While Tommy Sleeps
Title: While Tommy Sleeps
Author: domfangirl
Fandom: The Black Donnellys
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Helen Donnelly, Jenny Reilly, Tommy Donnelly, with mentions of the whole Donnelly family.
Pairings: Jenny/Tommy
Notes: Spoilers for 1.01 and 1.02. And I made up a name for Jenny's husband.
When Helen says, “Whenever I watch my boys sleep...I still see them as five years old in my head. Does that sound crazy? Always five. And they’re not babies anymore, but they’re not little men either,” there’s no way I can fathom that I’ll understand exactly what she means in a few hours’ time. But I will, and I’m just avoiding that knowledge with everything inside me.
When I ask her, “Do you know what happened last night?” I’m surprised she tries to act like she doesn’t. Helen’s not an evader. She’s a confronter.
“How do you mean?” she asks quietly, still gazing at Sean as he lies sleeping in the hospital bed.
“You know what I mean,” I respond, surprised at the darkness in my own voice. She knows what her sons did tonight. She knows beautiful, wonderful Tommy and sweet, simple Kevin crossed a line they’ve never crossed before. She knows what they did and she’s trying to act like she doesn’t.
Her face changes then, and she looks at me for a moment. Then she says what she will tell herself everyday for the rest of her life, every time either of them does something necessary again: “I think…that if you know someone’s good, you know it in your belly. And you trust if they had to do something, they had no other choice.”
Later, when I can feel Tommy in my belly because he’s driving into me with frenzied movements that can’t be stilled, I hear her words echoing through my head. I know exactly who Tommy Donnelly is. And it doesn’t change anything.
*
You know, it’s sort of a miracle that I never kissed Tommy Donnelly until I was 22 years old. I mean, really. I spent my whole life with the kid, and have loved him in some way that entire time. I’ve kissed Kevin (on a dare) and once Jimmy kissed me, out of nowhere, when I was asking him how Tommy was because I hadn’t seen him in a while. I’ve never kissed Sean, because I wanted to be the only girl in the neighborhood who hadn’t. And I’ve never kissed Tommy, until tonight. Until he looked at me with those needy eyes, and he didn’t even know what he was asking for.
I know why I never kissed him. Or let him kiss me when he got that look on his face, because it happened a few times. But somehow I always knew kissing him would be like having sex with other guys. It’s that intense. It means that much. But when I looked at him tonight, when I tried to get him to tell me what he’d done, even though I know I don’t want to know what he did, I couldn’t not offer him some comfort. I couldn’t let another minute go by without kissing him.
Part of it was because I’d finally said out loud that I love him. I’ve written it in my diary so many times, even since Jason and I have been married. I know it’s not right that I love someone that I’m not married to, but Jason was the easy choice. Jason was the guy who would be around, but even if for some reason he ever left, it wouldn’t cripple me. I can live without him.
I know I can’t live without Tommy. So that’s why I’ve never lived with him. I’ve always been on the peripheral of his life, running beside him, but not with him. There like one of his brothers, but not. Aware of what is going on, more aware probably than at least Jimmy and Sean, they were always less than astute as Tommy made decisions that showed right on his face, though Kevin was always more willing to go with Tommy whatever the situation.
Tonight it happened again, like I’ve seen so many times. Only this time it would be the worst thing it could ever be. I had to try to stop him. I had to try to get him to change his mind, though trying to change Tommy Donnelly’s mind is like asking the sun to stop shining.
Ain’t. Ever. Gonna. Happen, as Joey Ice Cream would say.
*
Sitting with his mother, I know she lives by a different law than I do. Her family is different than my family, though only one city block separates us. She’s the type who understands what it’s like to live through unspeakable times. My mother just left, she wasn’t mysteriously murdered while her oldest child sat in the car waiting. She knows what it’s like to hold on tighter to the family you have left. I had to learn to let go, because I wouldn’t let anyone hurt me like my mother did, ever again. Especially someone I loved. I wouldn’t let them have that power over me.
It was a reckless decision on my part to tell Tommy I love him. He’s going to come to me; I know he will. He won’t be able to help himself, not now, not when everything he’s worked for is in ruins. He’ll feel that if he can’t have the life he was striving for, if he has to give it all up to take care of his brothers, then he’ll at least have me. He’ll have me the way we haven’t ever had each other. I don’t know his reasons for not making a move sooner, because before he was going somewhere and he had something to offer. Now, it’s different.
