devil's backbone 🗝 tommy shelby

chapter 26

They both let out hoarse laughs and placed gentle lingering kisses on each other's lips, smiling into each and every single one of them.

"What are you up to today?" Sybil asked, knowing that their impending doom of getting out of bed was growing nearer and nearer.  "What does the day hold for Thomas Shelby, hmm?"

"Well," he sighed, seeming to be snapping out of his reverie as well.  "I've got to deal with Polly, try and get through to Ada, and try not to get killed."

"You'll be lucky if you make it past nine o'clock."

The two shared a laugh, leaning so that their foreheads were touching and their noses were pressed up against one another's.

"What about you?" he asked, nudging his face impossibly closer to hers.  "What's my Sybbie got on her agenda, eh?"

"Work, errands, chores, the youth of Birmingham running circles around me," she laughed, placing a kiss on his always waiting lips.  "The usual."

"If they give you any trouble, let me know.  I'll sort them out."

"My knight in shining armour." she rolled her eyes. "Protecting me from our biggest threat yet — children."

"If they're anything like us as kids, you might be right."

"I don't know who this us you're referring to is, but it sure as bloody hell doesn't include me, Thomas Shelby."

"You were more trouble than you let on to be, Sybil Day," he accused, smiling down at her.  "Pressing outside books inside your school ones, skipping class to sit under that one tree and watch the clouds; you were a mad woman."

"Ah, yes, and you were just the boy who liked horses, hm?"

"The definition of all that is good."

"Definitely not the type to beat the living daylights out of his classmates."

"Never in a million years."

His grin was contagious as he leaned down, capturing her lips in his for the millionth time that morning, and it still wasn't enough. He didn't think there would ever be enough. But, just as she always was, Sybil was there to put his head back on his shoulders.

"Enough about school children and horses; don't you have some groveling to do?" she asked, pecking him on the lips for good measure before sitting up.

"Don't remind me."

Sybil laughed at the shift in his tone, getting up and walking over to her makeshift vanity that she'd managed during her time in Tommy's care. Tommy, on the other hand, just watched her go, admiring her as she began her day with the same amount of care she gave everything else. The way she got dressed, the way she pinned her hair back, even the way she put on her rouge — everything was intentional; every move planned out and well rehearsed throughout an entire adulthood of perfecting the routine.

Though, to be fair, she could do anything and he would find some sort of meaning in it.

With that thought, he rose from their bed and began dressing himself in his usual attire, already dreading what was to come of the day. And all too soon, he and his love were parting ways, and he was stood in the kitchen of the woman he was dreading most, Polly Gray.