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God, but Tommy was tired.
Lunch had been extenuating. Karl and Charlie kept screaming around, Polly had to be forcefully stopped from punching Linda in the face by a very worried John, and Ada and Michael had spent two whole hours discussing economics.
There hadn’t been a single minute of silence since his family had crossed the threshold, and Tommy’s head felt like exploding. He was happy he’d managed to spend Christmas with his family, but Christ did they know how to be as loud as possible.
Right now, the sound of the engine sounded as blissful as ever. The road was quiet, the sun was just beginning to set and Tommy felt extremely grateful to be able to simply focus on driving, headache finally starting to leave his head.
Focusing on the road also helped him to avoid thinking about his destination. Why, exactly, he’d gotten in his car immediately after the last of his guests had said goodbye and Charlie had been sent to sleep the afternoon away he couldn’t say. It wasn’t like Alfie had invited him, after all. The man didn’t even celebrate Christmas, he was Jewish, for god’s sake.
Still, Tommy was on the road to Margate. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but on his last visit, the previous month, Alfie had looked almost sad when Tommy’d told him he was going to spend christmas with his family. Lonely, even. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but it was too late for that anyway.
Tommy had been on the road for a couple of hours, the journey well known to him by then. He’d been visiting Alfie for six months, once every three weeks or so. Margate was nice and quiet, Alfie’s house strangely warm, and Tommy enjoyed spending time there. Now that he and Alfie were no longer business partners, spending time together had become easy. They chatted about nothing, or, well, Alfie did the talking, mostly. Tommy was content to simply sit there and listen, looking at the sea and smoking a cigarette. It was nice, relaxing, a well deserved pause from the chaos of the Parliament and the lonely silence of Arrow House.
After his third visit, Tommy had even begun to look forward to going to Margate again. There were never clear invitations from Alfie; one day the man had just let him know that he was free to visit whenever he felt like it, and Tommy had done just that. They’d fallen into a routine, even. Sharing tea sitting in the big, worn down armchairs, going for a walk on the beach with Cyril if the weather allowed. Tommy never stayed for dinner, always left when Alfie mentioned eating.
Tonight would probably be different under that aspect, because it would be just after dinner time when Tommy arrived. Alfie didn’t even know he was coming- he hadn’t told him. Tommy started to regret it the closer he got to Margate. Alfie, what with being dead and all, was surely at home, there was no need to worry about that; however, Tommy had no idea how he would react to having an uninvited guest barge in his house on a random evening.
“Well, too late for that now,” Tommy thought, seeing the first indication for Margate on the side of the road.
.
Having parked the car a couple of blocks away from Alfie’s house, Tommy was currently leaning on it to smoke a cigarette.
He wasn’t anxious to see Alfie, not exactly; they were almost friends nowadays, if people like them could even have friends. Just, being with Alfie always made him uneasy in a way he hadn’t ever quite managed to understand. It wasn’t a bad thing, not really, because he enjoyed spending time with Alfie more than he ought to have, but still, it was there. The uneasiness.
It had a perfectly good explanation, really, but it was one Tommy chose to ignore. Yes, he had feelings for the man; that still didn’t mean he was going to admit to being shy in his presence like a girl with a crush on the boy next door. They’d known each other for eight years, and really, Tommy should have gotten over it the second he’d understood Alfie wasn’t interested.
Still, he’d grown fond of him, and here he was, standing outside Alfie’s house on Christmas’ evening, a gift in the pocket of his coat.
Stumping the cigarette under his shoes, he sighed and walked up to Alfie’s door. He pressed on the doorbell, hoping Alfie wouldn’t react too bad to his unannounced visit.
.
The doorbell rang. Alfie checked the clock in front of him. It was seven o’ clock of what good ol’ christians considered Christmas evening, and Alfie wasn’t expecting anyone.
Well, other than the maid, who he’d freed for the holidays, only one man knew his afterlife address. Groaning, he got up from his chair and walked to the door, leaning heavily on his cane. It was one of his bad leg days, unfortunately for him.
Without even asking who it was, Alfie opened the door.
