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Peaky Blinders Emergency Response Challenge Season 5
Stats:
Published:
2019-08-31
Completed:
2019-09-02
Words:
2,104
Chapters:
2/2
Comments:
18
Kudos:
70
Bookmarks:
12
Hits:
2,082

At least, the leaves were golden

Summary:

It's not a good idea to mix morphine and alcohol, but why would Tommy Shelby care?

Tommy needs help, but he doesn't know how to ask.

 

Peaky Emergency Response Fic Challenge: Episode 1 & 2 (S5 spoilers)

Chapter 1

Notes:

Please, check the tags for potential trigger warnings and this story contains spoilers for the events of season 5, so read at your own risk!

This fic had been written for the Peaky Emergency Response Challenge. The first part is for Episode 1 and the second for Episode 2.

I hope you'll like it and I want to thank my amazing beta reader @TinyPineTrees that makes everything she touches more beautiful <3

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Tommy stared out his window, glassy eyed as he swallowed thickly around a glass of whiskey. Outside, the tree’s leaves rock in the breeze, illuminated by the golden rays of the sun.

It looks like it’s warm outside. Or maybe it’s not. I don’t really know, actually. My body hardly feels anything other than cold lately.

I wasn’t really looking at the leaves. Only partly. I looked, but I wasn’t seeing. I wasn’t seeing anything. I was drawn into the void. Unlike the leaves, I could distinguish that well.

It’s astounding how life loses its interest when we allow ourselves to contemplate the void that eats us alive.

Tommy swallowed the last sip in his glass, pouring himself another straight away. He takes a small bottle from his pocket, drinking a portion of the liquid straight from the neck. The aggressive bitterness twists his features, and he drinks all his whiskey in one gulp, trying to cover its unpleasant taste.

The doctor prescribed the morphine. It seems like I didn't only need glasses after all. Do I still take it because of the pain ? I don’t even fucking know. Do I pay another doctor more money to give me a second prescription without any question?

I don’t remember what it’s like to be hurt, or maybe I remember too well. I don’t know. I don’t fucking know anything.

Tommy refilled his drink, sipping it casually.

The silence is the worse. Being alone with your thoughts and your emptiness. The voices fill it. And I want them to. I never seem to know what to do, but they tell me.

I know they’re not real. Grace. John. Freddie. Greta. Mum... But I couldn’t be alone anymore.

-----

Tommy closes his eyes, emptying the vial into his mouth. A fire crackles at his feet, but he can’t feel its warmth on his cold, clammy skin. It’s coming from inside. The warmth of an embrace. It releases the knot that is constantly tightening in his chest. Habit blinds him, leaving him unable to tell when his muscles are tensed, until the morphine frees them from this forced embrace.

The sensation is divine.

The claws holding him desperately in the world loosen for a few moments.

“Tommy, you’re here often lately.”

Opening his eyes again, he finds himself leaning against Grace’s chest. Her hands loose around his neck, as they hug quietly.

Hugging you is like embracing the ocean, Grace. If it feels too difficult to swim, I could always sink in your arms, until I drown.

Yet, each time we meet, I try to finally bid farewell. Then, when she appears in front of me and her voice lulls the sadness in my gaze, I no longer know how to say goodbye.

“I missed you too.” she murmurs in his ear, her hands tightening delicately the grip on his neck.

“I was here yesterday.”, he mumbles faintly, drawing a deep breath.

“But will you tomorrow? I know that you’ll leave me one day.”

“That’s the problem, Grace. I don’t know how. I fucking don’t-”

Tommy chokes on his last words. He’s out of breath and can’t finish his sentence. A tear runs across his face and he can’t close his mouth again. His lips are trembling more and more, as the flood of tears threatened to spill down his cheeks.

I was hugging you while crying. Sometimes, I’m sure I was.

“I just want you to feel better.”

“Do you think I can?” Tommy desperately sobs between his words. His breath is quivering and it’s starting to be a difficult task.

“You could feel like that forever. You just have to trust me.”

Tommy tracks Grace with his eyes, watching as she stands and her hands clench around his throat. She’s in front of him, tilting his chin higher, forcing him to look her in the eyes. His tears cascade across his cheeks and damp her hands as they press tighter.

“My poor love... Do you want the pain to stop?”

