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evita-shelby · 2 years

Text

Between the Shadow and the Soul

Chapter 11

5/26/22- turns out I accidentally deleted it lol

Cw: racism, slutshaming, mentions of death

Gif by @nofckingfightinging

"You turned cloak so many times in that war, I wonder if your husband knows how cheap your loyalty is.” he says as if he’s caught her, but even if he spent his life trying to find Tommy's weakness, he wouldn’t find it with her.

Eva knew he would follow her there. A park bench while she reads a book about poetry. People used to give her looks, some good some bad, but it was those types of looks that reminded you where the Americans got their racism. But that changed when Tommy noticed her, everyone feared him and it was in their best interest that Eva Shelby, nee Smith, was treated as if her skin was as pale as her husband’s.

Irene O'Donnell eyed her with intrigue while Donnal Henry eyed her like she was dog shit on his boot. Campbell looks at her like she was put on this earth to make his life miserable.

“I was a spy for the rebels, sir, a much better one than Grace seeing I fooled everyone into thinking that. Do you know how easy it was for me to expose her?” Eva loathes Grace, not only because somehow the insipid little cunt managed to creep in like the snake she is, but also because she was just so fucking awful at her job. Had she been a spy in Mexico she wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes. "Two conversations with her and your god-awful idea to meet in the cemetery where everyone can see you, and by the next day I had told Polly and Thomas what I’d seen.”

Eva hates ineptitude just as much as she hates the idea of sharing her husband.

“She served her purpose well enough.” He said angry that a foreign witch was the one who helped Thomas Shelby evade justice.

“Did you know I was given a gray filly just like the one my husband bought recently for my services by Pancho Villa?” Eva is not one to brag about her time in Villa’s army ---after its inglorious end who can really--- but Campbell is an exception. Its burns him that a twenty-six-year-old housewife has done more for her country than he has for his. Although an Irishman on the side of his people’s oppressors must have no pride. “You see I sounded so American by the time I finished boarding school, no one could tell I was from Mexico. Except for my coloring, obviously.”

“And then killed when you refused to give up your chastity to the general you served, an admirable thing, you were a girl of twenty all alone.” he says as if the majority of Mexico wasn’t composed of Catholics.

“Shame Grace couldn’t keep her legs closed, not a very good Protestant girl, was she? Should have seen how eager she was to jump in his bed, all of Small Heath knew she was whore by then, flirting with both Arthur and Thomas.” Although who could blame Grace, Tommy was great in bed ---if a little tame. Linda seemed to be really enjoying Arthur’s bed, going by her blushes, even if she has to step into the Sodom and Gomorrah that is the Eden Club.

“This isn’t about Mrs. Macmillian, Mrs. Shelby.” Normally Eva is above calling women sluts and whores for having sex, but it hurts Campbell to have Grace be slandered so.

“You know I’ve seen your death in the cards, let's just say if you thought being shot by a woman was embarrassing, imagine being killed by one.” Eva never plans on letting him get to the point, she could talk the ears off a person if she set her mind to it.

“Are you threatening me, Mrs. Shelby?” he says tensing and Eva simply shrugs.

“No, I don’t need to threaten people, I simply tell them what the Universe has said to me, you see, Major, I am a witch cursed to see the future.” her voice is barely above a whisper, low and sweet like poison made with honey. “Think of me as Cassandra of Troy, cursed with prophecies that will never be believed.”

----

“You can hardly tell you’re pregnant, you know. I was like that with Danny.” Esme says when Eva comes in through the betting shop, it was much faster than using the other door. Daniel Owen Shelby was Esme’s boy, named after Danny Whizz-Bang. He was John’s fifth child, but Esme’s first and only child. “I hope I can have a pregnancy as good as yours was. I’m sacred of dying like my sister or the baby dying, but it's stupid because the universe has shown me this little one will have three younger sisters.” Eva touches her stomach as if to assure herself that she won’t die like Felicidad did.

“If Tommy is anything like John, those girls of yours will be spoiled rotten. He already bought Katie earrings because he didn’t want her to feel left out when he got Daisy some for her birthday.” Esme says with a laugh. If you’d look at her with Katie, Johnny, Daisy and Robbie you’d think she’d birthed them with how much they loved her and she loved them. Even Daisy who was thinking herself grown at ten and would be unbearable in her teenage years.

