Fair Fight - (Peaky Blinders, M)

[Garnet]

Hi, folks. I am a few years late to Peaky Blinders and it's been a thousand years since I've written actual... fanfic? Shit. But someone introduced it to me recently and now I've been binging it wildly because hhh beautiful period clothes and cars. This was sort of inevitable, so I banged it out in a couple of hours, chuck it into the void, and wish you luck. I may continue it into a separate drabble for the Adult board because... because.
 

(Minor spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2. Also minor mentions of sex, if that bugs you.)

---

 

Since that first tryst -- planned and yet unplanned in all of the vulnerable, stupid ways that these things go -- he’s been making the drive out to the estate almost weekly. Ostensibly on business, ostensibly for updates on the horse whose progress reports she could easily send by post, or telegram. May isn’t stupid, not by a long shot, and she knows how many pies Tommy’s got his fingers in. Ducking out of Birmingham just to come stand in horse shit and talk shop is not all that he comes for.

And she feels a little bit silly, but not all that ashamed the way her heart has started to buoy out of numbness and stagnancy, whenever that sleek black touring car pulls down the drive. As if she was a young girl again, dancing with her now-late husband for the first time.

Ridiculous.

Still, if it fills a void for either of them, even a small one, she too is happy to get on with it, and to lead him dutifully back out to the stables.

This time, there’s little preamble. Not before the sex, but before they’re out watching Micky work the racehorse through her paces. Tommy has flirted disappointingly little at all, in fact, since striding through her front door that morning with his head ducked and shoulders squared.

They’re slouching a little now, as they stand at the fences with one of his feet cocked up on a rail, the deep set cast of his eyes distant and inscrutable. May has grown used to that, the way her gangster-on-loan has of staring down a puzzle with a sphinx-like coolness as he picks apart all the ways he wants to unmake it. Be that puzzle a person, a filly, or a gun pointed at his face, she suspects that it’s all the same expression.

It stopped being unnerving after the first time she fucked him, so May lets him have his brooding silence as she smokes a cigarette and watched the Quarter Arab lean down out of her trot.

“Have you picked a jockey, yet?”

Tommy wets his lips, but doesn’t offer the quiet, shuttering blink when he’s disengaging from the thoughts that click along in his own head.

“I’ve had a few names tucked away for a rainy day,” he responds slowly, still without looking at her, and swallows. He’s off, today, that much is obvious. Far away and untalkative. May wonders idly if it’s something that’s gone off-kilter with his increasingly more convoluted network of business ventures, or if she’s said something. Done something.

“Reliable fellows?”

Tommy offers her his first smile of the the day, although it’s as subtle as ever. Micky leads Grace’s Secret out on a cooldown, and Tommy finally turns his head just enough to flick her a glance.

“Certainly not.”

She smiles, too. “Good.”

Tommy straightens with a sniff, and reaches inside his coat. He withdraws a small, neatly folded paper bill, and hands it across. Typeset inside is the name and contact information of a one Nicholas Gill, purportedly out of London. Never heard of him.

“I know a lot of good riders too, Tommy,” she offers a token opinion, although his smile is blank as he looks back at her. “Men I’ve worked with before.”

“I’ve worked with him. He’ll be up the first Sunday of the month, to ride.”

Now May licks her lips, but shakes her head and finishes the cigarette. Talking Thomas Shelby out of something he’s set his mind to is more impossible than breaking the most headstrong mare. Horses are easier business than men with business. Especially when they were acting strange.

“Will he call?”

“Doubt it, doesn’t have a phone.”

A Romany rider for a Romany horse, then, she guesses. Well, so be it. She’s only being paid to train her, and whatever else she and Tommy get up to is on their own time.

Speaking of, she at last ventures to try and bridge this odd gap that’s been settled between them all morning. A hand lays to his upper arm, stroking slightly without any concern of how any maids or stable boys will gossip. As if they don’t know.

“I’ll put out my finest silverware. Now get out of your own head and come inside. You weren’t planning on driving back to Birmingham tonight?”

Tommy doesn’t shrug off her touch. He even seems to lean into it for a single, thoughtless moment before suddenly stiffening, and glancing down at her hand. The widow withdraws it uncertainly, a fix between her brows.

