#divider by @saradika-graphics and @cafekitsune | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

divaofmads · 3 days ago

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Venus in Exile | Part I

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Female Reader (OC)

Summary: You tried to avoid writing him, but Thomas Shelby is determined to pull you into his own story. With every sentence, you unravel a little more. This love isn’t a narrative, it’s a revolution.

!!Warnings!!: Angst, Non-canon, Fluff, +18, Slow-burning, Intense psychological themes, Gender identity conflict, Soft!Thomas, Trauma & healing themes, Melancholy & existential reflection, Dominant energy in subtle intimacy, Protective but controlling tendencies, English is not my first language so excuse my mistakes. I write purely as a hobby, not as a professional.

Word Count: 15k

Dividers by @cafekitsune @saradika-graphics

A/N: This story is not just fiction, it's the echo of my inner conflict. A battle between forgotten femininity and a voice longing to be remembered.

That day, the Shelby family had gathered around the table. The air in the room was thick as always; a mix of tobacco smoke, the soot smell from the coal stove, and the distant sound of Polly brewing tea.

Thomas stubbed out his cigarette on the edge of a file. John was impatient, Arthur was twisting his glass of whiskey in his hands. Polly frowned, waiting for a response to Thomas’s long, motionless gaze.

“If we’re going to do this, let’s do it, Thomas. Or I’ll send someone else,” Polly said, her voice sharp and clear.

At that moment, Ada was sitting on the couch. She had a newspaper in her hand, her legs crossed, keeping a silent rhythm. At the peak of the Peaky Blinders’ tense meeting, they all flinched at the sound of her delicate, graceful voice.

Her fingers were smudged with ink. Her eyes were gleaming. “Wait a minute... You need to see this,” she said, cutting Polly off.

John grunted. “Is it another one of those ridiculous writers again?”

“No,” Ada replied, locking eyes with Tommy. “This one’s different.”

She opened the newspaper and pointed to a section with her finger. “Y.S. ...They’ve written again.”

Polly sighed and shook her head. “Ada, you’re not going to get anywhere reading the writings of some pseudonymous philosopher kid.”

Ada didn’t care. The admiration in her voice was unmistakable. “Listen. Just this one sentence...”

“Every man who tips his hat, wears his glasses, and drinks his whiskey straight is a kind of god to you.”

The silence in the room became suffocating. Only the crackle of the stove and the slight tilt of Thomas’s head could be heard.

Arthur raised his moustache and laughed. “Who the hell wrote that? Bloody hell... What kind of talk is that? As if we invented god ourselves…”

“Let her go on,” Tommy said quietly, his eyes still on the paper.

John raised his head. “What’s the matter, Tommy, you like it?”

“It’s rare to find someone so sharp and intelligent. The language is cutting. Whoever wrote this either saw the war... or came very close to dying.”

Polly pursed her lips. “If it’s a woman, it’s just false courage. Doesn’t impress me.”

Ada stood up, walked toward them, and waved the newspaper in the air with a faint smile. “It doesn’t mention a gender anyway. Just the initials: Y.S.”

Thomas took the paper from Ada’s hand. He scanned the piece from beginning to end. His eyes locked on the lines, echoing in his mind:

“Every criminal is the tragic rider of childhood traumas, cast in the leading role of a novel.

The hand that holds the gun gets its story told, but the silence of the one shot is never spoken of.”

He frowned. “I want to meet this person.”

Arthur laughed. “Mate, you’re going to meet a writer who hides their name? Could be an old geezer with a beard.”

Tommy lifted his eyes from the paper and looked at Arthur with a cold expression. “The person who wrote this... uses the pen like a blade. They’ve either seen hell... or grew up in it.”

Thomas folded the newspaper. His fingers ran along the edge. As if his eyes were still scanning the lines. “Someone who writes with such power and precision… if they speak for us, we stand to gain a lot.”

Ada raised her voice in surprise. “You want to work with them? You want them to write for Shelby Company Limited?”

Thomas shrugged lightly. “Media is more dangerous than the streets now. This writer uses words as weapons. But also, as an opportunity.”

Polly raised her eyebrows, looking at Thomas with some suspicion. “So, you’re saying it’s a threat… but you still want to chase it. Is it your heart talking again, or your mind, Thomas?”

Thomas turned his gaze to Polly, paused briefly, then said, “I don’t know yet.”

Arthur grumbled, “Well I know. I won’t sit at the same table with whoever wrote that!”

“Then you won’t sit at the table. But I will meet them.”

In the silence of the room, only the ticking of the clock could be heard.

...

The atmosphere in the office was heavy. The red curtains had suffocated the dim light even more, casting an ashen gray shadow inside. Thomas Shelby sat at his desk; in front of him was an open notebook, beside it a half-finished glass of whiskey. He had just dipped his pen in ink but hadn’t moved for several minutes. His eyes were fixed on a single point, weighing words in his mind. This wasn’t a letter; it was a move. And Thomas Shelby made every move with the last square of the chessboard in mind.

The corner of the newspaper article was still folded. The signature “Y.N. Y.” seemed etched into Thomas’s mind. The language of the piece was harsh, almost combative. But poetic too... As if the words were dancing on a battlefield.

Y.S.,

I’ve read your piece. I could be proud just for being the only man who didn’t slam his fist on the desk after reading it.

Your words are striking. As graceful as they are sharp, and as sharp as they are honest. These aren’t writings to be read from a distance. They are writings that need to be spoken of.

I’m not inviting you for a drink. Not to a bar, not to a table, not to a club.

I’m offering you a table; a place where you can speak your thoughts, and where not only men, but truths will be heard.

If you accept, the date and place of the meeting will be provided.

If you refuse... you’ll probably keep writing anyway.

This is an offer. But you know as well as I do, some offers never remain just offers.

—Thomas Shelby

After signing the letter, Thomas paused for a few seconds. Then he turned his eyes to Ada, who was watching both the newspaper on the wall and her brother’s expression.

Ada crossed her arms. “I doubt it. That writer doesn’t seem like the type who’d accept such an invitation, Tommy. And I don’t think they’d like men like you either.”

Thomas narrowed his eyes and placed the letter into an envelope. “I don’t care what attention-seeking men like, Ada. I care about what they can’t stand.”

Ada raised an eyebrow. “And are you what they can’t stand?”

Thomas didn’t answer. He slowly sealed the envelope. Then he called for Curly and gave a brief order:

“Drop this letter off at the publishing house. Say it’s meant for ‘Y. S.’ It doesn’t matter who you give it to, but after you do, look them in the eye and say... ‘Thomas Shelby is waiting. Patiently.’”

Curly nodded and left. As the door closed, Thomas leaned back in his chair. He picked up the glass of whiskey and brought it to his lips. After taking a sip, his eyes drifted to the window, as if searching the darkness for a face.

When Polly entered, Thomas was still staring at the window.

Polly asked, “What are you doing?”

With a calm but cunning smile, Thomas replied, “Waiting for the first line of tomorrow’s headlines.”

That grey intoxication that seeped in just minutes before settling over Birmingham had begun to slip quietly into the office. The dim light filtering through the wide window painted the whiskey bottle on Polly’s desk in amber hues, turning the stacks of documents on the shelves into golden-gilded memories. Everything was slow, restrained, wrapped in a deep silence. Only the ticking sounds resembling a clock, the soft crackling of ash forming at the tip of Thomas Shelby’s cigarette...

Thomas was seated at his desk. As always. The first three buttons of his shirt undone, his vest resting on his shoulders like a burden. His eyes were not on the newspaper before him — but his fingertips were still occupied, smoothing out a crumpled corner at the edge of the writer’s new article. As if this new piece carried meanings deeper than the last.

Arthur Shelby was pacing back and forth in the room. His anger, his impatience — they were never hidden. His loosely tied tie, the shirt untucked from his belt, the collar of his jacket missing a button, each told of his mood.

Spreading his arms, Arthur said, “How many days has it been? Three? Four? What do you think this silence means, Tommy? That writer might be an intellectual, but if he’s a man at all, shouldn’t he be afraid of us?”

Thomas didn’t respond. And that only made Arthur more irritated.

Arthur continued, his tone laced with sarcasm, “Maybe the writer is just a whore, what do you think? Or a child who’s never seen war. Thinks he’s something because he’s got a pen...”

Polly, sitting in the corner, looked up from her knitting. “If you don’t know, be quiet, Arthur. You’re speaking without thinking.”

“I’m the one speaking without thinking? There’s a writer out there insulting us. Doesn’t even give a name. Tommy writes a letter, knocks on their door, but still not a word back. I should keep quiet but when they do, it’s holy?”

John Shelby wasn’t around, but had he been, he probably would’ve laughed. Ada hadn’t shown up either, choosing to keep some distance from Thomas’s obsessive interest.

Silence settled over the office. Only the smoke from Thomas’s cigarette rose slowly. The stub, nearly burned to the end, was still between his fingers. Even as the smoke reached his eyes, he didn’t move.

Then… there was a knock at the door.

Polly sat up slightly. Thomas’s gaze didn’t shift. When the door opened, Curly walked in. He held a small, pale white envelope.

He seemed almost reluctant to hold it. Entering, he avoided Thomas’s eyes.

With a timid whisper, Curly said, “This… this just came from the paper, Mr. Shelby. They asked it be given directly to you.”

Arthur jumped to his feet. Polly stopped him with a gesture. Curly approached slowly and placed the envelope on Thomas’s desk.

Thomas stared at it for a few seconds. His fingers stubbed out the cigarette, then slowly took the envelope. On it was written:

“To Mr. T. Shelby, to be delivered personally”

Arthur snorted. “See what I said? Writing is easy. Facing someone, that’s hard. Finally worked up the nerve to reply.”

Polly murmured, “Or perhaps they’re starting another game.”

Thomas didn’t blink as he opened the envelope. The paper inside was thick and smooth. Not feminine, but meticulous. Neither expensive nor cheap. It had been chosen with intention.

After reading the letter, Thomas took a sip from his whiskey. He closed his eyes for a brief moment. There was a curl at the corner of his lips, but it wasn’t from pleasure.

Quite the opposite…

It was the unease of something dangerous.

Arthur asked impatiently, “Well? What does it say? Is it a man? Or have we been reading the ramblings of a nun?!”

Thomas placed the letter on the table. Then slowly brought his hand to his chin, touched his lips with his fingers. Took a deep breath. “They said your offer was no different than the promises made under street lamps.”

A pause followed. Arthur blinked. Polly’s lips curled into a faint smile.

Arthur furrowed his brow, confused. “What?!”

Thomas began reading the letter aloud:

“Though your offer was sent in a graceful envelope and on fine paper, to me it seemed no different than promises made beneath street lamps: bright, but insufficient.

My pen does not exist to sit at any table, but to question those who sit at them.

I have sharpened my pen not to flatter, but to cut.

So I must respectfully state that I have no intention of meeting with you.

There are boundaries in this world, Mr. Shelby.

And there are words meant to be read only from a distance.

I am one of them.”

Arthur paused. Slowly turned his head. “So they rejected you. That’s what all those pretty words mean: ‘You’re not worth knowing.’”

Polly narrowed her eyes. Thomas was still staring at the letter. His silence was what Arthur didn’t understand. Because the shadow at the corner of Thomas’s mouth wasn’t one of anger from being rejected…

It was the appetite of someone provoked.

Polly warned gently,

“Don’t fall into their game, Tommy. Behind every pen is a face. And that face might not be as masculine as you think.”

Thomas didn’t respond. He slowly folded the letter and tucked it into the inside pocket of his jacket. Then he rose from his desk. Took his cigarette case, put on his coat.

Arthur:

“Where are you going?”

Thomas:

“To search for light in dark places.”

Arthur, mocking: “You’ve become a poet now…”

Thomas turned, looked into his eyes. “No. I’ve become a hunter.”

And he closed the door behind him, silently.

Once Thomas Shelby set his sights on someone, no writing or word — not even nothingness — could save them.

The sky was as clouded as Birmingham’s infamous grey curtains. Footsteps echoed on the sidewalks, someone was selling newspapers, someone else was arguing, but the real noise was yet to rise, from within.

The three-story brick building on Gray Lane looked ordinary from the outside. But inside, it was a sanctuary where words were written in blood. The office of the magazine "The Midland Examiner" resembled a rebellion headquarters more than a place of journalism. Posters pinned to the walls, piles of files, the sound of typewriters... And now the editor-in-chief was drenched in sweat. Because Thomas Shelby had arrived. Not only had he arrived, he had stationed his men at the door. He lit a cigarette, spoke softly, but was heard loud and clear.

“If you don’t arrange a meeting with the writer,” Thomas said in a soft yet threatening tone, “your next article will be an obituary.”

Those in the office looked at each other. Nobody seemed to know the writer. Or at least, they acted that way. Because Y/N was known more for her silence than her pen. No one ever really saw her leave her office.

But she had heard them. The voices. The footsteps. They echoed like a threat in her veins. And so she had prepared.

Amidst all the intellectual chaos, one room in the corner was always quieter than the others. That was the room of Y.S. There was no name on the door, no title, just two letters: Y.S.

Inside, a desk lamp was lit. A figure sat at the typewriter. A grey vest, pressed trousers, a tie, and a 1920s flat cap. Their back was turned to the door. Broad shoulders, accentuated by the jacket's padding. The posture was upright, decisive. No fingers moved across the keys; they were still. Waiting.

And finally, the footsteps reached the room. First, the position of two men behind the door. Then, the sound of Thomas opening it...

As the door opened, he stepped inside. The room smelled of tobacco and ink.

“So you’re the man who sharpens his pen,” Thomas said in a calm, cold tone. “How many tongues did you cut to write those words?”

The figure at the typewriter didn’t move. Fingers slowly pressed against the table. A deep, velvet silence filled the air. Thomas took another step. Slow, confident.

“You like challenging me, huh? The arrogance of poets... Still, I wanted to see you. To find out if your face is as sharp as your words.”

Then... the cap tilted back. The shoulders tensed.

And the figure turned around.

Time stopped.

First, the curve of the neck.

Then, the outline of the eyes.

And finally, all the darkness, all the words, all the fury… echoed in a single pair of eyes.

When Y/N turned, Thomas’s eyes locked onto her face. The cap was still on, but there was no longer any doubt about what she was.

A graceful yet defiant face. A woman’s face. But one with the stare of a warrior.

For the first time, Thomas Shelby couldn’t speak for a few seconds. When he reached for the inside of his coat, Y/N spoke.

“So you’re the famous Thomas Shelby,” she said in a calm, mocking tone. “Took you longer than I expected. I guess you’re not much of a postman.”

That slow, sly half-smile appeared on Thomas’s face. But his eyes… his eyes were still frozen. The bullet-like gaze pierced through her face and into her throat.

“If I had known you were a woman,” he said through narrowed eyes, “I’d have delivered the letter myself.”

You crossed one leg over the other. Not like a woman, but with a relaxed, masculine confidence. You rested your elbow on the back of the chair. You were speaking like a prizefighter in a writer’s office, not like an academic. “That’s why I didn’t sign my name. I knew the meaning would change once you found out I was a woman.”

There was a moment of silence. As if two sharp blades clashed in mid-air.

Thomas took a step forward. “Still, I came.”

“It’s not where you came, it’s how you came. Those who come with threats often act tough not because they’re right, but because they’re desperate.”

Now there were only a few steps between you. Just a corner of the desk remained between you.

He leaned on that corner. Took out a cigarette case. Opened it. But you didn’t offer even a single match.

Staring at you, Thomas said, “I asked you to use your pen for us. I still want that. But the reason has changed now.”

Without standing up, you asked, “What reason?”

“I’m no longer interested in what you write, but how you write it. And someone who does something this well… either stands beside us… or against us.”

