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𝙩𝙬𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙮-𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙚.

𝙩𝙬𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙮-𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙚𝙚 | 𝘈 𝘛𝘈𝘓𝘌 𝘖𝘍 𝘍𝘖𝘙𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘙 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘈𝘓𝘞𝘈𝘠𝘚

so fucking long, as a welcome back gift

｡･:*:･ﾟ✧ ｡･:*:･ﾟ

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND – THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1924

THEY SAY NOTHING GROWS WHEN A HOUSE ISN'T A HOME, and despite himself, Thomas Shelby knew this very well.

He tried not to put much stock into this silly old saying, but he had witnessed the truth of it, first hand. His childhood had been plagued by despair; from his mother's death to his father's abandonment. He had managed to create a business empire out of the broken pieces of his household, yet the broken pieces of his soul, specially after the wreckage left behind by the war, never managed to mend, for he never had a home. Not until Annabel Lee.

He had witnessed the truth of the statement, when she tumbled into the streets of Small Heath, equal parts princess and fury, and turned the Shelbys lives' upside down, nestling into the crooks and crannies of their hearts. He had witnessed that truth, that one truth that now seems so universal to him, in the moments where he could physically feel his heart coming back together under her healing touch and soothing soul. He would swear on that truth now, that she had become his home, and that they had formed one together.

Tommy believed that was exactly what he was about to do; swear on that truth. He stood at the altar of a beautifully quaint chapel, trying to swallow his nerves. Her voice rang in his head, Almost three years you've been begging for the day I make an honest man out of you, Thomas!

The moment she sees him, she will know. She knew the tells for his nervousness, a tad too well. She knew how he would clasp his hands in front of him, firmly enough to try and stop the little finger of his left hand from twitching, in vain, or how he would put all his weight on his ankles, or how his eyes would get glossy, from the heat coming from his neck. She will know, and she will laugh, and if Tommy Shelby were the man he was five years ago before Annabel Lee Keats told him off in the snug of the Garrison, that thought would've set him beside himself in anger. He was no longer that man. She had changed him, in ways he hadn't even thought were possible. He was not a good man, by any means. However, he might've wanted to be. For her.

Her.

Annabel Lee Keats, he thought as his heart nearly stopped in his chest at the sound of the wedding march ringing in his ears. He was a man of violence, not of peace. A man of destruction, and not art. However, her name, the way her brows slanted, how her eyes were always brimming with mischief, how strands of fiery red hair would fall gracefully on her porcelain shoulders under the gleaming moonlight as she hummed a little lullaby, framing her merry face, oh, the joy of Annabel Lee Keats' existence could make a poet out of him.

As he saw her enter the chapel, stepping down the aisle at the arm of her brother, her beautiful face covered by the fabric of her veil and her figure daintly embraced by the white silk of her dress, he swore on the winged seraphs above that a poet, for her, he will indeed be.

Before he could even register the image, his hand reached out for her on instinct as she approached him, and Henry placed hers into it, slowly and tentatively, almost pleading Tommy not to break her heart. He took a deep breath when she squeezed his hand securely, stabilizing herself and him, bringing him back to reality.

Nonetheless, that moment of reality was brief, for the second he lifted her veil and got a glance at her heavenly face, time stopped. That's the only way he could even describe it. Every worry from the past weeks, every thought of business, really, vanished promptly as he gazed into her warm eyes and the passing of minutes, the ticking of seconds, froze.