That’s a lie. He never tried to have me sooner because he didn’t know I love him. I made sure he didn’t know, even when I could see it all over his face that he loved me. I always had a boyfriend, and then I got a husband. But I can’t regret telling him; he might have left the hospital tonight and never come back. I may have never seen him again, and I would have spent the rest of my life knowing I should have said it. I owed him that, for all the times we’ve shared, for the ache that his life is. He should have one memory that is unspoiled. One moment of truth, unadulterated. Unmovable. Jenny Reilly loves Tommy Donnelly. And he knows it. Or at least he knew it for one moment.
For one night.
When he walks into the bar, we don’t discuss my husband, or my beliefs that tell me this is all wrong. We don’t discuss that if he hadn’t killed some people over the last 24 hours, this wouldn’t be happening. We don’t discuss anything. Tommy is staking his claim. He’s saying as plainly as he can without words that I’m his, and that he’s finally taking me. His desperate fingers fly over my skin and his lips are cruel against mine. It’s not what I expect from him, he’s always been this gentle boy, but in this moment he’s nothing but a hungry man, and his need to fill me is greater than my need to tell him it will only be this once. I can’t stop it, so I don’t try. He uses my body until he’s spent and then he comes back with the gentleness I expected from him. He’s sweet, tender and oh-so-thorough as he says he loves me so many times that I know he’s wanted to say it for years, and now that he has said it he can’t say it enough.
But I’ll never say the words again.
*
In the gray dawn I watch him sleeping, and I don’t see the five-year-old Helen does, but I see the Tommy I first fell in love with. The Tommy who draws pictures of me, but won’t let me see them; the Tommy who smiles first, then speaks. The Tommy who would capture a spider and take it outside instead of smashing it, like one of his brothers.
But that Tommy’s gone now, and no matter how much we’ll want him to come back, neither of us will ever have him again.
When he wakes up, I’m almost finished dressing. When I tell him the truth-that this is it, that there will never be more-he says my name with a whole question laying underneath it. But I don’t answer him, just like he didn’t tell me last night what he’d done. We both know. And neither of us can bear it.
Author: domfangirl
Fandom: The Black Donnellys
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Helen Donnelly, Jenny Reilly, Tommy Donnelly, with mentions of the whole Donnelly family.
Pairings: Jenny/Tommy
Notes: Spoilers for 1.01 and 1.02. And I made up a name for Jenny's husband.
When Helen says, “Whenever I watch my boys sleep...I still see them as five years old in my head. Does that sound crazy? Always five. And they’re not babies anymore, but they’re not little men either,” there’s no way I can fathom that I’ll understand exactly what she means in a few hours’ time. But I will, and I’m just avoiding that knowledge with everything inside me.
When I ask her, “Do you know what happened last night?” I’m surprised she tries to act like she doesn’t. Helen’s not an evader. She’s a confronter.
“How do you mean?” she asks quietly, still gazing at Sean as he lies sleeping in the hospital bed.
“You know what I mean,” I respond, surprised at the darkness in my own voice. She knows what her sons did tonight. She knows beautiful, wonderful Tommy and sweet, simple Kevin crossed a line they’ve never crossed before. She knows what they did and she’s trying to act like she doesn’t.
Her face changes then, and she looks at me for a moment. Then she says what she will tell herself everyday for the rest of her life, every time either of them does something necessary again: “I think…that if you know someone’s good, you know it in your belly. And you trust if they had to do something, they had no other choice.”
Later, when I can feel Tommy in my belly because he’s driving into me with frenzied movements that can’t be stilled, I hear her words echoing through my head. I know exactly who Tommy Donnelly is. And it doesn’t change anything.
*
You know, it’s sort of a miracle that I never kissed Tommy Donnelly until I was 22 years old. I mean, really. I spent my whole life with the kid, and have loved him in some way that entire time. I’ve kissed Kevin (on a dare) and once Jimmy kissed me, out of nowhere, when I was asking him how Tommy was because I hadn’t seen him in a while. I’ve never kissed Sean, because I wanted to be the only girl in the neighborhood who hadn’t. And I’ve never kissed Tommy, until tonight. Until he looked at me with those needy eyes, and he didn’t even know what he was asking for.
