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flysafepapi · 2 years

Text

siren song 4/?

masterlist

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Warnings: Mentions of death, fire.

Summary: He remembers the scent of her perfume, something that smelled strongly of rose, as she carefully closed the small window in the bedroom and crossed herself, whispering words under her breath that were too soft and quick for him to hear. His mother had turned and smiled at him, and even at that age he could see that she was trying to hide something behind it. Her voice had been shaky, whether with fear or anger he still doesn’t know, when she told him that he was going to be safe. The thought of asking what he was safe from hadn’t occurred to him at the time but he thinks he knows, now.

Tagging: @the-makingsofgreatness @zablife @lyarr24 (just let me know if you want to be added on or taken off)

(A flashback of sorts happens after the first ~~~)

The last thing he expects to see when he steps out of the office is Tobias standing outside, just out of reach from the steady drizzle of rain, waiting with an umbrella in one hand and a bottle in the other. For a second, Tommy debates just going back inside and closing the door, especially when Ada leaves the house at the same moment that Tobias steps towards him. A blind man would’ve been able to see the amused and borderline smug look she sends his way. By the slight curve of Tobias’ smile, he’s seen Ada as well.

“Evening, Mr Shelby. I wasn’t sure if I caught you before you went home for the night.”

“Shouldn’t you be at the Garrison by now?”

“Normally I would, but I thought we could talk more about this job you have for me.”

“Does this mean you’re going to take the offer?”

“Perhaps. That depends on you.”

There’s a long, tense moment where the two of them just stare at each other. Thankfully, there’s enough distance between them so that he doesn’t need to look up, unlike the last time. Tommy looks down at the bottle in the other man’s hand, studying the label, then back up at his face. The wine he’s holding is expensive, in the hundreds if the date stamped into the paper label is true, not something cheap he’s picked up on the way.

“What do you want?”

There are a million things Tobias could say to that question. He wants a lot of things: to see his father and brothers again just one last time, whole and alive and unharmed, to feel the warmth of the sun on his skin without the risk of death, to be able to relive the pleasure of eating his mother’s cooking again. He doesn’t give a voice to any of them.

“A drink with you would be a good start.”

The offices are dark, and he’s walked through the space a thousand times before, but it feels different with Tobias behind him, as if the shadows have grown darker than they were five minutes ago when Tommy left. It leaves him feeling slightly unsettled, even after he turns on enough lights to completely illuminate the entire room. The lightbulbs seem duller than they usually would be, and the light they give off is dim, but it’s more than enough to see by.

“Glasses?”

“In my office.”

“Lead the way.”

In the silence, he can practically hear the way Tommy’s heart speeds up slightly, but he’s not sure if it’s from the fact that the two of them are alone or from the fear that he can’t quite explain lingering on the edges of his mind. Maybe both. The sound makes him remember the night in the tunnels, after the supports had given in. Taking any blood hadn’t been in the plan, the entire reason he was there had been because they were. It hadn’t been an accident, that Tobias was the one that the older Arthur Shelby had owed money to. Feeding had been an impulsive decision, and one that could’ve backfired on him spectacularly, but fortunately it hadn’t. He can practically taste it with every pump of the man’s heart.

“-talk about?”

“Sorry?”

“What did you want to talk about?”

There’s a moment, just a second, where Tommy can see the way Tobias’ hands tighten around the bottle of obscenely expensive wine, and the movement draws his attention to the minute difference in texture there that he hadn’t noticed before. It wouldn’t have been noticeable if it wasn’t for the way the skin seemed to shine slightly in the light thrown by the lamps. Tobias follows his line of sight and grimaces for a second when he sees what Tommy’s looking at.

“I’ve tried everything I can to get rid of them. Nothing ever works.”

“What are they?”

“Reminders of the past. Some scars never fade, do they?”

Tommy turns away, changing the conversation away from the memories of the war into something that feels less like he’s walking precariously across a minefield, and Tobias doesn’t call him out on it even though he could. He pours them both a drink instead and raises his own glass in a toast.