“I’d planned on it,” he dismisses, then clears his throat into a loose fist and gives another sniff. Then another. That pauses her own sharp line of thought, but just for a second. He’s used to city air. “I have things I need to get back to.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Her tone is more patience than ice. She’s not angry, or even insulted, but she is enduring. She can wait him out.

It doesn’t end up taking long, as the silence between them stretches to something uncomfortable. Tommy sniffs again, and ducks his head with a sigh. “May, I…”

“Has something come up?” She prompts, when he trails. Her fingers trail over the weather wood of the fenceposts, but she isn’t given to nervous picking. Her body is still open and angled towards him, even if he gaze is not. She doubts she needs to add the unspoken someone else?

She won’t be hurt.

Maybe a little.

But not too much.

Tommy blinks dazedly, as he picks his gaze back up. His throat drags on another clear of his throat, rendering the usual soft, whisky-rough sound of it deeper and a bit thicker. With emotion? She thinks surely not.

“No. I…” He pauses just long enough for May to pick up that is, there is something or someone else, but he compromises quickly enough that she can’t be sure how pressing it is. “No. I’ll stay for a drink, alright?”

“Alright.” She can compromise, too.

The gait between them is just a bit too off-putting though, as they make their way back towards the house. Tommy doesn’t walk with either his confident, fuck-the-world machismo, nor does he adopt the open, rolling gait when he’s being more intimate, flirtatious. Hell, he practically slouches. May puzzles the whole way inside.

“I won’t pry,” she says, as Tommy sinks down onto one of the divans, brushes his cap off, and roughs a hand slowly through his tousled forelock with the hat clutched lightly to one thigh. His head sinks into the propped-up hand, eyes closed. He hasn’t even removed his coat. “... your business is your business, but I have an open ear if.” If. “Whiskey?”

“Please,” he murmurs, half-behind his hand. “It’s not business. Business is booming. I’m just tired.”

That she could believe, although the open-ness of the admission surprises her a touch. Tommy isn’t often given to many basic human needs, that she’s observed. Just his vices. He flicks the cigarette case from a pocket now, sitting forward as she sets the two fingers of Irish before him and settles close enough to touch knees.

“Yes, you look it,” she agrees, a little softer now as she finally takes in his dark circles and the light, muffled pulse of a cough that he hides behind the meat of one thumb. A fine silver trail gutters out in short and irritated puffs, but it doesn’t put him off the smoke any. “All the more reason to stay. I can light a fire in the guest wing,” she says. She was born and bred into high society, as finely as any thoroughbred, and she knows how to navigate a man’s emotions. Still, she can’t tell which way he’s listing at the moment. Just to put the option out there, she brushes a hand over his thigh in a more silent invitation.

Or not?, it says. She can just light the fire in her bedroom, instead.

Tommy looks down at her hand for a moment dully, lips parted. Nevermind, he practically looks drunk, although she’s never seen him inebriated and he hasn’t even touched the whiskey.  Suddenly, he turns his head from her and presses the thumb of his smoking hand to the inside corner of one eye, as if warning off the sudden stab of a headache.

“... Tommy?”

The other hand he has started for the lapels of his coat, is if to reach for something inside. May stiffens at his abrupt inhale, teeth snarling into view, then jumps outright as Tommy sits forward into a violent, rushing sneeze.

“Huh’ihCHSSHHHhh!”

He leans far forward over his knees for it, one hand trapped inside his jacket but the other raised as a last, cursory cover. That arm doesn’t quite make it either, and the huge discharge of the expulsion glitters in the sunlight for some seconds before settling out.

“My god, Thomas,” May scolds through shaken humor as her heart settles. “You sound like a wild beast. Bless you.”

He catches her something that might be a weak glare for what might have been a friendly dig at his muddier blood -- a working stock joke he normally takes in good humor. As is, he hastily finishes rooting into one jacket pocket, nostrils still caught in a hesitating twitch. Finally, the plain white square of a handkerchief is uncovered. Tommy presses it in a one-handed book fold to his nose, just as his body lurches into another resounding report.

“--hhh’RRFFHH!”

May lets the ringing outburst have a moment of reverential silence. She’s never seen Tom sneeze, and hadn’t given it much thought before, but decides that the abrupt, unrestrained force of it suits him. A sound that can’t be wrangled and concealed behind well-fitted suits and nice pocket watches. Her tongue clicks softly.

“Bless you.”

