soundtrack: sptfy.com/bbf13
┏◦♔◦━━━━◦✞◦━━━━◦♛◦┓
𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟑:
𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐮𝐧𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐝𝐞𝐫
┗◦♛◦━━━━◦✞◦━━━━◦♔◦┛
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." —Matthew 11:28
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
Trixie's brain was on autopilot as she clambered out of the St. Catherine's confessional, her body light and unreal. It wasn't until she was raising her hand to knock that she realized she'd arrived at the Shelby residence, the familiar horseshoe over the door staring back at her as it curved over the spyhole in the door.
What was she doing? It was past midnight by now. Trixie blinked herself awake, turning over her shoulder and finding that Birmingham was dark and miserable as usual. Above, the sky was lightened by the smoke hanging over the city. Still grey. Always grey.
She needed to talk to Tommy. Or somebody. She just didn't—she didn't want to be alone if she could help it. Trixie dug into her purse for the keychain, finding the door to the Shelby house, and turning the door open. Polly had given her the key to the betting shop early on, since she'd be opening and closing regularly, but Trixie had only received the house key last year. She'd never needed to use it before. If she knocked, they would probably answer, but she didn't have it in her arms to knock with the amount of force that would be necessary to pull the Shelbys out of sleep, or their drunken stupor.
Inside the house, Trixie found the fire in the living room had been put out. She knew where each of their bedrooms were, just from wandering the house when it had been deserted by the boys for the war. Tommy slept on the top floor, his room small. She'd passed by it once, while fetching papers for Polly during the war, but it had been mostly desolate, and by the time he'd returned, she'd been happy to push the memory from her mind.
Trixie knew this house, she realized. Without even noticing, she'd begun dodging the stairs that creaked, the parts of the railing that had given her splinters. She was on the top floor before she even knew what she was doing, her hand on the knob, twisting and pushing the door open.
On the other side, Tommy had a gun cocked in her direction. Trixie's breath hitched.
"What the fuck are you doing?" he asked, lowering the revolver and setting it on the mattress beside him.
An insult was on her tongue before she could help it. "So you're allowed to show up at my apartment unannounced, but I can't return the favor?" He stiffened. "Were you sleeping?" Trixie asked, as if she hadn't just burst into his bedroom at one in the morning, as if he wasn't reaching for the lamp at this very second, as if he didn't look painfully boyish in his nightshirt.
Tommy glowered at her, and some of the youthfulness broke off in pieces. "No, but I was trying."
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't—know where to go."
"Your own apartment, perhaps?" he suggested. "Really, anywhere but here."
Trixie cast a sideways glance, finding a chair set next to a small table with a book atop it. She sat down in the chair and peered over at the book. The Prince. "I don't want to be alone right now. And I thought you didn't sleep."
He pointed lazily at the pipe on his bedside table. The room looked the same as she remembered, sort of. What had once been sunny was darkened by drawn curtains and nightfall; what had been an empty shelf was now filled in books; what had been a neatly made bed was now occupied by the self-proclaimed King of Birmingham, looking exhausted and confused and strangely unkempt. "Surely you can find better company."
Trixie fidgeted with the ring, twirling it around her finger. She should tell him what happened, probably. But the words had deserted her tongue, and her mouth was dry. I won't be so gentle. Should she be mad at him for what happened? Should she be mad at herself? Trixie swallowed.
"Beatrice?" Tommy asked, sounding almost concerned, but mostly irritated. She opened her mouth to speak, but choked on a lump in her throat, clicking her jaw shut definitively. Crying in front of Tommy Shelby was too pathetic. Campbell may have attacked her, and threatened her, and she might have been one misstep away in every direction from getting killed, but she was not going to cry. "Why are you here?"
Forcing herself to meet his gaze, Trixie panicked and plastered a smile across her face. It made it easier to say, "Church."
Tommy blinked at her. "What?"
"Campbell," Trixie said, rolling her neck nervously. "Er—he wants me to deliver a message."
"And what's that?"
"If you break a deal with him again, he won't be so gentle with his treatment of me," Trixie recited.
Even with the light glowing beside him, Tommy darkened. "Come here."
She gritted her teeth, spite kicking in a split-second before logic. "I'm alright where I am."
"Beatrice," he said, cold as ever. "Come here, now."
Trixie rolled her eyes and stood, crossing the room and stopping in front of him, her knees almost bumping into his. Folding her arms over her chest, she cocked one eyebrow. "What."
