✔️ | 𝐛𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐛𝐲 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞; peaky blinders

･ ｡ﾟ°• ♔ •°───𝒙𝒙𝒗𝒊𝒊𝒊. 𝒔𝒘𝒆𝒆𝒕 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔

soundtrack: sptfy.com/bbf28

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟐𝟖
𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬
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"Be kind and tenderhearted to one another." —Ephesians 4:32

It took a long time for either to move from the caravan. Trixie knew it wasn't wise to idle—Johnny Dogs and the other Lees would probably start to worry and try to find them, but the sun had begun to set around them and glorious pink light was streaming in from the gaps between the canvas walls. Tommy looked so young and happy, smiling lazily around his cigarette.

For once, she didn't want to say something to upset him. What seemed to keep him at peace? Everything he seemed to like involved danger, or risk, or suffering—horses, money, power. He'd been clear about his feelings on the house, she supposed. "It'll be strange to see the sunset," Trixie remarked. "When I live out here."

At her side, he seemed to stiffen. "Right."

"You can't see it in Birmingham," she explained. "It's always just gray and then black."

Tommy was quiet for a long moment, so still she twisted around to check he hadn't fallen asleep mid-conversation with a burning cigarette in his hand. "What else will you do? In your house."

Trixie shrugged. "Cook a lot. Read. Maybe I'll keep a garden."

He grunted an acknowledgement.

"Get that cat I mentioned."

"I see."

"What will you do when I'm gone?" she asked, suddenly all-too-aware of how she was holding her face, trying so hard not to let the inevitable sting show.

He said nothing for a long stretch of minutes, before replying, "Find a new accountant."

Trixie shifted onto her back so she could avoid his eyes. A thousand pathetic, horrifying things came to mind. Care about me, she willed. Say you'll miss me. Ask me to stay. But he didn't, and he wouldn't, and she knew he wouldn't, and wanted it anyway. Cruelty twisted her words, and all notions of keeping Tommy happy disappeared. "I suppose I'll only be in the house until I marry." She swallowed. "It's strange to think I'll have a husband one day. That I'll have his children. And everything I've done before, everything I've been with you, will become just a secret that I get further and further away from, until the memory's gone."

She waited patiently for him to react, to tell her that it wasn't any of his concern what happened to the house and whose children she had after he bought it for her, to say something, but instead he sat up. And pulled his shirt off her chest. And got dressed. "Let's go," he commanded.

She gaped, still naked, her clothes strewn across the caravan floor. When he waved a hand expectantly at his side, she moved, trying not to shake as she dressed. The soreness between her legs was a reminder that less than an hour ago he'd been calling her his wife and touching her like he couldn't help himself; now, he was back to being a stranger. Trixie chided herself for expecting any different.

"Mind telling me what crawled up your arse and died in there in the last thirty seconds?" she muttered as she found her footing on the dirt road. One of her hands was still struggling with the buttons on her dress, and she waited for Tommy to offer to help her just to put her out of her misery, but he was too busy lighting yet another cigarette and glaring off at some point in the distant field. "You know, I worry every day about the poor woman that actually gets stuck with you. She's going to be left rotting away inside the palace you gift her while you're off brooding and sleeping with prostitutes and bloodying your hands." Stop talking, she willed herself. You were supposed to negotiate. Not upset Tommy until he refused to look at her. But now she'd pushed too hard, and she couldn't back down until he said something, snapped at her and told her how he felt. "Can you imagine her raising your children? Those poor babies, they'll be traumatized—"