WRITTEN FOR ME ( thomas shelby )

012 ━ Letters Almost Lost in Time ..

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" Letters Almost Lost in Time "

          "AND ARE YOU GOING TO WRITE back then?" Arthur leant forward, his right elbow sliding a little further across the table filling the majority of space in their little private corner besides the bar of the Garrison. Far more extroverted regarding his emotions than all his younger brothers combined, Arthur had been ecstatic from the moment Tommy gave them the news that the Alloways' were alive, with their last known location Guatemala. It was a place which sounded distant and foreign, one that Arthur was rather certain he couldn't even point on a map if he was to give it a try.

"Write back?" John puffed, rolling his eyes shortly at the sound of his brother's stupidity. "Are you out of your fucking mind, Arthur? How is he supposed to write back to her?"

"With a fucking pen and a piece of paper," Arthur responded outraged to be talk to as if John was some superior of his. To support the point he was about to make, he gestured towards Tommy, "Ain't he the one growing posher by the day? Seems only fair he starts using these skills for more than signing documents, aye."

"And these letters will be sent through gypsy magic to her, correct?" John shook his head, a disappointed chuckle filling in his pause. "Jackie said nothing about where she is going, only where she's been. Have you really heard nothing he just said of her letter?"

Above his moustache, as below, Arthur was all a frown; with some of his features twitching and his hands forming fists that whitened his bruised knuckles, Arthur Shelby looked very much like a ticking bomb, that even John got the hint that he should sigh this subject off, brushing it aside, at least the part concerning the eldest at the table.

Instead, John turned towards Tommy, relaxing back in his seat. "It's good to know she's alive," he nodded, "but ain't your hands just as tied now as they were before?" He sought some confirmation in his brother's eyes, but he should have known better than to expect anything more than a cold numbness, unapproachable by any means meeting him. "The letter," he continued, "it was dated three months ago. She's been gone for longer. The letter arrived with at least one month of delay and it's—"

A knock on the door of their private compartment interrupted John's attempt to make sense of a complicated equation with a minimal knowledge of numbers restricted mostly to the registers he kept for their company blossoming in profit. After that prelude to the full intrusion, the door was quick to be opened by Balthasar, holding a small packet to his chest. "Mr. Shelby sir," he nodded first in greeting towards Tommy, then shortly towards the two other Shelby's at the table, before returning his attention to his initial focus. "You were right," he handed over the small package, consisting of two letters tied together. "They were holding them at the office. Odd stamps."

John shook his head some pride liftin a corner of his lips.

"Don't act so surprised, John," Tommy sighed, taking the two letters from Balthasar with a nod of gratitude at him, "thinking is my job in this company and in this family." He secured the two letters beneath his palm, pressed on the table, and finally looked up at Balthasar, "Keep watch of the office personally from now until the Alloways' arrive."

"Yes, sir," Balthasar embraced his order instantly, relieved perhaps more than his eye could let it be known that he was allowed the single post from where he'd know regularly that the Alloways' were still alive.

After he left the room, Tommy watched expectedly for his brothers to do the same as well. Though John was quick to get up and follow that silent order, Arthur groaned instead. "I want to know what she has to say too," he complained.