You tilted your head. And for the first time, a woman’s smile appeared on your lips.

But it was full, mocking, defiant.

“Are you used to women who stand in front of you, Mr. Shelby? Or only the ones who kneel?”

In that moment, the heat in the room changed. The words were loaded with gunpowder.

Thomas Shelby said nothing. But he took out a match. Lit his cigarette. Took a drag.

And as he left, he said only one thing:

“Wait for tomorrow.”

When he closed the door, the silence left behind was still trembling, just like he left it.

But this was only the beginning.

The Birmingham sun left a pale orange hue in the sky, as if the city had curled up for a long winter sleep. Outside, street kids quietly fled at the sight of men with bullets in their pockets, and the windows of the Garrison Pub were fogged up with tobacco smoke and the haze of whiskey. In the back room of the pub, the one reserved especially for the Shelbys, time was moving slowly.

In the dim light, the dark walnut table in the center of the room looked like a post-war strategy desk, scattered with half-filled glasses and slowly burning cigarettes in an ashtray. John had leaned his head back, escaping the world through the bottom of a glass. Arthur was tapping his fingers on the table, unable to sit still like an impatient soldier.

But Thomas Shelby…

He had adjusted the collar of his coat, his hands clasped as he sat at the corner of the table. Standing a step behind him was Ada Shelby, her eyes carrying an unusual intensity.

Arthur shifted, mockingly, “What’s the matter, Tommy? Still thinking about that writer? Tell me, is it a man or a woman? Still can’t figure it out, can we?”

Thomas lit a cigarette. The weak spark from the lighter briefly lit the room. He drew in the smoke, then exhaled it slowly. His voice, like the smoke, was calm, but a volcano rumbled beneath it.

Thomas, thoughtful, said, “A woman.”

“What?!”

“I said a woman. But a different kind. Not the sort who sells herself with skirts and lipstick.”

A silence followed. John briefly raised his eyes, then returned to his glass. Arthur laughed through pursed lips.

Taking a sip of his drink, he said, “A woman who writes against us, then writes you letters the moment she sees you... How romantic!”

Thomas gave a cold smile. “This isn’t romance. It’s tactics. She hides herself, Arthur. So well, in fact... Her shirt hides a woman, but her shoulders carry a warrior.”

Ada stepped forward, placing the notebook in her hand gently on the table. Her eyes locked with Thomas’s — curious, silently admiring. “This is the first time I’ve seen a woman affect a man like you this much.”

Without looking away, Thomas picked up his whiskey and sipped it slowly. Then he silently took something from his pocket: another article by the author.

“There were people like her during the war too. Those who waited silently in ambush. But give them a rifle, and they’d kill more for you than anyone else... This woman kills with her words. Harsh. Dirty. Sharp. With every sentence she writes, she can tear down a man’s dignity. And we…”

He leaned forward, placed the article on the table. With his fingertips, he traced the lines of the writing.

Thomas, in a clear tone, said, “…for men like us, this pen is either a curse or a blessing.”

Arthur snorted, then grew serious. “Or a bloody problem. A woman, huh... So what now? Peaky Blinders working with lady writers?”

Thomas squinted, a dark grin playing on his lips.

“If we can win over a woman with a pen that powerful, we become the wall the press leans on. And in this city, if you have a voice, you don’t disappear like a shadow.”

Ada sat down slowly, sparks dancing in her eyes.

“If you hadn’t known she was a woman, would you still be this interested, Tommy?”

Thomas turned to look at her. He didn’t answer for a long moment. Then he struck a match and lit a new cigarette.

Quietly, he said, “It’s not her face that got to me, Ada. It’s the voice of her pen. And that voice… even if she dresses like a man, it moans like a woman. But this isn’t love.”

Ada asked, “Then what is it?”

Thomas Shelby stubbed out his cigarette on the table. As the smoke left his nostrils, a steadfast fire lit in his eyes.

“A danger. But maybe one we can use.”

The door creaked open. Polly entered. Thomas fell silent again. His thoughts still lingered in your eyes, your cap, the restrained traces of undeniable femininity beneath your shirt.

You were a woman. But a mind that had abandoned womanhood. And for the first time, Thomas Shelby was struggling to decipher a woman. That’s why, instead of pulling away, he drew closer. Because Tommy always drew closer to the things he couldn’t understand. And this... was a declaration of war.

As the last light of the day slid along the coal-dusted sidewalks of Birmingham, a grey Bentley slowly turned the corner. When the engine stopped, the silence was so complete that even the crunch of the tires on the stones echoed like a threat. The door opened. Footsteps were heard. A cigarette was lit before the coat buttons were fastened. The glowing tip of the cigarette shone like a lone star in the evening sky.

Thomas Shelby was walking.

Short but firm steps. The stones beneath his feet seemed to recognize him—he walked on them with a stride no one else would dare. He stopped in front of the house. His gaze lifted to the narrow window on the third floor.

Your sentence at the typewriter had been left unfinished.

A single key struck but not yet forming a word, hanging in midair.

The light filtering through the streetlamp fell inside the room, giving even the dust on the books a touch of grandeur. Yet within that grandeur, there was a strange unease.

You stubbed out your cigarette. Turned to the window. Took a deep breath, feeling a tightness in your chest.

The typewriter had been silent for a while. Outside, it wasn’t just the sound of footsteps… it was the sound of a presence. Something—or someone.

It wasn’t the usual curses of drunkards hitting the stones, but something clearer, heavier.

So deliberate it didn’t even frighten—it was beyond fear. A threat, once recognized, stops being fear.

Then the door knocked. Twice.

No voice shouting, no introduction. Just a deep knock. If you opened it, Shelby would have arrived. If you didn’t… Shelby would’ve come in anyway.

After a moment’s hesitation, you pushed your chair back with the backs of your knees. The sharp scrape of wood on the floor echoed through the room. Then you walked to the door.

Your steps weren’t hesitant—they were measured.

The door opened slightly. The chain was still in place.

A single sentence hung in the air. “Shelby.”

He recognized your voice. The sentence was short, but heavy. Even the way you said his name sounded like a command.

The chain slid off. The door opened without a creak.

Thomas Shelby, wearing his cap, clad in a sharp black coat that fit like a blade… stepped out of the darkness and into the house. Dim light, cigarette smoke, and the scent of old books greeted him.

His hands were in his pockets, but his eyes had already scanned the room in detail. His face held the usual coldness, but in his gaze there was a different spark: He hadn’t come to see you. He had come to solve you.

“Sorry for showing up at your home,” he said, though his voice carried no apology. “But if you run this much, someone’s bound to follow. Lucky for you, it’s me this time.”

You closed the door. “If a man scared of my pen shows up at my door... I suppose my words found their mark.”

You stood in the middle of the room. A loose, white shirt hung from your frame, its fabric worn thin with time. Below, a pair of tan trousers, held up by a leather suspender strap slung over your shoulder.

Without looking at Thomas, you gestured with your arm. “If you’re going to sit, don’t judge standing up. There’s no defense here.”

Thomas laughed, but silently—it was more of a smirk laced with contempt flickering at the corners of his lips. He lit his cigarette. Inhaled. Didn't respond.

Nor did he sit. “I came to offer you a job,” he said. “No envelope this time, no gold-embossed paper. Now you’re here, in front of me. And yes... I know now. You’re a woman. And not just any woman. The kind that brings men to their knees with her words.”

You locked eyes with him. It wasn’t a confrontation—more like a battle for balance. Who would lose control first? Who would need to think about the next sentence?

“Did your opinion change when you found out I was a woman?” you asked. “Or does this version of me bother you a little, Thomas Shelby?”

When he heard you say his name, something shifted inside him. Maybe, for the first time, a name hadn’t landed on him… it had sunk into him.

“You didn’t bother me,” he said. “But your refusal to write still annoys me.”

You stepped closer.

“I can’t lend my pen to a mafia fairytale. I don’t use my words to interview powerful men… I use them to question why those men are so powerful.”

Thomas stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. Then he leaned in. His face was now level with yours.

“Then write about me,” he said. “But be honest. As honest as the bullets on the table. Write so everyone sees who I am. And remember... if you don’t write, I’ll find another way to show you who I am.”

The words ended.

You didn’t look away. But for just a moment, just one fleeting beat… your heart aligned with the rhythm of Thomas Shelby’s footsteps.

When the door creaked open, you slipped inside like a ghost. Your masculine suit was the deepest, most matte shade of black. As you slightly removed your hat, your eyes scanned the room—glancing at Thomas Shelby as if noting every detail, yet not a flicker stirred in your gaze.

Thomas hadn’t turned around. As always, he was leaning back in the tall leather chair by the window, one hand holding a glass of whiskey, the other resting on the scattered files atop the desk. His eyes weren’t on the horizon, but seemed fixed on a battle that wasn’t there. Smoke drifted lazily into the air, and the faint light sneaking through the thick curtains cast a familiar shadow on his face.

“I don’t think you owe me anything,” Thomas said, without turning his head. “But there are debts that get paid without being acknowledged.”

The corner of your mouth curved slightly. Your steps were steady, but where you stopped was deliberate: neither too close, nor unnecessarily distant. Your eyes lingered on the clock on the desk, the bottle of whiskey, the blue ceramic tiles on the wall—yet it was all habit. Because looking directly at Thomas Shelby meant, inadvertently, placing the rope in his hands.

“A week has passed. That’s enough time.”

Thomas turned slowly. When his eyes met yours for the first time, something cracked in the air. There was no smile, no welcome… only a sharp, timeless, and dangerous recognition.

“I wonder what you wrote about me,” he said.

Each word in his voice was as heavy as cigarette smoke.

But the real threat wasn’t in the sound, it was in the curiosity lodged between the silences.

You didn’t bow your head. You adjusted the buttons on your shirt and slipped your hands into your pockets. Daring enough to catch Thomas Shelby’s attention, but careful not to step on a line.

“You should’ve guessed,” you said, your voice low but steady. “I wrote nothing.”

Thomas leaned back. He twirled the whiskey in his glass for a while, then set it down on the table.

His fingertips tapped the wood. There was no rhythm. He wasn’t impatient, he was measuring.

“Writing nothing about a man like me… can be more dangerous than writing some things.”

You looked at him without blinking. “Because the story of a real gangster can only be written as long as he likes it.”

“Wrong,” said Thomas. “A real gangster lives with his eyes fixed on the ones smart enough to write his story.”

A brief silence.

Thomas rose from his seat. Slowly, carefully, he moved to the edge of the table. Standing, he lit a cigarette.

With the smoke, the air in the room thickened. Nothing was being said, yet so much was.

“When I first read your work, I thought about how sharp your pen was. Like someone who knows how to loosen a man’s tongue before killing him.”

“My pen may be sharp,” you said, “but writing about you would be the same as breaking my own pen.”

Thomas lowered his head. He smiled slightly. But it wasn’t satisfaction, it was the first move of a strategy.

“Maybe you… don’t want to write because you’ve started to understand me.”

You fell silent, with the tiniest flinch. That was being seen. Too bare. Too exposed.

“Maybe,” Thomas went on, “…you’ve become too much of me to write me anymore.”

Everything in the room seemed to shift in density after those words. There were no longer any words, only two souls, each wandering through the thoughts of the other like shadows.

You were silent. Your gaze finally drifted away. But it wasn’t out of fear. It was the middle move of a mental chess game.

Thomas Shelby tilted his head slightly to the side.

“If you won’t write,” he said softly,

“then at least watch.

Maybe then… you’ll see how the story ends.”

The air in the room had grown heavier. Thomas was turning his half-finished cigarette between two fingers at the corner of the desk. His eyes were on you.

You were still standing. Elbows relaxed at your sides, hands in your trouser pockets, as if being in this room wasn’t your choice. But you knew. Anyone who stepped into the darkness of Thomas Shelby could never return. And you were close to that threshold now. You could feel it.

“What is it you want me to watch?” you asked calmly. “The slow disappearance of a man?”

Thomas let out a faint laugh, but there was no mockery in it. That laugh was like a ghost from his past.

“No,” he said, his voice deepening. “I want you to watch how a man governs his own hell.”

He took a step toward you. The distance between you two was now as thin as a lie. But you didn’t retreat, and he didn’t stop approaching.

“My hell is orderly, Miss Y/S/N.”

He didn’t say your name. Because he hadn’t figured out who you were yet. But that complicated mind of yours...

That was the only thing that truly intoxicated him.

“Your hell has glass walls,” you said. “No one gets in. But you watch everyone.”

There was a moment of silence. That moment was the breath right before a war begins. Thomas let his eyes roam over your face. He noticed a loose curl that had fallen from under your hat. It was feminine. But in your expression, in the steel of your gaze, there was nothing soft.

“What is it that keeps you here?” he asked, voice soft, but sly.

You didn’t respond. You didn’t look away, but you said nothing. Because that question was the only one that left you defenseless.

“You write because words are the only thing you trust. Because everyone who ever loved you first tried to shape you, then forgot you. Isn’t that right?”

Your eyes froze. A few seconds of silence hung between you like lead. It was as if cold water had been poured down your spine. But you gathered yourself. Straightened your shoulders. Locked eyes with him once more.

“If you think you can figure me out,” you said, “then you’re not as clever as you think.”

Thomas crushed the cigarette into the ashtray. There was no sound, but something cracked between you.

Your walls trembled under the weight of his pride.

“I don’t want to figure you out,” he said. “I just want to know you.”

It was the most dangerous sentence he could say to you. Because to be known was to be exposed. And being exposed was like bleeding. And you were tired of bleeding long ago.

“I’m not someone to be known, Mr. Shelby. I’m just a story meant to be written and forgotten.”

In that moment, Thomas saw your loneliness more clearly than ever. The darkness behind your eyes was as deep as his own. But that didn’t make him want you less—on the contrary, it made him want to possess you even more.

“In that case,” he said quietly, “let me be the only one who reads you, so no one forgets.”

Once again, the air in the room cracked. This time it wasn’t words, it was the collision of glances.

A match had been struck, but the flame hadn’t yet touched. And even though you knew how much it would burn, you didn’t move.

He looked at you, but it wasn’t the way a man looks at a woman. It was the way a warrior assesses potential, like holding a weapon for the first time and sensing the value hidden inside. He was trying to understand what lived within you, but at the same time, he wanted you to step into that foggy darkness on your own. There was no pressure. But the game? It was always there.

He moved closer to the edge of the desk. Rolled the cigarette pack between his fingers. He spoke without needing fire:

“There’s a night.” His voice fell into the room like raindrops, slow and deep. “Three men will sit at a table. One of the rival gangs. Silver in their mouths, mud in their eyes. They can’t be trusted. They’ll sit with us because they have no other choice. But their true faces will only appear in silence.”

He kept speaking without breaking eye contact. “You’ll be there that night. You won’t speak. You’ll just watch. You’ll see what makes them rise, what makes them bow their heads. And... who they tremble for with a single look.”

He turned the words slowly in his mouth. Because this wasn’t a proposal... this was a calling. You stood at the edge of the path he was offering. And in the wind blowing from the other side, his scent lingered... danger, power, and a kind of poisonous allure.

But what stirred inside you wasn’t just fear. Speaking to Thomas Shelby, standing this close to him, shook something in you that nothing else had in years.

You swallowed. Even that echoed in the silence. “And me?” you asked. “What will I be at that table? A piece of decoration? A distraction?”

He smiled, but there was no warmth in it. It was a smile that burned like coal... slow and scarring.

“No. You’re a writer,” he said. “I won’t put you in that filth. I just... want to see where you look, what you notice.”

He took another step toward you. Now, there was only breath between you. He lowered his voice.

“And I want to force you to know me. Because only then will I truly believe you won’t write about me.”

