Always Something Left to Love
after a self-imposed exile, Tommy Shelby decides it is time to return
cw: death of a child, death of family members, ghosts, grief, drinking, spoilers for Peaky Blinders: Immortal Man and artistic license to fit Between the Shadow and the Soul
not sure if it will be a full fic yet, for now its a one shot
companion fic to Kill the Centaur
The house lacks the warmth of the past.
Dame Eva Shelby had done a fine job erasing him from her kingdom in the six years he was gone. The colors were lighter, his paintings gone and the Wicked Witch of Warwickshire had made it her temple.
At the center of her collection of mystical women stood Eva Shelby, the beautiful witch who carried him up to heaven only for the poor devil she rescued to evict himself from Eden.
Gabriel’s death had been hard and when he killed Arthur, Tommy Shelby knew he had to leave before the curse he is takes anyone else. Eva did not take it well, just as she was ready to return to the world after entombing herself in their bedroom for months, he left her with the burden of their three young children and all they had built together.
“Did you finally get tired of living on your own?” his witch drinks wine made in her native Mexico wearing a black negligee that shows off her breasts in ways that reminds him why he merely moved to the abandoned dower house instead of staying away for good. She drinks more now, she had been sober for so long and now Tommy’s ruined that too.
Eva visited weekly with food that tastes like anger and pain and leaves in a huff because even their fucking is tainted by said anger and pain. Reminds him how they conceived the boy who died in his arms because the car meant to kill Tommy swerved and killed their nine-year-old boy. Perhaps that is why he cannot make himself return to his old life, Tommy Shelby fucked around with Nazis and they took their youngest son in revenge before they made him kill his own fucking brother. Martha Shelby’s ghost had never left, it had been only been pacified with the spirits of Arthur and John, who died right before Arthur from typhus while traveling with the Lees, but she wanted all her children to join her. Just him, Ada and Finn remained alive.
“A witch came, stole our son’s scarf and claimed she could wake the Devil pretending to be her sister; I want the woman to be even more disappointed than when I chose to fuck her sister instead of her the first time around.” He takes the wine glass from her hand drinking it all to bolster the spark that sent him crawling back to his wife. It’s good stuff, expensive and rare just like the woman who owns the fucking vineyard in the land she’s never going to see again.
The Witch scoffs, her dark eyes annoyed at the denial of her poison but the red smirk held the pride of a woman knowing she has no equal. The last time he tried to come back she made him beg on his knees and pushed him back with a high-heeled foot because she gets drunk on the power only she has over him. Eva made him monogamous, held his heart and balls so tightly they stopped belonging to him even if they are still physically attached to his body. “Should I have a plate set for you at breakfast or are you running from your children again like a coward?”
No wife takes abandonment well, Eva was red hot passion and while she may be as elegant as the black silks she wears, she is still the mad girl who had far too much trouble controlling her rage. He deserves it and he knows it.
“Are you still pretending you don’t love me anymore?” he asks as she moved her long toned legs from his seat before placing them on his lap like they used to.
There is never going to be an end for them, they burn for each other no matter the size of the flame and carnage between them. He loves her and she loves him until the universe collapses into itself. Still she makes a very convincing pantomime pretending its over.
It’s always over until she comes back with food, news and the need to be with him again every other day. Sometimes they don’t even make it to the bedroom, all his tables and chairs wobble as proof of how much she still wants and loves him. His book mentions her more than Jesus Christ is mentioned in the New Testament from the moment he first saw her. Chapters dedicated solely to her that he’s written and she’s read making them both fall back in love with each other all over again.
The food she makes always tastes of her feelings, gives you the same emotion and triggers memories that fit said feeling. She has not forgiven him for leaving, the food she made for him often tasted of that anger and resentment. The coffee she had made him last Sunday tasted of secret hopes, inside jokes and the memories of when they still lived in Watery Lane. Particularly one where he made a complete nuisance of himself when she was trying to cook them breakfast.
He had made the goal to return last winter when he left his prison and Gabriel’s ghost led him to the frozen pool where his children skated over the ice. Little Florence was ten years old now, she had still been nine that January. Nine on the cusp of ten just like her brother who haunted these lands and spoke to him and only him. Flora hadn’t listened to Charles and Diane about skating too far from them and fallen through the thin ice. Tommy had been the only one fast enough save her.
He took them to his home, his son scowling the entire way letting his venom strike and his eldest daughter afraid to enter a place so haunted by ghosts begging her to help them. Tommy had cared for his youngest, removed the freezing wet clothes and bundled her up as best as he could in his warmest clothes until Eva came. Held the crying girl for hours hating himself for leaving her when she was only four years old.
From then on Flora had come to see him each day. Braving the mile out of Arrow Park to go past the decrepit Abbey burned down by Henry VII’s men, past the graveyard for the tenants and the family plot where Gabriel’s grave is accompanied by Arthur’s and into the rundown dower house he wasn’t supposed to ever inhabit. She claimed her mother wasn’t home and needed help with some homework the first time and suddenly it became a habit.
It wasn’t Kaulo, or Ada or Duke that was making him return. It was the little girl and her mother who hadn’t given up on him. They waited until he was ready and even if he never will be, it was time to return whether he likes it or not.
“I don’t think I ever sold that lie to anyone.” The witch admits with the same brown eyes that grace their children looking at him deep inside his soul knowing there’s more than just missing his family that brings him here.
But that will come later.
Right now he wants to sit in silence in the dark with her and drink the rare wine they drank to celebrate his retirement six years ago.
"Have Frances set a plate for me tomorrow and everyday after, the master of the house is back for good."