“What the bloody day are you doing here on this fine Christmas evening, Tommy?”
“Good evening to you too, Alfie.”
Tommy looked like shit, to be honest, clearly tired and shivering. The man was always so focused on his appearance that he kept forgetting clothes were supposed to keep people warm, not only to look good. Still, with his nose red from the cold and his hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders hunched forward to protect himself from the unforgiving winter wind, Alfie thought Tommy looked endearing.
They stared at each other for a few seconds. Tommy shivered a bit more forcefully, and Alfie shook himself out of his reverie, moving out of the way to let Tommy in.
The other man immediately started removing his coat and his gloves, depositing them on a nearby chair.
“Yeah, yeah, do act like it’s your house, mate, don’t worry about me”
Tommy looked at him, unimpressed. Sometimes Alfie forgot how little he spoke.
“Now, mate, it’s not like I don’t enjoy your presence, not at all, just, it’s Christmas, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Alfie, it is.”
“And don’t you have somewhere better to spend such a holiday? Your own house, with that big tree I’m sure you have put up somewhere?”
“Already did that.”
“So what, you just decided to come to Margate afterwards.”
“Precisely.”
“And why, exactly, did you do that?”
Tommy stayed silent. Accepting that he wasn’t going to get an answer to his question, Alfie started to move towards the kitchen. He could hear Tommy following him.
“Have you eaten yet, Tommy?”
“Ate more than enough at lunch.”
“Better, that. I’m afraid I just finished my dinner, you see, and I have no other food to share. When you’re dead, you don’t exactly expect guests at this time of the day.”
Alfie opened the door to the kitchen and stepped inside, turning around to wait for Tommy. When the other man came inside the room and stood beside him, Alfie spoke again.
“Still, I’ll make you some tea. You’re here now, and I’m nothing if not a good host, yeah?”
.
Tommy thought Alfie’s reaction could have been worse.
He’d let him inside without too much fuss and the house was nicely warm, instantly starting to melt the cold away from his skin. Alfie was dressed messily, just as usual, but he looked comfortable in his worn clothes. His unruly hair and unkempt beard did nothing to hide just how handsome his face was, and Tommy didn’t fail to notice it, just like he did every time he saw him.
Tommy looked around; the kitchen was clean and tidy, and Tommy wondered if it was Alfie who’d put everything away after his dinner.
Tea sounded perfect right then, but Tommy had noticed Alfie was limping quite badly on his way to the kitchen. Staring pointedly to the other man’s leg, he said “Sit down, Alfie, I’ll do it.”
Alfie grumbled, but he put out a chair from under the table in the middle of the room and he sat anyway. Tommy followed his instructions to find everything he needed, and then they waited for the water to boil. Tommy was, weirdly enough, the first one to break the silence.
“So, Alfie, how are you?”
“Fine, mate, thank you very much. Though I am still wandering what you’re doing in my house on christmas. Your family not a fine enough company for you?”
“On the contrary, lunch with everyone was good, actually.”
“Really, eh? Then how come you look like you’ve been through war a second time, Tom?”
Tommy smirked. Alfie had always been the only person he’d ever met who could be as observant as him, and as usual, he was right.
“You could say that. Linda and Polly did look quite ready to start a battle, at least.”
“Sounds like you had a good dose of family rivalries, that.”
“Oh, you have no idea.”
Alfie stayed silent, looking at him expectantly from his place on the chair. His legs were sprawled in front of him and his hands were resting on the head of his cane, placed on top of one of his thighs. Tommy was leaning on the counter in front of Alfie. Sighing, he figured there was nothing wrong in telling him a bit about his festivities.
“Charlie’s quite the exuberant child, even if you could say he hasn’t really gotten it from me, and he and Ada’s son make quite the pair. Their screams of joy unpacking their presents could rival the sounds of bullets, truly. Ada, in the meantime, was busy tearing to shreds every single one of Michael’s theories on private property, while Polly was being kept away from Linda, so I was the one tasked with taking care of the children. However, John didn’t quite get that I was busy, so he and Esme decided lunch was the perfect moment to ask me if they could start this new branch of business and they kept asking me if it was fine and trust me, I didn’t understand one single thing they were saying because Charlie was busy trying to snatch my arm off to go see the castle he and Karl had built with his new construction set. My head was about to explode by the time everyone left.”
