Chapter 37
Rosie hadn't moved from the sofa, but she had drawn her legs up to her and crossed her arms over them, her head laying on her knees, her face turning to him as he came through the door.
Tommy held out one of the mugs, which she took without saying anything and put down without drinking. He stood awkwardly holding his own, then likewise put it down, on the same table he had earlier thrown the copy of the manifesto. He picked up the picture of him, Arthur and John that he had managed to knock over with the bloody book, righting it back to its usual place. The thought came to him that they should get some new pictures taken, with Rosie and Lily in them, though he could well imagine the older sister would not care in the slightest for the idea of having her picture taken.
He turned around and shoved his hands in his pockets, meeting her eyes. He was nervous, though he didn't entirely understand why. He entirely thought she deserved a damn good spanking – and from her own attitude, he figured she thought she did too. But her reasons had been pure enough, if misguided and prioritised incorrectly. And he didn't really want to put her over his knee, not like this.
For something more minor? He quite fancied the idea of her wriggling across his knee and promising to be a good girl. Then, afterwards, he could take her on his knee and rub her bottom and kiss it all better once he knew she'd learned her lesson. And he could well remember the heat of her when he'd held her against him after the swats he'd given her when she'd been being a saucy brat with him.
But he hadn't envisioned her keeping something from him, something of this magnitude. And he needed it never to happen again. But he was also fairly sure it would never happen again. He could tell she was wracked with guilt over it and that she was genuinely sorry. So maybe he didn't need to spank her? But there was something between them now, a resentment on his part that meant he didn't quite know how to settle otherwise.
He didn't know what she saw in his own eyes, or whether she had overheard what he'd said to Ada, but after they'd looked at each other for a moment, she got to her feet and put her arms around him, reaching up to run her fingers over the back of his head, pulling him into her. He was shocked at first as she held him – he hadn't expected it. And yet it felt good to bury his face into the side of her curly head. Slowly, he removed his hands from his pockets and put them around her back, allowing himself to lean on her for a moment as Ada had leant on him.
"Sit down for a minute," she murmured, pressing her lips to the side of his head.
He figured if he was going to go through with it he'd be sitting anyway – and for more than a minute, so he did as she suggested. She moved with him and once he had sat on the couch she stood before him, cradling his head against her stomach. He rested it there, his hands going to her waist, then he let out a strange, guttural moan and slid his hands around her back and just hung on, like he might float off of the couch and out of the house and off of the whole damn earth if he didn't hold her. Sometimes, it had got like this. In the war, it had got like this – there were moments where it felt like he could leave if he wanted to, like he could float away and his body would stay and go through the motions of living, but he could leave – and no one would know. He had done it a few times, in the fighting. He had let his mind stay for that soldier's minute, and formulate a plan and then he had floated off and let his body move of its own accord, enacting what his mind had planned to, but his mind, he, was somewhere in the air, watching it happen. But he didn't want that to happen now. He didn't want to watch himself embrace her, he wanted to stay with her, to hold her, for her to hold him to her, to hold him to himself by doing so.
He wanted to feel it. To feel her. To feel his own mortality through hers.
It had used to be a blessing, the idea of floating out of his body and watching it all unfold, happening but not happening to him. And now it scared him. He didn't want to go anywhere. He wanted to stay here. To stay with her.
She was stroking his head, her fingers caressing the shorter strands of his hair, rubbing just behind his ears, running through the long strands on the top. He nestled into her and she let him, not pushing him to speak, or demanding any answers or thoughts from him. Just letting him breathe and hold her. He didn't want to lose her - ever.
They stayed like that for a while, she didn't move until he unclasped his hold on her and sat back. Then he stood up and pushed by her, not looking at her, torn. He went back to the table, reaching for the mug he had put down, desperate for something to do, something that would make him busy enough to excuse him from confronting her. She stayed in the spot in front of the sofa, her head bowed, her eyes still on the spot where he had been, not looking over at him.
He faced the fire and downed the water, feeling her presence but not looking at her. He couldn't go through with this.
"Go to bed," he told her, not turning around.
"What?"
Her voice was quiet, respectful, but her disbelief was evident.
He turned his head to look at her, keeping his body turned away and repeated, "Go to bed."
"Tommy," she said, her voice cracking a little - whether from a dry throat and it not being used whilst he'd been through with Ada or from emotion he couldn't tell. She was shaking her head, "Tommy no – you said – you said we had to settle this."
He nodded, "I know why you did it – and you won't do it again, will you?"
"No, I'll come to you with everything Tommy," she told him, biting her lip and wrapping her arms around herself.
"Good, so we'll consider it done then," he said, turning his gaze back to the wall.
"Tommy, no! It's not done – you know it and I know it!" she replied, her voice suddenly impassioned.
