Lucille
Michael celebrated his 18th birthday dressed in a finely pressed suit- as black as Tommy would wear- and tucked away in the Shelbys' private room, a glass of whiskey freshly in hand. He'd objected to the drink at first, but Lucille knew it was just for show. The boy was more like his mother's side of the family than Pol would have liked to admit. He tipped the drink back with only the slightest of grimaces, embracing his cousins as if he'd grown up with them his whole life, and when he was handed a pocket watch as a welcoming to the business, he grinned wider than what should have been possible.
It was warming to see and still, Lucille could not help but worry. Polly still did not know of the attack on their outing to purchase the horse and if Tommy had his way, she would not know at all. But Michael had settled in too quickly to that way of life, jumping the gun and driving them all home, even as Arthur swore against the blood that coated his hands- almost all of it not his own.
It was hypocritical in some way she supposed, to worry over such things. Hadn't she arrived in Small Heath with such blindness to Tommy's business? But that was not blindness, she knew. No, because Lucille had never been the meek kind. She'd shot a German soldier and helped two English ones to escape imprisonment. Nothing about the woman described someone who would shy away from such things.
She didn't share those worries. Another concern had taken her entire attention, keeping her face drawn tight even as Adds hung to her arm and Tommy leaned in to place a kiss on her cheek, earning a round of claps from the table as it was rare he would ever do so much in public. Perhaps he'd recognised that deep look of anxiety that appeared as swiftly as it would often go. She felt his hand against her back, sliding to grip her waist as he knew to do when she needed to be pulled back and grounded again. Her heels dug into the ground and she concentrated on his touch, the feeling of Tommy's hands on her that she'd grown as used to as her own body. Anything to relieve her of this anxiety.
But the worry was relentless. It'd plagued her ever since the boy had gone to London in retaliation.
Dawson hadn't come back.
He was alright, she knew, because Arthur had come back to Birmingham singing his praises, naming him an honorary member of the Peaky Blinders. It hadn't sounded right next to the man's name, especially coming from Arthur's drunken lips, but John had confirmed it all: Dawson had taken his revenge naturally, savagely. She feared that soon he would be too far gone down his tunnel of anger. There was only one thing she could think to do.
Whether Ada had already been invited to the birthday gathering in the Garrison or not, Lucille didn't know, but neither did that stop her from pleading with the younger girl to show her face. Even from the other side of the phone, Lucille had heard the reluctance behind her voice. Ada was distancing herself from her brothers... and yet she showed.
Her pale face hung in the doorway like a ghost. She may as well have been- it must have been months since she stepped foot in the pub. Her appearance didn't go unnoticed. John and Arthur threw her name out in a drunken slur and Tommy untwined himself from Lucille to stand, hands in pockets, weighed down by his daughter who clung to his arm like a monkey refusing to let go. He had to shuffle to pull Adds into his arms, letting Lucille slip from around him.
"Ada, glad to see you made it."
She unfurled her scarf and flung it onto the back of Polly's chair before sitting down, pulling a box from her handbag. "I'm not here for you. I'm here to welcome our cousin and to see my niece."
It was only after Michael had thanked her for the small gift and John had complained about the lack of attention his sister had been giving them, that Ada and Lucille found their way to the bar. It was quieter outside of the private room and somehow without prying ears. When the Shelby sister saw Lucille, she hugged her, smiling ever so lightly.
"Thank you for coming," Lucille said, the words coming out on the end of a short sigh.
Ada only waved her off, nodding her head in thanks for the drink that was placed in front of her. It was her next words, that surprised Lucille- though only slightly.
"Where's Dawson?" Ada asked, eyebrows furrowed.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Lucille said slowly, lips rolling together. "He didn't come back from London."
"He stayed?" She exclaimed, surprise making her interrupt the other woman.
Lucille nodded grimly. "He's taken over the club again. The Eden. Arthur left some people down there, just in case..."
The words hung limply in the air. Just in case they come for him. The price on his head from the Italian would not just disappear overnight. It was only lightly to grow, having taken part in the attack on the club.
"He's a Peaky Blinder now. Arthur knighted him himself," Lucille said, almost laughing at the absurdity of the situation. Ada only closed her eyes and sighed.
"And you want me to bring him back?"
"No," she said quickly. There would be no convincing Dawson to leave his club again. She wasn't sure even Ada could do that. "Just make sure he's alright. Don't let him fall down the slope only for him to not be able to climb back up. He's not like your brothers."
"Why me? He's like your brother, couldn't you?" Ada said, eyebrows still knitted lowly.
Lucille's lips pursed. "You must know how he feels..."