He leaned in, but didn’t touch. The softness in his voice was like a trap scattered across the night.

“I don’t want to trust you. Trusting you… opens doors to other things. But I want to know you’re there. Watching me. That night, at the table, you’ll see me. The real me. And maybe...”

He was close enough now that his breath touched your skin.

“…you’ll see yourself, too.”

Your eyes narrowed, almost as if trying to shield themselves behind your lids. Because this closeness hit you deeper than any word ever could.

But you didn’t back away. His darkness was familiar to the void inside you.

“I don’t want to be a mirror to your darkness,” you said. “I’m only here to look at myself.”

Thomas tilted his head slightly. Never looking away from you, he whispered,

“Then be ready to look into that mirror. Because I’ll be the one to bring you there.”

The wind howled through the beams of the warehouse with a broken roof. The night had settled like a sooty veil over everything, not cold, but oppressive. It didn’t touch your skin; it seeped into you. Hidden among whiskey barrels, you watched from behind a rusty door. The space was dark and narrow; the smell of iron, rotting wood, and dampness clung to your lungs. But you held your breath, eyes unblinking.

Thomas Shelby was there.

With confident steps, he walked straight to the table. He wore a dark, pinstriped suit, elegant as always, yet carrying a sinister grace. His fingers were bare this time, a visible message about the danger hidden at his wrists. Behind him, Arthur stood, his eyes bloodshot, his jaw tense. Finn waited silently in the corner, young but unflinching.

At the table were three men: Billy Owen, Chris Dawson, and a third unknown figure, a bearded man with a threatening glare. Sitting at the same table as the Peaky Blinders was a sign of desperation, yet their arrogance still clung to them like rising steam.

You saw everything through the crack in the wood. Most of all, you watched Thomas.

He didn’t see you. But he knew you were there. This was one of those invisible games between you.

Thomas moved to the head of the table. He didn’t sit. He lit a cigarette. His first words, rising with the smoke, were cold and sharp:

“We’re not here to talk. We’re here to listen.”

Owen grunted.

“Since when do Shelbys listen?”

Arthur stepped forward, but Thomas raised a hand to stop him. Smoke curled around his face, grey, thick, menacing.

“Since the moment, Billy,” Thomas said, “we started carrying more bullets than words in our pockets.”

Owen’s face tightened. The others exchanged wary glances. You held your breath. But this wasn’t the kind of meeting you were used to covering. Here, words weren’t headlines, they were triggers.

For a while, no one spoke. Only the rain tapping on tin roofs and the sound of Thomas breathing echoed in the warehouse.

Then Thomas spoke again, slower this time, more dangerous.

“I have an offer. Accept it, you live. Refuse, and… well.”

Billy grunted.

“Is that a threat, Thomas?”

Without even looking at Arthur, Thomas said something... softly. But you heard it.

“Arthur.”

Arthur stepped forward, calmly pulled a knife from his pocket, and drove it into the table. The rusty blade split the wood. Chris flinched. The third man instinctively reached for his waistband. Thomas stopped him with just a glance. That’s when you realized, there were no guns on this table. But fear... fear was drawn faster than any weapon.

Your fingers pressed against the cracked wood. Your breath was uneven, but you stayed quiet. Curiosity had brought you here. Staying, though… was becoming something else entirely.

Thomas spoke again. But this time, his words weren’t for the men at the table. They were for you. You knew it, his voice dropped, but his gaze cut through.

“Some people can only be understood in the dark. You can’t show them the light, it blinds them. But if you see those who glow in the night… then you know who they really are.”

He meant it for you. The others didn’t catch it. But you did. This was the moment he tested you. And you were still there.

Billy Owen smiled, more like bared his teeth.

“I’m not the silent type, Thomas. Everyone knows that. I’ve got nothing unsaid.”

He leaned back, arms spread.

“But I’d love to hear what you’re hiding.”

Thomas didn’t even raise an eyebrow. He lit another cigarette. Then he placed an envelope on the table. Inside—you couldn’t see, but you knew—there were documents, names, dates. A few seconds passed in silence. Chris leaned forward slightly.

Chris:

“This... this isn’t our deal, Thomas.”

His lips trembled with fear.

“Did you... find out something we don’t know?”

Arthur's hand hit the table with a creak of wood.

Arthur:

“Thomas doesn’t talk from what he doesn’t know. Haven’t you learned that yet, eh?”

Thomas took a step back. There was no threat in his posture, but every muscle in him pulsed with potential.

Thomas:

“Everything that happens in Birmingham comes to me. Not on the wind, but in blood. And you’ve forgotten the blood.”

In the silence that followed, you watched him. You realized: It wasn’t voice or weapons that commanded respect. It was gaze. And fear... came from footsteps that echoed without sound.

Owen stood up abruptly.

“I don’t fall for Shelby’s bedtime stories. Are you threatening me, huh?!”

Your first thought: Someone’s going to die. But Thomas didn’t even flinch.

“If you’re looking for a threat, watch the one who doesn’t speak. Sit down.

Otherwise, Arthur won’t carry your chair, he’ll start digging your grave.”

Billy’s eyes narrowed for a moment. Then slowly, he sat back down. Rage burned in his eyes, but his instinct to survive was stronger. Cormac moved his hand away from his weapon. Chris cleared his throat.

You... you realized what you were witnessing. No article could describe this moment. This wasn’t charisma, it was the instinctive rule of a system. And that system was called “Thomas Shelby.”

But for you, one thing had finally become clear:

No one could raise their voice against him.

He was the man who changed the air in the room with a glance.

And everyone… feared his silence most of all.

The door slammed shut. The metallic echo shattered the night’s silence. The rival gang members scattered as if they’d left their will in Thomas’s hands. Arthur’s footsteps were heavy and menacing, like the tremor that follows a storm.

And you were still there. As your eyes adjusted from the shadows, you slipped out, a ghost beneath the moonlight. Your breath was unsteady, but slowly regaining rhythm. The cold didn’t sting your skin, it chilled your mind. What echoed in your head wasn’t the click of a gun or Owen’s fear, it was the space where Thomas Shelby had said nothing.

That was when you felt him without needing to turn.

His steps were silent. But close.

And suddenly, the scent of rain-soaked earth, old metal, and dark tobacco pierced right through you.

Thomas:

“Did you see enough?”

His voice came low, nearly hoarse. Not a whisper more like a man speaking to the night.

“Or do you need more… to stop yourself from writing?”

You didn’t turn. You knew, if your eyes met, something would ignite in that collision. Still, you answered, half a smirk playing on your lips.

“If I dared to write this... it wouldn’t be my paper that burns. It’d be me.”

You didn’t laugh. But your voice was lined with tense irony.

“You really are as dangerous as I thought, Thomas Shelby.”

He stepped beside you. When his feet aligned with yours, the steam rising from the rain-soaked ground formed a thin veil between you. Almost invisible.

“You’re trying to understand me. I saw that tonight.”

Without turning to you, he looked up at the sky.

In his eyes: echoes of war, the weight of lost brothers in London, the memory of men who never came back from France.

“Sometimes people become more attached to the things they don’t write. Writing creates distance. But watching… pulls you in.”

As he said it, something cracked in his voice. Something unseen. A hidden fracture… the part left behind after war, but never healed. And you heard it.

“I’m not trying to know you.”

You stepped back, not to flee, but to stand straighter.

You rolled up your sleeves slightly, adjusted your posture. Your voice was firm, but something in you trembled.

“I’m trying to understand. How much you show is up to you.”

That was the moment your eyes met.

In his gaze, for the first time, there was not gunpowder, but ash.

And in yours, not just the look of a woman, but of a solitude masked by masculinity.

But Thomas… he recognized that solitude in you.

“You’re not afraid. But there’s a fear you even hide from yourself. Like a silence that screams… something writhing beneath your shell.”

He turned to you, fully.

“I was the same. For a long time. Until I got used to the dark.”

You paused. Then you said, never breaking eye contact:

“Maybe… I just wanted to describe the night to someone who’s already used to the dark.”

Your breath caught for a moment. But you didn’t stop.

“If you still know how to speak… maybe we talk a bit more tonight?”

It wasn’t just an invitation. It was a hand extended from the shadows.

But even as you offered it, you kept your guard.

You raised the collar of your coat.

Your posture proud, gaze defiant.

“And how about doing it at the Shelby house?

There’s a fan waiting for you at home.”

The pavements of Watery Lane were quieter than usual that night. The moon peered down with a thin, soapy whiteness as you stood at the door of Thomas Shelby’s house. The door was heavy as a log, but when it opened, the warmth spilling inside created such a sharp contrast that you forgot the grey cold of the outside.

As you stepped in, a slight unease from seeing the house for the first time weighed on your shoulders. Polished dark walnut furniture, military medals on the shelves, well-worn leather chairs by the coal fireplace, echoes of lived memory.

In the dim light, golden cigarette ashtrays gleamed atop the suede chairs. A soft scent of whisky, tobacco, and old books filled the air. Thomas had not yet removed his coat. His eyes never left you.

“If you can still speak…” you had said.

He answered with a sip from his glass:

“Someone who comes to the Shelby house to talk is either an enemy… or a friend. We’ll see which you are.”

There was no threat in his voice. But each word drew a boundary, and you were being pulled into its center. Inside the walls, but outside the glass.

As Ada Shelby came down the stairs, her eyes lit up when she saw you.

“You must be Y/N. I know your essays by heart, the one titled Blood and Roses… It was beautiful.”

She smiled, and her warm, gentle tone briefly lightened the seriousness of the room. Thomas lit a cigarette. Turning to you, he raised one eyebrow with a hint of mockery:

“Men try to demolish the walls built by women’s pens with dynamite. Isn't that right?”

You hadn’t answered yet when the parlor door swung open sharply. Arthur Shelby entered with heavy steps, a half-empty whiskey bottle in hand and that familiar, mocking arrogance in his eyes. He sized you up from head to toe. A comment was inevitable.

“So you’re that wise one writing about us… the man himself, huh?” He squinted and laughed. “Well… excuse me. A man… are you still?”

The mood in the room flipped. Arthur’s voice cut through the air like a lamp swinging from the ceiling rafters. But before you could respond, Thomas spoke first.

“Arthur,” Thomas said quietly but sharply. Just his name, yet his icy tone was enough to silence Arthur. Thomas didn’t even turn. His eyes stayed on your face.

“You don’t speak that way to someone I invited here. Especially when she’s my guest.”

Arthur paused, nodded, and forced a smile.

“Alright, Tommy. She’s your guest. Then I’ll take my whiskey and… shut up.”

The whiskey was drunk in short time, a few sentences exchanged. But Thomas Shelby never broke eye contact with you. Then he directed you toward the old Chesterfield armchair opposite the fireplace.

“Come,” he said. “Let’s talk there.”

As the fire crackled and whiskey glasses clinked, the air in the room grew heavier—not with threatening silence, but with an intimacy that hinted at opening old files, at words kneeling before truth. Thomas sipped his whisky slowly, glancing at you from the corner of his eye. It was like an old calculator processing your sentences, the operators his gaze, the result still uncertain.

You had seated yourself in the Chesterfield, but you weren’t lounging—you looked like someone entering the ring. Your masculine clothes, the crisp lines, the high-collared shirt—all gave a sense of a past buried like a button pressed deep. And you never broke your posture. Your legs spread, elbows resting on your knees, your gaze spoke for itself.

Arthur half-sat on the arm of the chair, cigarette dangling from his mouth, grinning at you.

“Alright… so they say you have fans who love your writing. Those ‘living in the shadows of love’ type essays.”

“But why… why do you enjoy taking potshots at guys like us?” —His gaze flicked to Thomas and back to himself— “…you didn’t write about the Peaky Blinders, but if you had, what would you have said? Come on.”

His tone was mocking, but with that typical Arthur warmth woven in, not cruelty, but a love for wordplay. Part of his heart was still the street kid who grew up kicking around the streets of Birmingham.

You wet your lips, about to answer when Ada intervened first. She tapped Arthur on the shoulder.

“Enough now, don’t bother her!” she said. Then she turned to you, leaning in with a soft smile.

“But I am really curious,” she said. “Some of your essays talk about love, passionately, complicatedly. As if you’re not afraid of pain. But looking at how you dress…”—she looked over your masculine attire— “…it’s like your heart is tied with a belt. You live like a man but feel like a woman. Is that a contradiction… or something else?”

Something clicked inside you. Behind that question was compassion, and a woman asking for an honest answer. Then Thomas stepped in. This time his voice was slow, low, but intensely focused. He spoke with the patience of someone flicking the ashes from his cigarette.

“My brother provokes, Ada understands. But I will ask something else. As a woman, you tear into the male world so easily with your writing. So… why did you choose to live like a man? War? Fear? Or protecting someone?”

He was looking right into your eyes. At that moment, Thomas Shelby wasn’t just asking you, he was staring into your history.

You opened your mouth, but before a single word could be spoken, the door inside opened gently. Polly appeared like a ghost, her heels pressing into the rug. She carried a glass of whiskey and walked slowly toward you. Her eyes, different from the others’, saw only you, and one look was enough to hear the silence that came from you. Perhaps in that instant, a woman understood another woman without words.

Polly paused, not sitting. She simply studied you. Then she looked at Arthur, then Thomas, then back at you.

“If you ask me,” she said, voice slightly trembling but sharp, “there’s something in this young woman’s past. Behind those clothes is a wound. And that wound may have masculinized her pen, her voice, her body. But the woman inside… speaks through your eyes.”

Then she moved closer, took your hands in hers.

“Welcome. To our circle.”

Her voice had the warmth of the one you’d forgotten, perhaps for the first time, someone welcomed you not just for being a woman, but for being you.

Polly’s words spread across the room like a velvet cloth dropped into the center.

"She carries a wound behind her clothes. And that wound might have turned her pen, her voice, her body… into something more masculine."

The sentence felt like it cut something out from within you. There was a moment of silence. Everyone forgot their drinks. No sound overtook the crackling fire. In that moment, the footsteps of the past were returning, and unlike always, you didn’t bow your head—you held it high. But your lips trembled. Polly’s eyes were still locked on yours, but now Ada had leaned forward, her voice soft, almost timid.

“Is it true?” she asked. “Is there… a reason for this? The thing that made you so strong… is it also your loneliness?”

There was no pity in her words, only curiosity. And a kind of compassion mixed with a woman’s intuition. But for you, putting it into words meant turning years of silent turmoil into spoken truth. Still, the topic was now too close to avoid.

You cleared your throat. Your eyes turned to the fire. But Thomas Shelby… was watching you. A cigarette rested between his lips, unlit. He simply held it. As if it were a question in his mouth, waiting for your answer to give it meaning.

“I was born in France,” you said at last, your voice soft but fractured. “Near Paris, in a big family with vineyards. The story always starts the same way: an old aristocratic name, heavy meals, empty words, and lives trapped inside them.”

Your eyes stayed on the fire, but the crack in your voice sharpened Thomas’s gaze. The line between his brows deepened. You went on: “They wanted to shape me into a mold. One that was narrow, silent, and always smiling for men. But each day, I tried to break it. Not with my hands… with my words. With my questions. Some tied their love for me to my submission. Every refusal… left me more alone.”

You swallowed. The man watching you now saw another fracture within you. But you were still in control. Or so you thought.

“One day… I took some money from my mother’s jewelry box. Packed only my books and my typewriter. Got on a train. And came here.”

Ada hadn’t taken her eyes off you, but she lowered her head. Arthur had stretched his feet toward the fireplace, saying nothing this time. There was surprise in his eyes, and maybe a bit of respect. Polly tilted her head slightly as she listened, her whiskey forgotten in her hand.

And Thomas… He wasn’t hearing you anymore. He was seeing you.