“To all the people we lost.”

~~~

Almost as soon as he closes his eyes, securely in the space he’d created beneath the bed for himself though it’s not particularly comfortable, the memories come rushing back like they tended to do around this time of year. He doesn’t dream so much as he relives all the old memories, and though he could list a dozen downsides to eternal life, remembering everything with near perfect clarity has to be at the top of the list. It feels like he’s back there.

The room was small, far too small to comfortably fit them all, and the only noise in the dark were the soft sounds of crying from his brothers and the soothing noises coming from their father, trying to calm them down. At twenty, he’d been the oldest of six, all boys. Before her passing, she often joked that the lord had done her the favour of sparing her from the ordeal of making her daughter’s wedding dress. She hadn’t made it more than a few days past the birth of the twins and while he’d been sitting in the small room, Tobias had been thankful for it. His mother would never have to be subjected to this horror.

His youngest two brothers, the twins, had just celebrated their seventh birthdays. Though the payments he received for doing small jobs around the village had been few and hadn’t amounted to much, he’d been saving since their birthday the year before to get them that horse they’d been wanting for years. Just the week before, he’d given the money to the farmer on the farm next to theirs and arranged to have the animal delivered the morning of their birthday.

“How long are they going to keep us here, father?”

“I’m scared.”

“Shh. Let's not speak of it. Dry your eyes, Ferenc, Tamás, neither I nor your brother will let anything happen to you.”

He had no idea how he was supposed to do that when he wasn’t even sure where the men had taken Miklós, György, or Emeric. They’d been separated not long after the men had dragged them from their home, accused of all manner of foul things he knew none of them would ever have done.

The memory shifts, then, to the part he dreads the most. Even without these nights where it seemed like he was projected right back to the worst time of his considerably long life, he would remember what that night had been like. The smell of the freshly cut pine mixed with something thick and pungent that his frazzled mind hadn’t realised was the smell of tar.

“Please. We haven’t done anything wrong,” he pulled against the ropes binding his wrists behind his back, futilely, they’d been tied far too tight for the movement to make any difference. Even when the rough weave had rubbed his wrists raw and soaked through with blood, he had pleaded for their captors to stop this and let them go. “They’re just boys, they’re innocents!”

“None of you are innocents. Don’t lie to me.”

Later, killing the man that spits down at his feet now will be the first human life Tobias takes, but in the memories the cruel man just laughs at him and walks along the row, down towards his father.

“We deserve to know what our charges are. If this is what you call a trial, then it’s a poor one.”

His father had looked at him, warning him to keep quiet, but he had ignored it. He made eye contact with Emeric and saw the same bruises on his own face reflected back at him, proof that his headstrong brother hadn’t given their captors whatever it was that they wanted. Foolishly, he’d felt proud of that.

By the time the so-called charges had been read out, utterly ridiculous things that they either hadn’t done or things that had been taken out of context, a sizable crowd had grown. People Tobias had known all his life, people that he’d trusted. The joke he’d pulled on the preacher’s son had been harmless, just a few frogs tipped in through the boy’s open window, it was only supposed to startle him for a few moments. Alright he could’ve been nicer to the boy, that much is true, but he doesn’t see how any of that led to this.

“No! Please, I did it, I’ll do whatever you want! Let them go!”

“Don’t listen to him, the devil comes in all forms, if you let him tempt you for a second then he will own you for life. Do it.”

The pitch caught like a spark on dry grass, he remembers that the clearest, and the rope had held through his renewed struggles to get away, digging further into the soft skin of his wrists. The pain from the friction had been sharp and cutting, but hearing the screams of his brothers had been far worse. Some sort of flammable material had been tied around their legs, most likely to speed up the burning, and it did its job effectively. By the time Louise had arrived, he’d already listened as, one by one, his father and his brothers took their last breaths, each of them making sounds of pain until the last.

It’s at that time that Tobias always wakes, gasping in the small space, the thick smell of smoke and burning flesh almost enough to choke him. Every year, it played out the same way, forcing him to remember that it was his foolish actions that had gotten his family killed. Taking his revenge in blood from the ones that had done the accusing, and the ones that had lit the fires, had been satisfying at the time but it was never going to bring them back to him.

“I’m sorry. Please, forgive me.”

~~~

“Tommy!”

“What?”

Already there’s a headache starting in his temples, and Ada shouting up the stairs to him doesn’t do a thing to alleviate the throbbing pain. He’d slept a little more last night but not much more than usual, and he’s already exhausted and done by the day.

“Delivery for you!” Ada sounds amused, which is never a good sign. “You should probably get down here!”

With a sigh, Tommy closes the drawer beside the bed and stands up, already dressed though he hadn’t left his bedroom yet. A glance at his watch tells him it’s just past 8 in the morning.

The last thing he’s expecting to see when he gets down to the kitchen is a bouquet of flowers sitting on the table. Dark red roses and orchids, all held together by a ribbon of green and sitting in a clear crystal vase.

“I thought you said this was a delivery for me.”

“It is.”

“If this is a joke-”

“They were addressed to you, just like I told you. As if anyone could send me flowers without the three of you finding them and putting the fear into them. Plus, no one I know could afford anything like this. Look, there’s even a card for you.”

Ada rolls her eyes, something she's been doing more and more of lately, and waves a small card around in the air in front of his face. For a second she tightens her grip on it like she’s reluctant to let it go without reading what’s on it herself, but then the moment passes and she drops her hand with a sigh. The seal on the card breaks easily under his thumbnail and he backs up a step and opens it carefully.

“Well? What does it say? Who are they from?”

“Shouldn’t you be helping Polly?”

He leaves the room before she can answer and walks back up the stairs, leaving the flowers sitting where they were on the table, determined to ignore them completely. In his hand, the hard edges of the card dig into his fingers, and he glances back down at the surprisingly clear loops and swirls of the handwriting in black ink.

‘To the ones we found along the way.’

#peaky blinders #siren song #you can just follow that tag if you don't want to bother with my masterlist #okay so #this chapter was originally going to have bonnie in it but i wanted to spend some time establishing some things #the first part was pure indulgence on my part and i'm not apologising #how long do you think it'll take tommy to realise that that was 100% a date #because the man is pretty oblivious lmao he hasn't been picking up on any of the little hints that tobias has been throwing around #ada has though #ada knows exactly what's going on here #tobias' backstory is fleshed out a bit more #and boy if you think this part was sad just you wait #ive got plans for what happened to him both before and after his turning #it's gonna be so fun for me and not so much fun for you guys #i'm not apologising for that either #anyway yeah this is my humble offering #flirting through flowers #feat: tobias flirting through extravagant gifts #tommy shelby #ada shelby #tobias (oc)

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