peaky blinders imagines

over the course of ten hours; tommy shelby

There was an air that was held about the Garrison. Aura would've been the wrong word for it, and essence was too spiritual. Whatever the proper way to call the manner in which the building beheld itself was, it was always a place in which you felt comfortable. Long before you'd met Tommy and far, far before you'd fallen in love with him, you'd been a frequent visitor to the Garrison, initially as an underage teenager who knew she'd be snuck a pint, and later, during the war, as one of its only employees. There were very few men between the ages of eighteen and forty five left in Small Heath while the war still raged on in the more western areas of your continent, and you found yourself serving whiskey after whiskey to scared young men who were eighteen next week and knew they'd be called up on the day of and old men, nearing the end of their lives but still wishing they could take up arms for their country. You'd become fairly friendly with Ada, serving as a sounding board for her worries and anxieties over the three brothers she'd temporarily lost to the cause, but you were dealt a rude awakening when the eldest Shelby's returned from the war and had no clue who you were.
You still remembered the day with clarity. Polly had asked you to come in two hours earlier and work a painfully understaffed twelve hour shift so the whole family could be there to greet Arthur, Tommy, and John off the train. More than happy to do it, you found your hands entirely full, as the bar filled with soldiers fully intending to become so drunk they couldn't walk. The family themselves had entered through the back entrance, and so you didn't encounter them until late, when the crowd had almost entirely dispersed and you were wiping down the chairs and tables.
John had introduced himself first, saying Ada had mentioned you in a few letters and that it was a pleasure to meet you. He seemed oddly distracted, staring off into space even while holding a coherent conversation. He'd tell you about Martha eventually, but that'd be four years later, when you were comfortably married into the family.
Arthur pulled you into an exuberant hug next, clearly intoxicated but a breath of fresh air compared to the general enthusiasm mixed with melancholy that had tinged all the military men you'd encountered that day. He'd begin to suffer terribly in the year following your meeting, and though you didn't know it yet, you'd be with him for a fair share of his breakdowns, and eventually become a good friend to the troubled soldier.
You met Tommy last, and he was by far the least interested in you and what you had to say. He, like John, seemed distracted, but it was a different type of preoccupation, more general and empty than his brother. You'd marry that one.
As the town and the family you had become so linked with slowly moved back into their normal positions before the war, you began working more frequently. You were very vaguely made aware by Arthur that there were new 'goings-on' happening in the rooms behind your bar. It didn't take a genius to surmise those doings were illegal, but you decided early on it wasn't your problem. Business was as good as ever, better, in fact, and so long as you and your regulars weren't harmed, it could be left alone.
It was because of this attitude that Tommy first took notice of you. He'd questioned you carefully over the course of a few days, ensured your loyalty was built out of relative indifference and love towards Ada from four years of watching her suffer. He'd asked how you felt about a pay raise, and so you became a de facto spokesperson for Shelby Limited.
Your young adulthood coincided with the true advent of radio, and as the Shelby family grew richer and it became more and more of an open secret that what they did was illegal, you held press conferences in London, reassuring the public that Mr. Tommy Shelby was simply an expert on the business of racing horses.
Because much of what you had to lie to the press about concerned Tommy, you began to spend a decent amount of time together. His original indifference towards you entirely faded, and he told himself that even if you didn't want to be with him, he could convince you that it'd be good for public image, that there was no way a respectable woman like you would lie about the man you loved. To his delight, the intense love he'd developed while admiring your intelligence from afar was fully returned.
Tommy was only capable of strong, consuming emotion, and so he didn't care for courting you in the normal time frame. You had begun spending the majority of every day with him, and the far majority of those hours were not related to any business, or to the increasingly ludicrous lies you had to spin in order to keep his head above water. He preferred to spend evenings in his office with your company, reading through numbers and making idle conversation, spurred on to actually work by the lazy smiles you'd grant him whenever you happened to look up at each other simultaneously.
He married you a year and a half to the day after you met. It was as extravagant as it inevitably would have been, regardless of the woman, because Tommy was that kind of man. He felt he owed you, in some way, for never leaving him and for providing him with relative loyalty. It was the greatest day of both of your lives. After that, with your last name and legal documents all bearing the moniker 'Shelby', it became easier for you to assimilate farther into the dealings of a company that was officially 'family owned'.
All of that painfully lengthy exposition provided reasoning for why you were at the Garrison that November evening when Alfie Solomons and his men paid a routine visit.
