The night was still, as not a single breeze rustled its way through the laundry lines and there ceased to be the slightest hint of precipitation dampening the heavy Birmingham skies. The shadows of the chilled autumn evening were calm, as not even the density of smoke and smog penetrating the Small Heath cobblestone streets, could rattle its ease. It was a night of rarity, when not a noise shook the slumber from the starless evening sky or altered the peace found once every so often, in the crevice of a city hidden away from the light of the rest of the world. But it descended upon the streets that night, still dampened by the trickling rain of the late afternoon, as if the universe had decided to hand down a gift to the people who craved its comforting tranquility.
The pavement appeared softer through the delicate sprawl of your curtains made of thin ivory lace, draped across the window that illuminated the small bedroom in the wash of pale moonlight, dancing across the wooden panels your Mary Janes stood still upon. The entire flat vacant as all of your possessions were tucked away into two measly suitcases, your whole life reduced to what you could carry along with you as you set off for New York in the morning light. The walls left bare, their cream colored paint continuing to peel and chip away, as the nail holes that once held up your picture frames remained as a memory of your presence within the four walls. The floorboards beneath your feet tainted with the scraped and tarnished wood that the shadows of the night concealed, but every so often, a beam of moonlight glinted across the evidence that your feet once pattered along these floors.
The air smelled of your perfume, the fragrance light and nearly worn from the atmosphere, but something about the softened jasmine tone clung to the air as if the memory of your life here, would linger longer than the morning light when you departed. The walls whispered with your life story and as much as it pained you to say goodbye, there was something about the echoes engulfing you in their vivid recollections, that made you eager to escape.
Your presence was not the only one to touch the air of your flat however, for as you lingered in the beaming glow of moonlight streaming through your clouded windowpane, the feeling of another appeared. His shadow slowly descending over the threshold, pricking a certain chill up your spine and the scent of him eased away the goosebumps rising over the stretch of your arms. For the aroma of spice from his worn cologne and cigarette smoke that clung to his fabric as if it were woven within the thread, entangled itself into the atmosphere, forcing you to inhale a deep breath of Tommy Shelby.
You knew he was there, before he made a single sound and you knew it was him, before his lips managed to form a mere semblance of a word. For his presence demanded to be felt, when Tommy Shelby stepped into a room, the rest of the world simply ceased to keep spinning. Even when it was the most silent sensation in the world, the strongest man you'd ever met holding the softest set of steps you'd ever heard, there was something in the way his silhouette settled over the tarnished floorboards that made him known far before he addressed his own presence in the room.
"I thought you might come by."
It startled you, the way your voice trickled through your faintly parted lips and entered the air in a sudden breath. For you hadn't expected to speak, much less being the first to pierce through the seemingly never ending void of silence lingering above the city, but here you were. Listening to the way your voice reverberated off of the surrounding walls and slammed through the density of the night's shadows. For even as your tone inched towards the level of breathlessness, timid and shaky with an undistinguishable emotion, something about your words felt boisterous in the atmosphere. Thundering as they echoed in the cavity of your chest, where they had resonated to begin with.
"I knew you'd still be awake." His response rolled from his lips as if it were merely a part of the smoke trickling past, trailing through the air in a layer of thin nicotine and candor that felt all too familiar as his words pricked at your heart.