He felt her approach him and she forced herself into the space in front of him, between him and the table, making him - forcing him to - look at her.
"Tommy," she implored, placing a hand on his face, "Please. Don't send me away like this. Please. Make this right between us."
He lifted his hand to cover hers, looking into her eyes – full of worry and pain and sorrow. And his resentment dissolved, as easily as that. Before the war, resentment hadn't been something he held with most people. He supposed he'd been easier to know then. But she had come after the war, and had made him feel easy - or easier - to know. She had come after the war, when his heart pumped resentment for everything and everyone through his body the same way it pumped his blood. And yet, he could feel the resentment that had been there slipping away as if it were only surface deep, not imbued into him as he had taken it that it would always permanently be.
But the divide was still there. Because his resentment had gone. But her guilt still hadn't.
He was going to have to go through with this – and there would be no could or couldn't about it, it had to happen. She wanted it. She needed it.
And that was what he had promised, wasn't it?
"My end of the deal is that I'll provide food, lodgings, a family, whatever you need, for you and Lillian. Your end is that you go to school and continue to get smart – and that you do as your told."
Whatever she needed.
"Alright," he told her, moving his hands to hold her face and nodding, curtly, "Give me a minute."
He went through to the kitchen, ensuring the doors between it and the shop were shut, locking them for good measure and pulling the curtains over to give another muffler, shutting the kitchen and front room doors over behind him as he re-entered.
He went to where she stood, motionless - fear and determination mingled on her little face. He tugged at the tie of her robe and she didn't fight him as he slipped it off her shoulders, letting it pool on the floor at her feet, though he saw a hitch in her breathing. He ran his right hand down her arm, taking her hand in his.
"Do you trust me?" he asked, his voice even lower and more throaty than usual.
She made a sound that wasn't quite a word but nodded, her eyes looking to his, searching for something. She was trembling, so he squeezed her hand and didn't break her eye contact, stepping backwards slowly until he felt the sofa hit the back of his legs. He glanced down quickly to make sure he'd got the centre, then sat, his eyes back on hers, her hand still in his.
"Come on, over my knee," he told her, tugging gently on the hand he held.
She went willingly, though shakily, and he let go of the hand he was holding so she could reach it out and learn on it as she came down.
He wrapped his left arm under her waist to help balance her as she lay herself down, murmuring to her, "That's it, that's a good girl," feeling her stomach muscles relax slightly at his words.
Once she was across him she grabbed a cushion and buried her face into it, crossing her arms beneath it. He frowned but didn't tell her to put it down – if it helped her to hold it then so be it, though he'd rather he could hear her clearly.
He laid his right hand on her upturned backside and noted the flinch that ran through her entire body at the touch. He let his hand rest where it was, letting her get used to it and rubbed her back with the other hand, keeping his voice quiet and as gentle as he could in the circumstance.
"Alright my darling girl, you're over my knee to get a spanking. I accept that you and Ada didn't think my no communist rule was for her, but you told me yourself that you realised when we had that family meeting that you might not be right in thinking so, and you should have come to me then. That's what this is about – for not coming to me as soon as you should have, for prioritising trying to keep Ada out of trouble with me over keeping her safe, alright?"
She mumbled something into the cushion.
"I can't hear you darling."
She turned her face to the side and whispered, "I'm sorry."
"I know you are my love," he told her, still rubbing her back, "But that's why we're here – because you made a bad judgement and you're sorry for it and you're going to get punished. It's going to hurt right here," he patted her rear and was relieved that there was no flinch this time, "And then you're going to let it go out of your head – no more being sorry, no more guilt, just letting it go and you and me moving on, alright?"
"Yes sir," she murmured.
"Alright, let's get it done," he said, stilling the hand that was rubbing her back and taking a grip on her waist with it instead, patting her bottom a few times with the other then raising it and bringing it down with a stinging force.
She buried her face back into the pillow and didn't make a sound as he commenced with the spanking. The new pyjamas were still men's pyjamas, Rackham's didn't sell pyjamas, only nightdresses, for women, but they'd bought a slightly smaller size than her old pyjamas must have been as the fit was much snugger around the peak of her arse. He couldn't help but appreciate what an exquisite arse she had – deliciously round and beautifully bouncy under his hand. But the issue was, even a few minutes later, it was only his hand that was making it bounce. He was well aware that Ada wriggled theatrically, but even Finn, who did always try and take it with slightly more grace than their sister, wriggled a little. There was nothing coming from the redhead, she may as well have been stone, other than for the jiggle in her nether regions as he spanked them.
Her feet were still on the ground and he paused and reached down, wrapping his arm around her knees and bringing them up onto the couch. It wasn't a particularly big sofa and her feet were resting up on the arm, but she kept her knees bent where he had placed them. He got the feeling she would have stayed in any position he put her in, but he wasn't convinced the stillness – or the silence – was a good sign. In fact it reminded him all too vividly of the vision he had of her standing in the middle of the school yard taking that caning in silence.
