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He’s had enough. He’s sick of it. He’s just— sick of it. It’s all too much. He has too many fucking things he has to deal with right now and the last fucking thing he needs is more of this shit from Arthur.
Arthur’s fine. One minute he’s fine. The next it’s this again. Years of it. Years of it.
Sometimes it comes on in the day. Sometimes it comes on in the night. Sometimes he’ll be trying to sleep and his brother will wash up on his doorstep, agitated, fidgety, begging him to take his gun, to keep an eye on him, to keep him away from ropes and blades and the fucking cut. He does it to John and Esme too. Just—
It’s so fucking selfish. So un-grown up.
Why does Arthur have to be like this? He’s not like this. John’s not like this. Even poor addled Danny Whizz-Bang wasn’t like this.
Sometimes he thinks it’s their mother’s blood. Even before the war Arthur could get a bit funny sometimes. He’s the most like her, too, in temperament, for all everyone acts like they’ve forgotten it— or at least he was. The Arthur that came back isn’t the same Arthur that went.
Arthur used to be quieter.
He misses the quieter Arthur. He misses Arthur-that-was—
And it’s all too much, this time it’s all too much. All of it. Campbell, the Irish, London, what happened to Ada, what he’s going to have to tell Polly, the letter from Grace, Grace herself, Grace he can’t stop thinking of— all of it.
Why can’t Arthur just grow up?
Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it.
Was it the noise, or the crowd, or the filth, or the violence, or the fear, or the death after death after death after death? What is it that reached in and broke his bother?
If Arthur’s even broken. If this is even real and not just some way for his brother to remain important in their eyes, to get their attention— Sometimes— Sometimes he doubts—
He loses his temper.
He says things he means in the moment. But he loses his temper. He’s unkind— He’s so fucking sick of having to be kind to Arthur. Babying him. So he’s not. He is not kind.
Some part of him is sincerely hoping his unkindness will be enough to snap is brother out of it. Make him Arthur again. Most of him is just sick of it.
He’s stormed all the way out of the door before the niggling guilt, the part of him that does love Arthur, has him storming back in to grab his brother’s gun and remove the bullets, irritated by the necessity.
For a split second he can’t comprehend what he’s seeing. For a split second— and that split second’s hesitation is long enough for Arthur to squeeze the trigger on the gun now scooped up and pressed to his temple.
Click.
He sees Arthur’s whole body spasm, legs kicking, the gun dropping from nerveless fingers to clatter under the chair. It jammed. He tells himself as he bolts across the room to his brother. It jammed, it jammed, it jammed.
Arthur’s eyes pop back open, and he sees the moment his brother registers his approach, sees something— something he either can’t read or can’t bear to read— cross the other’s face, and then Arthur is flinging himself to the floor and scrabbling under the chair for the gun.
‘Arthur!’ he’s shouting. ‘Arthur!’
‘No!’ he hears his brother yelp. ‘No! No! No Tom, I can’t do this. I can’t do this! I can’t just fucking do this! I can’t be what you want me to be! I’m not you. I’m not you! I can’t just make it fucking stop! I’ve tried!’
He’s on his brother before he’s thought about it, body covering Arthur’s trying to pull him away from the chair, the gun— and when that doesn’t work scrabbling and fighting to reach past him to get the thing before he can. He feels his fingers brush the handle, feels Arthur’s longer ones almost there, gets an arm around his brother’s waist and hauls him back until he’s on him like a dog on a bitch, and then shoves his arm that much further forward.
The gun.
Arthur’s struggling, Arthur’s arms are longer— he readjusts, yanking the other to him again, his crotch grinding up into his brother’s arse— he hears a yelp of sound, Arthur trying to lurch out of his grip, distracted for a moment from their objective. Distracted just long enough he can grab the fucking thing, can pull it out from under the chair, can fling it off into the far corner, away from them both.
A tiny mewl of loss from the man in his arms and he can’t take it, can’t stand it. He drags his brother back with him as he sits up, until Arthur is awkwardly splayed over his lap, and then he just holds on, trying to catch his breath.