There was a fairly lucrative deal brewing, one that could result in Solomons selling more bread and the Shelby Company providing weaponry for gangs as far north as Edinburgh and as far west as Dublin. You'd been asked to attend, had been trusted to take minutes and to provide a fairly accurate legal opinion if needed. It'd gone fairly well, with minimal argument and maximum output, and Tommy had developed a gleam in his eye whenever he looked at you, one that only appeared when his day had been particularly lucrative.
The meeting itself had taken no more than an hour, and all parties involved were preparing to finish negotiations, and as the alcohol had continuously flowed, conversation had become less terse and smiles more frequent. One of Solomons' men, a new face, no more than two weeks on the job, was still shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
"Is everything alright?" You'd inquired.
"Yeah," he said, eyes flicking between you and the door, "I just keep hearing shit."
"It's ten at night on a Sunday," Tommy chided, reaching out to squeeze your arm, "nobody worth worrying about is on the streets."
The new man turned out to be right. As all of both parties turned to look out the window to ensure nothing was wrong and then have a laugh at the expense of their comrade, an explosive detonated ten meters from the front door and the front of the bar burst into flames. The chaos descended immediately, and as you ran blindly from the flames, you were separated from Tommy, and had been clinging to Alfie, who'd issued a gruff "C'mere!" and wrapped his arm firmly around your shoulders. You'd guided him towards the back entrance, some of the last ones out, and Tommy had immediately locked eyes with you, pulling you out of Solomon's grasp and into your own as a larger explosive went off and the entire shop went up in flames.
It was pouring heavily, and the fire was largely weakened by the area it had to cover, so it dissipated eerily quickly, leaving only a plume of smoke, twelve meters high, serving as a beckoning to all amateur crime solvers and curious residents.
Tommy let go of you and stumbled towards the shop, expression still in disbelief and awe, when a single shot rang out, piercing the seemingly unbreakable silence, and you collapsed to the group, clutching your abdomen with your mouth stretched in a silent scream.
Alfie wheeled around immediately, and the first thing you heard was his loud exclamation of "Fuck!"
Tommy took a moment longer to fully grasp what had happened to you, but it was very clear when the realization hit him. His expression shifted from one of light confusion to one of pure horror, as his eyes clenched up and face twisted while letting out a scream of terror. The last thing you saw before you blacked out was your husband ripping his coat off to wrap around you as a blanket, and the crazed look on his face told you he really believed that would stop the bleeding.
(You'd learn, from John, nearly a fortnight later, that Tommy lost his mind after he took you to the hospital and they told him he couldn't be on the waiting room. He'd smashed chairs, screamed at nurses, and punched multiple walls, before ending up on the floor in a crouching position, breathing hard and pulling on his hair in a desperate attempt to calm himself. He'd then abruptly gotten up and walked out of the hospital and strode, fairly calmly, to the wreckage of the Garrison, which was still smoking faintly. He sat, lit a cigarette, and did not move until the sun rose. You'd learn this only years later, from Tommy himself, but during those five hours he sat motionless on the sidewalk, he was convinced you were going to die on the operating table.)
You came to sometime between eight and eight-thirty in the morning on Monday. The first thing that came into focus was a small crease on the hat of the nurse who was bent over you, inserting a needle filled with some kind of clear liquid into your arm. She noticed your eyes opening and smiled at you, patting your shoulder and finishing her work without a word. You began to register the other objects in the room at a fairly sluggish pace; the cabinet of bandages across from your bed, the flower pot left on your bedside table (from Alfie, what a sweetheart), the large bandage wrapped around your abdomen that was three-quarters saturated with blood, and finally, your husband. He was sat in an armchair situated left and on the diagonal from where you now sat up in bed, and his body language made it clear he'd fallen asleep watching you.
"Tom," you said, and your voice was weak and cracking. You cleared your throat and said "Tommy," much louder than the first, and he shot up immediately. Your husband made eye contact with you as he registered you were awake, and his expression was one of wracking guilt. He got up slowly, grimacing from the uncomfortable position he'd been in all morning, and made his way over to your side.
"How do you feel?" He asked, quietly, as if any loud noises would have the same effect on you as a bullet.
"Like shit."
"God," Tommy exclaimed, arms shooting out to cradle your head, "I'm so fucking sorry."
You shook your head repeatedly, but he wasn't hearing your protests, and buried his face into your neck, trying and failing to conceal tears.
"I'll find him," he told you, "and I'll make him regret being born, I swear, if it's the last thing I do-"
"Shh", you cut him off, lying there, recovering from being an inch from death, leaking blood on your husband's expensive clothing, ensuring above all other things that he was okay.
That was love to you.