"Are you comfortable enough with your knees up?" he asked, taking the opportunity to rub her bottom, to try and assess the heat coming from it.
She made some kind of response into the pillow.
"Rosie, sweetheart, this position is designed to offer me good access to your backside," he said, trying to stay gentle with her, "I can't see your face and when you mumble into that pillow I can't hear you, so I need you to communicate better with me here."
"I'm sorry," she said, once she moved her face.
"That's alright, I'm not angry with you, I just need to be able to hear you, I need you to use words because I can't see you, alright?" he said, rubbing her back again.
"Yes sir," she replied quietly.
"So, are you comfortable with your knees up? I don't want to hurt you anywhere other than your arse, where the price for naughty behaviour has been paid for thousands of years," he said, hoping she'd hear the slight smile in his voice as he reached out and stroked her unruly mop of hair, letting his hand linger on her cheek a little, running his thumb over her cheekbone, wishing she would look back at him rather than staring resolutely at the wall in front of her turned head.
"I'm alright Tommy," she answered, biting her lip.
"Good girl," he said, patting her head, then moving his hand back to her waist and holding her again as he began to smack slightly harder this time.
She didn't make any noise but there was a movement this time – she arched her back and stuck her arse out, as though she wanted to make it easier for him to land the smacks where he wanted them.
He increased the force further, but she still didn't move any great deal or give him a sound, her face pushed back into the pillow.
He was sure he must have landed his hand fifty more times, at least, before she gave a slight moan, muffled by the pillow – and he was relieved to think that was maybe a sign of the equivalent time for her as the moment when Ada's shouts turned from exaggerated to genuine – or when Finn went from trying to control his shifting to kicking and crying.
But it didn't seem to be, after the moan she went back to the silence.
He stopped what he was doing and laid his hand on her rear, feeling the heat coming through it. It was definitely hot, and he was sure it was red to look at. He thought about tugging the pyjamas down, but she was still so private about her baths and getting changed in her own room with the door shut that he thought the baring of her backside for a spanking might upset her more than the bloody spanking itself.
"Rosie darling," he said, and got a muffled grunt in response, "Darling, this is stinging my hand and I can feel plenty of heat coming through these pyjamas, so unless you've got insides made of something different to the rest of us it's got to be hurting a bit by now?"
"It's sore Tommy," she said, her voice a bit croaky.
"That's good, it's meant to be sore. It's meant to burn away all your misbehaviour," he said, quoting what his mother had said to him a few times, "But if it's sore why am I not hearing a peep from you, eh?"
She shrugged in response, finally glancing up over her shoulder to him, rather than into the dying fire.
"My love, this isn't your time to be brave, alright? It's just you and me. How many spankings did your mother give you growing up?"
"None," she replied
"None?" he repeated, stunned at the idea.
The answer he had been expecting was the one he'd give – loads. Too many to count. One a week at least.
He knew she'd never smacked, much less spanked, Lily – and he knew she hadn't been at all keen on the idea when he'd pronounced it; but, if anything, he figured that came from her mother beating her too harshly as a child and he'd thought she'd share that with him when the time was right.
He'd never met anyone who hadn't been on the receiving end of some parental smackings in their time. Or he hadn't until now. Even the best behaved of them got it, it was just an entirely normal part of life. He had seen Danny chased down the street by his father waving a belt at him after all, and none of them had thought anything of it, though they had all hoped Danny would be the first of them to succeed in outrunning an angry parent with an implement in their hand (he wasn't.) And it wasn't just Small Heath life, it was bloody rare to go to the fayre when it came to town and to leave it without witnessing at least one Gypsy child having their tail reddened. In fact, in his opinion, for all the looking down the people of Birmingham did on Gypsies and travellers, he was fairly convinced Gypsy children were raised more strictly than those who could trace their residencies back for years.
"Right," he said, gaining control of himself, "Well, a large part of you letting go of this is by crying it out, that's what a sore backside usually helps along. Like I said, the fire here," he prodded at her plump behind, presented so fully and beautifully up to him with her arched back, "Burns away all your wrongdoings that landed you over my lap in the first place. And you let it go when you cry because you cry out all your guilt so that when we're done there's no naughtiness left and no guilt in you and we go forward on a fresh slate, alright? Do you understand?"
"Yes sir," she said, biting her lip.
"Alright, good girl, give me that," he said, reaching up and grasping the pillow, sliding it away from her and throwing it onto the floor, "Now, I've shut all the doors, everyone is asleep anyway, no one is going to hear a thing, alright? So, you cry out all you like my love, okay?"
