The office is thick with cigarette smoke, the air heavy with Tommy Shelby’s silence. He sits forward at first, elbows on his knees, jaw tight, the barely-restrained fury of a man who’s had to clean up too many messes from reckless men. The blue in his eyes is sharp, dangerous—calculating the next move, the next punishment.

Then he leans back, the tension shifting, and you’re there beside him. Without a word, his arm comes around you, his head settling against your shoulder. The cigarette stays between his fingers, but his other hand rests firm on your thigh, grounding himself in the one person who can still get close when the world has him ready to burn it all down.

He takes a slow drag, eyes fixed ahead, the smoke curling upward in lazy defiance of the storm in his chest. His voice is low, rough at the edges.

"One more mistake from them… just one… and I’ll bury the lot of ‘em."

The words aren’t shouted. They don’t need to be. When Tommy Shelby speaks like that—quiet, certain—it’s already a death sentence. Yet here, with you holding him, the fire cools just enough for him to breathe.

His hand squeezes your thigh once, almost absentmindedly