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NOTHING NEW / prologue.
small heath, birmingham, january 1909.
THOMAS SHELBY WAS, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, A BAD INFLUENCE. He leaves his shoes right in the middle of the floor, no matter how many times Aunt Pol tells him off for it. He leaves his buttered knife next to the sink instead of just throwing it in and cleaning it himself. The nineteen year old makes silly faces at his youngest brother, even when told not to. And most of all, he drinks far too much even after Polly warns him not to.
But, for some reason, a reason beyond Tommy's understanding, his littlest sister thought he hung the moon and stars, Olivia Shelby placed him on a pedestal higher than anyone else, so high she'd probably hurt her neck staring up at him.
It was on a particularly cold January night of 1909 did Thomas Shelby really realize just how much his sister idolized him. He was coming in at the break of midnight, his shoes (obviously) left sloppily right in-front of the door, a place that was destined for young Finn or John to fall over them. Tommy held onto the wall beside him, as if that would help him to recover from all he'd drank tonight.
In his defense, he'd only planned on drinking half the bottle. It had been Greta Jurossi's fault that two bottles of whiskey had ended up empty tonight.
It was alright for her, they'd walk down the street with their arms interlinked, trying (and failing) to be quiet in hopes that they didn't wake any of Greta's neighbors (which they failed at) Tommy would walk her home, smile and wave as she stumbled into the warm and inviting abode, he'd hear a clatter to signal that she'd fallen into something and walk the opposite way with the smallest of smiles on his face.
And then the smile would drop completely when he realized he had a twenty minute walk and had left his coat with Greta. He'd shiver the whole way home, his arms wrapped around his stomach as he hoped his crew neck would provide him enough warmth until he got home, and then he'd be able to throw himself under the bedsheets and fall asleep, to wake up in a few hours and repeat his day.
Except, tonight he could not do the simple action of throwing himself unto his bed and fall into an inviting slumber. No, no, because if Tommy was to throw himself onto his bed tonight he would squash his littlest sister.
It had taken him five minutes to get up the stairs and then a couple rubs of his eyes to realize Olivia was wrapped up in his duvet, the worst part was the little girl wasn't even asleep! It was obvious to Tommy that the girl had clenched her eyes shut the moment she heard footsteps coming up the stairs, she did this often and it would only be Tommy or Aunt Pol who were able to notice when the girl wasn't sleeping.