"Yes Tommy," she said, putting her head on her folded arms.
He wasn't entirely sure he believed her, but when he went back to bring his hand down on her, she did begin to let some little moans and grunts escape her.
"So, why are you getting this?" he asked her, hoping forcing her to converse might make sound escape more freely from her.
"Because I'm a stupid woman," she replied, practically lifting her hips off his lap, as though she wanted to meet his swats even more quickly at that admission.
"No," he stopped, and laid his hand down, taking the opportunity to fondle the, literally, hot arse in front of him, running his hand across in, down the tops of her thighs and back up, rubbing his thumb along the undercurve, frowning, "You are not stupid. You did something stupid. You are very clever – and if you weren't I wouldn't be so disappointed by you doing something as silly as you did, would I?"
"No," she answered, her voice small.
"Good girl. So, what are you?" he asked, returning to spanking her at a steady rhythm, watching the bounce and ripple of her backside.
"I don't know what you mean," she said, wriggling slightly over his lap.
"You're a very clever young woman," he told her, continuing his steady smacks, "You have a good head for numbers – and I know because I know you've been fixing Arthur's ledgers for him and Polly says they're always right now. And you read all those books. And you have a strategical mind, you were the one who figured out how to stop Arthur calling meetings on a Saturday without me and him arguing anymore after all. So, what are you?"
"I'm a very clever young woman," she repeated back to him, groaning and moving her hips side to side.
Finally! It seemed, if he made her talk, her body moved as it wanted to – probably because her mind was focussed elsewhere.
"Good girl, so why are you getting a spanking?"
"I'm getting a spanking – ouch – because I – aow – because I had bad judgement and I didn't come to you when – ouch – when I should have about – ouch – about how I was worried about Ada," she replied, squirming properly by the end of her sentence, her voice giving way to little gasps every so often.
"Good girl, that was a good answer," he told her, bringing his hand down over and over, keeping a steady rhythm, "So we're going to deal with that here and now aren't we? I'm putting a fire in your backside and you're going to cry it out and then we're all going to move on, aren't we? We're going to have a fresh slate and you're going to be my good girl again."
"Yes sir," she squealed.
"Good girl," he said, smacking away.
"Yes," she replied, not seemingly to realise it wasn't a question, her back arched and her backside wriggling away over his lap, "Yes I want to be your good girl, I want to be good Tommy, I'll be good."
He smiled, letting his hand leave her waist to pat the back of her head, which was buried into her folded arms, briefly before placing it back where it rested before, his right hand descending on her upturned bottom all the while.
"That's good darling, because I know you're my good girl. You're my clever girl, my darling girl, my favourite girl - you know that, don't you? And that is why I will put you over my knee and give you a good spanking any time you need one – because I care about you and you're very clever and you know when you've done wrong and this is how we're going to get rid of that guilt in your head, do you understand? Because I don't want you carrying that around with you, alright?"
"Yes Tommy – thank you – please – I'll be good," she garbled in response, her feet starting to beat on the arm of the sofa where they rested.
"Alright, nearly done now darling," he said, smacking away.
They were nearly done, he was sure of it. Her back was still arched, pushing her arse up at him, basically begging him for more, but her silence had gone out the window.
He hooked the arm at her waist around her hips and pulled up, and she went with him, bringing her knees in and arching her back so her behind was sticking right up and her sit spots were exposed nicely for him. He went side to side, landing quick, stinging smacks on them and she squealed and wriggled, drumming her feet into the sofa now, a chorus of "Tommy! Tommy! Tommy!" escaping frantically from her as she waved her backside in front of him.
She sounded like she was on the verge of releasing her tension and letting go – letting go and giving way to the cleansing tears that were needed, that was, though he could well imagine that this wasn't too far removed from how she would sound, repeating his name, before releasing tension in other ways too. And he'd have her in this position too, at some point, practically on all fours with that magnificent arse stuck up for him to do as he pleased with. But he pushed the thought down. This wasn't the time.
He hardened his voice and increased the speed and strength of the smacks, sternly ordering her, "Rosalie Jackson, you release all that tension and give me some good girl tears right now!"
He didn't know if it was the words, the tone he delivered them in, the increased strength of the smacks to her sit spots, or indeed just the timing, but the tension left her then and she sagged, giving way to the tears he knew she needed to cry.
"Alright, darling, alright," he murmured, going back to his softer voice, "That's my good girl, you've had your spanking so you cry it out now."
She didn't say anything but she rocked back slightly, as if she were going to try and kneel up, though her head stayed very much buried in her arms, but as her bottom touched the arm of the chair she squealed and shot back up.
"Alright, darling," he repeated, putting a hand under her stomach, "Up here to me, there's a good girl."