In his arms his brother shakes, shakes, shakes— until eventually a sigh. A deep, deep sigh, followed by a stilling. ‘Let me go Tom,’ Arthur says, voice strange, flat, calm. ‘Let me go. You’re right. I need to grow up. I need to stop burdening you, John— poor Esme— with this shit. So let me go—’
He doesn’t want to understand his brother, doesn’t want to know what Arthur’s talking about, but he does. Oh how he does. It makes him clench his arms tighter around the other, makes him bury his face against the back of Arthur’s neck, shaking it back and forth in a childish denial. It doesn’t stop Arthur talking though, saying things he really does not want to hear. ‘—I’m already dead. The man I was died over there, and the man I am now— I don’t like him. You don’t like him. No one likes him. I’m a killer. I can’t control meself. What I did to that poor boy— It’s better if it’s done. Over. Finished. You’ll be alright without me. I don’t really contribute much anymore anyway, not like you and John, not like Poll— and if it’s killing you need done, you’ll be able to find someone to replace me. There’s plenty of men around that got used to it, that aren’t bothered by it, not in the way I’ve always been.’
‘No,’ he manages and wonders at how much he sounds exactly like the child he accused Arthur of being. ‘No. Arthur. No.’
A tiny pause, then Arthur adds, ‘I’m sorry I let you down, Tom,’ with a finality he just can’t stand.
‘You didn’t,’ he manages with a chest that feels thick, and tight and choking, like he’s been gassed. ‘I—’ he doesn’t know how to say it, everything tangling up in him. ‘I shouldn’t have,’ he blurts out. ‘Things are just— Campbell. Fucking Irish— Polly, poor Poll— I shouldn’t have. I—’
Arthur meant it. All those times Arthur meant it. It wasn’t just some ploy to get their attention—
If he loses Arthur—
It wasn’t enough, that time after their father came, the rope marks around Arthur’s neck. It wasn’t enough. How could it not have been enough? But this time— This time it is enough. The gun. His brother’s fingers tightening on the trigger.
If he loses Arthur—
‘I can’t lose you,’ he gasps wetly against the other’s neck.
‘Tom—’ Arthur begins, and he doesn’t want to hear it, doesn’t want to deal with his brother trying to talk him into letting the other go so Arthur can fetch the gun and—
‘Whatever you need,’ he chokes out. ‘Whatever you need to get better. If you need a break— if you need to go away for a while— If you need to be kept away from the violence—whatever you need, Arthur, whatever you need. I can’t lose you. I can’t lose you.’
There is a pause, and when Arthur speaks next it’s weak, uncertain, that terrifying resolution finally gone from his voice. ‘I don’t— Tom, I don’t understand.’
He’s not sure exactly why, but something gets— it gets fucking twisted in his head then. With Arthur’s vulnerability. The root of it’s probably fear, it’s the way you sometimes get with fear, when loss has been averted. His cock’s hard. It’s probably been hard for a bit. Hard like it’d get sometimes in France. Hard from fear. Hard so as he wouldn’t even realise it was until later. Hard now where it’s pressed up against Arthur’s arse— and the skin beneath his face is so soft.
Thin skinned, as their dad used to mock, Arthur’s always been thin skinned— in both ways. Sensitive, for all he was born into a world where that’s a fucking burden, but also his actual skin’s soft, silky, all the tender parts of him hidden from the weather as delicate as a girl’s.
It’s too easy to nuzzle his head in a bit further, to nose against a tender earlobe, the way he’s holding his brother shifting from just clinging on to something more like an embrace. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He does know he shouldn’t be doing it.
It takes a moment for Arthur to notice that things are changing, but once he does he freezes immediately. ‘Tom?’ coming out thin and reedy, uncertain.
It’s almost frightening how his blood’s heating. This is Arthur, he tells himself, the slight figure on his lap, arse pressed to his cock, is Arthur, his brother—
Arthur who could have died. Arthur he could have lost. Arthur—
He stopped believing in God, he stopped praying to God a long time ago now. His faith uncertain even before, but dying quickly in the mud. Still, that didn’t stop the way his heart had pounded to the rhythm of please don’t let it be me, please don’t let it be them, please don’t let it be me, please don’t let it be John, please don’t let it be Arthur, never Arthur—
He and Arthur have always been close, too close, their dad used to say, eying him warily each time he got up in the old bastard’s face after the man had used his fists on Arthur, his own fists clenched ready to strike, to hit, his brother holding him back each time. Holding him back even with blood rolling down his narrow face. What is the Devil I see in you Tommy? the old man would ask, The Devil that would come after your own father for nothing more than showing his wayward son a little discipline?
They shared a bed as kids, him and Arthur. They shared a bed and each grew up, and once upon a time Arthur was small and neat and straight backed, could head their family meetings with ease— not always clever, but not drunk and half wild and head gone on the idea of self annihilation. Arthur would listen to him— and he’d come to his brother first with his ideas, and Arthur would listen, and talk him down if it was all too dangerous—
When did the danger become the point? If Arthur was how he used to be the man would have reined him in years ago, but then Arthur was always content with nothing more than Small Heath. With food in their bellies and a roof over their head and clean, well-kept clothes on their backs and safety from the predation of the fucking corrupt coppers, the fucking authorities, the fucking parish.
