First To Be Last

3. Double Shit

Warning: This chapter contains mentions of suicide, violence, poor mental health, teen pregnancy, stressful situations and death. If you are easily triggered by any of the above, please, feel free to skip this one out.

FINN DID NOT TELL THEM.

In fact, he did not even bother to face any of them that night, taking the long route back and fourth from the start to the very end of Small Heath.

He thought his sister selfish for not understanding the pressure that he now had to endure. He thought his so said lover self-absorbent for not telling him. And he thought himself a shit human being for complicating a woman's life that way.

Finn had always loved taking care of Karl, and although he would never admit it, that small boy bought him the joy that no one else could. Karl was the one Finn was thinking of in those moments. He kept asking himself whether this was the biggest difficulty he'll ever have to face, or if it was his chance of getting out.

With Dorothea it was clear, she wanted to get out of Birmingham as fast as she possibly could, but Finn.. Finn had never expressed that type of wish before. At least not while anybody was around to hear him. But he did want out. Out of the business he was yet to enter, out of town, hell, even out of the country.
As much as he tried to be more like his elder brothers, he never once succeeded. It upset him at first, when he wanted to show them that he, too, was worthy of the Shelby name. But later on, Finn realized that there was life after all the weapons and bullets. Another life. A life in which you didn't have to prove yourself in order to survive. You just have to breathe. Breathe and enjoy being alive.

Maybe all this madness had its reasons to explode just now. Maybe it was the universe's way of saying 'get the fuck out while you still can'. Maybe they could run away, him and Esther. Live a normal life out in the country and never be seen again.

But that plan had multiple issues.

It is important to know that Finn had never been the smartest in the family, and no one ever expected him to be.
Not until his sister started reading 500-page travel novels at barely six years old. Or when she began correcting Arthur's math at seven, which she found to be 'tragically-obviously-outstandingly-remarkably worse' than she had expected. By the age of ten she had outsmarted them all, well, almost all. There stood the second-born, who once had the same abilities that she currently possessed. Who had grown up with them, made something out of them. He knew her mind, and she did not like that. Not one bit. Although considering that he was the only one, Thea had learned to accept it.

With all said, Finn's intelligence was not reliable enough for him to outsmart one of the most powerful men in England, who just so happened to share the same last name as him. Thomas Michael Shelby.

Not only would they be found by him in less than two days, but he probably would not see sunlight ever again. Or at least not for a very, very long time.
The worst punishments were never the physical ones, they were the lasting ones. The long, boring, life-draining ones. Finn knew that, and that is explicitly why he brushed those thoughts out of his head.

He needed to somehow acknowledge everybody, but not by telling them face to face. That, because he liked his face, and didn't need anyone ruining it. Especially not Isaiah, who would, more than surely, kill him.

The Shelby kid, because yes, apparently he was still considered a kid, kept staring at the dirty water in the canal, letting his feet dangle off just above it. It was five in the morning, and the only thing he could think of was sleeping. You might guess that it was because of the lack of sleep he got that night, but no. It was not that kind of sleep he wished for. This one was meant to be eternal. He was not supposed to wake up from it. A one way ticket to empty-land.