THOMAS ISN'T SURE WHAT EXACTLY HE had been expecting Ariadne to do. He's known her for the majority of his life, and he has watched her be stubborn as a bull for every single second. She's spent as much time resisting any semblance of the loss of her own authority over herself as Tommy has ( that is to say, a fucking exorbitant amount of time ). He usually finds it to be endearing at the best of times, a mild annoyance at worst. But now, here, he finds it to be completely and totally neutral.
He has no control over anything. Not really.
Part of him tries to protest at himself, to spur himself into action, but there is no point. Why should she take his orders, anyway? There's no time to explain, and if there was, it would be wasted.
He realizes that he's missing a glass on the table for her, and turns around to look at her once more after having paused for what seemed like far too long with his back to her. When he turns and looks at her the fear in his eyes has died entirely, instead replaced with such a cold pool of apathy that it's almost worse to witness than the terror had been. He doesn't say anything, doesn't sigh, doesn't protest, just gestures to the clean glasses lined up next to the sink behind the bar.
"Then hurry. Bring yourself a glass and sit next to me," he says.
He absently reaches to the firearm tucked in a holster beneath his shoulder like it's his security blanket. Technically, it is, though it doesn't offer much warmth. He remembers he's given it to Grace when he does not find its reassuring weight there, and cannot bring himself to react.
When Ari meets him at the table he takes a seat alongside her, and turns one final time to meet her eyes.
"Don't say a word. Let me speak for myself."
Thomas knows the futility in trying to control anyone else with nothing but words, least of all her, but he has to say it out loud to let it be known, otherwise he wouldn't be able to justify his hurt if she does decide to ignore him again. He can't explain to her that it's as much ( if not more ) about her own safety and wellbeing than his own, that his chilly exterior and harsh words to Grace had come from a place of deep fear borne from affection, that the last thing he wants in the world is for her to lose her career, reputation, and quality of life just to be reduced to a casualty of the Shelby narrative.
The unlocked double doors to the Garrison rattle open and Tommy drops Ariadne's gaze, hands balled into tense fists on his lap as two men enter the pub and give pause when they notice the woman sitting to Tommy's right. They look to one another and then chuckle lowly, sounding more like starving dogs than men.
Tommy clears his throat. "My partner," he says firmly, gesturing to Ari but not looking at her. He's afraid that if he takes his eyes off of the Irishmen for a single second that they might somehow vaporize and transpose themselves, leaving him even more powerless than he already is.
The two men seem to get the message, shrugging after another moment and then sauntering lazily over to join Tommy and his partner at the small round table.
Tommy sets the four empty glasses in front of the two visitors, Ari, and himself, pouring some whisky into three glasses and then water into the fourth, to make a point that he remembers their drink orders from their random visit weeks ago, in a desperate attempt to gain leverage of some kind.
The men stare at their drinks and don't touch them. Eventually the one on the right shakes his head with a mean smile and asks, "Do you have what we came for?"
Tommy reaches into his breast pocket and produces a folded piece of paper, holding it up for them to see. "Do you have the cash?"
The man on the left reaches into his own pocket and tosses a thick envelope of cash onto the table between them.
Tommy in turn tosses his map onto the table and doesn't move to pick up the money. "You're going to need a shovel," he says, an air of knowing sarcasm about him.
The two men look to each other and break into those wild grins once more, the man on the left producing a pistol from his pocket and pointing it at Tommy's head. "You thick fucking tinker," he says, cocking the weapon.
Tommy takes an imperceptible breath and reaches for his glass of whisky, raising it in the air in a toast. "To barmaids who don't count."
It's difficult to process what happens next, so unbelievably unlucky as it is. There is such a fury that Thomas has to feel bubble to the surface only for it to vanish instantly when he sees that the man on the left, who had been pointing a gun at his head, is now slumped over the table, and the man on the right is producing his own pistol to point at Ariadne. Grace floats somewhere behind him, also with a loaded gun, and Tommy is grateful that he does not have time to acknowledge his own foolishness, having put any amount of trust into anyone outside of himself.
In a knee-jerk reaction, almost, Thomas blindly grabs the barrel of the pistol and yanks it towards himself, then downwards, the movement so quick that the Irishman doesn't even reactively squeeze the trigger until the muzzle is pointed at the wooden floorboards. Tommy uses the recoil produced by the misfire to bring the butt of the gun and the man's fist into his own face, taking advantage of his disorientation to all but dive into him, bringing them both down onto the floor and sending the gun sliding far into the back corner of the pub and out of reach.
He has no idea how much time passes while he and the Irishman fight for the upper hand on the floor like dogs, both of them clearly ready and able to snuff out the other's life at the first chance they find; unfortunately for Thomas, the Irishman finds his chance first.
The crushing weight on his trachea, a bag over his head, acrid with the stench of gunpowder and sweat, send him instantly back to somewhere dark and damp, deep underground, where he'd had to slowly drain the life of a young Prussian boy with green eyes. It had taken so much longer than he'd anticipated, his arms aching with lactic acid, trembling with effort before his victim finally went limp. He'd watched the blood vessels in his eyes pop one by one, watched his tongue swell and droop, watched his skin darken to a sickly violet...
Tommy feels his own tongue, heavy in his mouth, and tries to fight the ring of blackness that slowly begins encroaching at the edges of his vision, thrashing as hard as he can with what little precious oxygen is left in his blood, wasting it.
Then suddenly the crushing weight is gone, along with the warmth of the man behind him, and all he can do for several seconds is cough and scramble to yank the bag from over his head to get his bearings, fighting for consciousness and trying to ignore the pounding in his head. Finally he wrenches the bag from over his head and gulps down air, looking around at wholly unfamiliar surroundings until his brain finally has sufficient oxygen once more.
Ariadne hits the ground hard.
The Irishman stomps down hard on her ribcage, her stomach, her shoulder, and then there is the sound of hollow metal against bone and his presence is gone from her altogether. The horrible sound continues like a drumbeat, getting wetter and more irregular as time passes, until finally Tommy can only hear his own panicked breathing and tosses the spittoon aside like it's burning his hands. It might as well have been melted to them seconds ago, for all his inability to control the horrible outburst of violence brought on by a deeply specific trigger and the consequences of his foolish trust in an incompetent ally.
Tommy doesn't let himself actually look at the unrecognizable mass of bone and flesh that used to be the Irishman's face, forcing himself back to his feet and swaying a moment before he is forced into action again, carefully picking Ariadne up and laying her onto a booth in the back, hastily removing his bloodied jacket to drape over her. He is grateful for the dark shadows, knowing that if he could see the state of her he might snap. Again.
"I'll be back," he whispers shakily. "Hold on."