He always did want more. Always did dream of more. Never did dream of reaching for, taking more, in a way that would leave Arthur behind.
His brother. His companion. The one who raised him almost as much as their mum did.
These things happen, sometimes, in families with too many kids and no older daughters to take on the burden.
‘Oh fuck, I love you,’ he blurts out, and he’s not quite sure he means it as a brother, or if he means it with the cock still pressed against Arthur’s arse. ‘I love you, Arthur. You die and it’ll kill me.’
‘Tom,’ it escapes his brother’s mouth as a thin mewl of anguish. ‘I don’t want to— I just can’t do this. I can’t— who will it be next time? This time it was some kid, some innocent kid, but who will it be next time?’ Arthur shifts in his grip, hands raising so the other can stare down at the, with disgust. ‘They don’t even feel like me hands anymore. The things I’ve done—’
‘It’s not your fault,’ he says, and this time he means it. ‘They sent us away and asked us to kill, and when we got back—’ it’s hard to say, so hard to say, and while he’s trying to gather the courage he takes one of those hands in his own, raising it up and over Arthur’s shoulder so he can press a gentle kiss to split and bruised knuckles. Poor Arthur— and, yes, that poor kid. ‘When we got back—’ he tries again, ignoring the way his brother has totally frozen on his lap, ‘When— then I asked it of you. I never let you have the peace you need.’
‘No,’ Arthur protests, trying to turn around in his grasp, ‘No Tom. Not your fault, you’ve just done what you thought you needed to for the family—’
A humourless little laugh escapes him. He has no idea if Arthur believes what he’s saying, or if it’s just an attempt at comfort, but— ‘No I haven’t. Arthur, I’m a greedy man. I’m not— I’m not settled. Inside there’s part of me that can’t settle. I want— Oh, I want so much more, and it is for all of us, but sometimes I forget that I don’t always know what’s best. That what’s best for me isn’t best for everyone else. I can’t— I can’t stop either. I won’t stop. I know meself enough to know that, but I can do better by you,’ he sighs, more regret welling in him, ‘That medicine the doctor gave you— I can’t say I really believe it would have helped, would have fixed the bits that have gotten broken, but I shouldn’t have poured it away like that, taken the choice from you.’
A little pause, Arthur still trying to turn around on his lap, to look at him properly— to straddle his cock, some dark, devilish part of him thinks— Then his brother says, ‘Do you think I should go to the doctor and get some more?’
He shakes his head, instinctive, then hesitates, eventually saying, ‘I think you should have a break away from it all, see how you feel then.’ An idea occurs to him then, ‘Would you like to go and stay with Ada in London for a bit? Get away from all this mess?’ He’s asked her to come to the reopening of the Garrison to help with Polly, and it’d be so easy to ask her to take Arthur back with her. To help with him as well. It would probably do her good too, she and Arthur have always gotten on in their way. She gets exasperated with him, he’ll let her get away with murder—
‘Would she want me there?’ Arthur asks, sounding sad and lost in a way he hates.
‘Of course, Arthur,’ he nods, even though he doesn’t actually know the answer. She should be happy to see the other, to spend time with the other. Anyway, Arthur should be a figure of safety after what happened to her so recently. The first time some boy grabbed her when she didn’t want him to— Georgie Braeside, he remembers—she’d kicked him in the shin to get away, and after Arthur found out their brother got him and John and Freddie, and they rounded up Georgie so Arthur could use the lad to show Ada all the ways to hurt a boy that tried it on when she didn’t want it.
Georgie died in France, but between that day— and all its painful lessons— and the day a shell vapourised him, he never treated a girl with anything but the most perfect respect ever again.
‘I—’ Arthur begins. ‘I’d like that Tom, if— if that’s ok with you? If you don’t need me?’
‘I’ll always need you,’ slips out, embarrassingly earnest, before, ‘But what I need most from you is for you to get better. You’re not a hopeless case. You’re not Barney Thomason. You just need a break—’ and he hopes it’s true, and right then he swears to do everything he can to make it true. If Arthur really needs to stop the violence, stop being the Peaky Blinders’ attack dog as Polly put it, then that’s it. He will never ask it of Arthur again. They can find something else for him to do— if he needs to do anything at all.