He stares at her wordlessly.

On a sudden impulse, Grace’s grip strengthens, her hands closing like iron around his neck.

Tommy chokes, gasping desperately.

The softness in Grace’s stare shifts to a perverse pleasure and her hands never falter. Pressing tighter and tighter. Tommy is dizzy by the strength and falls backwards off the wooden log. It was so dark but while blinking, he discovered he could still picture the Prussian soldier face, who strangled him in the tunnels.

When he comes back to his senses, Grace has disappeared. She’s nowhere to be seen, but he’s still breathless. He can’t remember how to breathe. He gets up quickly, but a striking nausea hits. He has to catch himself and cling to a nearby tree. His legs feel numb and he’s back on his feet with difficulty.

Is that what happens when you die? I thought it was more like embracing an old friend. I can’t die right now. The only thing I could leave to Charlie is gone, because of fucking Michael. Fucking Michael who wants my place, doesn’t he? He’d be way too happy.

The stretch between his campfire and house seems monumental, and impossibly challenging. He pauses frequently, leaning against trees in order to stay standing, fruitlessly trying to catch his breath, gasping desperately as he choked. When he finally nearly reaches his yard, he can distinguish a blurry figure coming towards him in a hurry. He doesn’t know if he can’t see properly or if it’s the huge amount of tears blurring his vision.

“What happened to you, Tommy?”

Johnny Dogs grabs him by the arm trying to keep him stable and moving in the direction he was heading to.

“What are you doing here?”, Tommy managed, air carving through his throat as he struggled to breathe.

They’re walking quicker thanks to Johnny Dogs’ help and finally reach the mansion yard.

“It’s dawn. We had to meet at dawn.”

A wave of nausea hits Tommy full force.

“Fuck.” is the last word that escapes Tommy’s lips before his legs give out. Johnny tries to catch him, but can’t hold him. Tommy falls heavily in the middle of his yard. Before his head hits the ground, he wonders for a second : Was he even real?

Notes:

That was mostly Tommy and his sadness. Most of his symptoms in this fic are also symptoms of an abuse of morphine mixed with alcohol (difficulty to breathe, dizziness, nausea, clammy skin, paranoia, unconsciousness, etc.).

Thank you also to @shelbydevilment for our conversation about morphine, it helped a lot <3

Part 2 is already partly written and I don't have a lot of time left, so it should come really quickly!

Chapter 2

Summary:

Just because we all need Polly to come back with her “You shake hands with the Devil and you walk past him” magic powder. Peculiar treatment, but it seemed to work for some time.

Notes:

This is my reponse fic for episode 2, I hope you'll enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Tommy doesn’t really know where he is. An aggressive light blinds him and he is assailed by the mingling smells of chemical products, overcooked bouillon and rotting flesh. Blurry figures rush around him in an infernal din, pounding at his already throbbing migraine. A mask is pushed over his mouth, forcing him to breathe deeply, as it sticks to his clammy skin.

Jesus Christ. Not dead yet, I suppose.

----

Tommy is slumped in his chair, his two elbows on the desk and his hands on his face. The footsteps behind the door swell in his chest, and he lets a deep sigh escape when loud frantic knocks echo in the room.

“Come.” He yells, unconvinced.

When Polly storms in his office, he’s suddenly aching for a cigarette.

He’s still allowed to do that at least. It kills him slower, but it’s better. Apparently.

“No more alcohol and be more careful with the dose. That’s what the doctor said.” She orders, rushing towards him.

“Morning, Pol.” He replies, already half-irritated, taking a cigarette from the box on his desk.

Polly steps closer, laying both hands on his desk and towering over him.

“He also said that you’ll probably die if there is a next time. If you carry on being that stupid.”

A sarcastic laugh slips out of him as he lights his cigarette.
“I doubt the doctor speaks like that.” He mocks, desperately trying to retake an ounce of control.

“He should, when his patients are behaving like real idiots. He might have believed your vain attempt at an excuse, but I didn’t. ‘I may have taken too much without noticing.’ ”, she quotes him, imitating sarcastically his deep voice.

Tommy feels trapped, her accusation leaving him speechless. He glares at her and his brows arch as his frustration spills from every feature of his face.

“Frances will be in charge of giving you the right dose. You can’t be trusted right now.”

