Calloway // Michael Gray x Reader - Peaky Blinders Fanfic

Chapter 45

Michael

"You're not coming with us."

Tommy's eyebrows are raised, a lit cigarette sending whorls of smoke from between his fingers where they catch the rays of sun filtering through a gap in the curtains. The smoke mingles with floating specks of dust caught in the glow, and lingers thick in the air as the words settle into Michael's mind.

"You fucking what?"

Tommy sighs at having to repeat himself. "You're gonna stay here with Polly and Calloway. I need someone on the phones, ready to—"

"I'm not sitting this out, Tommy." Michael clenches his jaw. There's a stinging sensation in his palms — the bite of his fingernails — as his hands tense beneath the table. "I've waited weeks for this."

"Look, Michael. If you go, she'll insist on bloody going, and we can't risk it."

"If her and Mum hadn't turned up last time, one of us would be dead," Michael says.

"I'm aware of that." Tommy taps his cigarette out in a crystal ashtray. "So let's repay Calloway by keeping her safe, eh?"

The gas heater thrums softly in the corner as Michael debates how to respond. How to make his cousin understand that he's in complete agreement with Calloway not attending Mosley's speech, not being present while the Peaky Blinders enact their plan, but that he needs to be the one to take down Mosley. He's been awaiting this day for weeks. Obeying Tommy, biding his time, playing the long game. Now the moment has arrived. And he's expected to sit home and twiddle his thumbs while the others act.

"Would you be able to do it?" Michael asks quietly. "If it was May?"

Tommy rolls his eyes and stands to his feet, buttoning his suit jacket. "Michael, you still can't admit to even liking the girl."

"Because I don't," Michael answers automatically. Blinks. "Most of the time."

Tommy wait incredulously for him to continue.

"She's a fucking pain in the neck, Tom. Winds me up just being around her." Michael swallows. "But I love her. She might not be my wife yet, but one day she will. And when the day comes that I ask her, I can only pray she'll agree, because she'll still be wearing scars. Whether I ask her tomorrow, or in a year, or in twenty, she'll be wearing what Mosley's men did to her. Because of her association to me. And now you're telling me I can't hit him back for doing that to Cal."

Tommy thinks over the words for a moment before taking his seat once more. He opens his pack of cigarettes and lights one, then tosses the pack to Michael.

"Cal doesn't like when I smoke," he mumbles.

Tommy's eyebrows raise. "And I don't like being late for a meeting. But here I am."

Michael accepts the lighter and draws in the smoke, accepting the glass of whiskey Tommy pours.

"What were your parents like?" Tommy asks. "The ones who adopted you?"

"What do you want to know?" Michael asks flatly.

Tommy shrugs. "They ever give you advice? Playground fights, that sort of thing?"

"Not really."

"They ever tell you, if another kid hits you, hit 'em back harder?"

Michael laughs through his nose. It's a comical thought — discussing hitting at all in that house. Hitting is a word, a concept, that belongs firmly here in Small Heath. When Arthur snaps and lays into a man, punch after punch after punch, or when John's dealing with a fault debtor — that's hitting. Before them, the other boys in foster care, the slash of a cane through the air, the church...

"No," he says drily. "They weren't ones for playground advice."

"Should have been here with Pol after all," Tommy says. "She gave us the best chats if we'd been in trouble at school. Still remember her words, clear as day — anyone hits your brothers, you make fucking sure they're not physically able to do so again."

"Sounds like Mum."

"Always thought I'd say the same thing to my own children. But now I won't. Now, I know better." Tommy inclines his head towards Michael. "Anyone hits you, or the ones you care about, you come straight to me, and I'll fuck them up for the both of us. Much easier that way. You won't get in trouble with your teachers." He finishes his whiskey glass, stands to his feet, and buttons his blazer once more.

"I'm not your kid, Tom," Michael says.

He claps a hand on Michael's shoulder. "I know. Wouldn't let you smoke my cigarettes if you were."

Michael sits and finishes his whiskey glass.

As far as things go, and as angry as he is, there are worse things he could be doing tonight than spending it with Cal.