He imagined a woman walking among crowds leaning on her own shadow, biting her lips at night while writing just to keep from screaming, staring at her reflection in the morning trying to feel nothing. He saw that vision as he watched you.

“And now you’re here,” he said quietly. “In the house of the Shelbys. Someone who escaped with her pen, now sitting in a room with the Peaky Blinders. There are molds everywhere in the world. But you… you look like someone who could burn them.”

What he didn’t say was this: He was curious about your broken pieces. The dark corners of you. And for the first time, Thomas Shelby didn’t want to touch a woman… he wanted to understand her.

There was a pause. Polly’s eyes stayed on you. But her voice was gentle this time. “You’ve walked a hard road. But you’re not alone anymore. I know what it costs to write those words.”

You tried to hide what passed through you. You didn’t answer. Just smiled faintly. But your hands were trembling. And Thomas noticed.

As your gaze dropped to the floor, his lingered on your lips. He wasn’t trying to figure you out anymore. He was engraving you into memory.

You were talking. Telling Ada something. Polly had smiled slightly. Arthur raised his glass. But Thomas was watching you like you belonged to another time.

A woman once broken, once escaped, reshaped, then rebuilt by her own hands. And to him, that set you apart from everyone else. Because you had survived something. And Thomas Shelby loved survivors. Not the weak, but those who had bled and endured. Yet this time, it wasn’t admiration. It wasn’t instinct. It was desire.

And throughout the night, one thought anchored itself in the back of his mind: What was it like… to be with you?

Truly. Not to own. Not to consume. But to share a night with you. How would you surrender to a man, if ever?

As he watched you hold your cigarette, Thomas thought about your hands. How many doors had they closed? How many slaps had they taken? How many touches had they pulled away from, how many gazes had they escaped? And now those hands weren’t even safe holding a glass. Because in his mind, those fingers were already tracing his chest, his throat, his hips. But the fantasy wasn’t dirty. It was hungry. Yes. It was passion. Of course. But above all, it was longing.

He imagined the sweat sliding down your back, the tremble in the corner of your lip, the whispers rising from you when your eyes closed. But what he truly craved wasn’t just skin. It was the storm beneath it.

For Thomas Shelby, to make love to you wouldn’t be just union, it would be redemption. Because he couldn’t make love to his past. But maybe… he could forget it with you. And the last thought that echoed inside him was this: “When I touch that woman, it won’t just be a body… It will be my way out of hell.”

He didn’t take his eyes off you. Arthur was saying something, but he didn’t hear. Ada had asked a question, he nodded without knowing what.

But Thomas Shelby… He spent the entire night thinking only of you.

After you were handed your last drink and farewelled with laughter, the door of the house closed behind you slowly. As your footsteps faded along the cobbled path, the air inside didn't change—it merely became more bare. The presence you left behind seemed etched into the room.

Ada leaned back on the couch, holding her glass between her palms, eyes fixed on the fire in the hearth. There was a half-genuine, half-contemplative smile on her lips.

“That woman… she's different,” she said softly, not as a statement but almost in awe. “I read her writings, yes, her pen is powerful, no doubt. But tonight… it was something else. As if even words fall short compared to what she carries inside.”

Arthur shrugged, taking a sip. “Too posh. Talks too much. But beautiful. No denying that.”

Ada shot him a mocking look but didn’t engage further. Then her gaze shifted to Thomas.

“What about you, Tom? For someone who barely speaks… you were rather talkative with her tonight.”

Thomas didn’t answer. A faint tension flickered at the corner of his lips. He kept puffing his cigarette. His eyes remained on the fire’s glow, but his thoughts were somewhere else. Or maybe… very close.

Just as silence was about to settle, Polly entered the room. Black veils, footsteps soft like velvet. She poured herself a drink, then sat down. Her gaze wasn’t on Ada; it was locked directly on Thomas.

In the quiet pause, Polly parted her lips.

“That girl became a man because in this world, staying a woman is like dying.”

The room contracted with all the unspoken words it held.

The amusement on Arthur’s face vanished.

Ada went silent, as if she’d just heard something from her mother, or a saint.

Thomas… Thomas lifted his eyes to Polly for the first time. He didn’t pretend he hadn’t heard. He had. And it sank deep.

Polly went on, eyes still fixed on him:

“To be a woman, where she came from, meant kneeling. Staying. Enduring. Remaining silent. So she stood up. But as she rose, she left her womanhood behind. Hid it. As if someone might steal it. She dresses like a man because that’s her armor. Her tongue is sharp because she was silenced long ago. And her words, they're her weapons.”

Ada whispered, “How do you know that?”

Polly tilted her head slightly, smiling with pain.

“Because I once lived in armor too. But I kept my womanhood. Hers though, it’s buried.”

She lifted her glass. “And yet she still shines. Despite all her suppression… she’s still a woman. She just doesn’t let anyone see it.”

Thomas turned his eyes back to the fire, as if something deep within him had been touched. Polly’s words had struck like bullets, into his past, and into you.

Because that’s why he wanted you.

You weren’t a woman who lacked femininity. You were a woman who gave it up to survive.

And for the first time, something flickered inside Thomas Shelby:

“I want to give her womanhood back. Not by making her weak. But by letting her be herself, strong, unbroken, vulnerable without fear.”

Polly lowered her head and sipped her drink.

“She’ll fight for you, Thomas,” she said. “Because she’s trying to understand you. But you’ll have to fight for her too. If you can’t figure her out… she’ll figure you out. And then she might leave.”

Arthur stood up, trying to lighten the tense mood, raising his glass.

“Come on, Polly. A girl shows up and suddenly everyone’s all dramatic?”

But no one laughed. Because by the end of that night, everyone knew one thing:

You had met the Shelby house.

But more than anything… you had met the darkness inside Thomas Shelby.

And for the first time, that darkness was afraid of losing something.

Of losing you.

Time moved forward like a wound. It had been two weeks since you last saw each other. No message, no greeting, not even a shadow of Thomas Shelby’s smoky eyes searching for you at a street corner… He was nowhere to be seen. But this absence wasn’t a disappearance. On the contrary, the pull between you had begun to take a visible form. A silence growing larger each day now carried two people who had no courage left for words.

You were busy finishing your columns. You tried returning to your old topics: the cruelty of war, the rights of workers in industrial Birmingham, the invisible face of social inequality… But every sentence felt foreign. Each paragraph was dull and cold without the shadow of Thomas Shelby in it.

You sat at your writing desk. Your hands lay still over the page. The ink of your pen was drying, but your mind was still burning. Every piece you tried to write scattered in a different direction. For the first time, the pen didn’t feel like yours.

None of them made it past a paragraph. Because all your words revolved around one man.

Thomas Shelby.

As you sipped your coffee, his presence—bodiless but tactile, came to mind. When your finger brushed against the paper, you saw him lifting a cigarette to his lips. In your mind, you were already talking to him.

Thomas Michael Shelby. A man. A leader. A shadow. A crime. And maybe… the most honest confession of a woman writer. Read under abandoned streetlamps at night, echoing in a woman’s mind like a manifesto.

And for the first time, your pen moved to write about him.

You were going to write now. About him.

But this wouldn’t be an exposé; it would be a recognition, a cry, a surrender. Because Thomas Shelby hadn’t just made you think, he had left you without yourself.

At the same hour, in another street…

With the collar of his grey coat turned up, Thomas was walking through the foggy streets of Birmingham. Brief conversations, clipped commands… business meetings… cold whiskeys… None of it could fill the emptiness inside him. Without you, no victory meant anything. A man, even if a king, could find a city to be his grave if he was alone.

Thomas Shelby, collar raised, stood in front of a clothing shop window. His steps seemed premeditated, but his gaze was entirely detached from all plans. Behind the glass, a deep midnight-blue fabric flowed like silk… A delicate cut falling from slender shoulders… A sash at the waist… A tasteful slit at the knee… The moment he saw the dress, he thought of you.

You, in that dress… But not just the dress. You, at peace with yourself. Not fighting, not hiding… not needing to prove your womanhood to anyone.

He narrowed his eyes. Dropped his cigarette. Crushed it with the tip of his shoe. And for a moment, he closed his eyes.

He imagined draping that dress over your back. Watched you letting your hair fall over your shoulder. In the darkened frame of a doorway, he saw you walking toward him in that dress. And then, he imagined you undressing. But not hastily. Slowly. Gently. With reverence. Because to desire you didn’t mean to possess you. To see you, to understand you, to unravel with you that was what he wanted.

He wanted to put that dress on you because… he wanted to show you that being a woman wasn’t death, it was survival. And he didn’t want to own you. He wanted to belong to you.

He didn’t want to protect you. He wanted to burn with you. Maybe he would bury all the silence he had carried for years into your skin in a single night. And he wanted to let your darkness meet his darkness, and from that, let something be born.

A scream. A name. A story. A destiny written with you.

You both missed each other.

But Thomas Shelby never spoke of longing. He spoke through the dress you never wore. You shouted through the lines you never wrote about him. You were both silent.

But the city was now too full of this silence to carry you any longer.

And the decision was made.

You started to write.

He bought the dress.

You wiped your tears.

He lit the last cigarette he would smoke before reaching for you.

And one night, one of you would complete the words. The other, touch between the lines.

Paper did not only carry ink. That morning, the newspapers distributed throughout Birmingham carried the contents of a heart. It was the moment when a writer, after struggling to define love, finally poured her tangled words onto the page with courage. And those words, like bullets, had found their target.

A woman waiting at the station read the lines on the fourth page again and again.

A mother who had given birth to a child and then lost her own identity while raising it.

Another woman, lighting her morning cigarette, read the article aloud to her prostitute friends.

One who had never cried over a man fell silent, clutching her throat at a single sentence.

A young tailor’s apprentice abandoned his breakfast and took refuge in the corner of the paper.

Because that piece wasn’t just about love—it spoke of the punishment love could bring, and of a rebellion echoing within silence.

The writer’s name was not listed; not even initials had been printed this time. But everyone knew who had written it.

You.

You were the author of those lines. And now, the streets were speaking your name. Even if it didn’t appear on the page, the article was the voice of your heart. For the first time, your words weren’t about war—but about a man.

…

The city’s hum remained outside. In Thomas Shelby’s office, the air was as heavy as ever with smoke, with thought. On the dark walnut desk, the morning’s newspaper lay open. No one had handed it to him. He had picked it up himself. He had seen the headline with his own eyes: “For Those Who Pass Through Love and End in Silence”

His gaze slowly scanned the lines. Behind the letters, a silhouette began to form. That man… The one who had once drowned in his own darkness and later searched for light in a woman’s eyes that man was Thomas Shelby himself.

“Some men don’t get caught in love. They see it as a trap. But one day, a woman comes along… and turns that trap into gold. Because true love is not a surrender; it is a challenge, a rebirth. That man tore down the walls he had built from thorns inside me. And behind those walls, I found a boy. Silent, wounded, but still worthy of being loved…”

His fingers slowly closed over the paper. He adjusted the collar of his jacket. Leaned back in his chair, but his face was tilted downward. His eyes were fixed on one spot: a gift box in deep burgundy satin sitting at the edge of his desk.

Inside was the dress. The one from that shop he had gone back to after pausing for a moment, thinking of you. At the time, he had never felt you so close.

Now… You had written him. Not by name, but by heart.

For the first time, a piece of writing had disarmed Thomas Shelby—not like an enemy, but like a man. His mind wasn’t filled with war strategies, but with your words. He remembered the way you looked at him. Thought of the times you fell silent. And now, he understood the reason for that silence.

You had loved him. Despite all his darkness, his past, his curses.

At first, Thomas Shelby had wanted to use you for prestige. He wanted you to write about him. But if you had written back then, none of it would have felt this way. None of it would have stung the chest and warmed the heart with such honesty. Now, someone had finally told him: “You are worthy of being loved as you are.”

That’s why he walked toward the gift box. Opened the lid slowly. Touched the dress. As his fingers moved over the fabric, what passed through him was too close to hide any longer:

“I want you to be my woman, Y/N… I want to be with you.”

That day, Thomas Shelby made his decision. Yes, he had built an empire.

But for the first time, he had been defeated by words by a woman.

And for the first time, he had found himself in a writer’s heart.

He would confess his love to you. But he would do it as a man. Not with a weapon, but with his heart. Not inviting you to a bed, but to a life.

The streets of Birmingham always turned the same shade of grey in the evening; if the cobblestones didn’t shine with rain, footsteps would seem to vanish between the cracks. Your steps echoed, but even that echo wasn’t enough to bring you back to yourself.

With a brown coat over your shoulders, you walked against the wind, your boots pressing over the cracked pavement. The corner of the magazine bag in your hand was folded, and between the pages peeked the headline of that much-discussed article: “For Those Who Pass Through Love and End in Silence.” You had left the office late. Congratulations, praise, hands patting your shoulder… all because of that article. You had touched something inside everyone, torn them open, then gently stitched them back together. How strange… Among the hearts you had touched with your writing, yours was not one of them.

Your heart was still a battlefield.

As you turned a corner, you held your breath. You tried to suppress the thing rising inside you. A strange warmth…

No, this feeling, it wasn’t yours.

It belonged to love.

To a woman.

And you… you had long ago torn that piece out of yourself.

“You lost the right to feel like a woman.”

You’d told yourself that years ago.

At the edge of a bed, behind a closed door, maybe suffocating in a smile...

In the eyes of the men who looked at you, there had been no love, only ownership.

And you had pulled yourself away from those stares.

You had changed your skin, your hair, your tone of voice.

You had ripped away everything feminine within you and replaced it with sharp edges.

But now...

That damned feeling was sprouting from within again.

Not in the words Thomas Shelby whispered beneath his breath as he looked at you, It was growing in all the things he never said.

While walking down the street, you noticed your hands were trembling.

Not from the cold. From remembering. From longing.

How long had it been since you forgot what it meant to be a woman?

Your steps quickened. As if trying to outrun a thought…

But where could you go?

The woman inside you had already run far away.

You had let her go.

But now…

That woman was coming back.

And it scared you.

Because that woman wanted love. She craved tenderness. She wanted to be touched, to be heard, to be felt.

And Thomas Shelby -that damned gangster- seemed to offer all of it. Without a single word. Just by looking. Just by being.

You stopped against a wall. Took a deep breath.

When your eyes began to water, you looked straight at the sky.

You wouldn’t cry. No… you’d drown this feeling.

“Women like you can’t carry love. Because love won’t carry you.”

But another voice inside you whispered.

From a different language,

From a different possibility:

“But what if Thomas can carry you?”

As you turned the corner, your steps slowed.

The wind blew your coat.

No, not a coat… for a moment, you imagined it was that favorite dress in your room in France.

You imagined the satin brushing your legs,

Thomas’s gaze kissing your neck...

You parted your lips slightly, held your breath.

You were afraid of yourself.

Not because you wanted Thomas Shelby...

But because you wanted to be yourself with him.

Your steps grew heavier as you reached the corner of your building. Until that moment, you'd been wrestling with your thoughts, fighting yourself, avoiding a confrontation with the woman inside you, but now, now you were getting close to home. Your safe space. The cellar of your pen, your solitude, your cold coffee cups, and the emotions you kept tightly under control. Nothing ever changed there. No one ever came close.

But even from the end of the street, you noticed it.

Something was wrong.

Your gaze instinctively lifted to your apartment window. The light was on.

You stopped walking instantly. Your pulse quickened in your chest. For several seconds, you just stared at the light, not thinking... just feeling. Your mind pushed you toward your most vulnerable place. And your heart, for a fleeting second, chose joy.

“Is it him?”

For a moment -yes, for a moment- Thomas Shelby could’ve been there.

Maybe he was waiting for you.

Maybe he had realized he missed you, just as you missed him.