Arthur shifts on his lap then, as if he’s trying to get up. His arms tighten around the other without thinking about it, making his brother lose his balance a bit, pressing them even closer than before. His cock was starting to soften a little from the talking, from Arthur not longer fighting him, no longer trying to get away to get the gun, the fear and fight in him calming down— but the way the slight softness of his brother’s arse grinds against it wakes it up again.
‘Tom,’ Arthur says after a moment, hands going to the arms he has around the other’s waist, tugging at them. ‘Let go of me. I’m not going to— I’m not going to go for the gun, I promise I’m not, but I need you to let go of me.’
He can’t. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t convince his body to obey, make himself stop worrying that the moment he did Arthur really would go for the gun, and now, touching like this— He feels something cracking apart at the heart of him.
In this moment, in the echoing darkness of his own head, he can admit that he’s had— thoughts— about Arthur, sometimes, off and on over the years. Not so much since they got back and the Arthur he knew seemed to get swapped out for this loud mockery of a man, doing and saying all the things that should be right— should be the kind of man their dad always went after Arthur for not being— but were so, so wrong.
From when they were kids. Thoughts. The glimpses of a body you get from living on top of each other all the time. Arthur slender and slight, with a waist small enough back then he’d wondered if he could put his hands around it. Freckles. Copper-tinted hair under his arms and between his legs—
It was made worse, made strange and obsessive, by his curiosity about Arthur and sex. His brother wasn’t like what he has been in recent years, not back then. Didn’t go after girls. Didn’t go with girls at all, not for the longest time, and then most of the ones he did go after were ones that— They were girls that had been with other men. Girls that other men might have gotten in trouble, like Arthur was trying to use those other men’s cocks, their virility, the babies that really probably weren’t his in those girls’ bellies to hide something in himself.
He hadn’t had words for what he’d suspected back then. He doesn’t have words for his own fascination with it even now.
It was like with John— John was right in a way Arthur was wrong.
There was a while there, when they were kids, when you couldn’t walk into a room with John in it without walking in on him with his hands down his trousers, tugging his own cock. ‘Not where Ada might see!’ Arthur would snap, swatting at their younger brother, chasing him around, getting ignored and complained at for his trouble until Arthur had gone to their mum and she’d given John a clip around the ear and echoed, ‘Not where Ada might see!’ muttering something about boys in a way that made him feel almost ashamed that that is what he was.
He was right too, or at least he’d thought— There was a time when they were kids when it’d been hard to keep his own hands out of his trousers, blood heating all the time, seemingly for no reason— but he’d managed it well enough most of the time, keeping his urges to the dark, their rickety little bed shaking as he’d wanked as quietly as he could, trying to ignore how the other bed in the room, the one housing John, was shaking just as fucking often.
It’s just that the bed never did seem to shake because of Arthur.
In all his life he’s only walked in on his older brother getting himself off the once, when they were all supposed to be out at the fair, but Arthur kept home because their dad was punishing him again. He’d been sent home partway there, their dad swatting and striking as him because he’d been needling the man about his treatment of Arthur, remembering the way his brother’s lip had split from their dad’s punch.
He’d gotten home, let himself in, gotten all the way upstairs and to their room thinking Arthur must have slipped out while they were away, only to walk into— He’s still not sure what his brother was doing under the covers on his back, legs spread— but he knows that what he’d seen hadn’t been quite right, the movements under the covers weren’t quite right, for Arthur to be tugging on his cock. He’d known it even back then. Hadn’t said anything, hadn’t known what to say, hadn’t even had an idea of the thing to suspect until he was older, had started visiting whores to burn it all off so he wouldn’t have to make the bed shake at all— having a wank feeling strange, exposing, ever since he walked in on Arthur— and had been offered a very different service by a girl he saw on the regular, because she was on her monthlies.
He hadn’t taken her up on it, had been disgusted in that moment, went with her mouth instead, but ever after it had stuck with him, stuck with him that people could do that. It had made sense of inverts, when he’d found out about them— and made sense of some of what he saw in France. It had—
It had been one of those thoughts he had sometimes, about Arthur. Wondering if what he saw that day was his big brother lying in their bed with his fingers up his own arse.
He should have been disgusted at the thought. He should have been—
He can remember being fourteen, looking at Arthur while his brother was looking at some horse their dad had stolen. Looking at Arthur. At the narrow, littleness of him, at the wonder and excitement in his shifting eyes, at the length of his neck as he’d turned his head to follow the movements of the horse with his eyes—
All the impulse of it all, all the things buried down as Arthur became a stranger to him and his own heart froze solid in his chest, it all flares up again. He’s leaning in, leaning over Arthur’s shoulder, half turned to him, trying to take his brother’s lips in a kiss before he can think better of it. He doesn’t manage, Arthur whipping his head to the side, away from him, so the kiss lands on the point of that narrow jaw instead, his lips scraping against stubble.
