Chapter Text
Spices in his nose, and laundry detergent. Thomas Shelby turns to the empty counter, throws around a puzzled look. Even though Thomas had not ever given him reason to fear him, Mr Zhang was always careful to welcome his best client without wait.
"My suits, please," Thomas called, keeping an ear out for any suspicious noise. "Mr Zhang."
A man appeared, lithe and a little out of breath, and definitely not Mr Zhang. With a critical eye Thomas took note of the peculiar crossbred quality of his skin, the unusual size for someone of oriental descent, but was careful to keep his face neutral.
The stranger smiled and the place smelt more intense all of the sudden. "S'pose you could call me that. Junior will do though."
Thomas didn't comment the accent. London, right? "My suits," he insisted instead.
"Of course sir," the boy disappeared, reappeared only seconds later. "Excuse me, your name?"
At that moment Thomas decided customer service was clearly going downhill in this place.
"Thomas. Thomas Shelby," he answered pointedly, waiting for the realisation in the man's face.
All he got was a satisfied nod and seconds later, a heap perfectly clean and freshly pressed suits.
"Terribly sorry for the wait mister, usually my uncle is up front, but he's caught an awful sickness past few days. I usually work in the back-"
"You're a talker," Thomas interrupted with slight annoyance, folding a few bills out of his pocket. "No wonder he has you working in the back."
The man broke into a sheepish smile, picking up the money, moving to get the change. "Yeah, I get that a lot."
Thomas eyed the coins that were held out and picked up his suits instead. "Keep the change," he said on his way out.
When the curious man pocketed the money with an intrigued grin, Thomas thinks he may not be the only one to have succumbed to a cursed charm.
Thomas tosses a look around, pretends not to look at Zhang junior.
"Mr Zhang still sick?"
The man gave a carefree grin. "What do you think?"
Thomas raised a brow at the insubordinance, and the young man must have seen, but threw his linen sack onto the counter without comment. Zhang junior peered inside, made a few notes on a piece of paper. So the boy could write in english. Noted.
"How many shirts?"
Thomas slipped his hands into his pockets. "Five. Not too much starch at the collar, please."
"I said I work in the back. Not at the dry-cleaner."
Electric blue snapped onto him with immediate realisation and Zhang Junior waited for the uncomfortable shift in them, but Shelby only blinked once, composed. A few seconds passed and then a neutral hum escaped the english man. A lifetime of understanding, an unbeliever who left the ultimate judgement to others.
"Family business, you see."
Thomas thinks he imagines the wink. There's another second of nonverbal communication, a certain stillness in the air as the measured breath expanded in Shelby's lung. Then he nodded, turned on his heels before he did something stupid.
"Not too much starch," he called over his shoulder on the way out.
He loathes it. That he can not get the young man out of his head. He knows this leads to nothing but frustrated fucks with cheap prostitutes and dazed out nights hanging on his bedside pipe, yet there is not much he can do. Getting his dick wet from time to time, if only to keep up appearances.
He has lived this before, accepted that this was his life long ago. He had everything except for what he truly desired.
The note of disappointment at the sight of the good old Mr Zhang was foolish, Thomas knew. Yet the false smile and professional greeting curled distastefully on his palette, almost had him wishing for a younger, more straightforward face.
"The usual, Mister Shelby?"
Thomas remembered the pipe and bedside stash that had depleted dangerously, and it was almost as if cold sweat of panic and anticipation broke out on the back of his neck even as he gave a calm nod. "The usual."
The sticky ball wrapped in silk paper weighted heavy in Thomas' pocket as he walked the street back home. Sometimes to forget transparent smiles he needed a little nudge. To forget charming ones, only the abyss would do.
His fingers shake as he strikes the match.
"Mister Shelby! What will it be this time, shirts? Suits?"
"I'm not here for the dry-cleaning."
There was a startled quality to Mr Zhang's expression. "Already Mister Shelby?"
Thomas stared, stone cold. Only his eyes betrayed the storm brewing inside, and the impeding danger if Zhang was to utter a single word too much. With a cowering nod, Zhang cedes to the request.
"Xiao!" It comes, followed by a string of exotic profanities.
