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"John?"
"What's wrong?"
Lucille and John were sitting in their lounge one night, John being sat against the arm of the sofa with a glass of whiskey in one hand and his other playing with Lucille's hair as she lay across the rest of the sofa with her head in his lap when her mind began to race.
"Where did you say you were from again?"
"Birmingham."
"Where in Birmingham?"
"Uh, Small Heath." His voice was a little hesitant but he was sure that he had told her before. Obviously not. "Why?"
"I used to live there." John hummed as he sipped from his glass.
"Shit 'ole init?" She laughed at his joke.
"Did you know any of the Shelby's?" The sound of her lover choking on the sip of whiskey he had just took caught her off guard and she sat upright to face him. "You alright?"
"Yeah, yeah." He laughed uncomfortably. "I didn't think you would have known them, 's all."
"Oh. Did you?" He looked confused. "Know them, I mean."
John nodded his head and took another swig of whiskey in hopes of not having to answer anymore of her questions to do with the Peaky Blinders.
"Uh, yeah. We were really close, actually. Really close."
Lucille could tell that something was off with him. He was fidgety and he was struggling to keep eye contact with her for longer than a few seconds when he never, ever had trouble doing so until now.
She just guessed that he had somehow been involved with the Peaky Blinders at some point and didn't like talking about it so she didn't ask anymore questions.
'He'll tell me in his own time; when he's ready.' she thought to herself. 'I won't force him to speak about it.'
When John and Lucille went to bed that night, he fell asleep almost instantly. Clearly the running around after six kids all day on his day off had caught up to him since he was out cold and snoring gently beside her.
For whatever reason, Lucille pulled the notepad she had in the bedside table out of the drawer and the pen that was thrown in there beside it and began to doodle.
She couldn't sleep and when she couldn't sleep she would write or draw.
Most nights she would draw little doodles or pictures of her new family; she was talented in that sense.
However, something unconsciously told Lucille that she had to write tonight. So she did.
Before she knew what she was doing, Luce was writing down all the coincidences that she had come across with John.
She didn't write down who's name he shared the coincidences with because of the fear of seeing his name and the possibility of it bringing back old memories that she was struggling with to not think of.
1 - Three brothers, one sister 2 - Involved with the Peaky Blinders 3 - From Small Heath, Birmingham 4 - Strikingly similar eyes 5 - Similar surnames 6 - Both moved away from Small Heath 7 - Fought in the same war 8 - He had the same amount of kids as Tommy's deceased brother John 9 - They both have the same nickname for her; Scotland 10 - Both had been married twice before
The possibilities of Thomas and John meeting one another were so high that, if it were a building, it would be one of the tallest skyscrapers to ever be build.
As if John's subconscious mind had told him that she was onto something, he was awake and burying his into her stomach and wrapping his arms around her hips.
Luckily, she had managed to flip the page over to one that was covered with one of her many drawings before his eyes had opened and seen what she was really up to.
"Why are you still up?"
"I couldn't sleep." She muttered sheepishly.
"Drawing again?" Lucille nodded her head. "Lemme see, Picasso."
John smirked as he sat up in the bed beside her and held his hand out for her to give him the notepad. She handed him it hesitantly but he never usually flipped through the whole book so she had nothing to worry about.
"It's not perfect."
"It doesn't have to be perfect to be amazing, love." He spoke sweetly with a soft voice. "Don't be so harsh on yourself."
The fact that John always knew what to say to Lucille to make her feel better, not only about herself but in general, always amazed her.
He was the full package in every sense and she couldn't believe that fate had brought them together somehow. Even when they had merely missed meeting each other in Small Heath by a matter of months.
"Don't you miss your family back home?" She found herself muttering as he looked over every intricate detail of her family portrait. "Do you speak to any of them?"
"I miss them, yeah. They're my family, of course I do. But we don't speak anymore. Suppose it's for the best in the long run."
"Don't they miss the kids? I would."
"Where are all these questions coming from, eh?" John's voice was soft and sweet as he spoke to her because he could tell that something was bothering her and he didn't want to upset her by coming off as rude or angry. "What's going on?"
He closed her notepad and sat it on his bedside table before he took a hold of her hand in both of his larger ones and ran his thumb across her knuckles soothingly.
"Nothing. I've just been thinking about home a lot recently, that's all." She smiled half heartedly as he stared into her eyes with a worried look etched in his own. "I miss it a little."
Sure, he had missed Small Heath a lot since he and the kids had moved (even if it was a 'shit 'ole' as he always said) but he would never go back; he couldn't go back.
"We can go back and visit if you want to." He had offered but all that he was screaming repeatedly in his head over and over was 'please say no. Please say no.' "Like a shit holiday."
Although he was joking and smirking to get her to laugh, she could still feel that something was off with him. Any time she would bring up Small Heath or his past life when he lived there, John would close off something inside of him and Lucille could tell.
She didn't want to scare him off by pressuring him into telling her what he was keeping hidden so she just ignored it until the next time it happened.
"Yeah. I'd like that." Lucille agreed with a smile. "Not anytime soon, though. We've got a house to pay for and six kids to look after so we'll be saving up for that holiday for a while."
"You're not wrong there, love. Now let's get to sleep, eh?"