“I just know he will.” Eva gets the sudden feeling of someone walking up to the betting shop, a woman she’s heard about, but has never met. “I’ll get the door; I think we are about to have an unexpected guest.”

May Carleton was beautiful, in that English heiress type of way. Stunning woman really and ironically both Eva and Tommy’s type. If Eva wasn’t married, she’d definitely try and see if she could get anywhere with her. “I have an appointment with Mr. Thomas Shelby.”

No hello, no may I come in, nothing is even politely asked and she enters in a way Eva can only describe as Hernan Cortes entering Tenochtitlan already planning how he’s going to oust Moctezuma.

“May Carleton,” May extends her hand to Eva, but Eva eyes it with suspicion. Tommy had told her about her flirting with him ---unfortunately he played dumb when she asked about Grace’s letters, so that’s going to end badly--- and the way she came in here like a colonizer feels a little insulting.

“He usually takes appointments at his proper office.” Eva says wondering how to politely kick her out. She can bet Moctezuma had similar thoughts on how to shake off the Spanish.

“This was the address he gave me.” May drops her hand, feeling the sting. Eva was being rude, but why the hell May Carleton think anyone would be nice to her here.

“He gave you this address?” Esme asks standing by Eva in what can only be seen as solidarity.

“He said this was a gambling den. I told him I wanted to see one since I’m always reading about them in the papers.” now it made sense. Bored rich girl, Eva hated those. Always tried to make her their pet project, always stealing someone else’s boyfriend for shits and giggles and always treating the working class like this circus oddity they can pay to see. “Quite the big scandal in the Telegraph lately. Anyway, he said, I could, uhm, take a look.”

Esme looks at May with incredulity and Eva has that try me bitch look she perfected when she was sixteen and Oneida Villareal Diaz tried to make her life a living hell. Probably likes tonic water too.

Eva already hates her and it's not even about May setting her sights on her charming criminal of a husband.

“And now I feel like a bit of an idiot, because I’m early and he’s late and I have no idea how to behave.” she says almost nervously.

“In a Gambling Den?” Esme doesn’t take kindly to being a spectacle for a rich white woman to enjoy.

“I'll go wait in the car.” May has the decency to appear apologetic, not that it would save her. The Lees are famous for their resentment.

“Oh, you don’t have to. He’ll be here in maybe five minutes; he is very punctual. I am Eva Shelby.” this time Eva offers her hand. The Mexican Spanish accent feels more pronounced and Eva isn’t sure if she should have done that on purpose. With Oneida and her posse of rich mean girls, it was the opposite. The more Irish she sounded the better. Remind them, she was the foreign European one. Didn’t help she was darker than them, which was why they always thought her beneath them. All that culminated with Eva ‘accidentally’ pushing Oneida down a few steps so she’d hurt her ankle and Eva would be playing both Odette and Odile in their school’s rendition of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. She hates Swan Lake, but boy does she love revenge.

“So, what brings you here, Miss Carleton?" Eva asks in that sweet polite manner of hers that she uses on strangers.

“I am going to train his racehorse, for Epsom.” she says still taking everything in, reminding Eva about how Oneida looked at the offices by the port and how surprised she was to see how well off the Smith Rileys lived. After all they did benefit from the Porfiriato up until the Americans destroyed their ships.

“You know horses?” Esme asks as if she didn’t believe posh Miss Carelton was a horse trainer.

“Yes, you?” May asks and now Eva wonders if she judged May wrong.

“Born riding. Slept in a manger when I was a baby.” Esme answers, a softness about her face when she recalls her childhood.

John comes in, complaining about May’s car. And Tommy comes in just as John assumes Eva is feeling threatened by the beautiful heiress.

“Sorry I’m late,” he clears his throat and John backs down. “There was a business matter.” he doesn’t kiss Eva’s cheek like he always does and that just annoys her more. He orders for Esme and John to keep the place locked for a while and Eva wonders if she is supposed to cockblock them to prevent May Carleton from getting the idea Tommy is unattached, or leave in a huff before she does something immature like trip her. She trusts her husband, but she doesn’t trust Carelton to keep Carelton to keep her lily-white hands off her man.