There's a shout in the back, an agreeing sound that Thomas does not understand either, and after a few uncomfortable seconds during which Zhang tried not to fold under the gangster's stare something shuffles in their peripheral vision.
A familiar head peeks out from behind the door, holding out a package.
"Yifu." Zhang junior nods at Zhang, then to Thomas. "Thomas."
The use of his first name does something undescribable to Thomas, rummages the depth of his stomach with far too familiar heat. The young man's smile lights up the room, breaks the light on his exposed skin. He is not wearing a shirt. Family business, right. If he could, Thomas would fling him against the wall and fuck the living daylights out of this boy, threatening every man who has ever laid a hand on him.
Thomas must have stared a second too long, for there was a foul edge at the upturned corners of Zhang's mouth. A vulture ready to grab an opportunity.
For what more virtuous friend than the Shelby?
"Ah! Mister Shelby, what can I do for you?"
"Im not here for the shirts."
"Ah, yes, the usual?"
"I'm not here for the drugs either."
A realisation flashes in Zhang's eyes. The putty man rubs his hands together, as if he had Thomas in the palm of his sweaty hand, as if Thomas Shelby was the kind of man you could hold in the palm of your fucking hand. Had Thomas been less drunk or high he would have sliced the man a new smile, but right now his mind was on one thing and one thing only.
He hears a name being called out, it is undeniably the wrong one.
"Not her. Do not play coy with me, Mister Zhang."
Thomas did not come here to get his dick wet in some common whore. He came here to reap what he craves. For once, and once only, he foolishly tells himself.
"You're..." Thomas trailed off, for once unsure in his words, scanning the man in the doorway up and down.
Zhang Junior demonstrated one of his gleeful signature grins, recognising the inspection for what it was even as he busied himself with pulling his shirt over his lean frame. "Tall for a chink?" he finished Thomas sentence. "I get that a lot."
"You seem to get a lot, a lot."
The young man only gave a shrug. "Dad's an Englishman, tends to attract curious question about..." He raised a hand and designated, well, himself.
"London?"
That telltale tug at Zhang's lips again, even as he slides out of his pants. "What gave me away?"
"You've got that preposterous big city boy attitude," Thomas growls.
With a sleek movement, Zhang slides into Thomas' personal bubble, thrusts him against a wall, hands flying up to work his many buttons. Usually that sort of aggression was a no-go, but here in the back of the dry-cleaning brothel den, under Zhang's demanding hands, Thomas suddenly was out of his depth.
"Yeah? Last time I checked you were nothing but a skiver pikey bastard."
"You cheeky little shit, did you have to look that one up?"
"What do you know, maybe I'm one of those unfortunate souls that can't read."
That was a pile of horseshit, of course. Why the hell Thomas even engaged in this small-talk, who the hell knew. All this chatter out of Zhang's mouth, it seemed it had caught possession of Thomas too, made his mouth unruly. Seeping, cracking eggshells of his construct. It took a few seconds for him to realise the weird sensation in his face was the mirror of Zhang's grin. This one caught the upwards tug of Thomas lips, devoured it even as he threw the gypsies shirt into a forgotten corner of the incense soaked room.
"There's a devil inside you, Shelby," he muttered against his mouth, taking notice in the shift of Thomas' hips, grinding against him. "You like that, when I say your name? 'Cause you think you understand what it stands for."
Thomas' possessive grip is tight on the flesh of Zhang's hips. "Oh I know."
"That's the thing, with you powerful men." Zhang dragged his teeth along Shelby's earlobe. "You think you know everything and own the world, and then you come here and get on your knees."
As if to drive the point home, there is a generous hand on Thomas' shoulder, pushing, eliciting a shiver. Thomas' whips his head around and meant to glare, but Zhang saw right through, palmed his twitching erection through his trousers. Intesity hangs static and loaded in the air, the scorching touch, the spicy smell, the harsh breaths shared between them, the savoury taste of Zhang lingering on his tongue. It shakes his whole being, the feeling of being alive.
"What you waiting for? Get on your knees, Mister Shelby."
Zhang's savoury taste would linger on his tongue longer than expected.