The wind howled like a wounded animal in the night, prey captured in the indigo abyss of the evening's wilderness. Strung up by woven threads of faintly flickering constellations, tightened by the intensity of the storm that shook the pavement waiting below and threatened to bring the sky crashing down from the open heavens.
For the thunderstorm raged on, as the universe teetered on the very verge of the midnight hour. With the rain dripping down like blood seeping from punctured flesh, glazing the cobbles in an oozing current of bloodshed and lost tears. Thunder bursting through the smoke that coated the atmosphere like an impenetrable blanket of cloud coverage in the absence of daylight. Booming with a mighty fury that resounded inside of the snug walls that encompassed you on Watery Lane, like it was the final gunshot putting the poor creature out of its misery.
The bedroom was shrouded in the shadows of the night that had fallen over Small Heath. Engulfing the cobbles and every last soul in a sheath of darkness so heavy, it was if all sources of life appeared drained straight from the flooding streets.
For it was only in the sharp slashes of lightening, blistering somewhere off far on the horizon, that just barely glinted a blink of light against the windowpane. Draped in thin ivory curtains, lightweight lace and linen, the light of the battling sky and the faintest exhale of a drowning moon bled through the futile fabric. It seeped across the hardwood panels, like its whisper of light might just slither down into the worn wood and illuminate the room with a semblance of peace. But it had been ages since this bedroom and the man who owned it, had last seen such a thing.
The entire room smelled of him. Of Thomas Shelby. An intoxicating and almost contradictory combination that assaulted your senses with each newly inhaled breath you took. Rich with cigarette smoke, both fresh from the last stick extinguished a mere hour or two before on the nightstand beside you, and lingering stale from the years worth of tobacco consumed in this small space.
It dominated the room, weaving its presence into every thread of fabric found within the tight four walls. Clinging to the curtains and to each and every article of clothing adorned in this place, it resided heavy in the atmosphere as if he didn't even need to light a new cigarette to taste the tobacco in his lungs, all he had to do was breathe.
Beneath the tobacco of familiar Sweet Aftons rolled and brushed along his bottom lip, lingered the secrets he didn't know you were well aware of. The opium, it hung in the room like a dirty little secret that he thought he tried to hide, but it wasn't an odor you could simply will to dissipate. It loitered within the walls like the gold tainted truth waiting to be freed, and even as he hid away his efforts to numb the pain in his head, you heard the truth like the smoke itself had gone and whispered its voice softly in your ear.
But beyond the smoke, the scent of the man you loved resided. Sharp and soothing like the perplexing burn of an Irish Whiskey, his cologne stung your senses but there was something addictive about the scent that made you inhale one more breath.
For even as the rich spice and heady sandalwood burned its way down into your lungs, you found yourself craving the scent. Whether worn in the air and nearly faded by the fall of day, or fresh on his flesh that was heightened by the warmth of his body, there was something in the strong aroma that wrapped itself around you and threatened to never let you go. And as you felt yourself aching for one last breath of its intoxicating presence, you prayed it never would.
Tonight, Tommy smelled of the day. The crispness that had been introduced to his skin that very morning, in the low gleam of the barely risen sun, from the bar of soap and cloth of warm water was now a distant memory. In its place remained the memories of his day etched along the worn lines of his skin, like a map of where all he had been.
