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𝙩𝙚𝙣.

𝙩𝙚𝙣 | 𝘈 𝘛𝘈𝘓𝘌 𝘖𝘍 𝘓𝘖𝘚𝘚𝘌𝘚 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘙𝘌𝘝𝘐𝘝𝘈𝘓𝘚

｡･:*:･ﾟ✧ ｡･:*:･ﾟ

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND - THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1921

ISN'T DEATH A FUNNY THING?

Tommy Shelby sure thought so now, standing in front of the grave of his brother-in-law. Freddie Thorne had been, much like Tommy himself, a fighting man. There was France, and then every day after was a battle. One would have thought that Freddie would have gone down fighting against the King in the name of both Karl, his son, and Karl Marx, in a glorious battle in the name of the proletariat, dying a hero as he almost did many times in France. Yet, in the end, pestilence had taken him away from his loving wife and son, leaving behind an empty hole in the hearts of his family and of the revolution.

Emptiness. Tommy Shelby was familiar with that feeling. Indeed, he hadn't felt much of anything else after Annabel.

Isn't death a funny thing?

Tommy spoke a few words that gloomy morning of 1921, honouring his late best friend, despite the unrest from John's now five children. Once they had lowered the deceased into the ground, Tommy uttered a last goodbye, and parted to talk to his sister, now a fervent communist, to come back to Small Heath.

Since Annabel, there hadn't been much in Small Heath for anyone at all. Business was booming, money was flowing, yet life was as gloom as the England skies.

He had thought of going after her many times. Searched for her relentlessly, starting from the very same day he had come back from business in London with an engagement ring in his pocket, ready to proclaim his undying devotion to her, and instead found Lord and Lady Cardrey, heads of the Keats family, sitting in front of a crying Polly in the Shelby home living room, waiting to tell him that that they had shipped their youngest daughter, who was only recovering of the gunshot wound Kimber had inflicted, to Argentina, where she supposedly was all along, and that he would never see her again.

For the first time in a decade, Tommy Shelby had cried.

One day, a year later, he received word that the Keats household had ordered that 360 letters in coming from Buenos Aires, Argentina destined to Birmingham, England be burned, and he stopped searching.

If Birmingham had been scared of the man who ruled it before, now they were terrified by the monster that Annabel Lee had left behind.

Not longer after, Polly hands him a handful of confetti in front of the ruins of a blown up Garrison pub, and Tommy thinks of the tantrum Annabel would've thrown if she knew her beloved workplace was now as darkened as her lover's heart.

Tommy Shelby fled from the scene to a small, underground Irish pub, the Black Lion, which he had chosen in an effort to find out who had blown up his pub, took his cap off and ordered a glass of whiskey.

His thoughts were running wild. One of the only things that still held Annabel's presence, gone.

He spoke a few words to the barman, his mind still running images of Annabel as it usually did. She was most likely now married, perhaps had bore the man children. He downed his drink.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a young boy coming into the pub. "Which one of you is the Peaky Blinder devil?"

Tommy sighed and downed the rest of his drink. There was truly no rest for the wicked.