Just as you’d imagined…

But that feeling only left a warm flicker in your chest before slipping away.

Because you were… smart. And in this city, an apartment with a light on meant only one thing:

Someone had entered. Without your permission.

And for the first time, when you said Thomas Shelby’s name in your mind, it wasn’t with affection...

It was with fury.

“How dare you?”

Your fists clenched.

That woman you’d been running from all day, you tore her out of yourself now.

Everything feminine, everything soft, you cast it to the edge of your heart.

And with the wind whipping your hair, you marched toward the building with sharp, unwavering steps.

When you pushed open the cold iron door and climbed the old stairs, your rage only grew with every step.

That rage kept you upright.

It cleared your head.

It erased your fear, your longing, your weakness.

“If you’re in there… if you’re really in there…”

“…I’ll show you.”

You paused at your door. Your hands were sweaty, but you ignored it. You took out your key. And turned it in the lock. A soft click. A shifting sound. The door opened.

And you, you saw him.

Thomas Shelby.

You stepped inside. Thomas was at the desk near the far wall, the one where you wrote at night, accompanied by the solemn silence of your typewriter.

His legs were crossed, his body leaned back in the chair, his head turned toward you. Like a shadow. Like a ghost. But more real than you.

He was still wearing his dark navy coat. A white shirt underneath, but the collar was loose. No tie this time. Instead of a tie, he wore that inward silence rising to his throat.

His face held nothing, as always.

But his eyes spoke like the night.

“Welcome home,” he said, his voice low but firm. As if this wasn’t your house. As if he had been summoned here by you.

But you stood there, caught in a few seconds of stunned stillness.

Your gaze fell on the large box on the desk. Wrapped in velvety fabric. Tied with a ribbon. The kind of box sent to women. To selected women. To women you never thought you’d be.

But your anger reminded you who you were.

Right before your emotions could surface.

You clenched your jaw, pressed your feet harder into the floor, and your voice came out like a blade, cold and sharp:

“You people make a habit of breaking into places, but not here. Not in my home.”

Thomas didn’t speak for a moment. As if he wasn’t arranging his words, but listening to the crack behind your voice. He looked at you without blinking. This time, with every mask stripped away.

He stood up from behind the typewriter, slowly. As if he’d sat there ready to write, but couldn’t.

He didn’t button his coat. Didn’t shove his hands in his pockets. He simply took a step toward you.

“You didn’t write about me. Not about Peaky Blinders. Not about Thomas Shelby,” he said. “But you wrote about someone I didn’t expect. I read that piece.”

The sentence echoed through the walls. Just like the echo you'd heard inside yourself. Silent but shattering.

You didn’t respond. Because any word you gave would let him in further.

“There’s a woman inside you, Y/N. A quiet, bleeding woman. Hiding. And you… you’re trying to kill her.”

The way he said your name was different. It wasn’t soft. It was firm. Because he was a man who read your wounds, not with pity, but with truth.

He reached slowly toward the box on the desk.

His fingers held the ribbon but didn’t untie it.

Just held it.

“Everyone in this city knows you like this now. Tough. Cold. Masculine. Like a predator who doesn’t show her teeth.

But I... I saw you from the beginning.

Not just the way you talked. The way you walked. The way your breath paused. The way your eyes recoiled at a single look…

You used to belong to yourself. But then someone took you.”

He took another step. Only a few feet stood between you now. But your breaths were on the same rhythm.

Breaking the air in the same pattern.

Your eyes were fixed on him, but he could see right through them.

“I don’t want to put you in a mold. I want to put you in a dress. A dress that belongs to you. And when you look in the mirror wearing it, you’ll see that woman again. The one you’ve been trying to kill, but the one I still hear. I want to bring her back to life.”

Your answer didn’t come quickly. Because any word that left your mouth would be a declaration of war. And you realized, suddenly, you were tired of fighting.

Still, your face showed nothing. But your heart betrayed you. And then Thomas Shelby said his final words, not like a criminal, but like a man. Locking his gaze with yours:

“If you don’t want this... I’ll leave. But if I stay, I won’t leave until I bring that woman back.”

The voice inside you said, “Tell him to leave.” But the shadow falling across your face whispered, “Tell him everything.”

And yet, once again, you betrayed your heart and chose the fight.

Your gaze drifted from Thomas’s hand resting on the box to his eyes once more. You had learned that, to truly understand someone, you had to start with hatred. And the man standing before you was strong enough to be hated… but worse, broken enough to be understood.

Your chin was high, your shoulders tense. And deep in your chest, as always, you carried a curiosity hidden beneath anger.

Your voice hit the walls like cold steel.

“Why? Why do you care? To you, I’m just a writer who won’t bend her pen for the Peaky Blinders. What about me are you so curious about? What connects me to you?”

This was a challenge. But also an invitation. A door opened, demanding the truth. And Thomas Shelby, as always, responded first with silence.

Out of all that noise, he arrived with nothing but his quiet gaze.

He didn’t light a cigarette. Didn’t rush into words. Didn’t use any unnecessary gesture.

He only dipped his head slightly. Then lifted it again.

And then he spoke.

“When I look at you, I see my own exhaustion. I replaced something inside me years ago… something that died. But you… you just buried yours. It’s still alive. Still there. The woman in you.”

He stepped closer. You weren’t supposed to touch him, but in your mind, you were the one closing the distance.

The heat in your veins wasn’t only anger now. It had become something else. And Thomas kept going, never breaking eye contact.

“I’m not trying to save you. I’m not trying to fix you. I’m not God. I’m not a hero. But I want to watch you. I want to see the moment those masks start to fall. I want to be there when you start living in your own skin again. And… I want to be with you when it happens.”

It was the shell of a confession. But to you, the shell was already visible enough.

You said nothing. Because you were afraid your words would betray you.

You didn’t want to surrender to a man’s sentences after all you’d fought.

But your face had changed.

In your eyes, there was a glimmer of the woman Thomas hadn’t yet known. And he saw it.

For a while, silence filled the space. Eye to eye. Breaths unspoken. Time unbroken.

Then Thomas Shelby stepped back. A stillness like polar cold surrounded him. He didn’t turn away, but his gaze had already gone beyond your heart.

He reached into his coat pocket. Pulled out a small white envelope. Placed it gently on the table. As he drew his hand back, he left behind one sentence.

“Tomorrow night. Charity Gala. Seven o’clock. You won’t need an invitation. I’ll bring you.”

When he looked at you again, he wasn’t watching you anymore, he was watching who you could become.

“You can come wearing what you have on. But if you wear what’s in the box… You’ll be walking toward yourself. Not me.”

And then he turned toward the door. It opened. The wind came in.

“You don’t have to come. But if you don’t, I’ll still be someone who wants your words. If you do.... Then I’ll be the one writing you.”

The door creaked open. Silence entered. And Thomas Shelby left without leaving a single footstep behind.

You were alone. But this time, loneliness didn’t feel familiar.

It felt like something inside you was finally… coming back.

#cillian murphy x reader #cillian murphy fandom #cillian murphy smut #cillian murphy #cillian murphy fanfiction #cillian x fem!reader #cillian x reader #thomas shelby #thomas shelby x reader #thomas shelby x y/n #thomas shelby x oc #thomas shelby x imagine #peaky fucking blinders #peaky blinders #peaky blinders fanfiction

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comphy-and-cozy · 2 months ago

Text

Revolving door - JT Compher

Pairing: JT Compher x Reader

Summary: JT Compher is no good for you. You know it, and though he might not admit it, so does he. But no matter how hard you try, you can't stop yourself from coming back to him every single time.

Word Count: 3.2K

Warnings: Toxic situationship, unrequited feelings, fuckboy JT. Smut (18+ ONLY). Oral sex (f + m receiving), unprotected sex.

← BACK TO MAIN MASTERLIST ← BACK TO 'SO CLOSE TO WHAT' MASTERLIST

Your relationship with JT Compher is… messy. Not quite dating, but more than strictly fuck buddies. On paper, you’re his girlfriend; in reality, that word is completely absent from his vocabulary. Your sleepovers are regular, as are texts and phone calls, but you’ve yet to receive any outward or public indication that he knows you exist, minus your username appearing in his Following list.

In other words, a good old-fashioned situationship.

And just like most situationships, you’ve found yourself on the verge of falling in love with a man who can never, and will never, be truly yours. He’s kept you strung along, ambiguous enough that you can’t help but hang on tighter to hold out for that maybe soon, wistfully dreaming of the day that he’ll call it for what it is.

He doesn’t; he never does. Instead, you’re addicted to the rush of dopamine that hits you when he calls you “my girl”; he pulls the ring off your middle finger and slides it onto your ring finger like he wants to try out how it feels to do it, unaware of the way it tears your heart in two when he does. You can still feel the graze of his fingertips against yours, so much more intimate than all of the things you’ve done in the darkness of your bedroom in the middle of the night.

You can see the signs; you already know you’re probably too far gone. Which is why you need to tear out your own heart to cut it off now before things get worse.

Before you fall so far into the pit that you’ll never come out.

‘This is the last time, JT,’ is your reply to his text that he’s on his way over. It’s late—2am—but all things considered, this is a normal rendezvous time for your part-time house guest.

When you answer the soft knock at your door, he’s standing on your porch with his backpack slung over his shoulder, his phone held up in his hand. He’s wearing plane clothes and that soft, sort of sleepy look in his eyes he gets after a road trip.

“You said that last time,” he says, referencing your text before stepping over the threshold to your home. How many times have you let him through your door? 50? 100? 200? How many times have you stood exactly where you’re standing now, watching him set his bag on the floor while he kicks his shoes off?

“Well, I’m serious this time,” you reply, arms crossed over your chest. “I can’t do this with you anymore. After tonight, I’m done.”

JT’s eyes train on you, his expression unreadable but his gaze heated. He steps forward, closing the gap between your bodies until his hands find their home on your hips. They’re warm, even through the cotton of your t-shirt, which he rucks up over your waist to grant his hands access to your backside, clad in only panties. He hums. “Then maybe you should stop answering the door in just these.”

Heat floods through you when his large hands grip at the globes of your ass, hungry. Your bottom lip slips between your teeth to stifle your moan, but he smirks knowingly anyways. No—you’re stronger than this. You can hold your ground: this is the last time.

“Maybe you should stop showing up on my door at 2 in the morning,” you manage to quip. You’re aware that the impact of your words is lessened by the fact that you’re still leading him up your stairs, flicking off the light in your living room as you do.

JT gives another assenting hum, tugging at your hand when you reach the top of the stairs to spin you around, crashing his lips against yours. You don’t have it in you to fight, not with how good he feels against you, the familiar plushness of his lips and the rough scratch of his beard against your chin. He kisses you fiercely, hands back on your hips as he guides you backward until you feel your spine bump against the wall. Trapped between it and his large frame, you’re helpless to give into the feel of his mouth, already tracking its path down the side of your neck to nip at the sensitive spot just above the fraying neckline of your t-shirt.

His hands join in his search, one trailing lower to return to your ass, the other slinking up to palm at your breast. You know he can feel your nipple against his skin; you’ll tell yourself it’s the fact that it’s the middle of the night in February, but you know it’s a lie.

A sigh falls out of your lips when he sinks to his knees, your breath hitching in your throat at the glint in his eyes when he looks up at you from between your legs. “The last time, Compher.”

JT smiles again, though this time you feel it against the inside of your thigh where he’s nuzzled against the sensitive skin. And again he repeats, “You said that the last time.”

He shifts to your other thigh, pressing an open-mouthed kiss against it, never breaking eye contact. “And the time before that.”

He reaches the apex of your thighs, hot breath fanning over the damp material of your panties. Your breath catches, a whimper leaving your throat at his proximity to where you want him most. “And the time before that.”

“JT.” You’re not sure if it’s a warning or a plea, whispered when he drags the cotton over your hips and down your legs. You watch him gaze up at you, his big brown eyes seductive and sensual.

“Since it’s the last time, I better make it good then, hm?”

He knows he’s got you caught, tongue darting out to flick at your clit like a promise of what’s to come. You shiver, and he smirks in response. “Is that a yes, sweetheart?”

You bathe in the way sweetheart makes you feel, a melty sort of warmth that radiates between your thighs—he knows what he’s doing.

Knowing your voice will come out shaky, you take a deep breath in an attempt to regulate it. Apparently, you’re not fast enough, earning a gentle nip at the inside of your thigh.

When you do respond, your voice is far more desperate and breathy than you care to admit. “Y-yes. Please, JT.”

JT is nothing if not a tease, but he takes your plea seriously. His warm tongue flirts with your entrance, wet and weeping for him just the way he intended. This is what you’ll miss the most, what you’ll keep searching for long after he’s gone. It’s the same reason you always end up answering his text even after you’ve cut him out of your life; there is no one else who makes you feel the way that JT Compher does.

Almost as if he’s privy to your thoughts, to the yearning you feel in your chest, JT gives a long lick with a flattened tongue, pressing against your aching clit. A whine escapes your throat and your hand cards through his hair, flattened by the hat he threw on after his post-game shower. He hums—he likes it when you tug at his hair—and your fingers grip onto the strands, guiding him exactly where you want him.

“So sweet for me,” he murmurs against you, lapping up your arousal. “Always taste so fuckin’ good, baby. Could eat you all day.”

You smile. You know. You know because he has, an entire afternoon spent between your thighs, coaxing orgasm after orgasm out of you, until your body ached with exhaustion and pleasure.

JT’s lips wrap around your clit, sucking at the bud so that your hips writhe against him. He breathes out a chuckle, amused at your eagerness to ride his face; he lets you, wants you to take control of your pleasure. Your hips roll, rocking against his tongue, steady and insistent, aiding you patiently on your ascent. His breath is hot against you, hands reaching up underneath your shirt to palm at your breasts. The gentle, teasing rub of his fingers against your nipples makes you bow into him, pressing your clit against the flat of his tongue.

When your world explodes, his hands move to rest on the sides of your hips, holding you steady as the orgasm surges through you. He groans, drinking in the taste of your climax, pressing his face deeper into your center and you know his beard will be coated in you when he comes back up for air.

Brown eyes lock with yours and he rises to his feet without breaking eye contact with you. His hands return to their place on your hips, this time tugging them toward his own. You can feel the hardness in his joggers and a flare of the fire courses through your body again.

“C’mere,” he murmurs. His voice is husky, the way it always is after he gets to taste your arousal firsthand. You taste your release on his lips, embedded in the hairs of his mustache that tickle against your skin.

JT nudges your bedroom door open with his knee, unwilling to part from your lips to watch where he’s going. He’s memorized the route, knows exactly where to step to avoid bumping into your dresser. With practiced precision, he lays you back onto your mattress, his hand resting behind your head to ensure you have a soft landing. He leans over you, the shadows on your ceiling a familiar backdrop behind his head.

His smile is feline as he reaches up and tugs off his sweatshirt, then his t-shirt. Your gaze drops to his creamy skin, to the hair on his chest, smattered down the subtle cut of muscle along his abdomen. Your hand reaches out to graze against him, feeling the flesh beneath your fingertips, running over the lithe muscle.

“Not fair,” he huffs, reaching for the hem of your t-shirt—his t-shirt—and pulling it over your head. Hunger seeps into his dark eyes, roaming over your naked body like it’s the first time. Or the last time. “Fucking perfect, baby.”

There isn’t much left to say, nothing you really can say, so instead you focus on tugging the joggers down his hips. His length springs free, and while he shimmies the pants the remainder of the way down his legs, you scramble to your hands and knees, eager to get your mouth on him.

You love the sounds he makes, the groans and the sighs and the deep, lustful way he grunts out your name; it’s intoxicating, knowing that you can make him feel as good as he makes you feel, that you can reduce his smart mouth to a series of guttural sounds with only the power of your mouth.

