pile of clothes onto a little stool and riffled through it. Everything was there, even down the elbow garters.
"Finn helped you?" Tommy asked casually, fully knowing that the boy could barely even locate his own trousers without Polly's help.
"No, it was—" He noticed Naomie's voice pause oddly for a moment. "The… other one."
So it was John.
With all the efficiency of a former soldier, he got dressed and, when he judged himself presentable enough, emerged from behind the screens. Naomie had finished cleaning the desk, and was occupied with trying to undo her hair from its knot; having been tied round with a ribbon and then stuck through with a stick, her hair had gotten tangled into a mess she couldn't quite seem to figure out.
"Naomie."
She paused, turning towards him with an inquisitive little noise.
Tommy reached out to wrap his fingers lightly around her wrist.
"Let me," he said.
It was fastidious work, unhooking every individual curl so that Naomie would not feel pain. Her hair had managed to find a way to wind itself around both ribbon and stick; to release it from its entanglement meant that he would have to negotiate the process strand by strand.
But Tommy found it more than agreeable. The room was warm and gently lit, quiet without being stiflingly silent. Naomie's dark hair was pleasing to touch, soft with errant curls lightly tickling his fingertips. And, from so close, she smelled good—fresh and sweet, reminiscent of something from a dream he must have had, once.
Finally, the ribbon came free, allowing Tommy to wind it around his fingers. With it gone, most of Naomie's hair began to unfurl down her back.
"Is it done?" she asked, tilting her face towards him.
Tommy curled his fingers around the wooden stick that remained and pulled, catching her eye just as the rest of her hair tumbled down to frame her cheeks.
Lovely. "Yes," he said.
Unable to hold his gaze for long, Naomie glanced away, eyes darting to the wall, the desk, the window—anywhere but back at him. "Thank you, Thomas."
"No, Naomie," said Tommy, watching the way her lashes trembled with the movement of her eyes. He put his hand into his pocket, the hair ribbon still wrapped around his fingers. "Thank you."
And then, knowing that she would run if he kissed her here, Tommy stepped back.
"Well," he said, voice mild as milk. "I suppose lunch is on me, eh?"
"You came," said Tommy, incongruously relaxed. "Sit down. Have a drink. I've been wanting to talk to you."
He was crouched by the riverside, cigarette loose between his fingers. Around him were the elevating struts of a great iron bridge, green with rust; above him loomed its shadowed belly.
And at his head was the cold nozzle of a revolver, clutched in the hand of the man he once called his closest friend.
"You've been wanting to talk?" Freddie scoffed. "Funny. So have I."
Tommy tilted his head back to glance calmly at the man. "Then I guess our goals align. Sit. And you can put that thing away; I haven't got mine on me."
As cautious as if he were dealing with a particularly venomous snake, Freddie lowered himself until he and Tommy were almost level.
The gun remained raised.
"And I'm supposed to believe that?" asked Freddie, grinning sardonically.
Tommy pinched his cigarette between his lips, and, hyperaware of the gun still at his head, reached for the bottle of scotch whisky sitting by his side. He poured a couple fingers into each, setting one in front of Freddie with a clink.
"I hear you've just gotten married. And I haven't had the chance to give you or Ada, my congratulations." Tommy gestured towards the bottle of scotch now standing between them. "So I come bearing a gift. In hopes that it'll loosen your ears."
Freddie watched him warily, an incredulous twist to his mouth. "What are you getting at, Tommy?"
Tommy paused to take a last drag of his cigarette and then threw it out in the river. "Whether we like it or not, we're kin now. And I believe, for the sake of our shared interests, we need to talk."
"I wasn't aware we had shared interests," Freddie said, more mocking than curious.
"Ada."
Freddie stared at him for a long moment. Then, abruptly, he stored his revolver away and reached for a glass—the one nearer to Tommy, suspicious bastard that he was.
"I'll have that drink," he said. "Only because that's an awful lot for Tommy Shelby to say to a man he plans to shoot against a post later." His eyes flickered down to the label of the bottle, scanning it. "Chevas Regal, 1890. You can't get that from the pubs around here."
Tommy snorted. "If I got the usual slop you drink, you can be sure it isn't peace I'm looking for."
Seeing Freddie let out a sharp bark of laughter, Tommy picked up the other glass and raised it towards him. "A toast. May your marriage be longer and require far less shouting than any of the tunnels we ever dug."
