peaky blinders imagines + smut.

tommy shelby: two years.

Leaving Small Heath had been a hard choice.

There were lots of unpleasant memories that you attached with the town, so many negatives that it was hard to remember the times when you were a child, running through the streets with your mud-caked and ripped dress with the Shelby brothers. Every time you thought about those piercing blue eyes, you wouldn't remember the time he asked you to be his, or when he got down on one knee. Your mind would go to when he returned back from France, broken and demolished, when he couldn't look you in eyes because he was petrified of breaking down.

You couldn't forget the countless nights that you spent awake with Tommy. Holding him in your arms as you continuously reminded him that he was back home, not stuck in the trenches with no family, no love and no happiness. He never spoke to you during those late hours, he wouldn't even cry, he would just stare at the wall as his mind went through the scenes of the tunnels, the sound of the screaming men as they all thought about being home with their families in the warmth.

Tommy was an impossible man though. Before the war, you found it easy to read Tommy, he found it impossible to hide secrets from you, always wanting to express his emotions with the woman that he loved more than anything in the world. After the war, he was an entirely different man. There was no light behind the eyes that you had fell in love with, a smile never graced his angelic features, he was dead inside, completely lost in the world.

You could remember the moment that he broke things off with you. It had been a perfectly standard Saturday, there was no signs that things were going to dramatically change and that your heart would be broken as the sun fell.

Tommy had been his usual bleak self, only talking to you if the conversation revolved around the business, not wanting to speak emotionally to you. He didn't want to put all of his wretchedness onto you, he didn't believe that it was fair. Keeping himself at a distance seemed faultless, at least that way you couldn't get hurt but Tommy was ignorant, he couldn't see the light falling from your eyes as the days passed.

All you wanted was your husband back and you finally thought you had got him. When he asked to speak to you on that Saturday evening, you expected him to finally destroy his walls and admit everything to you. For once, there was a soft smile on his face as he sat across from you at the table but it wasn't one that represented happiness, it was a guilty smile, his attempt at trying to calm you down before you could kick off.

You listened as he spoke but after a few minutes, you stopped. You couldn't stand listening to what he was saying, the fabricated justifications not bringing you any consolation. He claimed that he loved you but he didn't want to ruin you, deserved better was what he said. That wasn't down to Tommy to decide however, you didn't want better and you never would. Yes, Tommy was entirely a different man but you knew the old Tommy was buried somewhere in that broken mind of his. The Tommy who laughed at your foolish and unfunny jokes, the man who praised you every single day, the boy who couldn't walk past you without kissing you.

Begging and pleading was not going to get you anywhere though and you soon realised this. You hung around Birmingham for another couple of months, wordlessly pleading with Tommy every time you passed him in the streets, trying your hardest to speak to him at work but only getting the cold shoulder. It had got to the point where Polly had intervened, she couldn't stand seeing the both of you so sorrowful but like always, it was no use. Tommy had made up his mind and he wasn't going to change it, not anytime soon anyway.

After a while, you couldn't stand being in Birmingham.

London was your next option, a chance to have a fresh start without constantly worrying about Tommy. You were naive enough to think that moving to London would mean that all of your feelings for Tommy would vanish into thin air, a chance for the two of you to move on with your lives and possibly find someone new, you were so wrong.