He’s still bent forward over his own lap, the cloth smothering his features as he, too, seems to process everything. Then, with a terse, “Excuse me,” rises and walks briskly to the door. May starts to follow, then sits back down with bewildered amusement as Tommy pauses just outside, in the hall, where she can only see the clip of his shoulder but both the distance and the wall partition hides the urgent efforts to blow his nose. As if he can’t bear to do so in her company? What a strange study in contrasts, he is.

When he returns to her, sniffling softly and hiding sheepishness with the tense cast of his mouth and brow, May has already reached her conclusions. Her hands squeeze her own knees, as she looks imploringly up at him with the softly-lidded, made-up eyes of hers that can make her look like a painted doll when she wants to.

“Something in the air? I do have a new perfume,” she draws, slowly. He frowns.

“No.” No, of course not.

May pinches the very inside of her lower lip between her teeth, just neat and small enough that he won’t be able to see. “Are you ill, Mr. Shelby?” Is that what he’s so out of sorts about?

A tense muscle works in his jaw for a moment, looking down at the handkerchief as he feigns focus on carefully refolding it. “I’m a bit under the weather, yes.” It sounds like it almost kills him to admit it.

May finally rises with a genuine flicker of worry. “Something serious?” Illness can be, easily. Especially in the slums that Thomas Shelby likes to stalk through, and she has no doubt that all of his aforementioned vices may catch up with him some day. Still, he looks still mostly hale on his feet, apart from the worn-through edges of his composure.

He ducks stubbornly away from her hand’s venture towards his cheek, either to impart comfort or check for fever. Let him decide which her intent. “It’s not the consumption, don’t worry,” he says dryly, then wrests open the handkerchief with visible frustration, and uses it to scrub roughly at the underside of his nose. “But it is catching. Half the bloody family’s down with it, so.” He warns her off with his stare -- the one that works better when a slight sheen of water isn’t reducing the breath-stealing blue of his eyes to something more weak and washed out. “I wouldn’t.”

May would. She folds her arms beneath her breasts, but remains a respectful distance for now. Instead, she tilts her head so that a coil of dark hair bares the long, pale column of her throat. “I should be doubly glad I’m not in Birmingham, then. And were you the first victim, or the last brave soldier on the front?” She prompts, gently teasing. He’s so predictable in some ways, and not in others, and she’s not sure if it will touch a raw nerve.

Tommy gives her another look, but this one is softer, so she approaches him carefully from behind. He’s shorter than his brothers, nearly of a height with her, and it’s easy enough to lean in and press a kiss to one shoulder that may be felt through even layers of fabric. They’re rigid for a long moment, fighting her affection silently, then slowly relax.

“Which do you think?” He gravels softly, turning the sharp angle of his jaw just enough to flash one eye over the same shoulder, with a little more of its usual impact. May smiles.

“I think… I would have liked to see everyone’s expressions as soon as you started sneezing,” she answers enigmatically.

Tommy snorts, an act which he has to hastily dip back forwards into the handkerchief to mend. “Horror all around, I’m sure.”

May presses in closer, and snakes her arms around his waist, presses her brow almost to his nape. “I’m not fussed about catching it, if that’s your concern. And I am going to double down on insisting that you rest, now.” Whether it was her or not, she left up to his decision. She did use his temporary snag in thought and posture, however, to creep one of her encircling hands up to test the side of his neck. She frowned deeply at the heat radiating outwards, as her fingers brushed the soft, shorn texture of his hair. “Thomas, you’re burning up. You drove all the way here like this?”

“I’m fine,” he insists, but hazily. She worries again, for a second, before the sudden, broad jolt of his chest beneath her embrace suggests another coming sneeze. He fights to get out of her grasp with sludgy awareness. “May, I--...hhHH! Huh--CHSSHHHhh!”

In the end, he ends up half-stumbling out of her arms, wrenching awkwardly off to the side in a manner that again manages to escape his best attempts. His sneeze detonates violently. On the follow-up inhale, he manages to get his bearings, and only happens to bend nearly double with the force of it releasing into the handkerchief.

“--WHFFHH!”

May bites her lip, this time visibly. “May I also make my case on the fear of brain hemorrhage, if you keep that up? Bless you, Tommy.”

He recovers more slowly, this time, weakness bleeding out reluctantly through what it seems was only a very temporary facade. She does actually shudder a bit to think of all the Shelby households, like this.

“You may have something there,” he admits, finally but tiredly and in a pronouncedly more congested voice. A cough rumbles through him.