Tommy spoke without thinking, too tired to care about being his usual, silent, self. Once he had finished speaking, realizing just how much he’d let out, he looked back to Alfie and saw him intent in looking at him. He had a smirk on his face, and he looked almost fond.
Tommy was confused, to say the least.
“What’s there to smile about, Alfie?”
“Nothing, absolutely nothing, sweetie. It sounds like a real inferno. Do go on, please.”
Tommy was about to tell him to fuck off when he heard the telltale sound of bubbling water.
.
Even under the faint light of the kitchen’s lamp, Alfie could see that Tommy was blushing. And wasn’t that a sight. A bashful Tommy Shelby. Alfie could tell he was embarrassed, but really, Tommy speaking so freely had been entirely too endearing for him not to smile. He was only a man, after all.
Having noticed the water was boiling, Tommy busied himself with pouring the scolding liquid in a teapot.
“Where’s your tray, Alfie?”
“Awfully rude of you to assume I actually own one”
Tommy turned back to him to stare at him, entirely unimpressed.
“The maid had one last time I came here.”
“Yeah, fine, it’s under the sink, over there.”
Tommy found the tray and started organizing the teapot and the cups. Alfie assumed he wanted to bring everything upstairs. He stared at him work unabashedly, unable to look away from the domesticity of the scene in front of his eyes. Tommy looked so out of place in his tiny kitchen, still wearing his stupid suit with his stupid waistcoat and his watch and his shiny shoes, serving tea onto a tray. And yet Alfie couldn’t help but feel like he could have belonged perfectly, if he just decided to stay a while.
“One shouldn’t tempt an old man, for it’s way too easy for them to fall into temptation,” was what his old neighbor used to say when his wife baked cookies that he was told he couldn't eat and Alfie caught him eating them anyway on his porch. Alfie may not have been old, not yet, but he felt like it. And seeing Tommy so at ease around him made his heart ache.
He’d grown entirely too fond of the man over the years, admiring his stubbornness and his sheer luck, and he had of course noticed that Tommy was too pretty for his own good. But it had been different between them, back when Alfie hadn’t retired yet. It had been formal, business getting in the way of the something that they could have been. Tommy had probably offered at some point, but Alfie would not have had the heart to betray someone he was actually involved with, so he’d refused. But Tommy had stayed, and that, that was something, wasn’t it?
Nowadays, though, there was no business between them. Alfie had no idea what he should have read in the way Tommy kept coming back regularly, to sit with him and look at the sea and even walk with Cyril, sometimes. Perhaps he simply thought Alfie was lonely and he wanted nothing more than to to indulge an old man. Still, what Alfie saw in those visits was a glimpse of what could have been if they’d been different men, and he longed.
Tommy in his kitchen making tea was lovely, and Alfie was was too weak of a man to refuse his eyes. Luckily, Tommy didn’t seem to notice the way he never quite stopped looking at him.
“Let’s have the tea upstairs, eh? I’ll bring the tray.”
So upstairs they went. Tommy put the tray on the coffee table in front of the couch, miraculously finding a free spot between all the random objects Alfie had casually positioned on it. He then sat on what Alfie had come to consider Tommy’s armchair and god, wasn’t that a dangerous thought, eh? The idea that Tommy had carved a space in his house.
Alfie watched all this from the doorway, contemplating the notion, until Tommy gestured impatiently for him to sit.
The nerve of that man, to order him around in his own house, never failed to amaze him even after all those years. It really was a wonder that the man was still alive, though it wasn’t really for lack of trying from others.
Alfie sat and took his cup. The tea was lovely, and he relaxed. That’s what they usually did, sip tea in his messy living room while Alfie spoke and Tommy listened.
