Actually STPD. Can have problems expressing myself because of that. A bit shy. Simple OC's enjoyer. Adult content warning. DNI: minors, fans of gr*ce burgess. I also think the immortal man was suicide-romantising utter shit that should never have existed, and original ending plans were better.
Warnings: SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE!! Violence. Mental Illness. Smut. Big Age Gap (Everyone are adults). Angst. Albeism. Alcohol/Smoking/Drug Abuse. Suicidal Characters. Suicide Attempts Reference. Grey Morality. Crime and Criminals. My terrible cringe knowledge. Swearing. To be added.
Summary: After years in a coma, Thomas Shelby awakens to find himself still alive, far from home and under the control of strange people who saved him from certain death. How and why? Good questions. If he has to live, why not find out?
Soundtrack: The Dark Motivation - Ashes of a gentleman.
Tommy Shelby is a deeply complicated character. How did you want his story to end?
I always imagine that before Episode 1 of Season 1, he put a gun to his head and decided, āWell, Iām not going to kill myself, Iām just going to do whatever I want.ā Thereās a great Francis Bacon quote about how, since life is so meaningless, we might as well be extraordinary. Tommy doesnāt think thereās a point, he doesnāt think thereās a goal, he doesnāt think thereās a destination, he just does these things.
Warnings: SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE!! Violence. Mental Illness. Smut. Big Age Gap (Everyone are adults). Angst. Albeism. Alcohol/Smoking/Drug Abuse. Suicidal Characters. Suicide Attempts Reference. Grey Morality. Crime and Criminals. My terrible cringe knowledge. Swearing.
Summary: After years in a coma, Thomas Shelby awakens to find himself still alive, far from home and under the control of strange people who saved him from certain death. How and why? Good questions. If he has to live, why not find out?
I had to break new chapter in two.
My lord and savior: @boggubozakatochnihmashinok (Thank you for helping me with this all!!)
Snowdrifts towered around the group like walls as they painstakingly made their way along the snow-covered path back to the āLame Horse.ā
The walls of snow rose higher than a man, while the narrow white track beneath their feet had long since buried the streets beneath it.
Walter Maugham brought up the rear.
Right behind Thomas and Caroline.
Tommy could feel the muscle standing out in his taut jaw, which he could not seem to relax.
Maugham had no eyes, yet Tommy could almost feel them crawling over his back like a swarm of biting ants, while the blind manās ears caught every heavy breath Tommy quietly released into his scarf.
Rufus and Tilly walked ahead without the slightest concern for the cripple trailing behind. Not once did either of them look back to see whether he was keeping up.
Caroline kept pace with Tommy.
The second back between Maugham and the road ahead.
This time, everyone was silent. Yet from the corner of his eye, Tommy noticed Caroline growing restless, as though she wanted to say something.
Apparently, the silence was holding her back. Perhaps she did not want everyone to hear?..
āWeāll take the bridge, aye?ā Tilly called out suddenly. As before, he was leading the way.
āThe bridge?ā Rufus echoed.
Caroline seized the opening.
āAny trouble to expect?ā she asked, her false voice losing a single note of its masculine roughness.
āDefinitely,ā Thomas answered at once.
He did not want to explain anything with Maugham behind them. Not even in a whisper.
Especially not in a whisper.
But Caroline raised her eyebrows meaningfully, puffed out her cheeks and let out a nervous breath, leaving the conversation at that. The exaggerated reaction told him she understood perfectly well the full extent of the shit that was coming their way, even without the details.
Still, Tommy was certain she would return to the subject.
Meanwhile, Tilly explained to Rufus that there was less snow on the bridge and that Mr. Maugham would have an easier time reaching their pub if he avoided a fall or two ā while they, his escorts, would be spared the additional trouble of hauling him back up should he take one.
Day opened his mouth to ask Maugham himself what he thought of the idea, but the man answered before he could.
āTake the bridge. Donāt care.ā
The exchange between the two men far ahead carried clearly enough for him to hear.
Thomas clenched his jaw again, barely managing to ease it.
Silence descended once more, and Tommy tried to fill it with strained attempts to remember anything at all about Walter Maugham.
He did not remember him.
Not his face. Not his voice. Not the moment he had ordered him blinded.
If, of course, he had not done it himself.
Maugham had recognized his voice immediately.
How many years had passed since Tommy had taken up the blade? Or since he had given the order to use it?..
Christ, the years had blurred into one endless, freezing winter. The book. The losses. The loneliness. The ghosts. Despair giving way to apathy, then back again. The long-awaited death that never came. The redemption that had meant nothing.
John had been right.
He was running in circles. He was neck-deep in crime again.
And now he was completely alone.
Long ago, when the war had only just ended, another nightmare had driven him to press a pistol against his temple. He had been no more than the briefest movement of a finger away from pulling the trigger.
But his mind, forcing its way through every taut muscle in his body, had arrived at one final decision:
Why not see what happened next?
If life was no longer something he needed, then he could do anything, so long as he was no longer afraid to lose it.
Had he known that it would bring him here, to this very moment, he would have told his own mind to go fuck itself.