Tommy lifted the lamp from the table and held it up to her face, where the bruising from the blows was beginning to throb. He stood from the bed, and Trixie, not realizing until it was too late, forgot to back away. They were nearly chest to chest now, the lamplight an unpleasant blare that only worsened her headache. "What did they do to you?"
She shrugged. "Two men cornered me, threw me in a car, tied me up." Trixie stared very pointedly at a flower on the wallpaper just over his shoulder. "Took me to Church. Campbell said you promised to run Freddie Thorne out of town, but he's still here, and now he's married to Ada. And he's staying."
He stared at her for a long moment, before reaching for her chin and grabbing it with a surprising degree of tenderness. Gently, he pulled her jaw back until she was looking straight at him. "Beatrice."
"Nobody calls me Beatrice," she reminded him.
"Beatrice."
She shut up.
Tommy stretched his thumb up to the swell of her cheekbone, pressing down on it firmly. "Does this hurt?" he asked. She shook her head. "It's not fractured, then. Are you bleeding anywhere?"
"Not bleeding." She shifted, stepping back, and Tommy's hand dropped back to his side. "Why did he come after me?"
He raked a hand through his hair. "I break my side of the deal, he breaks his."
"What was his side of the deal?"
"He was supposed to leave you alone. He promised me he'd leave you alone."
Trixie rolled her eyes. Of course he'd offered her up as some sort of cheap collateral. If he failed, she would hardly be the worst thing the Shelbys could lose. "And you didn't think to mention this?"
"Didn't think it'd come up." His jaw tightened. "I thought I'd be able to get Freddie out of town by now."
"Well, it came up," Trixie noted, pointing at her face. "We talked about Ada and Freddie—on—on three separate occasions last week and you never bothered to mention that it was my safety for his exile?"
"Look, I'm sorry," he said, sounding like he wasn't very sorry at all.
"I know you don't really care if I die," Trixie interrupted, veering away from him and pacing across the room, "but I would like to stay alive, if that's alright with you." She reached up for her face, as if checking to see if the bruise had healed since Tommy had prodded at it. It was still tender.
He stepped forward, poised to disagree, but instead of trying to argue with it, he said, "Fine. What do you need?"
"I want a gun," Trixie said. Once, long ago, she'd promised her father that she would never arm herself, but that had been before a fucking cop had cornered her in a Church confessional to punish her for the sins of her gangster fake-husband. Times had changed, and so had she. It's what needed to happen in order for her to survive. "I want another lock installed on my door. I want someone to walk me home at night."
"Do you want Arthur to teach you to fight, as well?" he drawled, words dripping with sarcasm.
Trixie blinked at him, and chose to take it literally. "I could have very capable fists, Tommy, but those fists couldn't stop a bullet."
He shrugged. "Fair enough. We'll get you a gun, then, and I'll have some of the boys put another lock on your door."
"And someone to walk me home," she reminded him.
"And someone to walk you home," he agreed. "You want a cigarette?"
Trixie looked down at her hands and found that she'd been fiddling with the ring again. Sitting down on the bed carefully, she admitted, "Yes. Cigarette would be nice." He struck a match and handed her a cigarette, placing it gently between her lips before lighting it. Almost immediately, her nerves were soothed. Her face still ached, but now Tommy was reaching for her again, a hand on her jaw to inspect her bruises. His fingers were ice cold, almost comforting, for once. "When did you learn to shoot?" Trixie asked. "The war?"
He raised an eyebrow, but then sat down beside her, close enough that his knee bumped into hers. "Before. Polly taught me."
"Polly...." Trixie mused. "Who taught Polly?"
"Her husband," Tommy replied. "My uncle."
She'd known about him, but not much beyond the fact that he had once existed and was now dead. The two of them were alone—Polly a wife and a mother with no husband or children, Trixie a daughter with no parents. Perhaps that was why they got on so well. "Would she teach me, do you think?"
Tommy blinked at her, slowly, like he didn't understand the question. "You don't know how to shoot?"
Defensive, Trixie retorted, "When would I have picked up on that skill? My lunch break? Sundays after mass?"
He rolled his eyes. "Everyone that goes into this house knows how to shoot. Ada. Even Finn. I assumed Polly would've vetted you."
"I had reservations on violence when Polly first recruited me," Trixie said.
"And now?" Tommy prompted.
