Chapter Text
Curly was not accustomed to being smarter than anyone else. He knew, had known all his life, that he wasn’t an intelligent man, but it had never much bothered him- he had other skills, didn’t he, he could always tell what the horses needed, and he got those feelings sometimes, premonitions his mother called them. Everyone talked about how smart politicians were, and look where that got them, Curly thought, all bogged down in wars and meetings and trapped in stuffy offices- no, thank you, he’d rather be simple and have his horses and his freedom.
Life was straightforward, from Curly’s perspective, and he couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t want a nice, straightforward life. Caring for the horses, helping Charlie with the boats- he knew what he had to do, and he did it. The Shelby side of the family, they were never satisfied with a simple life, they had to go running around getting into all kinds of trouble, and while Curly was glad to help when asked, he privately thought they were all insane. They wanted money, Charlie explained to him, but what the hell did they need money for? Curly tried asking Tommy, once, but he just told him to shut up.
He can’t ask Tommy anything, now. Not since the day Finn came running into the shipyard, yelling at Charlie that he’d fetched a doctor but they’d still better come quick, just in case, saying Tommy was hurt, badly hurt. He’d been in the hospital for months, and all that time no one would tell Curly why, just that Arthur had hurt him. “You know how he is, Arthur. Got a temper hotter’n Hell,” Charlie muttered.
Other people, Curly found, were more blunt. “Tommy thought he could just say anything he pleased,” Johnny Dogs muttered, tossing back a glass of whiskey with a bitter, miserable expression. “Too clever for his own good, always thought he could talk everything out, could fix everything with the right… the right combination of words. He forgot, didn’t he, forgot some people don’t respond well to words.”
When they let Tommy out of the hospital, John came to tell Curly and Charlie himself. “We’ll bring him down here often enough, to see the horses,” he explained.
“He still likes horses, then? It’s not too bad?”
“Ah- well, yeah, he likes horses, but… it’s bad, no. He can’t really… he don’t hardly speak.” John noticed Curly’s baffled expression, and hesitantly asked, “What do you know, Curly, about the accident?”
“Arthur hurt him,” Curly offered, and John sighed.
“That’s right, Arthur hurt him. The thing is, Arthur hurt his head. He hit the back of Tommy’s head against a fireplace- a brick fireplace, you know- and it’s like… he isn’t all there, anymore.”
Curly’s heard that saying before; his father used to say that about him, and he knows exactly what it means, but can’t quite imagine it applying to clever little Tommy. “Like… me, you mean?”
“No. No, not like you at all, Curly. You manage alright on your own, don’t you? I mean, eating and dressing and all, and you’re the best horseman in England.”
“Oh- well- only because I know the horses so-”
“Tommy’s hurt real bad,” John interrupts. “You’ll see, when we bring him down here.”
And Curly does see, but he doesn’t want to understand, at first. John and Finn bring Tommy to the shipyard not long after that conversation, one of them on either side of him, holding his hands, and Curly knows the minute he sees Tommy’s wide-eyed expression that this isn’t the man he knew, the man who dazzled him with his plans and ideas and always seemed so completely in control.
“This is Curly,” Finn says slowly as he and John lead Tommy closer. “You remember Curly, don’t you? Our friend Curly, who trains the horses?” Tommy just blinks at him, and Curly tries to smile, thinks about the idiot girl who works in the little seamstress’s shop up the road- her mother’s store, Charlie told him. All she does is bring her mother fabric and sort buttons, that’s all she knows how to do, and Tommy has the same vacant look as her, his brothers are talking to him in the soft, gentle tone Curly’s heard her mother use with her.
“You want to see the horses?” Curly offers. Tommy smiles, but doesn’t say anything, looks to John for help- looks up at John, Curly hadn’t noticed before but Tommy was never very tall, it was his confidence that made him so intimidating.
“Course he does! Let’s go, then, yeah?” John speaks with false cheer, and Curly brings them to the stables, doesn’t say anything as Tommy stumbles to the horses and just pets them, grinning, tries to talk to them and only manages mumbled nonsense.
“This what you meant?” Curly asks, and John nods.
From then on, they bring him to the shipyard every week or so, and Curly slowly gets used to this new, silent version of Tommy, tries to stop comparing him to who he used to be. Sometimes, rarely, John and Finn will leave him in charge of Tommy, and Curly tries not to laugh at how absurd that is.
“Are you happy?” Curly asks him once, when they're alone. Tommy doesn’t look up, just keeps brushing the horse, so Curly repeats the question. Finally, Tommy meets his eyes, gives him that nervous little smile that Curly’s come to realize means he doesn’t understand, so he drops it, just lets him go back to brushing his horse.
“Does he have friends?” Curly asks Finn anxiously when he comes to the shipyard on his own.
“Does- what?”
“Does Tommy have any friends?”
“Well- you’re his friend, aren’t you?”
“Oh, yes, of course I am! I just mean, I’m not his only friend, am I?”
Finn pauses, licks his lips. “Lizzie watches him,” he says awkwardly. “I don’t think Tommy had many friends even before he- before the accident.” He says it with a scowl, and Curly feels a brief flash of anger. Because it wasn’t an accident, was it? He’s heard how people talk about it, what they say, and so he knows, he knows that Arthur held Tommy down and hit his head against the fireplace repeatedly, he knows.
“Not a- not an accident,” he says cautiously. It’s a bad idea to correct someone like Finn, but he’s still just a boy, not as dangerous as his brothers.
“I know,” Finn snaps. “I damn well know, thank you, Curly.”
So why’d you say it, then? Curly doesn’t ask, but he’s still wondering as Finn walks away, as he realizes he never asked if he thinks Tommy gets lonely. He must, Curly decides, with just his family and the horses, but who can he find to be his friend? Everyone knows who he used to be, and even if they don’t, Curly has tried all too many times to make friends only to be laughed at, and he’s not even as bad off as Tommy is now. It has to be someone like him, or like Tommy.