I know why I never kissed him. Or let him kiss me when he got that look on his face, because it happened a few times. But somehow I always knew kissing him would be like having sex with other guys. It’s that intense. It means that much. But when I looked at him tonight, when I tried to get him to tell me what he’d done, even though I know I don’t want to know what he did, I couldn’t not offer him some comfort. I couldn’t let another minute go by without kissing him.
Part of it was because I’d finally said out loud that I love him. I’ve written it in my diary so many times, even since Jason and I have been married. I know it’s not right that I love someone that I’m not married to, but Jason was the easy choice. Jason was the guy who would be around, but even if for some reason he ever left, it wouldn’t cripple me. I can live without him.
I know I can’t live without Tommy. So that’s why I’ve never lived with him. I’ve always been on the peripheral of his life, running beside him, but not with him. There like one of his brothers, but not. Aware of what is going on, more aware probably than at least Jimmy and Sean, they were always less than astute as Tommy made decisions that showed right on his face, though Kevin was always more willing to go with Tommy whatever the situation.
Tonight it happened again, like I’ve seen so many times. Only this time it would be the worst thing it could ever be. I had to try to stop him. I had to try to get him to change his mind, though trying to change Tommy Donnelly’s mind is like asking the sun to stop shining.
Ain’t. Ever. Gonna. Happen, as Joey Ice Cream would say.
*
Sitting with his mother, I know she lives by a different law than I do. Her family is different than my family, though only one city block separates us. She’s the type who understands what it’s like to live through unspeakable times. My mother just left, she wasn’t mysteriously murdered while her oldest child sat in the car waiting. She knows what it’s like to hold on tighter to the family you have left. I had to learn to let go, because I wouldn’t let anyone hurt me like my mother did, ever again. Especially someone I loved. I wouldn’t let them have that power over me.
It was a reckless decision on my part to tell Tommy I love him. He’s going to come to me; I know he will. He won’t be able to help himself, not now, not when everything he’s worked for is in ruins. He’ll feel that if he can’t have the life he was striving for, if he has to give it all up to take care of his brothers, then he’ll at least have me. He’ll have me the way we haven’t ever had each other. I don’t know his reasons for not making a move sooner, because before he was going somewhere and he had something to offer. Now, it’s different.
That’s a lie. He never tried to have me sooner because he didn’t know I love him. I made sure he didn’t know, even when I could see it all over his face that he loved me. I always had a boyfriend, and then I got a husband. But I can’t regret telling him; he might have left the hospital tonight and never come back. I may have never seen him again, and I would have spent the rest of my life knowing I should have said it. I owed him that, for all the times we’ve shared, for the ache that his life is. He should have one memory that is unspoiled. One moment of truth, unadulterated. Unmovable. Jenny Reilly loves Tommy Donnelly. And he knows it. Or at least he knew it for one moment.
For one night.
When he walks into the bar, we don’t discuss my husband, or my beliefs that tell me this is all wrong. We don’t discuss that if he hadn’t killed some people over the last 24 hours, this wouldn’t be happening. We don’t discuss anything. Tommy is staking his claim. He’s saying as plainly as he can without words that I’m his, and that he’s finally taking me. His desperate fingers fly over my skin and his lips are cruel against mine. It’s not what I expect from him, he’s always been this gentle boy, but in this moment he’s nothing but a hungry man, and his need to fill me is greater than my need to tell him it will only be this once. I can’t stop it, so I don’t try. He uses my body until he’s spent and then he comes back with the gentleness I expected from him. He’s sweet, tender and oh-so-thorough as he says he loves me so many times that I know he’s wanted to say it for years, and now that he has said it he can’t say it enough.
But I’ll never say the words again.
*
In the gray dawn I watch him sleeping, and I don’t see the five-year-old Helen does, but I see the Tommy I first fell in love with. The Tommy who draws pictures of me, but won’t let me see them; the Tommy who smiles first, then speaks. The Tommy who would capture a spider and take it outside instead of smashing it, like one of his brothers.
But that Tommy’s gone now, and no matter how much we’ll want him to come back, neither of us will ever have him again.
When he wakes up, I’m almost finished dressing. When I tell him the truth-that this is it, that there will never be more-he says my name with a whole question laying underneath it. But I don’t answer him, just like he didn’t tell me last night what he’d done. We both know. And neither of us can bear it.