METHOD OF MADNESS ━ 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐬 𝐒𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐛𝐲 ¹ (Under editing)

𝒾𝒾. 𝓃𝒾𝓃𝑒: the plan and a curse

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : teeth - 5 seconds of summer

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ii. nine: ❝the plan and a curse❞

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Small Heath, Birmingham

THE STREETS OF SMALL HEATH were heavy with drizzle that afternoon, a grey rain that clung to the skin and made the cobbles glisten like old silver. Marianna James moved through it with a grace that seemed at odds with the filth beneath her boots; arms full of parcels, breath fogging in the cold. Harry had sent her to fetch gin and bread and whatever else the tavern lacked, but her mind, as ever, had slipped away from the present.

It drifted back—to the first time she saw the Garrison.

It was 1912. She'd been eighteen and stupidly tender, all bones and hope, her hair still catching sunlight the way wild wheat did in summer fields. She'd sit by the roadside, her skirts smudged with soot, sketching the streets — horses passing, women bickering, lads laughing too loud. The world felt enormous then. Wide enough to dream in.

She used to draw the Garrison's doorway again and again, as though she knew, somehow, that her life would bleed out through it one day.

When her house chores were done, she'd steal away with bits of charcoal and scrap paper nicked from her brother Mal's work desk, crouching near the pub's entrance. Every stroke she drew felt alive— hungry, searching. She wanted colour. She wanted canvas. She wanted more. But want was a cruel thing when you hadn't a penny to your name.

And so she'd sit there, cold-fingered and wide-eyed, dreaming of paint she couldn't afford and love she hadn't yet met.

Then came that day—the one that split her life in two.

The Shelby lads, John with his mischief, Arthur with his temper, and Tommy; beautiful, terrible Tommy, with that half-smile that could unmake her soul. They stood by the pub's steps, banner in hand: WANTED: BARMAID.

Mal laughed, nudged her shoulder. "Go on, Mari, you're made for it."

And she was.

There was a flash of something in her chest; wild and wordless. She dropped her charcoal and ran, skirts flying, heart hammering against her ribs. The Garrison door swung open, and the smoke inside met her like an embrace.

That was how it began.

Back then, Tommy Shelby was still mostly her boy; clever, cocky, all sharpness and smirks. And she loved him. God help her, she did. He'd lean against the counter, eyes following her like she was the only soft thing left in his hard little world. She'd tease him, call him the lad who thought he was king, and he'd answer in that low, dangerous murmur that promised he very well might be.