“Fuck yeah,” he murmurs, tossing his head back when your tongue laps out against his balls—just the way he likes. You work your mouth over his length, gazing up at him while you let a drip of saliva drool from your mouth and onto his tip. He curses again, his tone approving in a way that makes your pussy throb. “That’s it. Just like that. Fuck, you’re so good at that, baby.”

You don’t have him in your mouth for nearly as long as you’d like, protesting even as he pulls himself out of your throat with a groan. “If this is the last time, I’m not going to come down your throat, as tempting as it is.”

His words send a flare of heat through your body, feeling a pulse between your thighs at the filthy promise. With a gentle nudge from him, you’re settling back against the mattress, his gaze pinning you in place. He glances down, between your thighs, at the wetness leaking from your folds.

“Dripping all for me?”

“Don’t tease me, Compher. Fuck me.”

JT smiles, amused at your bluntness. “Aren’t you gonna ask me nicely?”

“Who said I want to be nice?”

This time, he laughs, running a fist over his length in leisurely strokes. “I love it when you’re feisty, baby.”

You huff, eyes glued to the pretty pink flush of his head and the sheen your saliva gives the skin. “What does a girl gotta do to get some dick around here?”

“Alright, no need to beg,” he says with a shit-eating grin. He brushes at your clit with his tip, wiping the smirk off your face and replacing it with a sigh. “Like that?”

“More, J,” you whisper, no longer in the mood to banter now that he’s almost where you want him. You roll your hips to entice him, brushing yourself against him and sighing out a moan. “Please.”

He tsks. “Aw, now you’re asking nicely.”

The first press into you is always the best, that first initial stretch and fit of him snugly inside of you, like he was molded just for you—it’s sinfully, lasciviously delicious. And it’s your last time feeling it, so you’re going to cherish it.

You cry out when he bottoms out, his hips snug against the backs of your thighs. Strong arms bracket around your head and suddenly, he’s there, with his molten chocolate gaze and a smile on his lips, shrouded by an auburn beard. It’s your favorite length, full and thick but not overgrown; just enough to give you scratches between your thighs.

His mouth slots against yours, swallowing your sigh when his hips begin to move. He thrusts deep, slow, the kind that sucks the air from your lungs and leaves you scrambling for purchase on his shoulders. Though it earns him some chirps in the locker room, he likes when you leave scratches down his back; since it’s the last time, you’re determined to leave marks that will outlast his scent in your sheets.

“Never get tired of this pussy,” he murmurs, breath hot against the shell of your ear. “So tight. So wet. So hot. Every time I’m away I just think about how long it is until I can be back here, inside this perfect cunt.”

JT’s words make your heart soften and ache all at once. They’re the same honeyed praises he always uses, the ones that have watered the seeds of hope in your chest and given them just enough nourishment to sprout. You know he can’t give you what you want—what you really want from him—which is why you know you need to give him up like a bad habit.

So you savor it, savor him, relishing his musk and memorizing the low sounds of his groan in your ear while he moves over you; he’s practiced, steady, drawing out long moans from your throat with each press of his hips. He whispers promises he can’t keep, drawing constellations over your skin with his tongue and teeth and lips.

When he leans back to look at you, his molten eyes melt your skin, scorching it, he watches the way your body reacts to his thrusts. His hands grip your sides, pulling you onto him while his thighs slap against the back of your legs.

“Think you were made to take my cock, baby,” he murmurs. His eyes remain glued between your legs, watching when he slowly drags himself out and presses back in. “Look at you—look so fucking pretty, taking it so good for me.”

JT isn’t a fool; he knows what his filthy, whispered praises do to you. You’re sure he can feel the way you squeeze him tightly, knows the way your breath hitches, hears the whimper you let escape when he presses up against the fleshy spot that makes your eyes flutter shut.

“Come on it,” is his low, purred command. “Wanna see you come for me.”

Between his low purrs and the thumb he circles over your clit, you have no choice but to spiral into a release, letting out a litany of moans and nonsensical mumbles of his name. Your hands grip onto his toned shoulders, nails digging into his skin as the wave washes over you. JT follows soon after, pulling out of you with a grunt and spilling onto your stomach.

He sits back to admire his handiwork, eyes raking over your panting, blissed-out body covered in his cum. “Sure that was the last time?”

Your heart cracks at the hope in his voice, the unspoken promise—I’ll do better, I mean it this time—lingering there. But even that slight acknowledgment that he doesn’t want to lose you makes your head spin. It’s enough to force your gaze down, away from his dark eyes; you’re afraid if you keep looking into them, you’ll cave and fall right back into him.

But then you think about the hurt in your heart. You think about that night in Boston, about the way he can never really seem to commit to you despite the pretty things he says to you in the middle of the night. How many times had he given a vague promise? A noncommittal response?

It’s a target you’ll never reach. You could spend your life trying and fall short every time, like Sisyphus and the boulder; “JT” and “relationship” simply don’t mesh in your world.

With those thoughts echoing in your head, you nod sadly. “Yeah, J. I’m sure.”

Ten weeks later

A frustrated sigh huffs out of your mouth, leaning against your front door. Another failed first date. This one had questionable political beliefs and didn't ask you a single question about yourself until you were halfway done with your entree.

Your side table drawer has seen plenty of action given your unsuccessful dating life and the fact that your body hasn't quite caught up with your recent lack of redheaded companion. It’s not the same; nothing will ever quite match the flex of his hands and the tickle of his beard on your skin.

And yet you keep trying. It’s been nearly three months since you last saw JT, the bruises he left on your skin long faded and his scent now completely washed out of your sheets. After the first bad date, you were hopeful it was just bad luck; after the second, you felt the first flicker of despair; by the third, the resentment had already set in.

Even from the grave, JT Compher was still finding a way to ruin your life. Even now, the memory of his touch and of his voice murmuring your name haunts you in your sleep, a gentle reminder from your subconscious that he’s changed you irreparably. That you’ll be comparing every other future lover to him.

And then you realize that, contrary to your belief, your disappointment hasn’t disappeared at all, but rather changed forms; instead of being hurt by JT, now you’re continuously let down and unimpressed by the abysmal dating pool. By the men who simply don’t match up to how he made you feel, the way he made your body sing.

You pull your phone out, your fingers typing his name like muscle memory. The cursor flickers, your thumbs hovering over the screen—a moment of deliberation. You blink, and the moment is gone.

Then you text him.

‘You around tonight?’

Author's Note: C is writing toxic JT?! Who is she? I figured it was time to experiment with a different side since I have about 490382 other fics of sweet, sexy ginger boy. Lots of Taylor references in here. Not sorry about it. As always, thanks to @senditcolton for encouraging the toxicity. 😘

Taglist (message or comment to join!): @lam-ila @ashloveshockey @cellythefloshie @smileysvech @senditcolton

@fallinallincurls

#jt compher fic #hockey fic #nhl fic #hockey imagine #nhl imagine #nhl fanfiction #hockey fanfiction #jt compher x reader #so close to what fic series #divider by @saradika-graphics and @cafekitsune

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prettyngeto · 1 month ago

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PROLOGUE || signed, sealed, delivered (i'm yours) - 18+

sukuna x f!reader - series

summary: one night (and one wine bottle in), you decide to sign up for an anonymous pen pal programme at uni. sukuna was given two options - a therapist or a pen pal. you can guess which one he chose. only problem? you hated each other's guts in real life.

content: uni au, anonymous pen pals, academic rivals to lovers, slow burn, bad boy sukuna x fed up reader, forensic sciences student! sukuna, mutual pining masked as academic warfare, sukuna lashes out at everyone except her because yes... he's still a little shit though, reader has a cute obsession with sea animals - specifically sharks, eventual smut 🌚

main masterlist || jjk masterlist

series masterlist ⌯⌲ prologue ⌯⌲ chapter one (tba)

Dr Yumi Takahashi’s office smelt like oranges and vanilla - sweet and serene. Ryomen Sukuna hated it with every fibre of his being.

He sat slouched in the annoyingly comfortable seat across her desk, arms folded tight across his broad chest. His gaze scanned the room in quiet disdain before honing in on her baby blue blazer. Then lower - to the enamel pin on her lapel that read: ‘catch vibes, not viruses’. God help him. He fought the urge to scoff, lips curling, tongue flicking over his lip ring - a nervous habit disguised as irritation. The fabric of his black compression shirt stretched over solid muscle and tattooed skin as he shifted, itching to bolt out the door at any given moment.

“So, Ryomen,” Dr Takahashi began, voice eerily soft, placing her mug of lavender tea down to put on her signature pair of lime-green rimmed glasses. “Let’s talk about what happened in Professor Kimura’s class.”

“I didn’t do shit,” he snapped.

“Language.” She chimed, eyes peeking up at him over the frame of her glasses disapprovingly whilst pointing to the poster behind her that read ‘No vulgar vocabulary!!’, complete with a smiley face in the corner. She opened a purple polka dotted file, RYOMEN SUKUNA, printed out in bold across the front.

“Let’s get back to the issue at hand. You slammed a textbook so hard you cracked the desk Ryomen.” She paused, hands folded as she leaned forward. “You wanna tell me why?”

He scoffed, irritation growing once more. “He said I was wrong just because I didn’t cite his paper. Sue me for not wanting to kiss his academic ass. Besides, it’s not my fault he wrote a whole load of bullshit. I cited three other papers - all peer-reviewed by the way - was that not good enough for him?”

Dr Takahashi blinked slowly. Calmly. Deadly. “You have anger issues, love.”

“Tch, no shit.” He mutters, rolling his eyes.

She remained silent, ignoring his quiet jab. She simply opened her drawer to pull out a floral folder, sliding it across the desk with the air of someone offering a dessert menu. “Two options.” She hummed, pushing her glasses up her nose, holding up her index finger. “Option one: therapy. Weekly anger management sessions. No exceptions.”

Sukuna paled, mouth parting slightly in horror. Sit in a room with some shrink and talk about his feelings for the better part of the day? Fuck no.

“…What’s the other option?” He muttered, tongue flicking out to tap at his lip ring again.

She smiled. Sweet. Slightly sadistic. There wasn’t much that could scare Sukuna. But Dr Takahashi’s smile? Yeah, that shit made the list.

She slid across a bright yellow pamphlet, a cartoon envelope taking up most of the page. “Option two: you join the university’s anonymous pen pal programme.” Her smile widened. “Organised by yours truly”

He balked. His eyes flicked up at her. Then at the leaflet. Then, back at her, squinting like she’d just asked him to scale Everest with a fucking toothpick. Hell, at this rate, he’d rather do that.

“You want me to write? Letters? To some fuckass stranger? Like it's 1725?”

“Writing is a powerful emotional outlet, Ryomen.” She explained, with the patience of a monk. “And it’s anonymous, no names, no faces. Just pure communication. I think it could do you some good.”

“I refuse.”

Her smile sharpened - no more softness, just pure sadism.

Sukuna shivered.

“Shall I book your first therapy session then?” she hummed, voice sickly sweet.

His eyes flitted back to the therapy form. He imagined someone staring at him, asking him: ‘And how did that make you feel?’ with faux sympathy. It made him want to punch a wall. Or maybe someone.

He sucked in a sharp breath, seething silently, crimson eyes fixed on the stupid pamphlet.

“....Fine,” he muttered. “Give me the damn pen.”

A FEW HOURS LATER - 2AM, THE GIRLS' DORMS

You sat cross-legged against the headboard of your bed, laptop perched on your thighs as you took another swig of your wine bottle. Yes, bottle - because somewhere around your fourth sip, you decided glasses were beneath you.

10 Things I Hate About You was playing for what was probably the millionth time in the background, when your laptop pinged. A new email? Who in their right mind was sending campus-wide emails at two in the fucking morning?

I regret to inform you that curiosity (and alcohol) won this time - you open it.

“Not therapy. Not journaling. But a little bit of both.” ‘Dr. Y. Takahashi’s new wellbeing initiative—connect through anonymous letters!’

Well fuck… that was poetic, (according to your wine-hazy brain.)

Naturally, you did what anyone halfway through a bottle of Chardonnay and going through a quarter life crisis would do right now. You signed up.

ᯓ★ notes from star: IM SO EXCITED FOR THIS SERIES GUYS i'm cooking so hard, trust. as always, comments and reblogs appreciated and let me know if you wanna be in the taglist!! mwah <3

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glassrowboat · 1 year ago

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Daydream in a Nightmare.

Authors note: I read a soulmate au where with dream sharing. Every time you fall asleep you and your SM would meet in a world that would reflect your consciousness and who you were. So down below are the boys and what I think the places their dreams would depict.

Mondstadt

Diluc: The cathedral. His mom, back when she was alive, used to play during service and afterwards Diluc ran over greeting her with the biggest smile, asking her to play him one more song. She never failed to. Maybe that's why there's always a gentle melody playing whenever you see him as he rests his fingers over the same white tiles, simply trying to remember how to play.

Kaeya: The Dawn Winery. Or at least parts of it. Behind closed doors there's the scent of grass, of dirt, and the faintest smell of ash. He says it's simply the vineyard that in the real world would be right outside, but he knows well as he pulls your hand from the doorknob that it's ruins of a fallen nation haunting him right on the other side.

Albedo: Glass walls. A maze of mirrors and reflections. If you ever have stopped to bother to count between Albedo’s musings as he shares with you the secrets of the world, you'd notice that for some reason he always has more reflections in the walls around you than of your own figure. Like there's more of him than there is of you.

Venti: Old Mondstadt. Back before the revolution, back when there were people in the streets wishing their God weren't so unjust, but in his dreams that wall of spiraling wind is never there. A warped perception of a life he wished to have lived as he sits in your lap not as Venti the bard, but a wind sprite trying to bury into your clothes for warmth. Just don't call him pipsqueek or he'll try and bite your fingers. Playfully. You think.

Liyue

Zhongli: A place that no longer exists, one torn away by this world during the archon war. It's unlike him not to comment on a place, a trinket, an item, as you pick something up and fiddle with it, but this place he never goes into full detail on. However, he will tell you all about the artisanship of the table you two are sharing tea over.

Baizhu: His home back in Chenyu Vale, back before the illness hit his village, back before his parents passed away. Just a modest home that shows signs of being truly well lived in and loved. Mindlessly while you two talk he'll be cleaning the place, just the way he always does at the pharmacy. Though it does help give him something to fill the silence. It turns out he's a lot more used to Changsheng chiming in with comments than he thought. He just hopes you two get along when the time to meet in person finally comes about.

Ga ming: A festival. There's water kicking up at everyone's feet, up to everyones ankles as people with their face covered in all manner of masks walk you both by. Ga ming would pull you along from booth to booth, trying his best to win prizes despite the fact you both know they'll be gone by the time you wake.

Xiao: A Chinese pavilion in the sky. You walk among the clouds as you follow the path of the street, looking over the accents that seem somehow both rich in color and dull, muddied all at the same time. Something you've noticed from his dreams compared to yours, his always have a lingering black fog creeping in at the corner of your eyes. It makes you feel like someone else is in this world with you, like there's eyes waiting to do more than just watch.

Inazuma

Kazooha: A meadow. The wind passes you both by, stirring up pages of books you two sit reading in silence. You can't help but wonder if these are all books he's read before, especially the ones that wax poetry or something else. His thoughts, perhaps? Maybe Kazuha's very own writings? But that matters little as his head is resting on your shoulder as you try to catch words between the fluttering sheets of paper.

Itto: A kabuki play. It always ends up in you two hiding away in the back room where the performers would get ready before getting back out on stage for the next act. You would see the brightest of colors, richest of fabrics, and practiced movements so fine tuned that you can't understand why Itto is so focused on taking the makeup on the vanity in the back simply so he can paint your face with red marks just like his. To each their own you suppose, and who are you to complain when it means drawing hearts on his arm when Itto isn't paying attention?