"Now I'll do what I have to to stay alive."
He sighed, scratching at the side of his jaw.
"What am I going to do about Campbell?" Trixie asked. Not what are you going to do or what are we going to do. Her, and her alone, since she clearly couldn't trust him not to barter with her safety. "Are we still engaged?"
Tommy considered, and then nodded. "Yes." She should've been annoyed, but Trixie was almost...glad. The idea that she'd go back to being blissfully unaware of his plans while he'd move on caused some vile, fearsome thing to latch its tentacles around her heart and squeeze. "We'll get out of town on Saturday for the races. My plans for the Lees will begin moving forward, and soon you'll have nothing to fear."
She actually laughed at that, harder than she'd laughed in a long time. "Nothing to fear!" she repeated, incredulous. The way he tilted his head was indication enough that he wouldn't correct himself, but he also wouldn't disagree with her. "You mind telling me where Freddie Thorne is?" Trixie asked.
"Wouldn't mind at all, except I've no fucking clue," Tommy replied. "I'd ask Ada, but—"
"But she's with him," Trixie finished. "You know, I thought I'd at least be invited to the wedding."
"It was all ritual."
"Well," Trixie interjected, her voice pitching up a bit. "They loved each other. It wasn't all ritual." It was rare in Birmingham to meet couples who truly did care for each other, but Ada and Freddie were undeniably that. She and Luca had been that. Beatrice DeSilvio. She'd practiced saying it in the mirror when he'd first gone away, thinking foolishly that he'd be back soon enough. How wrong she'd been. "Though, he's probably with other Communists, yeah?" She shrugged. "If someone were to find out where they were...two birds, one stone." Get the inspector off their backs and get Freddie out of town so he and Ada could settle somewhere nice.
Tommy shrugged, exhaling smoke. "Starting to see why Polly keeps you around."
The throwaway compliment sent her gaze flying towards him, lips parted in surprise. "Seriously?"
He turned to her, nonchalant as anything. "What," he said dryly, taking the shape of a question without filling it.
Pleased with herself, Trixie let out one, sharp laugh. "You make no sense."
"I make plenty of sense."
"Yeah, yeah," she dismissed with a wave of her hand, pretending that his gun wasn't within his reach on the bureau. "You make sense to people who see you as the King of Birmingham, or whatever it is you're calling yourself, and you make sense to the mothers to yank their children across the street when they see you coming. But I see you, Tommy."
His jaw moved a bit, nothing more than a stretch, but the movement parted his lips. In the lamplight, she saw the statue from the museum back again, hollow, erotic, shameless, open. She wondered—if she leaned forward, would his lips be cold as the marble of the sculpture? Would he come to life, moving against her, or would he be frigid as always?
The idea was so surprising, and so painfully absurd, that it spun Trixie into a fit of laughter that Tommy met with obvious confusion. If she kissed him, he might throttle her for real, or perhaps exile her from the family—not to mention the fact that she didn't like him. Trixie ran through a list of his crimes in her head, like a judge sentencing him to death. He'd bargained with her life, stuck her with James, insulted her repeatedly, barged into her house—well. Alright, perhaps they were even on that front. But still—she shouldn't want to kiss him. She just wanted to understand, and usually, that sort of thing entailed getting closer. "Grace thinks we haven't had sex," she blurted out, before registering what the fuck she was saying.
Tommy blinked, like he was waking up even more, and furrowed his brow. "Appropriate, since we haven't."
"I meant—" What had she meant? Good God. "I meant that she might be why the Inspector is onto this whole fabricated engagement."
"Did you tell her we're Catholic?" Tommy asked.
With a glare, Trixie retorted, "Oh, right—you and God have worked out the details so He's blessed your criminal empire, but sexual immorality is where you draw the line."
Tommy blinked at her. "Why was this even a topic of discussion, can I ask?"
"Well I didn't bring it up," Trixie snapped. "Grace was talking about her...history...and then she asked about mine and I told her there was none, because I never thought that my being a—" She flushed, faltering, the word heavy on her lips. Composing herself, she finished, "I didn't think it would come up."
Nothing on his face changed noticeably—maybe he'd figured that this was the case, or maybe he just didn't care. Either way, it was better than the alternative. Ada knew, and had brushed past it, but if it came up with any of the other Shelbys, surely Trixie would be made a laughingstock. "I'll deal with Campbell," Tommy said. "He won't touch you again."