So Alfie spoke. He made up some story about a child who hated Christmas and tried to sabotage his own family’s festivities that seemed to entertain Tommy way too much, if the way he kept trying to hide his smile behind his cup was anything to go by. Alfie enjoyed watching the impassible facade of the man slip away from him, enjoyed seeing him relaxed in his home. It felt significant in a way Alfie couldn’t quite put his finger on.
By the time Alfie had finished and Tommy spoke again, he’d finished his tea and had started smoking a cigarette. He was currently holding it in his hand while he gestured around, designing messy circles of smoke in the air. Nasty habit, that, though it did make Tommy look even more entrancing than usual.
“Surely you don’t think Christmas is that bad, Alfie,”
“Nah, mate, I do, you see, because everything seems so fake, the smiles and the lights and the cheerfulness. It irritates me, yeah, it does.”
“Eh, some of it is. Some of it is genuine, though.”
“Like what, mh? Do enlighten me.”
“The gifts are. People have to choose them, don’t they? Doesn’t that make them genuine, at least?”
“Well, it depends on whether you think it’s the thought that counts or not. Doesn’t it sound a bit shallow, right, to project your affection onto a material object?”
Banter came easy between them; their relationship might have lost the sharpness that came with business and profit and negotiations, but Alfie still enjoyed challenging Tommy, seeing the light in his eyes that came from discussing with someone who could match him.
“Then I guess you wouldn’t like to see your gift,”
And oh, but Tommy still managed to surprise him. One could have said many things about Tommy Shelby, but he was not a predictable man. Alfie could feel the surprise that was surely showing on his face.
“Tommy, darling, I don’t even celebrate Christmas. What the fuck you’d get me a gift for, eh?”
Tommy shrugged, then he stood up, cigarette dangling from his mouth. He disappeared through the stairs and came back a few minutes later, holding some sort of cylindrical shaped package in his hand.
.
Alfie had looked baffled when he’d told him he had a gift for him. Tommy dared to think that it had been endearing, and that it had felt nice to know he was still able to surprise the man.
He went back to the living room after having fetched the gift from his coat’s pocket, then dropped it on Alfie’s lap before sitting back down in his armchair.
Tommy looked at Alfie while he studied the package, weighing it in his hands, probably trying to guess what it was. Tommy soon grew impatient; he felt like falling asleep any minute now and he just wanted to know what Alfie would think of his gift. he had no idea of how he would manage to go back to Arrow House in his state, and was secretely hoping Alfie would invite him to stay the night, to stay a while, but that was a problem for later.
“Alfie, for fuck sake, just open it, eh?”
Alfie looked up at him, smiling, the bastard, then started tearing the paper open until he could take the spyglass that had been inside out of it. He stared at it for quite a long time, the silence stretching out, and Tommy felt himself grow nervous. Then Alfie seemed to focus on a single spot at the base of the object.
“Tommy, darling, did you have this custom made?”
Be it the pet names, those that Tommy had never actually gotten used to despite the fact Alfie had been using them for years, or the assumption about the gift, but Tommy felt his cheeks heat up. (If someone had told the MPs from his party that Tommy Shelby was blushing they probably wouldn’t have believed it, and the knowledge made Tommy feel almost shy.) The assumption was correct, really, the A and the S engraved on the metal clearly signifying that Tommy had gone to the shop and ordered it himself.
“Yes,” Tommy said simply. Alfie whistled. Then, he added, “Your binoculars did look on the verge of breaking last time I was here, so I thought, why not.”
The other stayed quiet for a while more, after that, bringing the spyglass to his eye and stretching it out, trying to use it. Then he put it back in its box, carefully.
“It’s very nice. I take it back, this will definitely make me reconsider my stance on gifts.”
“I’m glad to hear it,”
“Although, I do have to say that if I didn’t know any better I’d think you were trying to court me, Tom.”
Tommy was definitely not the only one still able to surprise the other, and he cursed inwardly for having forgotten it once more. Alfie had said it with such boldness, and honestly, Tommy wasn’t expecting it, nor was that the intention behind the gift. Still, when Alfie put it that way, how could Tommy deny it?
“I’ve been trying to court you for years, Alfie, but thank you for noticing.”
