Thomas Shelby (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bleak_midwinter) wrote2016-02-11 08:34 pm
bleak_midwinter) wrote2016-02-11 08:34 pm
Memories for the Be Mine event
Below CW: violence, war
You can hear your own breaths the loudest, somehow. You lie awake at night, up top, and think of ways to keep your breath quiet enough so that you won't be heard, so that one day you can go underground and be a ghost, come to wreck the enemy.
But you have not yet mastered that skill. Right now, your breath is loud, and your heart is louder, and yet you can somehow still hear the Krauts on the other side of that wall, whispering. Telling each other to shut up, probably, that they hear something.
Any second now, you tell yourself, any second now and it'll be hell- we'll all go up in smoke or we'll die quiet, anonymous deaths on French soil.
Your heart beats once, twice, and then it's pandemonium: they burst through shouting, shooting, fighting. Freddie is behind you but he pushes ahead, roaring, protective in a way you never thought any man would be over you. There's bayonets and bullets, and one digs its way into Freddie, the other into your shoulder, but you can't even really feel the pain through the sheer panic of it, of being deep underground and trapped, and trapped--
Devilment
Her slaps resound through the church, despite the cushioning effect of your suit. She's furious, hair springing free from underneath her veil, her eyes flashing with anger. You take it, because you know you deserve it-- but it's too late to change things, now.
"So that's why they sent the copper from Belfast," she hisses, and you just shrug, look away, and tell her maybe, maybe not.
"Thomas," she says, "you're a bookmaker, a robber, a fighting man, you're not a fool. You sell those guns to anyone who has use to 'em, you will hang!"
And the priest walks by, and you can't muster the decorum to pretend you're here to pray. The moment he's past, she leans back in, hisses: "Dump them somewhere the police can find them. Maybe if they know they haven't fallen into the wrong hands this might blow over."
And you shrug, and wryly twist your mouth to tell her what're the chances of that?
"Tell Charlie to dump them tonight."
Finally, something you can contradict with reason: "No. He won't move contraband under a full moon. Three days until it wanes."
It has to satisfy her, you think, but then again-- she's always seen through you. It's hard seeing her disappointment, but you have to steel yourself, because there's the plan.
She has one parting remark, before she leaves, and she almost never trots this one out so you know it's serious--
"Then you'll do the right thing? You have your mother's common sense, but your father's devilment. I see them fighting. Let your mother win."
Two-up CW: violence, racist language
The Lee boys have always been fucking ugly, with their rotten teeth and their threadbare suits, and the fuckers barely know how to speak English. They don't, anyway, trying to show you and your brothers how much better than you they are-- they're travelling, living the real life, not under the English yoke.
Most of these gypsy bastards didn't even serve, and are proud of it. And it's this kind of useless piece of crap that ignores Johnny Dogs' protest and looks you right in the eye and says: "Yeah, but his mother was a didicoy whore."
It's so satisfactory when people are so fucking predictable, when plans come fruition.
You don't hesitate, and your brothers don't either. You pull back the peak on your cap in a whip-fast, practiced movement, and cut him right down the length of his ugly face. The razor digs in deep, and he's clutching the wound like he didn't expect you to retaliate. You can feel your coat swing behind you as you knee him in the stomach; when you move on to the next man and crack his jaw with your boot.
John is laughing, already kicking the other Lee brother when he's down, cutting him a nice new smile; Arthur beating the other one to a pulp. Let them get it out of their systems, you think, and yourself as well-- it's been a good while since you got to fight like this, in tune with your family, and for a good cause to boot.
Do you dance?
The sweat is still cooling on your skin when she lies her head down on your shoulder. Her hair is soft, tickles your nose when you crane your head to kiss the top of her head, and you smile.
You have never, in your life, felt this happy and satisfied. You are perfectly at home, at ease in a way you don't recall even from before the war.
"I don't hear the shovels against the wall," you realize, out loud, in wonder, and your chest is bursting with the miracle of her. How she managed to come into your life- you don't deserve her, but you'll take it.
"What shovels?" But you can't answer that, so instead you ask:
"Will you help me?" You already know the answer, but for once you need confirmation, a certainty. So when she asks with what? you reply:
"With everything. The whole fucking thing. Fucking life-- business."
And she presses a kiss against your shoulder, and you sigh, and you think of a tomorrow where she will be there.
Barmaids who don't count
The weight of the glass in your hand is heavier than ever, and you can hear the echo of your own voice, still, ringing in the silence of the pub: to barmaids who don't count.