They freeze like that, locked together, then Arthur splutters out, ‘I-I don’t know what you’re playing at, Tom, but— but you need to stop.’
He does. He does need to stop. Arthur can’t cope with this right now, not so soon after—
He pulls back, just a little, then rests his head against Arthur’s shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, and doesn’t mean it. Or at least doesn’t mean it for pressing his cock against Arthur, for wanting to kiss him, but does mean it for everything else— and for upsetting the other. ‘I’m tired, Arthur, I’m so tired. I’m tired and it feels like everyone asks so much from me— and I know I’m the one asking the most of meself. So I’m tired. Tired and confused— and you scared me. You really did. For a second there I thought you’d— but you didn’t. You’re still here. Arthur, you have no idea how glad I am you’re still here. So I’m confused, that’s all—’
Once he’s worked out what he wants, once he’s set on his course, he’s a being of resolve, he knows that. Both his parents accused him of being stubborn, a look of fondness on his mother’s face, derision on his father’s. He’s also a patient man, good at planning, putting things into place so the cards fall his way in the end. A few weeks at Ada’s and Arthur will be feeling stronger. He can wait. It’s too risky to try and take what he realises he’s always wanted just yet, but he can wait.
‘Confused,’ Arthur echoes, uncertain, before seeming to talk himself into believing it. ‘You’re tired Tom. I know you don’t get enough sleep. You don’t look after yourself the way you should, considering all you do for us—’
‘You’re right,’ he agrees, and it is true, but that’s aside the point. The point is he needs to be kinder to his brother. He needs to stop belittling him, bringing him down— half from the power of it, and half from his frustration at this creature his Arthur has become— But Arthur will get better now, become himself again, so there’s no need for spite. ‘I do need to try and sleep more. I will try and sleep more. While you’re in London with Ada, getting away from it all, I’ll try and get some rest meself, how about that?’
‘Sounds good, Tom,’ is Arthur’s predictable reply. They’re still in their clinch, and he knows he has to give it up, or else even Arthur’s want to believe that confusion can explain things will probably give way, so he forces himself to loosen his grip, no matter how much he doesn’t want to. He’s wary though, keeps an eye on Arthur, ready to lunge and grab that fucking gun back, as his brother staggers to his feet— but Arthur just stands there, looking small and sad, but not immediately suicidal.
He gets to his own feet then, shuffling the jacket of his suit to try and cover the fact his cock hasn’t gone all the way back to soft yet, then asks, ‘Do you need help packing? It’s best we get you ready to go to Ada’s before tonight.’ Knowing her, just in case something happens and she storms out at some point over the evening.
‘What about the reopening of the Garrison?’ Arthur asks. ‘Don’t you need me there?’
He nods, ‘It’ll look good for us if you are, but if you can’t bear it you can stay home. Ada’s coming, so you can go back with her.’
‘Ada’s coming?’ Arthur asks, perking up.
He nods. Reminded, unpleasantly reminded, of what he’ll have to do later. The conversation he’ll have to have with Polly. ‘Yeah, I thought— Well, we need her. Family all together and all that, and I have some news for Poll—’
‘Bad news?’
He nods. ‘Yeah, for the most part, bad news. Ada’s presence will help.’ He hopes.
‘Won’t she need to stick around for a while, then?’ Arthur asks, and he can already see the demoralization take hold. Arthur getting the idea into his head that he won’t be allowed that break after all.
‘No more than a couple of days, no more,’ he promises, thinking of going over and pulling his brother into his arms, then thinking better of it. Not yet. ‘And even while she’s here— I mean it Arthur. You don’t have to kill again. You don’t have to fight. No more violence. You can just sit back and relax—’
A wavering little smile. So much gratitude for such a simple thing. How wrong he’s been, how unkind.
For a moment it’s himself he’s sick of.
He takes the gun with him as he leaves, hope in his heart, but good fucking sense in his head. After that poor boy— even if Arthur’s ok in this moment the moment won’t last. He’d stick around himself, but there are things he has to do— Polly he has to talk to. He’ll send John around though, or maybe Esme and some of the kids, anyone to keep Arthur’s head from trying to kill him again. He probably shouldn’t be left alone. When you’re alone the worst of the thoughts can creep in—
It’s only later, as he’s waiting to speak with Polly, that he realises he’s forgotten all about Grace entirely, for the first time since that last fateful time he saw her.