“Take a day off, please. Stay a while, the country air will do you some good.”

“Can’t afford a day off,” Tommy answers as he stumbles back to the divan, collapses down, and finally reaches out to swallow the whiskey in two quick halves.

“I’m sure Thomas Shelby can afford whatever he pleases, or so I’m told,” she bids, still standing but once more with her arms tucked to her ribs and her lips quirked.

“Stop appealing to my ego. You’re not subtle,” he growls, and sets the glass down heavily. She takes it away, rather than refilling. Instead she detours just to the hall, to pop her head out and bid one of the maids fix them some tea. If she verbally tells him he’s cut off, he’ll only balk further. Mule.
 

“Was I going for subtlety?” She clicks slowly back to him, slumped forward a bit now that he’s been caught out by his own symptoms. Trying to downplay them must have been some whole other misery, although she can tell that the vulnerability in her presence will continue to bother him for a while. She does her best to mitigate it with distraction, nudging his knees apart so that she can stand between them. “You haven’t stormed off in a huff, yet, so either it’s working or you really do feel poorly. Either way…”

Her fingertips descend to his tousled hair, and that seems to be the ticket. His eyes lid heavily, nearly weighed shut, and he tilts slowly forward until he’s pressed against her stomach. Her nails scratch indulgently over his scalp, and she doesn’t even mind if he leaks a bit on her dress.

“It’s better if you let me have my way,” she tells him fondly. Tommy groans against her, but does have the decency to turn his head slightly before he sniffles. His features tighten with the effort.

“Not a terribly fair fight, though, eh?” He swallows, and rests a hand at the small of her back in a way that stings a sudden surge of warmth up through her stomach and throat.

“Come on, then, Mr. Shelby. Let’s get you upstairs.”

[groundcontrol]

This was SO GOOD! I only watched the first episode before my Netflix free trial ran out,  but Thomas Shelby had my eye even then. The way you wrote him letting himself slip into the open little by little was so tantalyzingly good. I just love a stoic macho-guy shot down, and you did this oh so well. You also write very well; even without the sneezing I was drawn into your descriptions and I had a very vivid mental picture. Nicely done1

[AngelEyes]

This is wonderful. Your writing as always is amazing. You set the tone so vividly. The setting and the characters roll together seamlessly. Love it!

[March Hare]

On 7/3/2018 at 11:02 PM, Garblin said:

“My god, Thomas,” May scolds through shaken humor as her heart settles. “You sound like a wild beast. Bless you.”

YES OMG YES THIS. PERFECT.

On 7/3/2018 at 11:02 PM, Garblin said:

A tense muscle works in his jaw for a moment, looking down at the handkerchief as he feigns focus on carefully refolding it. “I’m a bit under the weather, yes.” It sounds like it almost kills him to admit it.

Because OF COURSE it would. Argh, it's too precious.

You and your wild-beast men succumbing with such CHAGRIN to that least dignified and most delightful of afflictions... AHH.

 

 

[Guest]

God, this was amazing. I've always loved Peaky Blinders and I've often idly considered writing fanfic of Tommy, but this was a hundred times better than anything I could produce. The reluctant vulnerability, the symptoms, the dialogue, it's all just great. And I also really like May's inner voice, how careful and self-aware she is. Thank you!

[kushamisukii]

Yes yes yes. Tommmmyyyy❤️ so good. Cant get enough peaky blinders fics. I love the idea of Tommy having really nasty colds ugh

[sneeze(:]

Okay can I just just say this is one of the hottest stories ever. I’ve read it so many times. I love that you used May instead of any other of his love interests because… idk how to explain it but since they are more casual… him showing vulnerability around her is hotter? I don’t really know if that makes sense. Also the spellings are hot as hell and Tommy as hell. Anyways this inspired me to write a fic of sickly Tommy on tumblr. 💖 

[RedVelvetHeart]

Just started watching Peaky Blinders, was hoping there'd be some stories....this was wonderful! I like their interaction, the way she teases him...I love caretaking that's not too syrupy! Really nice. 

[mystic-chibi]

About two seasons in to Peaky Blinders and was hoping there were stories. So happy to have found this one.  Thomas and May are very believable. 

[AntheaHolmes]

Oh this is gorgeous. Sneezy Tommy is beautiful! Would love a second part or some allergy sneezes as well, if it's going to be continued.