peaky blinders imagines

new year's day; tommy shelby

He'd always risen with the sun, ever since you'd know him. It was part of who he was; an incessant workaholic, his endless to-do list never far from the forefront of his mind.
You'd shared a bed with him now for the better part of four years, so you had joined him in the legions of people who's day began with the first strains of light.
Some days, though you woke and got ready for the day at the same time, he slipped out without breakfast, kissing you, rubbing Charlie's head, and ghosting a hand over your barely-there baby bump.
It got lonely in that big house sometimes, Charlie's increasing independence and your increasing anxiety over your unborn child leading to days staring at the same sheet of paper, willing the business figures to make more sense and willing the clock to move faster.
Tommy had decided to stay home with you that day, thankfully, citing the holiday.
"It's a new year, my love," he'd said. "What kind of a man welcomes Father Time without his wife?"
New Year's Day dawned cold and bright, the maids telling you it was well below freezing, and the sun beating a tattoo on the hardwood floors in the parlor.
There you sat with Tommy, clock just past six, his hand absentmindedly stroking your shoulder as he regarded a letter from Arthur and Linda.
"They've invited us to a New Year's party?" you asked, reading over his shoulder.
"It's much too cold," he replied, eyes twinkling with mirth. "I doubt Linda would be happy if the good Lord caused the wheels of the car to slip on the ice."
"She's your brother's wife, be nice," you chided, but you couldn't hold in a smile, letting him kiss you briefly before returning to his stack of papers.
Charlie toddled downstairs within the hour, launching himself into his fathers arms and patting your bump, telling a cheerful good morning to his little brother or sister.
"When's breakfast?" he mumbled into Tommy's shoulder, not quite awake yet.
"Well, actually, we were thinking you could go get some of the frozen weeds from outside and I'll fry them up for breakfast, hmm?" You interjected, laughing lightly as your son turned to pout at you.
"I think it's a lovely idea," Tommy said, causing Charlie to wobble his way into the kitchen, yelling for Mary and begging for some toast.
Tommy leaned over to kiss your cheek, resting his head on your shoulder and telling you "I can't wait for the next one."
You smiled down at him, tracing the faint outline of a scar along his hairline, from a long ago battle with a long vanquished enemy of the family.
It'd taken him a while to adjust to the idea of being a father, but he'd embraced it wholeheartedly, thrilled to have another reason to come home in the evenings.
"We ought to get up, we have things to do," you told him, letting him mutter and groan into a standing position and follow you into the study.
You worked with him on some of the extra finance sheets, ones that Alfie had sent over to the house over a month ago, well past noon.
Polly called soon into your working period, wishing you a Happy New Year and abruptly informing you she had business to attend to when you asked if she'd like to speak with Tommy.
The monotony of your trading numbers back and forth and debating how Michael figured specific expenses was interrupted by a rather forceful episode of the baby kicking, wherein Tommy leaned closed to you with lips hovering over your forehead and eyes trained on your stomach, where his right hand rested.
"It's a girl, I know it," he told you. "She'll be as beautiful as her mother."
"Give the boys a hard chase," you said, laughing at his disgusted expression.
"No men until she's twenty-five."
"At least."
"Don't laugh at me, love."
Charlie joined you for lunch, stubby legs swinging beneath the table as he told you enthusiastically about the drawings of fireworks he'd made and the new numbers he'd learned.
You worried about him, sometimes, what this childhood in relative isolation would do to him, but his unbridled enthusiasm for life and impatience to meet his little sibling reassured you that he was strong enough to handle it.
The temperature had risen by the time the day swung into afternoon, so you and Tommy let Charlie lead you outside, each holding one of his hands.
He wanted to visit the horses, of course, ever his father's son, so Tommy lifted him onto his shoulders and let him clumsily pat his prize mare.
The horse had whinnied in protest, none too pleased with the amateur handling of a toddler, so you slipped her a treat and walked on with your family, Charlie still perched atop his father's shoulders, giggling in delight at his new, tall, view.
Eventually your son got tired so you lead him inside to his bedroom, tucking him in and sitting on the side of his bed, watching him sleep for a moment while Tommy hovered in the doorway.
Returning to the study reluctantly to make his annual New Year's phone calls, he stopped for a moment to watch you, one hand on your bump and the other rifling through the filing cabinet to find his list of phone numbers.
"I make a lot of idiotic decisions," he remarked out of the blue, causing you to agree with a raised eyebrow, "but I have not once regretted marrying you."
"Tommy Shelby, you romantic," you teased, leaning against the cabinet as his eyes softened and mouth quirked upwards.
"I mean it." He sat down abruptly, pride unwilling to let him say more on the matter, but allowing himself a smile when you pressed a kiss to his jaw and told him you felt the same.
The day meandered on in much the same manner, dinner being a low-key affair with Charlie discussing the finer points of allowing him to have two of the Christmas cookies left over, stored at the very top of the cabinet, away from the prying eyes and grubby hands of a toddler.
Tommy slipped into bed beside you a quarter to midnight, sliding down to rest a kiss to your baby bump before falling asleep like that, hand protectively hovering over his unborn child.
The year was young yet, younger even than your unborn, but with it came promise, challenge, and the constant companionship of the man you loved.