Gorou: A tea house. It's a small place, simple, but certainly not lacking charm as Gorou pours you a cup. At first the fact you could actually taste the rich herbs on your tongue in this dreamscape threw you off, but now it's just another part of this odd reality. But saying that, the first time you spat out the drink he offered as soon as the bitter taste hit you. Apparently he never expected you to not already be used to green tea. The poor fella was apologizing for the rest of the night, ears laid flat on his head and tail tucked between his legs. It's okay though, you made it even by trying to give him dog treats. It was you having to beg for forgiveness then.

Thoma: It was different this time. No glowing blue flowers and a forest that you two would stroll through mindlessly while chatting for hours. No, this time Thoma was sitting on a wooden platform below a giant stone statue. Intriguing, yes, but mattered little compared to the rope burns around his wrist. He tried to tell you not to worry about it. That it was an accident. But that mattered little as your lips pressed to the red, irritated skin and he gave you a strained smile. You knew better than to ask about it more from there.

Ayato: It's ever changing. It's like he is constantly thinking of something whenever He falls asleep and it reflects in his dreams. Once it was a Japanese styled room the next it was some room in Fontaine's architecture. But it's always a bedroom. A place of relaxation as Ayato buries his head in your lap like it was a pillow. He'll whine about being overworked until you're tempted to pull on his hair just to make the man shut up for once, but last time you did that it led to the bed being used for a lot more than just rest. For now just pat his head and let him vent, the man needs it.

Sumeru

Kaveh: A sketch brought to life from his mothers blueprints. One he saw his mother sketching back when Kaveh was a boy and she would let him sit on her lap, let him comment on the drawings. She would always find some way to incorporate his addictions into the sketch. Nowadays he knows the building that was actually constructed in the end to be simpler, duller than the one his mother wanted, but in his dreams with you it stands tall and proud.

Al Haitham: An attic. It's dusty and it clearly had a hole in the roof that was covered over by some wooden planks and nails. A patch work job that needs to be fixed but if you ever take the time to bother with it while Al Haitham sits in an old rocking chair covered by a quilt reading the night away it will only be there the next dream cycle. It pisses you off. He pisses you off. All nonchalance and an apathetic look even as you plop yourself in his lap and take that book away. And what pisses you off even more? How he dares to call you needy as he holds you close. It's best to ignore the fact he started reading over your shoulder.

Tighnari: Pardis Dhyai. He'll sit on the walkway watching you kick the water of the ponds around, paying no mind to when you splash at him. Not anymore at least. He's learned quickly if he makes a snarky comment you'll give one back and it'll go on and on until somehow it ends in him getting dragged into the pond with you. Both dripping algae filled water as he wondered what gods made this numbskull his mate.

Cyno: Lambad's Tavern. Everytime he would come back from treks in the desert he would go there, get a drink, and play a round of cards with whoever was willing. It was a pattern. Work, work, rest, and more work. But now he didn't have to constantly be on work mode as he sat with you in the old booth shuffling cards as he tried to explain to you how TCG works. So far everytime you lose you've thrown those elemental dice and him, and with a smile he lets them hit him in the head despite being fully able to dodge them. His soulmate is such a sore loser.

Wanderer: Shakkei Pavilion. He hates it. Hates that this is the place his unconscious has chosen to sink onto so stubbornly. His wooden fingers would slide over the paintings depicting Scaramouche’s past that has now been severed from him in everyone's eyes but Nahida and the Traveler. If you knew, would you still hold his hand? Would you still trace the details of his joints and comment that you find his pretty face such a stark contrast to his sharp words? He's afraid to find out, the idea that you might be his fourth betrayal always lingering in the back of his mind.

Fontaine

Neuvillette: Under the water where the currents would carry stray bits of seaweed and fish swimming past. The first time you shared a dream with him here he had to calm you down as instinctively you held your breath, taking your hands in his and assuring you if he can talk like this, you can suck in air just as well. It took some time getting used to, but now he watches as you grab starfish off the ocean floor and bring them over to him like a prize to be presented. This is what humans must be like Neuvillette tells himself as you braid them into his hair.

Worcestershire sauce: A home. A nice one at that. Big, had decent furnishings, pictures of kids hung up on the wall. If you listened closely enough you could even hear children playing outside from the cracked open windows that showed the brightest sky outside. Wriothesly would walk behind you as you would watch the grass blowing in the wind, not saying a word as he rested his chin on top of your head. He never thought he'd be back here again. The very place made him feel sick to his stomach, but with you? It was bearable. Even as you tried to grab his handcuffs from him.

Snezhnaya

Childe: His childhood home. Back before the renovations he bought for the place with his money as a harbinger, back before the redecorating of rooms to fit more children, and back to what the house was like when he was just a boy yet to fall into the abyss. Back when everything was simpler. He would pick up toys that have gone missing, never to be seen again and stare in wonder how it all is exactly how he remembers it. It makes it so much easier to be Ajax with you, rather than Tartaglia.

Dottore: The hospital he was working in when trying to help Eleazar patients. For the life of him does he hate it, being back in the desert always having to tip his shoes out of sand that never seems to fully clear off. It doesn't help you try and pour sand down his shirt, but in a way he supposes it's better you two stay out here under that blistering sun than you going inside to be met with the smell of death. No, you don't need to know about that side of him just yet.

Pantalone: His office. It always makes it hard to tell at first if he's awake, not when the same scene greets him either way. You always joke about him being married to his work and you're the mistress in this relationship. At this point he counts on the comment as soon as his eyes flutter open and he's greeted with the sight of you sitting on the desk he's been using as a pillow. Still, he can never help the genuine smile at seeing you once again.

Captain: A flower field. The snowdrops peek out from under the fluffy blanket of white powder, crunching under every step he takes. Even in his dreams the cold of Snezhnaya is ever present, ever biting. It only makes sense you are shivering behind him even as he lets you steal his cloak that is more of a blanket on you than anything. This field, he knows it well, knows that what waters these flowers is more blood than anything else, but that matters little as he wraps his arms around you. Maybe he can find a way to dream you a proper jacket.

Pierro: A grand hall. It reminds you of the way ballrooms are described in romance stories as the couple depicted would dance the night away. Columns so high you have to tilt your head back just to see where they meet the ceiling covered in paintings you've never seen before. That is until Pierro steps into your view. He always offered his hand to you before you could ask, and as your fingers interlocked he would tell you about them. Always ready to answer your questions. It meant someone was curious about a part of his long lost nation. So, of course, he was always happy to share.

Scaramouche: A never ending fire. It's a small shack, engulfed by flames that never seem to dwindle or burn out the wood it feeds on. Like this place was stuck in time in his mind. He doesn't talk to you, not any more than a sharp shut up. The only time that glare he showed you disappeared is when you pulled your hand back from the curious fire with a hiss, not expecting it to actually hurt in this fake reality. For a moment you could have sworn he took a step towards you, but he never came any closer than that as he hissed at you to be careful. Dumb mortals should at least know not to burn themselves.

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jackalopc · 5 days ago

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What do you do when the proverbial prince of gotham throws a couple grand worth of fine liquor on one of the most powerful crime bosses in the city and leaves the party? You follow him out and introduce yourself, of course.

inspired by this post by @bruciemilf including their fancast for harvey because um obviously it's perfect (and also a fair bit of influence from the a wild battinson series by @emo-batboy because i'm obsessed with it and it's canon in my heart).

UPDATE: NOW POSTED ON AO3 TOO, you can find it here!

It's early autumn; which means it's the start of the rainy season in Gotham (or rather more rain) and of Harvey's latest semester at Gotham University (GothU, affectionately). Harvey isn't entirely sure how he ended up at this shindig, if he's being honest, and the person who even invited him as his plus one has vanished. He's in law school but he's still only in pre-law, he hasn't even made a name for himself yet as some sort of future threat.

(It's still early enough that about 50% of students he's going through with are still starry eyed and haven't entirely given up on the idea of making Gotham a better place.)

The weird intersection of various gangs, businessmen, politicians (corrupt or otherwise), and local celebs is there on full display; and Harvey just wants to get the fuck out of there, but he has no idea where his ride is and frankly he's a broke law student he does not have the money for a cab all the way back into central Gotham from where they are.

But then, something catches his eye-- or rather, someone:

Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne had recently crossed the threshold into being the richest man in the world (just surpassing the much older Lex Luthor), with the biggest company in the world (again surpassing Luthor's own corporation), and the closest thing Gotham has to true and actual royalty.

The same Bruce Wayne that was also in two of Harvey's classes this semester at GothU for reasons he did not understand.

Harvey is admittedly, briefly entranced. Sure they share classes and like him, Bruce attends every single one, but Harvey is pretty sure he's never been this close to the man still (or maybe it just feels closer compared to the large university lecture halls). Heads turn whenever and wherever Bruce goes; and it wasn't just because he was so unfathomably rich or because nearly all of Gotham was protective of the young man. From adorable child, to cute (if sullen) pre-teen, and now into an attractive (if sullen) young man-- Bruce was hot. Sure, in a kinda funky have we confirmed he's not a Victorian vampire way but honestly maybe it was just the classical Gotham influence that made him read that way.

Harvey, even in his trance, can tell that Bruce Wayne looks uncomfortable. He can't tell if it's the social interaction or the people he's surrounded by, but either way Bruce didn't look happy to be there really. Harvey can't help but find himself compelled to watch the billionaire, because he knew the public reputation of Bruce Wayne (generous to a fault, prince of gotham but king of social anxiety and awkwardness, person you could trust to leave your small children around); but what was he like at these weird little parties where it was almost all folks who were deeply corrupt and entrenched? Was it all just a persona? Would he start doing that weird haughty laugh a lot of these other rich fucks seemed to do?

Harvey was still one of those starry-eyed pre-law students, he wanted to make a real and lasting change in this godforsaken city. Bruce Wayne held the most power and influence here. Would he be an potential ally, or Harvey's biggest obstacle?

A figure was suavely bee-lining towards Bruce, the crowd parting way for him. Harvey didn't see who the person was until they stopped before the prince, and Harvey nearly dropped the expensive, crystal glass in his hand. Carmine Falcone. Not one of his lieutenants, not some people just associated with the crime boss, no. Falcone himself. Christ, what did I get dragged into? I'll pay another semester worth of tuition if it gets me outta here--

"Bruce, my dear boy! I'm soo glad you decided to join us," Falcone practically croons, and approaches with two glasses in hand. Harvey thinks he see's a slight twitch to Bruce's eye, but the man's expression doesn't change really even with the man's arrival. Falcone pushes the fresh glass of alcohol into Bruce's hand, then swiftly and smoothly wraps a long arm around Bruce's shoulders.

Harvey watches as Bruce looks from the glass, as if trying to determine it's contents then up to Falcone, eyebrow slowly arching. Harvey can't hear everything, the crowd just barely too loud. But Falcone starts steering Bruce further into the party. Right, I need to stop gawking and find my ride--

Harvey gulps down the last of his drink, though the taste makes him want to gag. Maybe he's just not sophisticated yet enough to appreciate the morbidly expensive alcohol. He hastily sets the glass down on the nearest passing waiter's tray, and starts to look for his ride.

The search brings him closer to Falcone, which isn't thrilling, but necessary in order to sweep the room. Harvey mentally swears because the place is huge and he's probably going to have to go room by room and--

"-- my boy, just think of the potential!" Falcone's voice floats so easily over the crowd, and the guy makes Harvey's skin crawl but even he has to admit the man has his own weird ass charisma. Harvey's attention is drawn back, involuntarily, to the crime boss and Bruce Wayne. The younger man hasn't touched his drink, if Harvey had to guess; and Falcone is staying practically plastered to his side. The younger man looks so so uncomfortable and frustrated? Annoyed? Mad? It's hard for Harvey to place, because somehow Bruce Wayne also continues to look sullen and exhausted.

The crowd around Falcone is a delicate balance of men and women clearly are comfortable around him; and people who were trying to find a way to get near while not incur the wrath of his many bodyguards. Then there was Harvey, who wants nothing to do with anyone here thankyouverymuch. Harvey scans the area one last time, not finding his so-called friend; his eyes land briefly at Bruce again before he starts to turn.

"-- I mean... you're father--" Falcone can't finish his sentence and Harvey turns back just in time to see Bruce Wayne splash the insanely expensive alcohol directly into Falcone's face.

Besides a few gasps, it goes quiet in the immediate area and quickly radiates out. Everyone is shocked, including Harvey, but he also is amazed byt he sight of Bruce. He looks as unimpressed by Falcone as he is angered. Bruce says nothing, and Harvey watches as he turns on his heel and starts calmly leaving; politely placing his glass on a waitresses tray on his way out.

Harvey has no idea what compels him to do so, but he follows the billionaire out.

"Wayne! Mr. Wayne!" Harvey calls as he jogs to catch up; the man has a surprisingly fast pace and while a crowd will part for the prince, it's not about to make way for some punk pre-law student they don't even know the name of.

Bruce Wayne stops, steps away from the gleaming black car that's running. His famous butler by his side, umbrella open above their heads.

Both men look to Harvey, curious and expecting, as he skids to a stop. Harvey realizes he didn't think far enough ahead, and swallows thickly. Thankfully though, Bruce speaks first.

"Harvey, Right? Harvey Dent?" Bruce says and Harvey blinks.

"You- wait, you know who I am?"

"Sure," Bruce says easily, like his name is worth remembering to a man like him. The rain is still falling, steadily and soaking Harvey. "You're the only one saying stuff worth listening to in those classes," he adds.

Harvey blinks, and he's glad the light is shit in the overcast weather, because his face warms at the acknowledgement. "Oh..."

"I didn't expect you at a place like this," Bruce says, voice curious as he watches Harvey closely in a way that makes him want to squirm a little under the scrutiny. It's not malicious feeling, though--- Harvey thinks it seems more curious, than anything.

"My friend dragged me here, didn't tell me what was going on..." Harvey admits.

Alfred leans in and whispers something to Bruce. Bruce nods, not taking his eyes off Harvey. "Would you like a ride home, Mr. Dent?" Alfred asks.

They don't go directly to Harvey's place, and Alfred doesn't even drop Bruce off first. Instead--

"Bat Burger?" Bruce asks, as he settles fully into the seat next to Harvey. "I'm starving."

"Oh! Uh, sure?" Harvey blinks, and then looks down as Bruce pulls out a towel of all things, from-- somewhere? and offers it to him. Harvey takes it, starting to dry off how best he can.

"Alfred?"

"Of course, sir," Alfred says easily from the driver seat ahead. "So, what glorious exit did you make this time, Master Bruce?"

Bruce makes a strangled noise, scoffing. "Who says I did anything?" He replies, and Harvey stifles a laugh-- not because of the denial so much as the billionaire sounds like a kid trying to hide the mess he just made.

Harvey can see in the rear view mirror Alfred raise an eyebrow.

"He threw his very expensive drink in Falcone's face," he provides and Bruce sends him a scowl but it has no bite and he's even smiling a little.

"Oh, Bruce, really?" Alfred chides like an exhausted parent.

"Don't worry, it was expensive, not good," Bruce says in his defense; and Harvey laughs.

to be continued? maybe? IDEK.

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soscarlett1twas · 4 months ago

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Third Time's The Charm

↳ At Vic’s funeral, Asirel reunites with an old “friend.” ↳ 1k words

It had been a closed casket, with little use to Asirel. He had seen the photos: a body in tatters, blackened first by blood, then from infection by wounds left untreated. An eye was missing. So was the hair. Only the shape of a nose, and the left half of the lips, made the body identifiable to him immediately. A countenance he knew far too well.