“I gonna stop, Pol. I’m not a fucking child.”

“I don’t trust you on this.” Polly stretches her hand out to him. “Give me. The fucking. Thing.”

Tommy doesn’t move for a few seconds, staring at her without blinking. He pulls a small bottle from its hiding place within his pant pocket.

“All of it”

Tommy takes two more little vials out of his inside pocket.

“Any other?”

“That’s all of them.”

“Do you mind if I check? I don’t trust you anymore.”

He raises an eyebrow, irritation burning inside of him. But when Polly’s stare becomes more insistent, he understands. He calmly stands despite the frustration bleeding through him and crushes his cigarette in the ashtray. He spreads his arms, pursing his lips and looking away.

Polly circles the desk and pats the pockets of his vest.

“You say that like you used to” Tommy whispers defiantly.

Polly pauses and stares at him, before continuing on with what she started without bothering to answer to this clear act of provocation.

When she’s finished, she delicately lays her hand on his shoulder, comfortingly stroking it and searching for his gaze with a worried look.

“Don’t be stupid, you know why I do that.”

She lets her hand trails lightly on his shoulder one last time, before leaving to sit near the desk.

“You’ve been insufferable to everyone who offered to help you. Lizzie doesn’t know what to say anymore. She’s loyal. She wants to help. But you can’t talk to her without being a prick.”

I wish Lizzie would talk back more often when I tell these things. There are things I don’t want to tell, but can’t help saying at the same time. I wish she would talk back to hurt me.

I’d wish I would feel hurt. I’d wish I’d feel anything, really. It’s hard to want to stay alive, when you don’t even feel like you are.

Because the void is more dangerous than the pain. It sucks you up until you can’t breathe.

Polly’s words shake him from his infernal spiral of thoughts.

“You told you see things.”

“I didn’t say anything like that.”

“Don’t fucking lie to me! You don’t have the fucking words for what, Thomas?”

“For the whole fucking life, Pol. I’ve been afraid of who could come after us, of who wants to take us down. I’m scared for the children, for the family. I don’t know how to be a fucking father of children who fucking fear me, and...”, He pauses, looking away with wet eyes and adds, “France. Fucking France. Always fucking France.”

“You used to deal with that. What’s changed?”

“The emptiness, Pol. The insufferable emptiness.”

Polly’s eyebrows rise concerningly.

“In the end, it has always been just the two of us, right?”

He lifts his head meeting her eyes. They stay quiet for some time, looking at each other, until Polly gets up.

“Keep to the doses for now. We will see about the rest later.”

Polly takes her purse and hat from the desk and heads for the door. Her hand pauses on the handle as she turns around.

“Thomas.”

He lifts his gaze to her again.

“You walked past your devils, but you’re still holding their hands. Let them go.”

She then opens the door and leaves.

----

Tommy is standing in front of his window, watching Cyril and his two children playing under the tree from afar. His hands are trembling.

Three children. One with every lover. I used to have four of them, but had to shoot one point blank a few days ago. Point blank. I’ll never be used to see horses die.

A flash runs through his veins, begging for morphine. He resists it. He has to. He takes a cigarette instead.

They’re under the golden tree, even if the grey clouds stole his colors away today, and the sun preferred to match me. It doesn’t trust me either, right?

Tommy sits at his desk and unlocks the small drawer. Right in the middle of his official sealed papers, a little vial of transparent liquid taunts him.

“Perhaps, they’re right. Perhaps, you’re the next Alfie”

He grabs the vial and stares at it.

The giggles of his children playing outside stop his reverie, resonating intensely in the office, tinting his look with hesitation. He looks up at them and a thinning illuminates the leaves of the tree with its golden rays.

Notes:

At first, saddened by these two episodes, the ending of this chapter was planned to be really defeatist. I wanted to put Cyril's grave under the tree and making Tommy so addict to morphine and suicidal that he didn't have an ounce of hesitation to take more behind everybody's back. But some days after, I thought we all needed a bit more of hope!

Thank you to have read it! I was really rusty and beginning to write had been so difficult. I'm glad I took part to this challenge, because it helped a lot to get back on track. It can be frustrating to have so few time to write because you can't develop the story as much as you'd like, but it's really challenging and I didn't write as many words in months. So, it's a great experience.