"Aye, I can toast to that," said Freddie, also raising his glass.
Tommy brought the scotch to his mouth. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Freddie was not yet drinking, eyes trained on him.
Without hesitation, Tommy knocked back several fingers of the scotch like a shot and let it burn him on the way down. In a moment, Freddie followed.
"That's good stuff," said Freddie, studying the glass in his hand. He put it down, turning to look at Tommy with his brow cocked irreverently. "Hope it means what you have to say'll be better than what Polly came round for."
"And what did Polly come round for?" asked Tommy, also putting his glass down.
Freddie filled their cups again and then reached for something in his pocket. One after another, he threw a thick bundle of bills and a folded receipt for the Cunard office onto the cement.
Tommy glanced at the pile and, with a shake of his head, briskly put everything away. "Officer Moss came to see me last night. With a message from the new Inspector."
"Yeah?" asked Freddie, emptying his glass again. "So what grand message did he have for you?"
Tommy also took a sip of his scotch, then said, slowly, deliberately, "That if I don't turn you in, they'll take Ada in too." Casual as anything, he added, "Four years for sedition. Don't suppose I'd still have a nephew after that."
Freddie went very still. Tommy caught his eye and put down his cup with a pointed clink.
"How confident are you in your ratholes, Freddie? Can you tell me, gun to your head, that there's absolutely no chance I'll open my eyes one day to find that you've been shot down by the police? That our Ada and her baby has been carted away by those bastards because of your fucking revolution?"
Freddie stared at him, jaw working, clearly wanting to say so but not quite able to.
"Tell me this, then—do you actually love Ada?"
This seemed to have hit a nerve; Freddie suddenly leaned in, an intense light coming into his eyes. "You can challenge me, Tommy, you can even challenge my work with the union, but," his voice dropped, his next words almost a threat, "Never — never — challenge that."
Tommy looked steadily at him, unimpressed and unconvinced.
Freddie stared back for a long, strained moment; and then, perhaps seeing something unexpected in Tommy's face, he returned to his casual sprawl with another sarcastic bark of a laugh. "Can't fucking believe it. You really didn't notice a thing, all this time? I've been in love with Ada since I was 12 years old, Tommy. That's more than half my life that I've loved that girl. I would freeze hell over for her."
Tommy glanced away as well, fingers curling around the neck of the bottle. Regardless of whether or not he had known beforehand, he had to believe it now.
With an expert twist of his wrist, he swirled the scotch whisky in its bottle, watching the amber solution eddy and undulate in the bottle. It was good whisky, too; smoky and sweet, with a complex earthiness that could mask the taste of anything that might have been added to it.
"Alright," said Tommy, finally looking away from the bottle. "Prove it to me, then. Show me that I can trust you with my sister, and I'll show you that I can find something in this black heart of mine to sympathise with your cause."
Brows shooting up, Freddie stared at him incredulously. "You fucking me around, Tommy?"
"Right now, I couldn't even if I wanted to," Tommy said, with an ironic quirk of his mouth. Getting to his feet, he put one of his hands into his pocket and stretched the other out to Freddie.
"So—do we have a deal or not?"
.
.
.
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Notes—
sometimes it's hard talking about Naomie's hair because my hair isn't very curly and it's not the tangling sort so actually the whole time I was writing tommy detangling her hair I was like ? I couldn't even go into detail like I wanted to bc I didnt know the details lol
I was gonna write the the races for this chapter, but I realized I had to add a couple more scenes before that, and then that exploded into all these words, so you're getting the races next time (maybe)
the first two-thirds were done ages ago, but then I got stuck + life… I had to push myself to finish the last part of this chapter over the last week so I could give you guys something to enjoy before it hits a full half year since the last update. and I just couldn't stand to keep this from you for any longer! on tumblr I even told someone that it'd probably be out in the next week and that was months ago… anyway, i basically just threw my hands up with that last scene because i wanted to be done
thank you for your support until now~ keep sending me those comments, I love them so much! Also I don't know how some of you can possibly stand to reread this over and over when all you're reading is my peaky blinders happy-ending fantasy (ᵘﻌᵘ) now I'm thinking that I'll start adding some more subtlety for ppl who are rereading, so you have more things you can catch on the 2nd or 3rd read :)