Work Text:
An empty field.
Three men.
Three guns.
This is where Thomas Shelby is going to die.
His family won't even know where his body is.
That's the problem with 'missing' it lacks finality. Boys would go missing during the war. Trying to desert. He couldn't blame them. Mostly they vanished without a trace.
Were they shot by the enemy? Or perhaps by a soldier on our side as punishment? Did they make it home? Nobody ever knew whether to mourn them or celebrate their victory.
How long would it be before his family gave up on him. It hurts to imagine but Thomas Shelby is not an idiot. After awhile they will have to move on. Just like he did in France. Eventually everybody moves on.
They won't find his grave. Birmingham is a big city in a bigger country, he's not even sure this field is in Birmingham.
So they'll move on. Maybe they will eventually hold a funeral or some sort of memorial. But nobody will ever be sure so they probably won't.
He thinks all of this in the seconds after he steps out of a dark van and sees the unmarked grave.
Very tidy.
By now the men are standing around him. He's unarmed. He won't try to run. They don't seem to be in a hurry. Slowly they remove their coats.
He thinks of prisoners of war who never survived to see peace. This is how they died. In unmarked graves far from home.
“Any of you boys in France?” He asks to no response.
“...allow a man a cigarette?" he asks. Because anyone who was in France would know about granting last requests. It was a matter of respect for the death one was about to inflict.
One of them finally looks at him.
“The Somme, Blackwoods.” He says and Tommy looks hard at the man.
“The Somme, The Bulge.” He says as a reply and he can see it in the mans face.
“Smoke.” He says and fuck, Tommy will.
If he's honest, he would rather be killed by a soldier. It felt right somehow. Like the war finally did kill him, just three years late. He considers this as he pulls out a cigarette and the man checks his gun. The gun that he will use to kill Tommy.
It's a waste really. He's not afraid to die but it's not like he wants to.
(sometimes he does)
But he was nearly there. A woman was ready to look him in the eyes and say she loved him. After knowing who he was.
They had taken Epsom today too.
Today was good for the family and good for him. Right up to the point where he got caught it was damn near perfect.
“So close...” he mutters into his cigarette because why the fuck not. He's about to die, he'll finally speak his god damn mind and fuck the consequences.
He looks at one of the men (not the soldier) and smiles like it's a joke.
“So fucking close.”
He turns away and takes a deep pull of the cigarette. He looks up at the sky thinking they could shoot him right now. Every inhale could be his last and his life will leave him in that last puff of smoke.
“And there's a woman...” he tells the air.
“yeah...a woman...who I love.” She's beautiful and she loves him and he is going to die.
“I got close.” he opens his eyes to stare at the sky and perhaps the god he doesn’t believe in.
“I could have got fucking everything!” He yells at god, the sky, and nobody.
One of the men behind him cocks his gun.
He shuts his eyes again before turning to face them and taking another pull from the cigarette.
It's about preparation now. This is happening and he has no control over it. The only thing he can control is himself. He can die with a little bit of dignity (he doesn't want to die).
That's a worthy death of a Shelby (he doesn't want to die)
He breathes out the smoke.
He should do it now.
“Oh, what the fuck. Let's get it over with.”
He goes to stand beside his grave.
(it's already his. He's claimed it in his own mind. This grave belongs to him)
He throws his pocket watch in since time doesn't matter anymore.
It's the soldier who speaks.
“Comrade, we have our orders. You know how it is.”
And fuck he does. It's always about men following orders.
“I know how it is.”
One of the men pushes him down to his knees. He goes and stands to Tommy's right and points his gun at Tommy's skull.
The force of the shot will knock him right into the grave. They won't even have to push.
(He wants to see his family again. He wants to hug his nephew, he wants to annoy Pol, he wants to have a drink with Arthur.)
(He wants to see them one last time.)
Maybe if he thinks hard enough he can have one of those life-flashing-before-your-eyes moments. That would be nice.
Death and a show
It's time. Any moment that man's going to shoot. He should say something.
In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, long ago.
That seems right.
He starts it,
“In the bleak midwinter-”
A boot on his shoulder kicks him into the hole and two gunshots ring out hard and fast in his ears and for a wild moment Tommy wonders if you feel the bullet before you die. He thought you would but...
He opens his eyes.
“At some point in the near future, Mr. Churchill will want to speak to you in person, Mr. Shelby.”
The other men are dead. Shot in the head.
“He has a job for you. We will be in touch.”
He still has his hands up like he's in a permanent surrender. He's still breathing hard. He's still breathing.
It was the man who was going to kill him that saved him.
“Get out of the grave tinker!” The man says and Tommy hears that but he's still getting accustomed to his continuing heartbeat. He's not sure he can move his legs.
“Be on your way!” the man says and he's still pointing the gun. Tommy should go before he decides to use it.
He gets out of his grave like it's a boat pitching at sea. All uncertainty and unsteady legs. Finally he stumbles to his feet and takes a few steps before turning away fully.
He leaves his grave behind with other men dead inside it.
He thinks maybe would have been right for him to die. The people he's hurt. The people he will hurt.
He could have been free from this crushing, driving ambition that keeps pushing him further and further down a path he can't fully see. It's a path he isn't sure he likes.
There may be another grave out there like this one waiting for him.
Will he be ready for it? Will he be ready for the life that's still laid out and waiting for him?
Tommy doesn't even notice the tears coursing down his cheeks as he takes one step and then another.
Thomas Shelby isn't afraid to die but he isn't going to enjoy it either. And death is still waiting for him even if he avoided it for the moment. He isn't free from it. He isn't free from the war and perhaps that hurts him the most. He thought he had left the war behind but now this Mr. Churchill is asking him to keep warring on the kings behalf.
He feels the mud underfoot and it feels a lot like France.
It feels a lot like walking over the graves of men long dead and the men soon to be dead.
And Thomas Shelby cries for the dead men as he leaves them all behind. He cries for the family he might not live to see and for the living family who may yet die because of him.
And eventually, when Thomas Shelby returns home to find his cousin sitting exactly where Pol had said he'd be Tommy feels sickened and glad. The boy would help him and help him well. He would make a good addition to the family and to the Peaky Blinders. And the boy would die doing it.
But for now they are all living and it isn't enough, Tommy knows now that it will never be enough. So he looks at nothing and he sees an empty field as he tells Michael of his plans for the company.