Because surely she must know that Dawson looked at her as if she was his sun and had done since he first laid eyes on her. Ada shook her head in what Lucille took as misunderstanding. She wouldn't say anything more, wouldn't make things any more difficult, but Lucille didn't need to. Ada eventually nodded and followed the motion with words of agreement.
Dawson
The club was finally beginning to feel like his own again.
He'd spent two days scrubbing the dirt from the golden mirrored walls, scrubbing until the room gleamed, even in the lowest of lights. The cheap spirits were long thrown out and replaced by finer ones, dusted and filled one by one as he did now. Even the silence in the Eden was comforting now that it was finally under his control again.
It was only a few months ago that London would've felt so right to him. Now there was something off about the place, no matter how much he loved it. Like there was something missing. He had a few ideas about what that would be.
A sharp knock hauled him from his thoughts. Dawson frowned as he made his way to pull the front door open. The sound of wood swinging open was paired with a dulled smack. Dawson was hit before he'd even glanced at the faces standing outside. He toppled backwards, arms catching his weight against the floor. A sharp pain exploded through his wrist but there was no time to spare to grasp it as two hands grabbed his shoulders, hoisting him upwards.
Dawson cried out. That feeling of being dragged, nails digging through his clothes and into his skin, was all too familiar. He struggled onto his feet, breath quickening as scrambled to land a kick on anything he could. When he blinked, it was mud floors he was sliding over, a makeshift cell he was being thrown into. But then another hit took the words from his throat and Dawson looked up to see his pub, three Italians invading it.
With a startle, he remembered he was alone. Arthur was back in Birmingham with John for the boy's birthday. They'd only left a few of the Peaky boys behind, and knowing them, they'd be long left by now. Dawson let out another shout as a fist landed against his cheek, sending his head crashing backwards. His kicking finally landed on a target- one of the men stumbled backwards against his hit, letting his arm go loose. Dawson used the moment to swing an elbow around, connecting with a jaw.
They were drawing it out, taking time between their kicks and punches, and as he rolled across the floor, defending against any hit he could, Dawson almost let out a laugh. There was blood on his lips, trickled down from his nose. It tasted sweet, bitten with that metallic taste that'd become familiar. At least it wouldn't be the last thing he tasted. Dawson wanted to go out on a high, blood rotten by champagne or whiskey, the sharp stuff coating his tongue. He didn't want to go like this. And he wouldn't. Because they were holding back. This wasn't an assassination. This was a warning.
They finally dropped him, letting his head fall smack against the floor. He coughed out, feeling the blood splatter on his chin. The liquid on his lips didn't stop him from glaring as he spat out a swear.
"Fuck off," he spluttered, earning a last kick to the stomach before the three left him beaten on the floor of his own pub.
He waited until the door had swung shut with an abrupt slam before he pulled himself to his knees, using the table to fully reach his feet. There was a pounding in his head, and when his hands grazed against his nose he recoiled with a grimace of pain. It wasn't even luck that'd saved him. If they'd wanted him dead he would've been.
Dawson limped his way to the bar and poured himself a glass of whiskey, shooting it back in one go before pouring another. He'd been doing that a lot recently. The third round was used to splash against the cut on his arm, washing it away with a sweet sting.
It was only as he placed his head down against his arm, that a knocking at the door rang through the room again.
Dawson stilled, bones rigid. He swallowed and grabbed the whiskey bottle, pouring the last of it into a glass before he smashed the bottom of it, letting the glass fall away in jagged edges, sharper than a knife. He held it like a bat, ready to throw or slice as he edged his way to the door, pausing for a moment before opening it...
...only to reveal an angelic-looking Ada Shelby, eyebrows creased in surprise, lip bitten between teeth.
"Ada," he breathed out, words barely surpassing a whisper. He dreaded to think he looked even worse than he sounded.
Ada blinked, eyes trailing across his face, down past his neck. "They said I'd find you here."
Ada
Two weeks ago, Ada Shelby had planted the goal firmly in her mind: she would remain Ada Thorne no matter the complaints her aunt held and the snarky jokes John made. Ada Thorne was who she was. She hadn't been a Shelby for a long while, and even before that it'd felt like a mask- like she'd been playing pretend. Freddie had taken off that mask.
Maybe he'd only replaced that mask with another...
Those thoughts came sometimes. Thoughts that suggested she didn't know who she was. That she was neither Thorne nor Shelby, but only Ada. That would have to suffice.
Her other promise to herself was that she would no longer get stuck in the middle of her brothers' business. No Peaky Blinder mess would step past her doorstep. It did too much harm. That promise had been broken by a single favour granted to Lucille, perhaps the only Shelby she could tolerate right now, even if the woman wasn't Shelby by name.
