Forbidden Afflictions // Alfie Solomons Peaky Blinders

(17) I'll Follow You Into the Dark pt. 1

I'm pushing my schedule to meet these deadlines. I've edited the prior chapters but I can't promise this one to be anywhere close to perfect. I apologize. Again, I will work on the pacing and plot holes and such later. I hope you enjoy. I love y'all!

-V

There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime.

The company of an old, dead poet was better than that of an old, partially dead woman's conscious mind. A man drawn and perhaps succumbed to insanity was a rather cure for the mere thing.

Not bothering with a glass, Freya held the neck of a rum bottle as a novel hung loose between her fingers. She sat in a chair near the fire as the sky darkened and the patter of rain soothed any surrounding uneasiness beyond her mind. Soft, ancient jazz filled the room from a new radio stuck at the center of Alfie's desk in the far corner.

It felt like a lifetime spent inside those pages. The words seemed to seep into her soul as if her body were the purest parchment, and the written script was the potent etching of a new quill in ink. The two minds connecting each other didn't quite have the same life or relationships with family. Still, between each word, that blank space between them and the places separating the lines from the paragraphs and the paragraphs from the pages, that's where Freya found herself. Surrounding this man's family was her own being and her own complications.

Freya didn't think she would sit for hours on end with a drink in hand if it weren't for the accurate subtext. She itched to take a pencil underneath each quote as if to score and glorify the preexisting words from publication. She wanted to take the pages and keep them for herself, but even drunk, she couldn't defile Alfie's things.

She set the book down once she reached the end. She sat for a moment, thinking about the events. Only for a minute or two did she consider the insanity of it.

Not just the book but the nonsense she abandoned in Birmingham.

She stood at full length and cupped her lips around the bottle before swallowing as much liquor as she could in one breath. She wretched and shook her head as she came up for air. The bitter, spicy tang of aged rum clung to her tastebuds and instantly warmed her throat and belly.

Her eyes ran to the fire as she set the nearly empty bottle down. However, her mind stayed with Polly for a while.

Her home smelled of dust and aged cleaning detergents, and her gown wasn't quite as pearly and white as Freya remembered it to be. She seemed shameless when snorting her snow. After everything Freya hated about the drug, her own beloved aunt was now indulging right before her eyes.

Polly didn't try to hide her poor health. It was obvious that she didn't want help, but she couldn't care if those closest to her saw her at such a low.

For a moment, beyond the shared trauma, the thought of loss had gone from her mind. The thing that ached, the parts that wretched, nothing seemed to concern her. For a brief moment, all she wanted was to help.

She knew how to talk to Arthur when he was at an all-time low. She knew what to say to Tommy when he was drunk. She knew how to ridicule John without upsetting him and making things worse for the rest of them. She knew how to talk to them, but she had no idea what to do to help the woman who helped her all those years ago.

She was there for Freya when the boys came back from war. She was there to raise Finn when Freya bought her own home. She was always there for Tommy in his business ordeals. She was always a kind ear to talk to and a warm shoulder to cry on.