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“You know, Tommy, mate, you’re gonna die not ‘cause of fuckin’ Italians or Russians but ‘cause of that little stick right there,” Alfie says as he closes the door behind him, his index finger pointing straight at the cigarette hanging loosely from Tommy’s lips. He’s giving Tommy a rather reproachful look. He approaches the man behind the desk in slow steps, and stands tall right in front of him.
He’s a sight to behold. All scruffy and rough, but not the kind that Tommy has a distaste for. Some men he’d seen, usually in Birmingham, are also rugged. But the thing is, they aren’t men like Alfie. He had always admired that Jew, he did. He isn’t someone who backs down simply because he isn’t willing to take a risk, but he also knows when to eat his pride and step down for a positive outcome in the long run. Alfie Solomons is a smart man, differing from many others Tommy had met and had yet to meet.
“Hello, Alfie,” Tommy greets and takes another puff from his cigarette. “What brings you all the way to the Garrison?” It is clear from the questioning tinge in his voice that Alfie is not an expected guest. He cocks an eyebrow. “Business, perhaps?”
“Oh, I’ve got some business, alright,” Alfie answers casually and throws himself down onto a single seat. He has a glint in his eye, Tommy notes. Now, it isn’t a very surprising detail since the man always had some sort of glint in those dark eyes of his, but from his his years of knowing him, Tommy can tell it’s different. Not sure how, but somehow, it’s not the glint that indicates the usual I’ve got this, you’ve got that. No, Alfie has something different in store today. “You see, mate,” he continues. He’s made himself comfortable in his seat. He’s got one arm on the side of the chair and is leaning back like he’s the most relaxed he’s ever been, but Tommy can see clearly that his other arm is still at his side. His long, thick fingers are clenching and unclenching next to his vest. “I was passing through Birmingham, yeah, ‘cause I got places to be at and things to do, but I couldn’t resist the temptation to come and visit my good ‘ol friend Tommy Shelby.”
Tommy doesn’t reply. It’s obvious that Alfie is here for something he is unusually unsure about, hence the hand near his gun. He’s expecting Tommy to react. In preparation, Tommy leans forward on his desk and balances himself on his forearms. He is on his guard, leaning slightly towards his right where he keeps his gun.
Alfie’s looking at him expectantly with his eyes slightly wide. “I’m going to get straight to the point, Tommy, ‘cause as your good friend I know you don’t like to wait around. You want to hear my proposition?”
To be frank, Tommy isn’t sure if he does. His brain takes him on a small trip of memories to show him how predictable Alfie is, which is not at fucking all. For all Tommy knows, Alfie could have a knife in his shirt ready to be stabbed into Tommy’s face in an emergency.
But Tommy is a curious man. He sticks out his lower lip and nods in a show of acceptance. “All right.”
“You wanna fuck, mate?”
The words go as quickly as they come. It doesn’t echo, doesn’t linger. It’s almost as if it’s said to be forgotten. Tommy stares at Alfie. Alfie stares back.
Tommy frantically opens the cabinet to his right and whips out his gun, pointing it straight at Alfie’s forehead. Alfie isn’t as fast as Tommy, much to his chagrin, because now he has his hands at the sides of his head in surrender. He continues to stare as Tommy’s breaths gets more and more rapid.
“If anyone shoots, I also shoot,” Tommy announces to the room. “Whoever is in hiding, it’s best to come out now.”
“Mate, put the fucking gun down, we’re alone in this damned room, alright?” Alfie groans. Tommy is eyeing him up and down, and looking around in the room without doing as much as moving his head. “Look, Tommy, I’m not fucking kidding. Put the gun back in the cabinet. Or on your golden fucking desk, if you’d like. But I’m saying, yeah, that no one is in this room other than the two of us.”
“Do I look stupid to you, Alfie?” Tommy says, getting aggravated. He doesn’t like it when people mess with him, especially in ways like this. Alfie could’ve chosen any other way to distract him from danger, but of course being his strange fucking self, he decided to say that. Right to Tommy’s face.
“Fuck if you do, mate,” Alfie says in an exasperated manner. “Bloody fuck, are you really asking me if Thomas fucking Shelby looks stupid to me?”
Tommy stays silent, but his fingers wrap themselves tighter around the handle and his index finger is getting closer to the trigger now. Alfie gulps.