“You hate her, don’t you?” he asks knowing the answer to his question. Lucky for Eva they have the house for themselves since Finn likes spending the night at Polly’s because he misses her and Arthur has gotten a place in London above the Eden Club.

“I don’t know her enough to hate her, but the impression she has given me leaves her in the same spot as the girls who made my life hell in boarding school. Walked into the betting shop like a fucking colonizer.” Eva groaned and he laughs at her choice of words. She may be more Irish than Nahua, but she was raised to know colonialism is evil and how it looks. Every foreign country owned and enslaved mexicans with their factories in Mexico. “Did she drink Tonic Water? The bitchy rich girls always drank that.”

“You drink it too, love.” he points out and once again Eva finds herself forgetting she’s a little angry at him. Here acting like everything is fine while cleaning up after dinner. Him being playful with her and reminding her how horny pregnancy has made her.

“Don’t do that.” she says reminding herself it's now or never.

“Do what, Evie?” he asks bracing himself for the inevitable fight they are hurdling to.

“That thing you do where you make me forget that I am actually pretty fucking mad at you, Tommy.” she says angrily. “I know about those letters Grace has written to you and to top it all off, you didn’t even bother correcting Carleton when she assumed you were unmarried today.”

If Tommy thought her pretty when she was mad, she’d look fucking gorgeous tonight.

---

Notes:

happy new years, i was bored in my room and wrote this all in one sitting, yay!

First things first, only Katie, who I assume is the younger daughter since she is still peeing the bed in season 1, is named. I gave them names here. In order they are: Daisy, Robert (robbie), John Jr (Johnny) and Katie. the baby Esme had between seasons is named Daniel Owen after Danny Whizz Bang who gets killed by Billy Kimber in season 1.

May Carleton gave me bitchy rich girl vibes at first, didn't dislike her as much as i dislike Grace ---who I just think sucks as a charcter, spy , but excels as a ghost--- or Tatiana ---who is just an awful person and kinda annoying.

The Porfiriato is the title given to the thirty-one years (seven presidential terms)President Porfirio Diaz was in power in Mexico. guy started out sort of good, but became a tyrant who favored foreign investments, industrailism without care about people's rights and literally killed his oppnents. his regime lead to the Second Revolution that kinda ended up almost exactly the same. The US originally backed the rebels until the Rebels started raiding them because they were still pissed about the US orchestrating the Mexican-American War to steal half of what is now the continetnial US. the 2nd revolution would make a fantasitic m-rated period drama, has a lot of violence, back stabbing, politics and at one point 41 queer men were exsposed at a dance (there's a movie called El Baile de los 41/the Dance of the 41) one of them being Diaz's son-in-law.

#eva smith shelby #tommy shelby x oc #thomas shelby x oc #thomas shelby fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #oc fanfiction #thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby #tommy shelby fanfic #peaky blinder fanfic

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evita-shelby · 2 years

Text

Between the Shadow and the Soul

Chapter 11

“You turned cloak so many times in that war, I wonder if your husband knows how cheap your loyalty is.” he says as if he’s caught her, but even if he spent his life trying to find Tommy's weakness, he wouldn’t find it with her.

Eva knew he would follow her there. A park bench while she reads a book about poetry. People used to give her looks, some good some bad, but it was those types of looks that reminded you where the Americans got their racism, like meeting the asshole parent of an asshole child. But that changed when Tommy noticed her, everyone feared him and it was in their best interest that Eva Shelby, nee Smith, was treated as if her skin was as pale as her husband’s.

Irene O'Donnell eyed her with intrigue while Donnal Henry eyed her like she was dog shit on his boot. Campbell looks at her like she was put on this earth to make his life miserable.

Eva hates ineptitude just as much as she hates the idea of sharing her husband.

“She served her purpose well enough.” He said angry that a foreign witch was the one who helped Thomas Shelby evade justice.

“This isn’t about Mrs. Macmillian, Mrs. Shelby.” Normally Eva is above calling women sluts and whores for having sex, but it hurts Campbell to have Grace be slandered so.

“Are you threatening me, Mrs. Shelby?” he says tensing and Eva simply shrugs.

“I hope I can have a pregnancy as good as yours was. I’m scared of dying like my sister or the baby dying, but it's stupid because the universe has shown me this little one will have three younger sisters.” Eva touches her stomach as if to assure herself that she won’t die like Felicidad did.