And then the shot comes. The bullet flies just past your head and into the chest of the smug Paddy fuck to your left, giving him just enough time to look surprised before his heart stops. You're not sure what happens after- the other IRA man jumps forward to attack you, and you can hear Grace come up behind you while you struggle. The gun- the bar-- he strikes Grace and you can feel your rage strike up higher, high enough to choke you until he starts doing it for you.
It's only five seconds, ten perhaps, that he has your coat pulled tight over your face. You can't breathe- it's dark, and you can't breathe, and you're going to die here on wood and sawdust while the woman you love (you love) is a few feet away from you, up for the same fate, and you struggle through the bile in your throat and the memories of the war and then you're up and you grab the nearest heavy object and you hit him, and you hit him, and you hit him--
You don't start breathing again until the man's face is an ugly, beaten-in mess, the spittoon in your hand dented and bloody.
Success
You know that you are high on your own impending success. But she looks lovely in the light of this day, this day in which so much will change for you and your family. Everything will be better after this, you tell yourself, as you follow her into the private room, laughter coming through the door.
Her voice is soft and hurt when she speaks, "Tommy, the truth is when you come back from the races, I won't be here."
Your heart sinks in your chest, you ask her what she's talking about, but before she can even reply you're taking her hands in both of yours. They're cold, so small in yours, and you want to wrap her up in your arms and never let her go again.
"Look," you tell her, low and insistent. "Grace, I know you weren't born to be with a man like me-- But I'm turning things around." You take a breath, duck your head to look her in the eye. "And when I get back here tonight I will have one of the biggest legal racetrack syndicates in the country. And I'm going to close down some of that other stuff. Maybe open a club, hey?" You smile, try to see if she is as well. She isn't.
"Like in London. And another thing: You have a contract of employment." You press your thumb to her chin, as if you can draw her out like that. You're desperate to keep her, just for another minute, to keep her with you.
"With a real limited company," you continue, voice tight. "You remember?"
"I remember everything, Tommy," she says, and it sounds like she's saying goodbye. I'll remember everything, Tommy, but this is it.
You beg her, in a last attempt to keep her: "I am going to make a success of this. I am going to make a success of it. I am."
She shakes her head, won't meet your eyes, and it's like she's forcing you to grieve for her without the words even being spoken. She says she knows, she knows, and you blurt out I'm not talking about marriage. And: "We know each other, we can talk, we're the same--"
And her eyes are wet and her voice is pinched and she isn't looking at you when she chokes out, "Tommy, I've done something terrible to you."
You can hear your own breaths the loudest, somehow. You lie awake at night, up top, and think of ways to keep your breath quiet enough so that you won't be heard, so that one day you can go underground and be a ghost, come to wreck the enemy.
But you have not yet mastered that skill. Right now, your breath is loud, and your heart is louder, and yet you can somehow still hear the Krauts on the other side of that wall, whispering. Telling each other to shut up, probably, that they hear something.
Any second now, you tell yourself, any second now and it'll be hell- we'll all go up in smoke or we'll die quiet, anonymous deaths on French soil.
Your heart beats once, twice, and then it's pandemonium: they burst through shouting, shooting, fighting. Freddie is behind you but he pushes ahead, roaring, protective in a way you never thought any man would be over you. There's bayonets and bullets, and one digs its way into Freddie, the other into your shoulder, but you can't even really feel the pain through the sheer panic of it, of being deep underground and trapped, and trapped--
Devilment
Her slaps resound through the church, despite the cushioning effect of your suit. She's furious, hair springing free from underneath her veil, her eyes flashing with anger. You take it, because you know you deserve it-- but it's too late to change things, now.
"So that's why they sent the copper from Belfast," she hisses, and you just shrug, look away, and tell her maybe, maybe not.
"Thomas," she says, "you're a bookmaker, a robber, a fighting man, you're not a fool. You sell those guns to anyone who has use to 'em, you will hang!"
And the priest walks by, and you can't muster the decorum to pretend you're here to pray. The moment he's past, she leans back in, hisses: "Dump them somewhere the police can find them. Maybe if they know they haven't fallen into the wrong hands this might blow over."
And you shrug, and wryly twist your mouth to tell her what're the chances of that?
"Tell Charlie to dump them tonight."
Finally, something you can contradict with reason: "No. He won't move contraband under a full moon. Three days until it wanes."
It has to satisfy her, you think, but then again-- she's always seen through you. It's hard seeing her disappointment, but you have to steel yourself, because there's the plan.
She has one parting remark, before she leaves, and she almost never trots this one out so you know it's serious--
"Then you'll do the right thing? You have your mother's common sense, but your father's devilment. I see them fighting. Let your mother win."