She was like a newborn foal, as if she didn't quite know how to move her limbs herself as he pulled her up and brought her face to his chest, pulling her legs apart so she had a knee on either side of him, placing one of his hands on the back of her head, the other rubbing her tender backside.
"That's my good girl, that's my darling girl," he murmured in her ear, and as if the words jolted her into realising how to move, she did, winding her arms and legs around him, clinging on even as her new position caused her to try out as her thoroughly reddened behind settled on his lap.
"That's alright darling, that's okay," he said, spreading his legs slightly so her backside could hang in the middle, his hand still rubbing the sting out of it as much as he could.
He kissed the side of her head multiple times, murmuring phrases of comfort and affection in the Romani tongue alongside his regular "That's my good girl," "That's my darling girl."
The spanking had gone on longer than any he could ever remember giving, or indeed getting, and the crying followed suit – hard won as it was, it gave for a good long while, until she was gasping for breath from the exertion of it, cried out of all tears completely. He wondered how many bouts of tears she had pushed down in her life - and how many of them spilled along with the tears he had been aiming to pull from her.
He shifted gently forward, keeping a hold of her with one hand and reaching for her discarded water with the other, having it ready to offer her when she settled herself enough to want it – which she eventually did. She shuffled back on his lap and met his eyes warily over the mug of water, as if she was unsure what he would think of her.
He reached out and ran both his thumbs under her puffy and swollen eyes, wiping away the remnants of her crying. As soon as she dropped the mug, he reached forward, a hand on either side of her face and kissed her forehead.
"You did really well, you were very brave to let go," he told her.
She shifted her eyes away from him, her face flushing, "What was that Tom?" she asked, not looking back to him.
He sat back slightly, surveying her as she bit her lip and played with her fingers.
"I think," he said, carefully, "That might have been you clearing some of the smoke and mud out of your head."
She met his eyes again and nodded, "I think so too."
He reached out and took her hands in his, rubbing his thumbs along the backs of hers, "I told you I'd give you everything you needed, so if you need your arse warmed every so often to clear it out, I'll do that – in addition to anything else I need to turn you over my knee for."
"Well, I'll think about it," she said ruefully, "But I don't think I'm in any hurry to repeat that."
He smiled and lifted her hands to his lips, kissing them, "Well, don't be saucy, mind your temper, do as you're told and don't lie to me or conceal things from me and you won't repeat it."
She nodded, then, with a slight attempt at a smile, taking her hands from his and waving them around, "You know I only agreed to go to school and do as I was told, I never agreed to the rest of it – I'm not sure you're allowed to go changing the terms of a deal once it's made."
He grinned and kissed her cheek, "Well it doesn't seem that it's beaten you into submission you little wench, I knew that smart-arse was still in there."
"Smarting arse more like it," she grumbled, rolling her eyes at him.
He shook his head and rolled his own eyes back at her, smirking, "Aye, a well deserved one - and I hope you'll learn from it."
"Well deserved indeed," she muttered sarcastically, but without much real bite.
"You alright though?" he asked, serious for a moment.
"Other than the obvious," she said, kneeling up and reaching back to rub at her rear, her chest directly at his eyes as she did so.
"Alright, let's go get your face washed so we can get to bed, it's nearly half two in the morning," he said, glancing up at the clock on the table - and slightly afraid he might give in to doing something he'd regret if she didn't get herself off to bed and kept rubbing her arse and thrusting her chest at him, even if she didn't realise she was doing it.
She stood up gingerly, her hands still rubbing at her backside, but headed out the back and disappeared through the door of the outhouse, reappearing with her face slightly less red. He headed out himself, though he was fairly sure after he got her to bed he'd be back out – the tears now having gone, he was starting to focus instead on the memory of her telling him she wanted to be a good girl as she arched her arse out for him to spank it for her.
She stood in the kitchen, having refilled her mug of water whilst he was out, her eyes watching him as he went through and locked the front door, then came back and opened the curtains and the locked shop doors.
"On you go up," he told her, "Unless you want me to sit with you until you go to sleep?"
She shook her head but didn't make any move towards the stairs either, downing the mug of water then set it on the table and bit her lip as she looked at him.
"Goodnight Thomas," she said, without any note of finality in her voice – no sign that she intended to depart.
"Goodnight Rosalie," he replied, staring at her and wondering what exactly was going on in her head.
"Thomas…" she began, then trailed off.
He sensed she was trying to work out how to word something, so he didn't interrupt her thought process, as desperate as he was to know what was in, or on, her mind. His heart thumped as she took her time.
"Tommy, are we alright? Really?" she asked eventually, biting her lip.
That was all? All that time and her question was whether they were truly alright? He didn't know how she could think otherwise, but he figured he'd best reassure her.