Yet thinking it all through finally loosened something inside him again, and the silent shadow of Maugham ceased to trouble him with its uncertainty.
They stepped onto the bridge.
There was a little more room here.
The canal below was frozen over, though the ice did not look thick enough to trust, judging by its colour.
They all looked down through the thin railing, assessing it.
It was a long way down.
Maugham seemed to sense it with his sixth sense. Through the wind or through his feet, Tommy could not tell, but he noticeably slowed, suddenly wary, as though he feared that at any moment he might stumble and go tumbling over the edge despite the railing.
āHow much time has passed?ā he rasped, irritation and nervousness colouring his voice. āMr. Ditcher will be tearing his hair out.ā
Tilly, who had suggested taking this route, seemed to quicken his pace at that.
Caroline grunted and burrowed deeper into her coat. After rummaging around for a moment, she pulled out the same faded old pocket watch Tommy had seen before.
But as she struggled to turn it over in her thick glove, her foot came down awkwardly on the slick ice.
She slipped at once, her hand instinctively shooting out for the railing.
The watch went flying.
Down into the whiteness of the frozen, snow-covered water.
āFUCK!ā
The cry Caroline let out could have given her away completely. Tommy did not know how she managed not to lose herself in that moment, because the shock and horror written across her face were utterly genuine.
The men flinched in surprise. Maugham froze like a statue.
Carolineās coat gathered around her shoulders as they drew sharply upward, the way they did when a person was overwhelmed by stress and fear.
She froze too, for a moment, her hands trembling.
Then she suddenly gripped the railing with both hands and tried to climb over it.
That snapped Rufus into action.
āWhere the fuck are ye going?!ā he roared, lunging forward and catching her by the scruff of her coat.
She collapsed into his arms and immediately began fighting him.
āLet go, you bastard!ā
Tommy reacted then.
He approached and carefully took her face between his hands. She immediately seized his wrists, trying to pull them away, but Thomas held firm.
āStop it, ye fucking mad man!ā Day continued to roar. Tommy ignored him.
āJim, look at me.ā Tommyās voice was loud, but steady. Not a shout ā merely an attempt to cut through Carolineās panic and reach whatever part of her was still listening. āHey.ā
She struggled weakly in their hands for another moment before finally going limp, exhausted and defeated.
Tommy kept trying to catch her eyes with his own.
āIf you jump off the bridge, youāll kill yourself. Or youāll fall through the ice,ā he explained matter-of-factly, trying to appeal to the logical part of her nature, the part that usually prevailed. āYou wonāt find the watch.ā
āBuy yerself another one, what the fuckāre you carrying on for?!ā Rufusās voice dropped by barely a jot.
Tommy gave Day a cold look that silenced him immediately. His eyes returned to Caroline while Rufus stared at him, stunned, trying to understand how Tommy had managed to quiet him with nothing but an unspoken warning.
āMaybeā¦ā Smarty cleared her throat, barely keeping her masculine voice under control.
She carefully freed herself and approached the railing, pulled off her obstructing, fogged glasses, and began frantically searching the emptiness below.
āMaybe we could climb down?..ā she suggested weakly.
āNo,ā Maugham answered at once.
Tommy stepped closer to the girl and leaned slightly toward her, making sure she would not be distracted by the others and would listen only to him.
āYou wonāt find it down there. Even if it hasnāt broken,ā he explained patiently. āLook. Thereās nothing but snow.ā
Caroline clenched her teeth.
āFuckā¦ā she whimpered, her strangled voice slipping by the tiniest note into her real, feminine one.
Tilly and Walter had remained silent throughout. One nervously shifted his eyes around, apparently at a loss for what to say; the other, having spoken only once ā solely to extinguish the last of Carolineās hope ā stood and listened without a trace of emotion on his face.
āCome on.ā Thomas squeezed the girlās shoulder.
She abruptly pulled away, tore herself from the railing and, overtaking everyone at once, strode ahead as though the ground were burning beneath her feet.
I no longer go to the comments under videos or screenshots with Tommy x May, Tommy x Lizzie, Tommy x whoever, because I know that there is another Gross Burgess stan there shitting her out in the comments, as if trying to convince themselves that she is not the most cardboard character in the series, and as if they donāt have their own space to glaze her ā they just have to barge into someone elseās.
Hey guys, does anyone have a transcript of Tommy's manuscript/book from the movie? I remember someone posting quotes from his notebook on X, but I can't find them now.
Hereās my drawing for the art trade with @loony-lupus! Itās my oc Anya, and their oc Caroline, having tea togetherš„° I like to think they are talking about their versions of Thomas and laughing about their similaritiesš
I had a lot of fun with this drawing, I love Carolineās design, and I hope captured her personality well. Anyway hope everyone likes it!ā¤ļø
OH MY GOD, they're gorgeous!! They're simply perfect, I adore them! You captured Caroline perfectly, from her pose to her expression, everything!
And the idea was brilliant. I could just picture something like this in their conversation: "And then this gangster, the terror of Birmingham, stern and dangerous, says: 'I am a horse'" xD