Trixie sighed. She'd gotten what she wanted, she supposed, though she hadn't really come here with a specific agenda. The city was darker now, more dangerous, and she had no desire to go all the way across town now, while Tommy was picking fights with everyone in sight and putting a target on her back. She wondered if he would let her stay.
"Can I stay here?" she asked, before she could talk herself out of it. "I don't want to walk back, and I assume you don't want to walk me back, so—"
"Fine," he said, ashing his cigarette with such distinct Tommy Shelby precision. "You need anything to sleep?"
She shook her head. One night in her makeup wouldn't kill her. Trixie leaned down and unbuckled the straps of her pumps, leaving her stockings on as she drew her legs up to her chest. His bed was smaller than hers, but she would make do, pushing her body back towards the wall. Yes, it was stupid to allow Tommy's body to box her into a corner, but it felt safer than the alternative. It wasn't Tommy she ought to fear, tonight, but the world beyond him.
"Done with that?" Tommy asked, gesturing to her cigarette.
Trixie hesitated, and then nodded, handing it over to him. He ashed the half-burned stub in the tray, and then pulled his own legs back under the sheets. Should she put her legs under the blanket as well? Logically, yes—she'd freeze if she didn't, but Trixie felt as if she needed an invitation. Tommy didn't offer one. She'd have to take it for herself.
Gently, she slid her legs under the blanket, accidentally running her foot into his knee. "You mind?" he asked, voice gravel.
"I can't see through the damn thing," she returned, irritation edging into her voice to cover up her panic. Somehow, this was worse than Tommy sleeping off the high in her bed. They were both sober—or sober enough. It was on his terms. And also—while her bed was big enough for Luca and her to share, this one was undeniably built for one person. "Your bed is small," she remarked, just to be cruel. Even both of them lying on their backs, they were shoulder-to-shoulder.
"It's not meant to be shared," he replied, sounding bored. Or perhaps just tired. "I'll get a bigger one for the wedding so we can consummate the marriage."
Trixie's hand was up and smacking him on the shoulder before she could reason with herself over the movement. She didn't regret it—he was clearly nonplussed, steepling his hands behind his head and staring up at the ceiling. With a huff, she turned back over, turning back towards the wall. A few seconds later, Tommy switched the light off, drowning them in darkness.
She wasn't going to sleep anytime soon—neither was he, likely. In the pitch-black, her thoughts began drifting towards the next morning. What if she ran into Grace on her way out? What if she had to explain the purpose of her overnight visit, her disheveled appearance?
Maybe she ought to tell her that they had...consummated. Strategically, it was the right move: where there was a perceived weakness, Trixie would have to make repairs. And what if Grace asked for details? Her mind was hovering on that odd edge between wake and sleep, where the creaking floorboards could still jolt her conscious but the knowledge that Tommy lay beside her had begun to slip away. Grace had shared details—that her first had been clumsy, hadn't known where to put his hands, had....completed after only a few minutes. Tommy had to be better—he had to know better, at least.
If Grace asked for details, Trixie would tell her that Tommy had kissed her, but—well, it would be nothing like Luca, who'd always been so gentle and chaste. Tommy, covetous man that he was, would be bruising in his affections—hypothetically. A hand on her waist, the other on the back of her neck as he slanted his mouth across hers, wanting. If Grace asked for details, Trixie could mention how he'd pressed her back into the bed and dotted his mouth along her neck, heavy, open-mouthed kisses falling over her as he unbuttoned her dress, and she fumbled for his shirt. Then—both of them—open. His chest to hers, his hands startling and cold as he pulled her stockings from her legs, undid the buckle of his belt, moved his mouth from her neck to her collarbone to her breast, one hand sliding up her hip. Trixie might moan in this story, might gasp his name as he teased her. It was like heaven, she'd say, as she recalled Tommy's fingers buried between her legs.
But those details were all prologue, Trixie reasoned, in a story about the act itself, how it felt to have him inside her, how he might have caressed her waist with gentleness and care as he thrust into her roughly—or maybe not. Maybe he'd be gentle with her. That was a better story, wasn't it? Maybe she'd keep the draft where Tommy bit her lip hard enough to bruise locked in the cupboards of her mind, where it belonged to her and her alone. Grace could have the version of the story where Tommy was a perfect gentleman, talented, where she'd breathed his name and he kissed her as she trembled, another line of fate running parallel to this one. And what about later on? Would it be too difficult to believe that Tommy might hold her in the aftermath? Trixie considered the details as she drifted to sleep.