"Come here," he said, holding his arms out to her, folding her in to him, "Of course we are, my love. You and I will not be doing grudges, Christ knows I've got enough of that going on elsewhere to maintain. If we argue we'll have a resolution – whatever it is – and we'll both move on, alright?"
"Does that mean I get spanked every time we argue?" she asked, drawing back out of his hold unamused.
"Only if you're in the wrong," he said, grinning at her pout and yanking her back in.
"I don't ever want to go to bed with anything hanging over me, Tommy, not with you," she told him, suddenly serious, "I thought I'd die when you told me to go to bed earlier and I knew it wasn't right."
He kissed her head.
"I'm sorry. If I'm honest," he sighed, "I know you had good intentions underneath your deceit – and I damn well knew I thought you deserved a spanking but I didn't… Well it doesn't matter. I saw all that guilt in your eyes and I figured maybe we both needed to go through it, no matter what your intentions had been. But I'm sorry I didn't just commit to that from the start."
She nodded, laying her head into his chest, "Your shirt needs a clean, between the mess me and Ada have made of it."
He smiled and went to press a kiss to her cheek, but at that moment she unburied her face from his soiled shirt and turned to say something – and his lips ended up brushing hers, rather than the cheek he'd been aiming for.
And it turned out every cliché about bolts or jolts or lightening or sparks were cliched for a reason, because he felt one then, one that rippled from their joined mouths through his entire body, making his toes curl. It was like the earth was moving. Like when he'd been in the war and he'd had that minute to feel tethered to the earth and make his plans, then he'd leave and float off to watch it happen. This was like being so alive, so part of the world and everything in it, that he felt everything, like he could feel the heat of the fire as the last of it crackled in the grate, like he could feel the slow thrum of the water pipes that ran beneath their feet, like he could hear and feel the hand of the clock tick forward, clean and clear and definite.
He drew back, his mouth opening slightly as his eyes met her wide ones – but as soon as their eyes met they needed to be joined again and their mouths hungered to feat on one another's – but more determinedly, more deliberately this time. His hands went to the sides of her head, tugging her mouth to him, whilst she pressed her body against his and her hands circled around his back, pulling him to her as if she wanted their bodies to meld as their mouths were doing.
He ran his hands down to her tender arse and squeezed, eliciting a moan of something between pain and pleasure, delivered directly to his mouth from her throat and he kissed her even more deeply, slipping his hands under her swollen nether regions, lifting her up. She squirmed against him as her legs obediently wrapped around his waist and her hands went to his head as his caressed her back.
He carried her to the table and sat her on it, breaking back from her even as she gasped and wiggled delightfully at the sudden pressure on her well smacked arse. He wanted her, but he needed to tell her first.
"I need you to know," he told her, his eyes locked with hers, "I didn't ask you here for this. I asked you here with the best of intentions."
She bit her lip and seemed to draw her body backwards slightly.
"I want you," he told her, reassured her – and he kissed her again, pulling her back to him, closing the small distance she had put between them at his words.
When they broke apart he kept his hands on her face and continued, "Heaven fucking help me, I want you. And I've wanted you for long enough that I should have probably known it was asking for trouble to ask you to come here. Like my own personal circle of hell, watching you and that baby in my house like you'd always been here, always belonged here, and not being able to take you in my arms and do this. But I need you to know I didn't ask you for this. I wanted it, but if it had never happened and I felt I'd done you some good, let you have a little less worry in your life by providing for you – I'd have been happy with that. I brought you here because I know what it's like to have to do a job that shouldn't be yours to do, and to do it so young. I brought you here because I wanted to help, not for this. That's what I wanted to tell you tonight. That's why I wanted a dinner, because I didn't want – I didn't want this, not like this – not without explaining first."
She smiled and ran her hand over his cheek, "That's a bit disappointing Thomas," she told him.
"It is?" he asked, unsure what she meant – unsure of why.
She nodded, "I'm used to thinking quite highly of myself you see. Quite enjoy feeling I've got a smug moral high ground from time to time. And I've been going to church a lot recently to back it up," she paused and rolled her eyes at him, "And yet here's the notorious gangster Thomas Shelby telling me he asked me here for decent reasons, that he didn't ask me here for this. Whereas me? Thomas, this is exactly what I came here for."
And then she kissed him, her hands pulling his head to hers, like their lips couldn't be close enough, like she also had been wandering, floating above the world until now - like he was tethering and securing her as much as she was him.
As always, thank you so much for reading, following and reviewing - I very much appreciate it!
[Ehh, the below was going to be some answers to questions and just turned into me ranting about why Steven Knight is a terrible writer, but it's there for anyone who is interested!]
To answer a few questions that have come through from people following the story who don't know the fandom/general questions I can answer without spoiling things:
Rosie and Lily are my original characters.