Sometimes she wondered how a girl like Lucille, so golden in every aspect, could love a man like her brother. Growing up she'd always imagined Tommy to remain so solitary through the rest of his life. There had only ever been one exception. But poor Greta had been besotted with him and she was dying, a combination not many could ignore. Lucille might've been the second but she was worth every minute worth waiting on, and Ada had heard their stories, even if Tommy hated to share them, and would have fallen in love with the blonde woman herself if the situation had fallen to her.
But also, Ada couldn't blame her for coming to Birmingham or for finding her place within the Shelby family. The heart wants what the wants, even if it was the opposite of expectations. Ada knew that from experience.
She'd agreed to go to the occupied pub in London to pay a visit to Jack Dawson.
As she brought her hand up to knock on the doors of the golden pub, she thought of the man whose presence she'd grown used to the past year, and could not imagine him in it. Perhaps it was her own fault, for seeing only what she'd wanted to see. Perhaps he'd hidden the London part of him. It wouldn't be surprising, given what'd gone down in the Capital, chasing him north.
It took a few minutes for the door to open, but it was the bloodied nose that first caught her attention- not the blue of his eyes as usual. There wasn't even the slightest tilt to his lips, hiding a smile as he always would whenever he wasn't fully beaming. Then her eyes drifted downwards, skimming past the skin of his neck to the ruffled shirt that cut off just below the elbow, revealing a deep cut, glistening a red-tinted colour from where he'd tried to wash it. In his hand was a broken bottle, fingers holding the neck so tightly that it was almost cutting through.
"Are you going to let me in?" she said when he didn't say anything.
He shook his head, the glaze of his eye blinked away as he widened the doorway, dropping the bottled weapon to his side. "Yeah, yeah. Come in."
She found herself missing his usual remarks, the flippant gestures that he would always regret after doing. Ada was not used to his quietness. In a way it was unsettling. She wondered if he'd been this way in France, but then in the stories, he was always the one for chatter, filling in any silence with soft words.
With a nod, she slid past him, head immediately moving to scan the room. Evidence of whatever fight Dawson'd gotten himself into was still left in the middle of the club. Chairs were strewn across the floor- one smashed into pieces- and there was an almost invisible trail of blood paving a pathway toward the bar. Along the glimmering bench sat two empty bottles and beside it the makeshift weapon the man fashioned from a similar glass.
Dawson's head lay against his arms, slumped over lazily. In his outstretched hand, he nursed another glass of golden poison. Ada sat beside him with a furrowed brow. It was only as she moved to take the drink from his hand that he finally shifted again, sending her a weak smile. His empty hand reached to his nose, trying to wipe away the crusted blood. From the twist of his face and the slight red tinge to his cheeks, Ada wondered if he was embarrassed by the state she'd found him in. She smiled again at the thought.
With a finger, she pushed his hand away from his nose. "Here, let me," she said and Dawson only stared at her wide-eyed like an owl in response. "It'll hurt like a bitch this way but at least it'll heal properly."
Smoothly, she took a handkerchief from her bag and dipped it in the whiskey, bringing it up to rub away the crimson flakes that blocked his skin. He watched her, as she did so, bright eyes never leaving her face. Eyes so piercing that she couldn't meet them as she worked.
She could feel his breath against her hands, hotly brushing against the tip of her chin. It was a soft feeling. A sensation she'd not known in a while. One that made her swallow and pull away, dropping the tissue to the bar with a strangled sigh. It was as if her mind went blank, not allowing her fingers to move.
Dawson's hand shot out, softly catching her wrist between his fingers. Her eyes flickered down, startled by the touch. At that, he moved his hand away again, so swiftly it was as if the touch had burned him.
"Ada-"
"Show me where you're hurt."
He blinked up at her for a moment again, as if trying to work out if she was real, and then tugged up the sleeve of his shirt, revealing a deep cut. Ada forced her hands to reach out and take his hand tenderly again, moving his body so she could clean the new wound as gently as she could.
"Ada," Dawson whispered. She wanted to interrupt him for a second time. He would regret whatever he wanted to say. Dawson so often did. But to spite it, she wanted to hear his words, wanted to recognise that vulnerability that send her eyes closing.
"Ada," he said again. "Please don't go."
Her mind truly did go crashing then, eyes dropping closed, not letting his sharp eyes stare back into her own. Then her hands were moving without wanting to, snaking from his arm to his face, feeling the roughness of the skin of his jawline.
"I'm here, Jack," Ada said, his true name sounding wrong but so right against her lips. "I'm not leaving."
X
Not 100% happy with the writing in the chapter but overall happy with the direction of the scene if that makes sense??? Anyway, Ik we're getting a lot of Dawson here and not much Lucille/Tommy but there's only so much I can write about them atm
Comment your thoughts!