Chapter Text
Someone’s hurt.
Finn told him to stay with Curly, stay with the horses, because someone got hurt, they all heard the gunshot. Tommy’s clinging to Curly, sobbing, remembering, against his will, the feeling of a gun in his hand. It’s strange, how vivid the memory is- he can almost feel the cold metal, the weight of it, and it terrifies him. Auntie’s been very clear, there are guns in the house, but he’s never to touch them, they’re dangerous.
There are a lot of dangerous things in their house, lots of things Tommy isn’t supposed to touch. His brothers’ hats, for one, he got in trouble for playing with John’s a few weeks ago; he remembers, vividly, because it cut his hands, and Lizzie yelled at John, really yelled at him, looked like she might kill him. Auntie sat Tommy down, showed him the sharp little blades sewn into the rim of the cap, and kept repeating no over and over again, until he repeated her.
That evening, he’d curled up on the couch next to Lizzie, let his family’s voices wash over him, not understanding a word but relieved they weren’t yelling anymore.
“I just set it on the table, I didn't realize he’d pick it up,” John muttered, still on the defensive.
“D’you leave weapons lying around in reach of your children, John?” Lizzie asked pointedly.
“No. No, I- I forgot- he’s my brother, I’m still not used to it, entirely. I just forgot. He knows not to pick them up again?”
“Think so,” Auntie murmured. “Bloody hard to tell what he understands these days, but he seemed to be listening, when I told him no. He said it back to me, at any rate, and he’ll remember cutting his fingers.”
There are blades sewn into his brothers’ caps, and they’re dangerous. His brothers carry guns, and those are more dangerous. Someone’s been shot, here in the shipyard, and Tommy doesn’t know why, or who, or where. He’s crying too hard to ask Curly questions, and he couldn’t anyway, couldn’t ask him who’s hurt, which just makes him cry harder. He can’t breathe, someone got hurt and his brothers aren’t here to protect him, they’re supposed to protect him, he doesn’t want Curly, he wants-
“Tommy?”
Curly keeps a hold on his arm, but Tommy turns to look at a man he doesn’t recognize, smiling kindly. He’s saying something, something Tommy can’t understand, beckoning him forward- and then, John’s name. Tommy shakes Curly off and hurries over to him.
“John? John… um… John o-okay?” John wasn’t around when they heard the gunshot- what if he got shot? He’ll be fine, he has to be fine, but people get hurt, don’t they? Tommy got hurt, worse than anyone in the family thought he would.
“That’s right,” the man says kindly, petting Tommy’s head. “Yeah, John’s just over here, he’s not hurt. It was a stray bullet you heard, that’s all, nobody got shot. C’mon, let’s go see your brother, yeah? I’ll take you to see him, just this way.” He might as well be speaking a different language, but he has a kind voice, kind eyes. Tommy trusts him.
“No, no, you get away from him,” Curly says, high-pitched and anxious. “His brothers are coming right back, you know that? Right back, his brothers. The Shelby boys.”
“You keep talking, you just might get hit with another stray bullet.” His tone is light and pleasant, and he’s smiling gently- he must be calming Curly down, Tommy thinks, which is good since Curly gets so nervous and Tommy was just in hysterics himself. At the prospect of seeing John, though, he’s starting to relax. “No one needs to get hurt, alright? We won’t hurt him, you have my word. Come along, Tommy, let’s go see John.”
“Absolutely not,” Curly snaps, and the man’s demeanor changes in a second; suddenly, he has a gun, and Tommy feels the cold metal against his cheek almost before he can process what it is.
“He won’t get hurt if you just let him go.” The man’s tone is still pleasant, and Tommy’s so fucking confused, can’t understand how he can sound so nice when he has a gun to his head- if he shoots him, he’ll die, and even though Tommy sometimes thinks his family wants him dead he doesn’t want to die. “Don’t make a sound, alright, stable boy? We’re not going to hurt him. Just need Polly’s attention, that’s all.”
Curly doesn’t speak, and Tommy can’t see his face from here, but a minute later the man puts a hand on his shoulder and pushes him forwards, the gun still pressed to his head. He walks, obediently, he knows how to follow directions, he’s a good boy, Lizzie says so, so why is this happening? They’ve reached a car before Tommy quite knows what’s going on, he’s being helped inside, and he curls into a ball as soon as he’s in the back seat, pressed against the locked door.
“Goddamn,” a new man says, climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the engine. “Guess it’s true what they said about his head, eh? I thought he’d be… I dunno, at least a little familiar.”
“Oh, it’s a tragedy alright.”
“He’s terrified, look. I thought you were gonna be nicer about it?”
“I was trying to be nice, but he was with someone. I don’t know his name, he’s simple. The stable boy. Didn’t want to cooperate.”
“I don’t want him so scared.” The man speaking is older, well-dressed, in the backseat with Tommy. He starts stroking his hair, and Tommy scrambles to hug onto him immediately, grateful for the comfort. This man is nice, he’ll help him, he’ll get him back to his brothers right away, he thinks as he hides his face in his chest to cry quietly. “You’re alright,” the man murmurs, continuing to pet him. “No one’s gonna hurt you, we just want to talk to your aunt.”
“I didn’t hurt him,” the man in the front seat mutters. “Besides, Sabini doesn’t care if we rough him up a little.”
“Well, I do. My nephew’s interested in asylum reform, you know- he works with people like this. All you had to do was keep him calm, he wasn’t even supposed to know what was happening-”
“No one was hurt, alright?”
“Here, little one,” the older man says softly, pulling a hard candy from his pocket. “Here you go, that’s for you.” Tommy’s not sure what he’s saying, but it sounds kind, so he accepts the candy hesitantly.
“Thank you,” he mumbles, flinching when the two men in the front seat laugh. They’re laughing at the way he talks, he knows that, the way those men at the stables do- he knows his voice is slow and slurred, tries not to speak around strangers, but he has to say thank you for gifts. Embarrassed, he hides his face again, wonders where they’re going.
It’s hard to figure things out, sometimes. Basic things, simple patterns, Tommy understands well enough- he knows, for example, that the pine tree in the neighbor’s garden drops pine cones into Auntie’s garden, and if he gathers them up and decorates them, he can give them to people, and that makes them happy. He knows his brothers take him to see Gladys regularly, but not every day- exactly how often, he’s not sure- and he knows if he brings Gladys buttons, she gets so excited she squeals, hugs him so tight it hurts a little.
But more complicated things, Tommy’s not sure about. What exactly his family does- that, he doesn’t know. They do Important Things, and people like them a lot, people respect them and do what they say. Why he can’t see Arthur as much as he wants to, he doesn’t know that either. He definitely doesn’t know who these men are, or who got shot, or why someone held a gun to his head.
“Auntie,” he whimpers, curling even closer to the man who gave him candy, until he’s practically on his lap. “Auntie. Auntie.” He needs Auntie here, to explain what’s going on- she sits with him for hours, sometimes, trying to help him understand something. Even if it’s something everyone else already knows, Auntie will sit with him and teach him. They spent days working on buttons; she would spend several hours each day showing him how to do up buttons, guiding him to do it, and even though he never figured it out, she kept trying, patiently, until he started crying and she stopped, held him in her arms. He still doesn’t know how to do up buttons, but he knows Auntie loves him anyway.
“Yeah, you’ll see your aunt soon, boy.”