Tbh in a lot of PB fanfiction that follows canon, especially if it starts earlier canon, you see people putting in original characters as Tommy's love interest. The canon love interest for Tommy is Grace the barmaid, but long story short they're like a couple of wet fish with one another and apart from the complete lack of chemistry, there are several other reasons why their personalities are a terrible match as characters. I'd undercut this by saying 'in my opinion' but quite frankly it's the opinion of around 99% of the fandom from what I can see.
The writer of PB has also come out and said basically he's been tempted to give Tommy his happy ending, but he thinks a happy relationship would make Tommy lose the qualities that make him 'extraordinary.' This basically translates to Tommy treating all other potential love interests later in the show awfully and you sort of don't want it to work with any of them because they all deserve better than the way he treats them, hence why I created completely new characters and slotted them in early enough in the canon that Tommy can have his happy ending. (Also, why in 2020 are we interpreting 'mentally unhinged' as 'extraordinary' – let's call it what it is and, let's be honest, if it was a story about a woman, or indeed anyone other than a cis white man, who was traumatised and couldn't be settled in a happy relationship then they wouldn't be getting called 'extraordinary.')
Honestly, as much as I want Tommy to pull his shit together and give Lizzie the happiness she deserves after he's fucked her around for FIVE SEASONS, ruining her marriage proposal right back in season 1 (though tbf, Esme did end up being probably my all-time fav character and I do love her and John together, let's just not focus on the fact she was basically sold off by her family to marry John because she was a bit 'wild' and needed a husband, they became the one singular example of a healthy relationship on this show) as well as her relationship with Angel because he can't stand the idea of her being with anyone else, even when he doesn't want to commit to her (grow the fuck up and grow a pair, pal, no one is here for this chat) I actually couldn't bring myself to write a story where they get together, even in an AU. The way Tommy 'evolves' as a character over this show and the way he treats women as it goes on just stabs me in the heart too much and basically I think Lizzie's happy ending would be if she'd gone through with the divorce like she planned and took his money and went somewhere to start a new life with Ruby. I'd *love* if Lizzie was the one who brings him down in the end but I don't see it happening.
I could rant for days about how shit the writing of women in this show has gotten as it's gone on - low key if you're not related to Tommy through blood or marriage, your purpose as a female in the show is to sleep with Tommy. Just one character, Steven Knight, that's all I want - one female character who serves a fucking purpose, isn't related to him and doesn't sleep with him, why is this hard?! I could honestly cope with accepting 'treats all women who actually have his or Arthur's best interests at heart like utter shit' as a character trait if it could be offset by just one well written female character who could sleep with Tommy and doesn't. Just one, Steven. Just one. Just please make me believe that you think women can be well rounded characters in their own right without it having to be in direct relation to their willingness to sleep with a mentally unhinged man who treats women like shit. Why did Jessie and Tommy sleep together? What was the need? So you could write in a line about Tommy Shelby stopping the revolution with his cock? Is that Tommy though, or is that your fantasy of yourself Steven? Have a good look in the mirror and come back to me, eh?
Total tangent - I do really hope that the 'man [Tommy] can't defeat' is a woman, in the next season, that would go a long way to making me happy. I'm also low key hoping it's Polly because, on rewatching before season 5 dropped on Netflix, there are a lot of instances where Polly says or does something that could be 'the final straw' before she can't forgive him. She also tells Freddie Thorne back in 1x03 when he asks if she doesn't believe he can handle Tommy, 'You can't. I'm having trouble these days and I'm twice the man you are.' I'm sure it won't be because I know they've been working as per seasons get commissioned and when he wrote S1, S6 wasn't a guaranteed thing, but between that and a few things in S3 ('If my son pulls the trigger, I will bring this whole organisation down around your ears,' from 3x05 for example) as well as, well, more or less the whole of S4 (Luca does say 'My mother used to say this about you, she'd say that Polly Gray – that child would never let go of a grievance') and S5, I'm very much hoping she's going to be the one whose black catted against him, but we shall see!
Anyway, thank you for listening to my rant on why none of the women canonically written in PB make for the right love interest at the right time – if anyone would like to rant about this with me my DMs are SO open.
I do appreciate this rant may seem somewhat strange from a writer who is basically writing spanking fiction with Tommy as the ultimate top disciplinarian, but as per the disclaimer at the very beginning – it's not something I'd condone in a non consensual environment in real life and this is very much a fantasy. (Also I'm writing out my fantasies on fanfiction with disclaimers, SK is writing his on mainstream TV and getting paid a lot of money for it with no disclaimers and personally I think that's more of a problem for the world than me writing out mine on here.)