Two-up CW: violence, racist language
The Lee boys have always been fucking ugly, with their rotten teeth and their threadbare suits, and the fuckers barely know how to speak English. They don't, anyway, trying to show you and your brothers how much better than you they are-- they're travelling, living the real life, not under the English yoke.
Most of these gypsy bastards didn't even serve, and are proud of it. And it's this kind of useless piece of crap that ignores Johnny Dogs' protest and looks you right in the eye and says: "Yeah, but his mother was a didicoy whore."
It's so satisfactory when people are so fucking predictable, when plans come fruition.
You don't hesitate, and your brothers don't either. You pull back the peak on your cap in a whip-fast, practiced movement, and cut him right down the length of his ugly face. The razor digs in deep, and he's clutching the wound like he didn't expect you to retaliate. You can feel your coat swing behind you as you knee him in the stomach; when you move on to the next man and crack his jaw with your boot.
John is laughing, already kicking the other Lee brother when he's down, cutting him a nice new smile; Arthur beating the other one to a pulp. Let them get it out of their systems, you think, and yourself as well-- it's been a good while since you got to fight like this, in tune with your family, and for a good cause to boot.
Do you dance?
The sweat is still cooling on your skin when she lies her head down on your shoulder. Her hair is soft, tickles your nose when you crane your head to kiss the top of her head, and you smile.
You have never, in your life, felt this happy and satisfied. You are perfectly at home, at ease in a way you don't recall even from before the war.
"I don't hear the shovels against the wall," you realize, out loud, in wonder, and your chest is bursting with the miracle of her. How she managed to come into your life- you don't deserve her, but you'll take it.
"What shovels?" But you can't answer that, so instead you ask:
"Will you help me?" You already know the answer, but for once you need confirmation, a certainty. So when she asks with what? you reply:
"With everything. The whole fucking thing. Fucking life-- business."
And she presses a kiss against your shoulder, and you sigh, and you think of a tomorrow where she will be there.
Barmaids who don't count
The weight of the glass in your hand is heavier than ever, and you can hear the echo of your own voice, still, ringing in the silence of the pub: to barmaids who don't count.
And then the shot comes. The bullet flies just past your head and into the chest of the smug Paddy fuck to your left, giving him just enough time to look surprised before his heart stops. You're not sure what happens after- the other IRA man jumps forward to attack you, and you can hear Grace come up behind you while you struggle. The gun- the bar-- he strikes Grace and you can feel your rage strike up higher, high enough to choke you until he starts doing it for you.
It's only five seconds, ten perhaps, that he has your coat pulled tight over your face. You can't breathe- it's dark, and you can't breathe, and you're going to die here on wood and sawdust while the woman you love (you love) is a few feet away from you, up for the same fate, and you struggle through the bile in your throat and the memories of the war and then you're up and you grab the nearest heavy object and you hit him, and you hit him, and you hit him--
You don't start breathing again until the man's face is an ugly, beaten-in mess, the spittoon in your hand dented and bloody.
Success
You know that you are high on your own impending success. But she looks lovely in the light of this day, this day in which so much will change for you and your family. Everything will be better after this, you tell yourself, as you follow her into the private room, laughter coming through the door.
Her voice is soft and hurt when she speaks, "Tommy, the truth is when you come back from the races, I won't be here."
Your heart sinks in your chest, you ask her what she's talking about, but before she can even reply you're taking her hands in both of yours. They're cold, so small in yours, and you want to wrap her up in your arms and never let her go again.
"Look," you tell her, low and insistent. "Grace, I know you weren't born to be with a man like me-- But I'm turning things around." You take a breath, duck your head to look her in the eye. "And when I get back here tonight I will have one of the biggest legal racetrack syndicates in the country. And I'm going to close down some of that other stuff. Maybe open a club, hey?" You smile, try to see if she is as well. She isn't.
"Like in London. And another thing: You have a contract of employment." You press your thumb to her chin, as if you can draw her out like that. You're desperate to keep her, just for another minute, to keep her with you.
"With a real limited company," you continue, voice tight. "You remember?"
"I remember everything, Tommy," she says, and it sounds like she's saying goodbye. I'll remember everything, Tommy, but this is it.
You beg her, in a last attempt to keep her: "I am going to make a success of this. I am going to make a success of it. I am."
She shakes her head, won't meet your eyes, and it's like she's forcing you to grieve for her without the words even being spoken. She says she knows, she knows, and you blurt out I'm not talking about marriage. And: "We know each other, we can talk, we're the same--"
And her eyes are wet and her voice is pinched and she isn't looking at you when she chokes out, "Tommy, I've done something terrible to you."