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
Trixie's first thought the next morning was a simple and concise, Oh, fuck.
Somewhere downstairs, a dish had been dropped, and the crash jolted her from sleep, sending Trixie crash-landing back into Tommy's now-empty bedroom. He was late to bed and early to rise, or maybe just avoiding her. Trixie sat up in bed, and with the rush of blood to her head, remembered the story she'd been authoring last night. "Oh, Christ," she mumbled, burying her face in her hands to hide her blush from the nonexistent audience. What was wrong with her? She'd never—she'd never thought about those things....or at least, not on purpose. And absolutely never about Tommy!
Throwing the covers off her body, Trixie slid out of bed, trying to keep her steps light. Her shoes had been placed neatly by her purse, still on Tommy's arm-chair. She hurried over to them, but not before catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her eyeliner had been smudged horribly, though her blush was not too apparent. It was decent enough to get her across town without questions, so long as she kept her head down.
What had she been thinking last night? The nightmares about Luca in the plane had been put on hold for one night, finally, but only because Trixie had been lusting after Tommy fucking Shelby.
As if summoned, the bedroom door opened. Tommy was dressed impeccably, his three-piece pressed neatly as per usual. In her wrinkled dress, she felt almost ashamed.
"Morning," he greeted nonchalantly, closing the door behind him. "Sleep well?"
"What time is it?"
"Nine."
"Nine?" Trixie hissed. "But—" she sputtered. "I'm supposed to be here at nine."
"Convenient that you are," he said, gesturing vaguely at her physical presence.
She glowered at him, but making eye contact only brought back the memories of her late-night machinations. Tommy's lips—everywhere. She turned away with the suddenness of a snapped neck. "I have to go home and change."
"Polly knows you're late to work. S'alright, Beatrice."
"It is not alright," she disagreed adamantly, yanking her coat on frantically. "I am not going to walk downstairs and have your family think I slept with you!" she hissed, struggling to keep her voice a whisper. But you wanted to, her brain immediately supplied. Shut up, shut up, shut up.
"How else are you planning on getting out?" Tommy asked, raising an eyebrow.
Trixie cast a glance out at the only other exit of the room. The window.
Tommy was a smart enough man that he did not have a fire escape leading directly to his window, on account of all the men who wanted to kill him. But when Trixie pulled the window open, she found that he did have a ladder that tracked down the side of the Shelby house, currently tucked under itself so as to be inaccessible from the street. "I'll take this," she replied, pursing her lips and putting her hat on her head with confidence that didn't exactly match how she felt inside.
"Don't be absurd," Tommy said.
"I'm perfectly happy being absurd," Trixie replied. She reached over for the latch on the ladder, shuffling out of the window and gripping onto it, carried by the pure need to get out of there before Polly thought that she thought of Tommy as anything but her infuriating boss.
The alley below was deserted, but Trixie still made a considerably large deal about pressing her skirt down so nobody could stare up at her. The ladder stopped a foot short of the ground and she stepped off, glancing up at Tommy, flashing again to the scenario she'd dreamed up of them, before turning towards home. But not before she made a stop at church.
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
A/N: Hi hello I am back! So sorry for the delay and the short chapter but hopefully I can go back to twice-weekly updates starting this Sunday, and it should be a long chapter. I hope you are all doing well and that you enjoyed this chapter—Trixie and Tommy keep having sleepovers and being kind of stupid with each other but that's just their deal, at this point. This chapter was definitely more character-driven than plot-driven, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless. Please let me know what you thought!
Thank you everyone for the votes and comments last chapter!! I cannot believe we're at 700 votes and almost 10k reads??? Amazing? I am so grateful to you all and I will see you next chapter!
∘₊✧──────✧₊∘
Chapter 14 / Off to the Races
"May I ask your companion for a dance?" Kimber said to Tommy. Then, he leaned over and whispered loudly enough for Trixie to hear, "If you give me a shot with her, I'll give you a shot with mine."
Tommy's gaze slid over to Trixie, where he was met with a scowl. "Of course, Mr. Kimber. You're welcome to ask her."
Kimber extended his hand towards Trixie. "Miss Price, may I have this dance?"
She blinked at him once, slowly, before leaning back in her chair. "No."