Also realise I'm probably making it sound a bit like 'okay so why are we even writing about this person?' but early canon Tommy is redeemable – which is the Tommy I'm working with in this fiction – it's later it goes to utter shit. To clarify, I'd have no issue whatsoever with that because mental health needs to be much more prevalent than it is in its spectrum of representation in mainstream media, but:
1. I have massive issues with glamorising and condoning qualities brought out in him by his trauma by branding them 'extraordinary'
2. I fully believe there's an underlying issue in that I don't think his behaviour would be glamorised if he wasn't a cis gender, heterosexual, white man, and
3. Putting just one female character in the show who doesn't sleep with the lead would go a long way to making me believe that Steven Knight understands the issues with his own characters. Which I'm really not convinced he does.
Okay, moving on because I could go all day here…
Finn
I do want to use this as a way to rewrite Tommy and Finn's relationship a bit, but I do want Tommy to go to the effort of building the relationship with Finn.
Wrt cannon, that bit in the last chapter about: 'He could just see it if he didn't – in ten years' time Finn would hate him, he'd be running wild and when Tommy would question him he would glare at him and demand to know, "What am I Tom, huh? I'm the brother you never got round to," because he'd feel like Tommy had abandoned him. Too scared of doing the wrong thing that he hadn't done anything.' That line of Finn's is a direct quote from what Finn actually says to Tommy in 5x02 because Tommy & Finn's 'relationship' does fall apart over the show's span.
Now, imho, it's less that it falls apart and more just lazy writing. There are ways to justify it, Finn is a bit softer and is the only one of the brothers who didn't fight in the war (because of his age) so there's a potential distance there and this does cause some friction – but in the show he's very much the baby through seasons 1 – 3, then when another character dies at the beginning of S4 they go from consistently keeping him out of family meetings and only letting him act as look out to suddenly being like 'Yeah you're fully fledged in now, blind people and lose your virginity.'
I believe technically this comes down to the actor of the character who dies wanting to leave the show in S4, meaning that transition period of Finn's was never really written and the step up came unexpectedly in 'real life' for the writer as well as in the show. However, where this bothers me is that the Shelby's are all super gentle with children and they are big on family. That's the key that it comes down to in terms of why, for me, the show is/was so good – because it is these characters who do awful things and are gangsters and criminals, but you see consistently that the number one concern under everything is the family.
It's written in a way that's like Finn's supposed to flip a switch and be a grown up and he doesn't handle that well in S4, then in S5 he comes back drinking and fighting and 'likes the life,' - nothing like the character we've seen in earlier seasons who is shit at boxing, doesn't know if he'd have it in him to blind someone and feels sorry for the prostitute he looses his virginity to because she seems tired.
The personality switch between seasons is basically a reaction on his part to being abandoned by his family, but it just doesn't sit right at all with everything the show is built on that the entire family would actually abandon him. Polly in particular is very protective of Finn in the earlier seasons and even in 4x03 she asks Luca to spare Finn- even if she's lying from the outset to Luca she uses the opportunity to take the risk off Finn.
It's arguable if there was any risk to Finn of course because in 4x02 when Luca counts off the bullets he doesn't count one for Finn, though he tells Tommy he could kill him in the office at that moment but 'I want you to be the last - I want you to be alive after your entire family is dead cause my mother says that is what'll hurt you the most.' Is Luca not counting Finn as part of the family because he's the youngest or did Steven Knight literally just forget about Finn when he wrote in Luca counting bullets? Literally who knows?! Tommy and Luca agree 'No civilians, no children, no police.' Does Finn count as a child at this point? Who knows? My point here is basically it's like SK forgets Finn half the time anyway – in the same way he has John in charge of 4 young children with no mother in the beginning but also has John available at the drop of a hat for Tommy. And where does Karl go half the time? WHO KNOWS!
Basically, to get back to my point, the whole family is in theory very protective of Finn and each other – to the point Luca (a gangster from New York who has never met Tommy prior to S4) literally doesn't take the opportunity to easily kill Tommy because he knows hurting his family will make him suffer more – and yet Finn gets abandoned and has a personality switch because of it. It's just lazy writing. Tommy abandoning Finn as he sinks into worse MH issues? Yes, very believable because, as discussed, Steven wants to keep Tommy miserable so he can preserve those 'extraordinary' qualities of his. But literally the entire family? No.
To sum up, Steven Knight can't write women or children and should stop trying, but in this fanfiction I intend to offer my alternative vision of what Tommy Shelby & co would have become if SK had faced up to the age old question of 'who hurt you' and got some therapy to work through his misogyny off the page rather than on it. I will do this by trying to place Tommy into a happy family with a woman who is an actual good match for him, even if she does enjoy playing submissive to him behind closed doors and bending over his knee for their mutual pleasure, because feminists can be kinky too and I would like to prove that being in a healthy relationship does not necessarily mean anyone's 'extraordinary' qualities are automatically extinguished.
Thank you for listening to my TedTalk/annoyed ranting.