Alfie looked taken aback by the statement, and Tommy simply stared at him, cigarette smoking itself in his hand, waiting for Alfie to gather his thoughts. Tommy could see the moment the other man made a decision, his confused gaze turning into a fond stare directed at Tommy. Being the recipient to such a stare was new, to say the least, but it wasn’t unwelcome. No, it wasn’t unwelcome at all, Tommy decided as he felt warmth spread in his chest.
“Now, I did not buy a gift for you, seeing as you barged into my house uninvited and all that, and I do feel quite guilty about that. However, right, I think I might have just found the solution.”
Tommy was curious and amused, never bored by Alfie’s eccentricity. What others saw as lack of reason Tommy saw as reason so sharp it shined bright in Alfie’s eyes, and it was one of the things he liked the most about him.
“Come here, Tom, will ya,”, said Alfie, almost sweetly. Tommy did without a second thought, stumping the cigarette in the ashtray that had been positioned next to his armchair after his very first visit. With a few strides he was standing in front of where Alfie was sitting on the couch.
“Nah, I said come here, didn’t I?” As he said it, Alfie gestured at Tommy to bend down. Tommy did, following Alfie’s fingers, until he had to balance himself with a steadying hand on the back of the couch, right next to Alfie’s head.
They stared at each other for a few seconds, taking in the lack of distance between them. Alfie insisted on looking at him sweetly, and Tommy couldn’t help but return the sentiment through his own eyes. Then, Alfie reached up and kissed him.
It was a simple kiss, short a sweet, just a touch of lips. And yet, Tommy could feel himself melt under the caring hand Alfie put on his cheek.
This thing between them had been years in the making, and Tommy relaxed under Alfie’s touch. He’d known him and cared for him for a very long time, and it made sense, really, that it would come to this.
Tommy broke the kiss to yawn, suddenly realising just how tired he was and immediately bringing his hand to his face to cover his mouth.
.
Tommy was even prettier from up close, Alfie decided, and he gladly ignored the ache that was starting to make his way through his neck from looking up for too long to stare at Tommy. He had a lovely mouth, and a cheekbone too lovely to resist the urge to stroke it.
Watching Tommy yawn, Alfie realized just how human they were, how human Tommy was despite his best efforts to never show it.
Alfie had seen how he behaved in his office, and then he’d seen how he behaved in Margate. To someone else it might’ve looked like two different people, but Alfie was not someone else, and he knew Tommy too well not to realize that Tommy at Margate was still Tommy, just more comfortable. That, and he trusted Alfie not to take advantage of his vulnerability. The display of trust Tommy had put on during all his visits, the one he was putting on now, made Alfie ache with affection he hadn’t felt for anyone that wasn’t Cyril for a long time.
“Come here, won’t you?” Alfie said, putting his arm around Tommy’s waist and pulling. Tommy didn’t make any resistance, falling easily on top of him. Tommy’s hands went to rest loosely on Alfie’s hips. “Go on, love, get this off,” he said, tugging at the smaller man’s jacket. Tommy looked up at him sweetly, then kissed him once more (and wasn’t it simply wonderful that they could just do that now) before taking off his jacket and unbuttoning his waistcoat. The way he wasn’t making any resistance to Alfie’s requests clearly showed just how tired he was, and it made Alfie feel extremely soft in a way he hadn’t thpught himself capable of.
Alfie put a hand on the back of Tommy’s head and guided him to his chest. Tommy was warm around him, and Alfie wanted to indulge.
“Rest for a while, eh?”
Alfie could feel him nod against him. He ought to stay silent then, he really should have, but his nature was just too talkative for him to be able to actually stop the words coming from his mouth, and really, he’d just kissed Tommy Shelby twice and was currently holding a hand on the back of his neck, stroking the skin there with his thumb, and the man was letting him, so he could be excused if he felt a bit incoherent.
“I never actually thought I’d have Tommy Shelby in my arms, eh, Tom? You act so tough, don’t you, but under there you’re just as sweet as the rest of u-“
“Alfie?” Tommy’s voice came muffled, his face pushed against Alfie’s chest.
“Yes?”
“Do shut up.”
Alfie did.