“Okay, Tommy, listen,” he says then. “I’m in a war with Sabini right now with you at my side, providing me with manpower. I know your brain is all muddled and shit right now, but open your bloody ears and just listen to me.”
When he recieves no answer, he takes it as an agreement for him to keep going. “If I kill you right now, I’ll be dead soon after. That dirty fucking Italian has all those coppers with him, yeah, and I do not trust coppers. You remember our first conversation, mate?”
Tommy’s eyes haven’t left Alfie’s face, and they are still moving up and down desperately, searching for an answer that is not there. But he still gives a jerky nod.
“I don’t know why in the fuck you got so bloody panicked, all right, ‘cause, yeah I know I’m a bit of a terrifying man but mate, you know I wouldn’t do shit like that to you. Not after saying what I said.”
Tommy finally lets his hand drop onto the table and exhales. His eyes still haven’t left the man’s face, but his eyeballs are not rolling around in his eye sockets, threatening to jump out. Alfie spoke sensibly, but he has double crossed Tommy more than he would care to admit.
“What the fuck, Alfie,” Tommy says finally after a few beats of silence. The amount of weight in those words in unbearable. The tension in the room is not as high as it was a minute ago, but it’s still there.
“Not my fault you reacted like a fucking dog that lost his owner,” Alfie says, a bubble of laughter behind his words that might pass as slightly hysterical. “The pretty little blues of yours, Tommy, they were rolling like a rabid dog’s would. Although,” he strokes his beard in thought and frowns slightly. “That might strike up a whole other conversation. You see, mate, you’ve always reminded me of a cat. Like, you don’t speak much, but when you do, it comes in the form of hissing, right?”
“Maybe you’ve just had a bad experience with cats,” Tommy deadpans.
Alfie just stares at him for a second, eyes wide, mouth open as if he was about to continue his speech but something shook him. Tommy takes it as an opportunity to speak.
“Now, Alfie, about that proposition,” he says, letting himself lean back on his chair. For the first time in the evening, he thinks. The lad won’t give me a break.
“I mean, I said it pretty outright, Tommy,” Alfie says. He has an odd edge to his voice, as if he and Tommy switched places and anything Tommy says could set him off. Which, in all fairness, Tommy finds absolutely ridiculous. After all, he wasn’t the one who asked if they could fuck.
“You’re asking me if I want to fuck,” Tommy crosses his arms. “But are you asking that literally?”
“What, there’s a figurative way of fucking?” Alfie says and huffs. “‘Cause if there is, mate, you should really teach-“
“Alfie,” Tommy interrupts. He can hardly resist the urge to roll his eyes into oblivion. “Explain to me what you meant, and tell me how it counts as a proposition. Then, I will consider it.”
“Yeah, you’re right, that is how business works,” Alfie murmurs and nods in agreement. “Smart lad, smart lad...”
Thomas’ unimpressed stare makes him talk immediately.
“So what I meant is,” he starts in a different voice that can only be described as deceivingly formal. Unsurprisingly, it’s the exact same voice Alfie used when he told Thomas to lend over one hundred percent of his business to him. “You remember me saying that I’m a fucking sodomite, right? A bloody sodomite. And honestly, Tommy, you also seemed like a sodomite to me. So this is from one sodomite to another, mate.”
Thomas isn’t sure if he should take offense in the words that come out of Alfie’s mouth, but he opts to stay silent.
“The proposition is absolutely flawless, mate,” he continues. “If you went looking for flaws with new glasses, yeah, you’d find nothing. A total of nothing. And it’s a win-win situation. If I fuck you in the arse, Tommy,” he points at the air, at nothing in particular. “I would feel pleasure. Immensely, in fact. And on the recieving end, you would also,” he draws a straight line in the air with his finger and stops at a seemingly very particular point. His eyes widen as though he made the biggest revelation of all time. “Be in pleasure. Do you see any flaws in this offer, mate, ‘cause I definitely don’t.”
Thomas still isn’t completely sure about whether Alfie is serious or not. But...
Firstly, Alfie is spot on with his observation. Tommy is, in fact, a damned sodomite. He’s a fucking queer and he doesn’t quite understand how Alfie figured him out in only a couple of years when his family hasn’t in their long, long years of knowing him.
