peaky blinders imagines

one for the money; john shelby

You weren't exactly his first; you'd have to have been blind, deaf, and dumb not to see that, and he'd all but admitted to it on several occasions. It had worried you at first, that being the -nth woman to hold the sleeve of John Shelby's arm meant that your relationship with him was little more than a way to measure an allotment of time. A glance of two eyes over the shoulder and a crooked little smirk were enough to convince you otherwise, sly comments and arms around waists meant to distract you so you never had time to think about just who you'd gone and gotten yourself involved with.
Besides, he'd told you, there was a tangible difference between you and the rest. You were new to town, settling in England with as much frivolity as a flighty bird, coming all the way across the Atlantic. You had no idea what weight the surname Shelby had, and so when he initially introduced himself to you, long past midnight in a smoky London nightclub, you snorted and paid him no mind. You didn't concede victory for weeks; not when he discovered you lived three blocks from the Garrison, not when he offered to pay your rent so you could reside directly adjacent to his home. It took a run in with a criminal, one you were wholly unprepared for, and John leaping out of the shadows, firing with abandon and killing your assailant, for him to woo you.
You'd seen something in his eyes that night, a love for danger and a personality bred of money that had somehow translated into a twisted possessiveness before you'd even let him call you his. He may have gotten you right where he wanted you with your consent, but you weren't certain you'd ever had much of a choice or chance. Of course, once you were his, he'd taken every opportunity to prove to you just why you were the luckiest woman in Britain. Every corner of England, it seemed, was not free from Shelby influence. Five star restaurants opened their doors to you without a moment's notice, every club on the coast had wildly expensive champagne thrust at you, and it seemed the eyes of the nation were upon you, constantly wondering if the man on your arm would throw money in their corner next.
It'd been half a year with him before you saw a tangible sign of weakness. Your weekends had fallen into a routine of some henchman at your door with a dress worth the domestic exports of some small mainland country, and a note with an address and time written on it with large, scratchy handwriting, always signed -JS. He'd taken you away for three days that April, whisking you to Edinburgh in conjunction with a highly dangerous business maneuver. He'd taken twenty men along for the ride but, he confessed to you, he'd always preferred doing the difficult things himself.
One particular night, when you had first arrived, you'd excused yourself from the clouds of cigarette smoke and the glasses of whiskey known to once be preferred by the French monarchy about half past midnight in a bid to get some rest. Surprisingly, John had trudged up next to you, hat tipped lower than usual and fourteenth cigarette of the day clutched between fingers shaking subconsciously. He'd collapsed into an extravagant armchair and breathed a heavy sigh, and gestured to you with a hand adorned with several rings, slipping around your waist and pulling you to sit on his lap gently. He'd taken his cap off and rested his forehead on the side of your head, breathing out heavily.
"Dunno how tomorrow will go," he'd muttered, hand twitching ever so slightly where it rested on your side.
"But don't worry. If some..." he waved his hand in the air vaguely, "shit happens to me, I've arranged to make sure you'll be taken care of."
"I believe in you," you told him, cradling his head gently and planting a kiss to the hollow of his cheek. "You'll be fine. We'll be fine."
He'd nodded and allowed himself to hold you tight for one count, two counts, before the moment was broken and he'd stood up brusquely, encouraging you to sleep. You didn't breathe a word when he slipped in next to you close to dawn, arm still shaking where it draped over your waist.
It was another nine months-had you really made it a year and a quarter?-before you witnessed John Shelby have a full-on emotional breakdown. It wasn't hard to tell his relationship with his brothers was strained at best. The oldest, Arthur, was at once imploding by his own hand from drug abuse, and somehow striving for salvation under the tutelage of his wife. The other, Thomas, was somehow both wildly incompetent and coldly brilliant at running his family's business. The combination of the two often left John doing the grunt work, slipping into bed next to you-about a year in, he'd decided it should be commonplace for you to share his bed-at heinous hours of the morning.
There's been an incident in London, one which he was not willing to share the details of with you, and upon his return home, he'd collapsed into you, shaking uncontrollably and swearing through sobs. The faint lightbulb illuminating the hall was enough to reveal the splotches of red covering his coat, and your gasp just made him shake his head frantically and try to dig himself further into you. It had taken the better part of an hour to convince him to come to the bathroom so you could clean him up, but by the time you watched him fall into a restless sleep under the watching eye of the restless sun, you felt a new, more equalizing dynamic enter your relationship.
At some point, in between less and less suffocating clouds of smoke and genuine shared smiles, you had irrevocably fallen in love with John Shelby. It was a wonder, you thought to yourself as you regarded him, chin resting on your slight baby bump as he slept, how far you'd come with your million-dollar man.