Secondly, Alfie is looking at him with eyes full of expectations, and it is reeling him away from thinking Alfie is only joking. If this is, in fact, a trap, then Alfie would only suffer from it: his previous points of needed manpower and whatnot were totally valid.
Lastly, Alfie is one handsome bloke. Tommy had only had dreams with him in it twenty-ish times and he also hasn’t gotten laid for way too long.
His decision only takes a second to make after considering three reasons to accept. But that doesn’t mean he can’t milk it.
“What made you think I’m a,” he pauses and clears his throat as if he was saying something dangerous. “Sodomite, Alfie?”
Alfie huffs out a laugh. “I saw something in the eyes, mate. The eyes gave you away.” He’s talking as if Thomas has already confirmed it- although he may as well have, with the slight twitch of his lips indicating a smile threatening to make place for itself.
“I have my mother’s eyes,” Tommy says.
“Well, you ain’t your mother, are ya?”
Tommy narrows his eyes in a last, feeble attempt to pick out lies from Alfie’s face. It doesn’t work, just as he expected. It’s still the same scarred face Alfie sports every day of his life.
“I have one condition,” Tommy says finally. Alfie leans forward in his chair slightly, now more alert than he was a second ago. He had probably realized only now that his words had gotten him somewhere. “I will not just be on the ‘recieving end’.”
Alfie frowns, thinking of a solution to Thomas’ problem. “But Tommy, big fucks small. I told you that.”
“That was about business. And secondly,” he says, heat rushing up his neck and onto his face. “I’m not bloody small.”
“Oh really?” Alfie murmurs and looks him up and down as if he’s actually reconsidering his words. “Could’ve sworn you were tiny.”
“Fuck you,” Tommy says flatly.
After a stare off that stands for not over ten seconds, Alfie abruptly stands up, spits into his hand and offers it to Tommy. Tommy does the exact same and they shake hands.
____________________
Tommy winces as Alfie, grunting, pulls out of him. His eyes are rolling back behind his closed eyelids in the last seconds of his pleasure, and he exhales. He opens his eyes slowly. He can’t see anything from the tears blocking his view.
“Told you it was worthwhile, mate,” Alfie’s voice fills his ears. It’s much softer than it was a few hours ago, when they were still in the Garrison, closing up the deal. “It’s a beautiful thing, innit? It even made you cry.” He leans forward and wipes the tears away. Tommy is surprised for the millionth time that night at how gentle Alfie could be despite his rough, calloused hands that led Tommy to think otherwise.
“Mmgh,” Tommy lets out. A shiver runs through his spine and suddenly, he’s cold and trembling. Alfie tsks disapprovingly and moves from his place on top of Tommy, slowly lowering himself next to the smaller man. Tommy closes his eyes once again, starting to drift off already. He’s pulled towards Alfie’s very warm body by said man’s strong arm, and he lets it happen.
It isn’t like Tommy to be so pliant. He was never like this with anyone else except for that one duchess. He’d let that woman hold him, whisper soothing things to him despite knowing that she was a crazy bitch with no purpose of actually helping Tommy. But he’d taken the temporary comfort willingly. It is rare, to find those specific people that somehow made Tommy all pliant and vulnerable.
Content, he tucks his head in Alfie’s neck and the man makes a surprised noise at the back of his throat.
“Didn’t take you for such a cuddler, mate, I’m not gonna lie,” he remarks, and there’s an unmistakable smile in his voice. Tommy hums and throws his arm over Alfie’s broad chest, far past the point of embarrassment. Alfie’s arm around his shoulder becomes more firm in response. Tommy feels the comforting weight of his blanket over him, and right after it settles, Alfie pats him on the head like he’s a small child in need of comfort.
“Shut up, Alfie,” he says, voice barely audible, both from being under a thick blanket and his drowsy state. “You have no weapons on you or near you, and if you attempt to go to the tub-“
“-where we dumped everything that could pass as a weapon, you will wake up because you’re a light sleeper. I got it when you said it the first time, mate, bloody hell. No need to repeat it eight times.”
Tommy chuckles low at that, and he hears Alfie’s breath hitch. The last thing he feels before he drifts off to sleep is Alfie’s hand on his face, petting his cheek lightly.