Asirel knew that body wasn’t beneath the lid. The real one was cremated. He was the one that scattered the ashes. Still, he felt it, as if it clawed at the wood; begging for release – taunting him, as its owner so often had. Asirel, he could hear those lips croon. I didn’t take you for a mourner.

He wasn’t. Death’s miasma, for the first time since Fresno, clouded his mind.

Asirel took a watch from his pocket. It had been a gift from Vic, and something he couldn’t stomach feel weighing on his wrist anymore. The large hand clicked just past ten.

He slipped it away and sat back down in the front row of chairs, closest to the coffin. Only the buzz of a distant city filled the air. He rested his head in his hands, fingers threading through his hair that seemed to bleed gray from the roots. Everyone else was gone.

Or, so he thought.

The smell of smoke was so faint he thought he was imagining it. He often did; whenever he thought back to Fresno, at least. Tara’s habits had frustrated him, but the ash was nostalgic. It reminded him of simpler times, of casinos and Quetza. Of the seven of diamonds she slipped him at his own father’s funeral, not too dissimilar to Vic’s.

Have a nice day, she had said.

Boots smushed the wet grass underfoot as the smoker approached. He dropped the cigarette and stubbed it out with his heel. “Room for one more,” the man asked as he sat beside him. Asirel said nothing. Through his fingers he spotted the stub in the grass.

A minute passed, the two beside each other. Asirel composed himself, sitting at attention with a stern expression which his red-lined eyes betrayed. It wasn’t until his gaze left the cigarette and faced forward – towards the coffin – that the other opened his mouth.

“It’s been a while, Asirel.”

“Likewise, James.”

The Wraith’s second-hand hadn’t changed a bit in the last decade. His face remained inscrutable, watching the coffin as Asirel did. Lines framed his mouth and brow, and his hand flexed against his knee. A pearlescent scar shone across his knuckles. He adjusted himself, throwing one leg over the other.

“Shit,” he muttered, “who’d think he’d be gone before us?”

Asirel huffed. “No one.”

James offered a box of Marlboros, and Asirel took one. It had been Vic’s preferred brand. He did himself the favor of lighting it.

“How’ve you been?”

Asirel took a drag. “Better. Though I am a bit offended. Where is Warden? Was it the decor?” Vic would’ve laughed.

All James gave him was a huff. “Still not keen on you.”

“Oh, you flatter me.”

Him, James, and Warden. An odd group to be left with, for sure – left in the wake of spectres who loomed larger than them, whether she a colleague or sister or wife. It was easy, for Asirel, to forget the impact of the Rhoades’ deaths. They were collateral. It was Isaac that pulled his heartstrings. But their deaths were written all over James’ face, parallel lines to Tara’s.

As if he could read his mind, James opened his mouth. “I saw you speaking to Isaac,” he said. “How is he?” A beat. “He’s doing well.”

He visibly relaxed. “Good. Good. Is it true he has a partner now?”

Asirel stiffened, unsure of how to speak of him around James.

“Please, Asirel.” He didn’t expect the pleading in his voice. “I was his godfather.”

Any other time he would’ve relished in this, but Vic’s gore appeared in his mind. He could find no pleasure in tormenting the man he cared so much about, not right now. Not when so many other ghosts surrounded him. Surrounded them.

“He does,” Asirel admitted. “I don’t know much. He keeps those spheres separate. But he has company now.”

James smiled.

And they went on. Asirel shared stories of Isaac, of Vic and Isaac – how the older man would return to him with a glimmer in his eye and, in spite of Asirel’s urgency for information, go on and on about how well Isaac was doing. The day Vic discovered the mysterious lover? He barely made it to the car before calling him, shouting into the receiver.

James spoke of earlier moments. Of memories that Isaac was too young at the time to remember. Dinners, botanical gardens, an amusement park, once. Conversation of Isaac shifted to Sawyer and Sahoko. Vic remained the thoroughfare for every story, the shadow on the wall of their lives. James kept turning to face the coffin, as if still speaking to Vic, including him in the joke. They were acting as if he was still with them. It was easier to talk as if he was.

When Asirel laughed, he felt his heart weighing heavy in his chest.

Eventually, the sun fell, casting the scene in a shifting golden hue. Asirel called his driver and began to walk James back to where he parked his motorcycle. For all their talk of Isaac, they hadn’t forgotten the other young boy, but Asirel hadn’t wanted to interrupt with work. Tara loved leaving him with unfinished business. The bitch. He smiled at the thought.

Asirel stopped walking, and James glanced at him as he pulled out his key.

“Do me a favor.” From a hidden pocket, Asirel pulled a playing card out of his suit jacket. He turned and folded it into the other’s hand.

James looked down. A seven of diamonds. He raised an eyebrow.

“A gift I never got to repay her,” he explained, making dead-on eye contact with the Wraith. “Give it to Elias.”

A moment passed as James scrutinized it, trying to decode whatever message it carried. Finally: “why?”

Asirel flicked his long-burned cigarette away, ignoring the question. “Tell him I say ‘have a nice day.’”

This was the Whatever Yama Says Goes epilogue. I'm sorry for never delivering: it was my fault for dragging it out for so long, but my exhaustion from working on the project (in tandem with my waning interest in the Sakuverse as whole) made it miserable to write.

Still, I posted this because I wanted to share even a fraction of that work with you all. If y'all want, I'll post an explanation of my theories and head canons that were to be in the fic. For example, the two most relevant to this chapter was Tara being a part of the Collective and the Mao-based ritual to initiate members into the organization.

(Mao is a card game where the only way to learn how to play is by playing. The only rule you're allowed to tell others is that you can't explain the rules. Thus, I won't elaborate on the references, except that Asirel telling James to give Elias the card and to tell him "have a nice day" was Asirel's way of giving Tara's seat in the Collective to Elias.)

There’s also the strong possibility this will be my last fic. I won’t say for sure, but it’s like… 99% chance. 99.9%, even. I loved this fandom, but unfortunately, it’s simply not for me anymore <3

#zsakuva #sakuverse #zsakuva asirel #asirel cain #divider by cafekitsune #divider by saradika graphics

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devnmon · 1 year ago

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𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐠𝐨𝐥𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐛𝐨𝐲 𝐣𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧 𝐡𝐜𝐬 ♡

𝐩𝐨𝐯 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐯𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐚 𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐡 𝐨𝐧 𝐣𝐨𝐡𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧. [𝐚𝐟𝐚𝐛 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫] 𝐬𝐟𝐰/𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐰 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐭 𝐱𝐱

𝐚𝐥𝐬𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐞 𝐫 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐛𝐨𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐨𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐧 𝐨𝐫 𝟏𝟖𝟗𝟗/𝟏𝟗𝟎𝟕 𝐣𝐨𝐡𝐧 [𝐢 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐫𝐝𝐫𝟏 𝐲𝐞𝐭]

First off, John is one to not realize his feelings for you until a certain point. He's oblivious to his OWN feelings. That's how long he's liked you. Perhaps you were captured by one of the local gangs or got severely hurt... his heart dropped when he found out. John is a real overthinker... so obviously his mind went right to the worst case scenarios. Though, when Arthur got back to camp with you in tow, he was so damn grateful.

He's taught you to ride a horse, but absolutely flushes when you clutch onto his waist tighter than usual when he picks up speed on the back of his.

His morning voice is almost too sexy to reply to the g'morning he sends your way as he huddles over the campfire, coffee in hand.

John doesn't understand why out of all the more honorable men in the world, you chose him to love and care for with your whole heart.

He's the first to initiate hand holding, especially in public– oh my god. Maybe there's a random man in the bar looking your way... and John, well he just couldn't take someone thinking you were up for grabs. You feel his grip around your hand as his fingers intertwine with yours, the glare he held as cold as ice watching the man turn away from you.

John is reallyyyyyy fucking good at five finger fillet. You're surprised he's not lost all his fingers with the way he moves his knife so swiftly. It's one of the things that made you realize your feelings towards him.

John started crushing on you after you stitched up his face in Colter. Checking his scars every day to make sure they weren't getting infected; the close proximity was just another factor that made his heart race around you.

He becomes comfortable with touch as he falls for you. At first it's just a touch on the arm that has sparks flying, then you're touching his shoulder or back– his cheeks all but flush bright red every time. [Arthur teases him about it. It's adorable.]

John often takes you on rides outside of camp just to get some air from everyone. He really appreciates having alone time where the two of you can talk and bond and wink wink ;))

He also lets you wear his hat when the both of you go out riding together. John tries to get you your own but you think his suits you just fine.

When you tell him 'i love you' for the first time, it takes him a minute to register it. But when he does, he goes "say it again" and just kisses you before saying it back.

Calls you "Miss" around camp, but in private he prefers to call you honey and sweetheart. He feels like calling you your name is something to be kept private too. John Marston is a sucker for closeness with you.

Sometimes you catch him staring from across camp, and you tried so damn hard to hide your smirk from Sadie and the other girls... that you had to excuse yourself from the group.

He cannot be normal or stay still when your hands are on him. You're laying on his bedroll with him, lightly tracing your hands up and down his body and he's all but begging for you to keep going until you can't.

John can never have you close enough; being too close isn't a thing for him. If he could be glued to you, he would.

John would love to learn to cook together. He gets his kicks out of placing his hands on your waist while you're preparing the food, feeding him bits and pieces of veggies you're chopping up.

NSFW

Here's the thing about John. He's suchh a touched starved boy that he absolutely cannot get enough of you from the time you get together. And obviously he's grabby too. Loves putting his hands everywhere on you. Like– everywhere. So much so that he leaves marks mostly every time he gets more than half an hour with you.

His love language is words of affirmation, so of course he basks in the glory when you say "you feel so good" or "right there" . Basically amps him up x10000.

Also John is a cocky little shit and mocks your cries in the bedroom. Then he'll go "Yeah? What ya screamin' my name for? Feels good huh?".

You don't know where he's learned it, but John has such a talented tongue– like, toe curling, back-arching, messy and desperate to please you without ever coming up for air.

John loses all ounce of shame in bed with you. He knows how to please you and if he's letting you be in control... he will beg and pleadddd for you. Like I said– no shame.

Loves when you pull his hair. The first time you did it he went "Atta girl..." with a groan– and you all but came right then and there from the gravel in his voice.

Is such a praiser;; gets off on hearing you whimper underneath him. Stuff like "doin' good for me, doll" and "such a mess for me, huh? look at you..." GOD.

That's another thing with John, he's always on top. Prefers missionary to observe the way you sing for him– and he's smitten all over again.

You're able to convince him to let you be on top– to ride him like the cowboy he is. He even puts his hat on you [mid ride might i say].

Is also a definite cuddler afterwards, he loves hearing your heartbeat steady while he’s pressed up against your back. He’ll suggest the two of you get cleaned up before you fall asleep.

a/n: heyy so i know this is not a lot of hcs but they're the best i got for rn while i ponder on how to write my silly little drabbles :))) stay tuned for those heheh

#john marston #john marston x reader #john marston x you #john marston x female reader #john marston hcs #rdr2 hcs #rdr2 john marston #red dead redemption 2 #john marston fanfiction #john marston fic #john marston fanfic #rdr2 spoilers #dividers by saradika-graphics #dividers by cafekitsune #devnmon writes #ryes ff

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gingernut1314 · 1 year ago

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Extra Special A Songbird Story

Buggy x F!Reader

Summary: Buggy wants to make this Valentine's Day special. Extra special for his extra special songbird.

Warnings: fluff, like the tiniest bit of angst, smut (p in v, biting)

Word Count: 5.4K

A/N: Sooo....I got this out a bit later than I wanted (like an hour late) so it's no longer valentines day...but let's all pretend I got this out in time 😂

This is a part of the Songbird series, though not part of the main storyline (if you want to add this extra little story into the main storyline, it could be read between part 8 and part 9). I hope you all enjoy!!! 🩷🩷🩷

↞ to Songbird Masterlist | One Piece Masterlist | Request Rules | Blog Navigation ↠

“SHIT!” The screaming voice of Buggy and the sound of shattering glass jolted you from your sleep like some alarm clock you hadn’t asked for. You started up, ripping the blankets off your body as you fought against your sleep-blurred eyes to find your captain in the dim light of his room. Panic at the thought of something having happened to him struck you hard and fast.

“NO!” Buggy shouted at you, a detached hand flying your way and shoving up back down in bed with a bounce.

“Hey! Buggy, what the hell happened--”

“Nothin’! Stay asleep!” Your concern turned to irritation as he continued to hold you down.

“I’m not going to stay asleep you jackass!” You huffed, grabbing for his hand to hold it in a way so you could sit up once more.

The door to Buggy’s chambers lay open, the light illuminating the hall filtering into his room and allowing you to see the predicament Buggy had gotten himself into.

He skillfully held a tray of food in his last remaining hand while his sea-glass eyes looked downward mournfully at the shattered mug and spilled tea on his floor. It was your mug, one you had picked up on the last island the Big Top had landed on.

“I-I’m--I broke your mug.” He said slowly, almost as if he was nervous about how you would react.

“Were you bringing me breakfast in bed?” You asked, completely glazing over the subject of your broken mug. Buggy’s mouth fell open as his eyes glanced towards the tray he still balanced.

“Uh--yeah.” You kissed the bit of exposed wrist of the detached hand still in your grip before letting it fly back to his body, a smile pulling to your lips.

“Then what are you waiting for? Come here.” You said patting the empty space next to you. Buggy looked to the spill, then back to you, and then back to the spill once more. “It’s just a mug, baby. I can get a new one.” Those eyes found you once more, his mouth opening and closing like some fish out of water. You sighed, patting the bed a bit more aggressively.

“We’ll clean up later. My stomach is eating itself I’m so hungry.” Buggy rolled his eyes at you dramatically, closing the door before starting for you.

“Now that’s a bit dramatic, don’t ya think, songbird?” You scoffed at him and his silly little grin which was growing wider and wider the closer he got to you.

“Dramatic? I’m dramatic? I’m not the one who was about to cry over--” A gloved hand came up to cover your face, shoving you not so gently back onto your pillow.

“Scoot over, yeah?” The bed dipped as you swatted Buggy’s hand away from your face, shooting him a daggered glare that he merely winked back at.

“Asshole.” You huffed, sitting back up as Buggy passed over you to his side of the bed.

“Yes, but you like this asshole.” A detached hand came around to bop you on the nose as he flopped down next to you.

“Yeah, yeah.” You huffed, watching as he extended the tray of breakfast foods out to you.

“You’re favorites of course.” Your playful annoyance was quickly replaced with that giddy feeling in your chest you still weren’t used to feeling. A feeling that was warm and pressing dangerously against the seams of your heart at Buggy’s thoughtful kindness. You took the tray, placing it in your lap as you smiled gratefully up at your captain.

“And--” He said, a detached hand flying into the bathroom only to come back out with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. They were in the colors of yellow and white and sat in a red and white striped popcorn container. You realized the flowers were supposed to mimic the food typically within such a container.

You’re mouth hung wide open as Buggy handed you the flowers, his grin turning all too goofy. A smile that was even more stunning than any flower you could ever receive.

“Thank you, baby. What did I do to deserve all this today?” You asked, bringing the flowers to your nose to smell their sweet scent.

Shit--they even smelled like popcorn. How’d he do that?

“Cause today’s Valentine's Day, duh.” You blinked up at him. Blinked once, twice--

“Valentine’s Day? I don’t understand.” Buggy’s eyes all but fell out of their sockets in shock.

“What? You don’t know what Valentine's Day is?” You shook your head and Buggy continued to gap at you. “It’s only one of the biggest holidays they celebrate in the East Blue.” You shrugged at him, leaning over to place the flowers on the nightstand next to you.

“I grew up under a rock, remember? My dad didn’t care about shit like holidays.” You said, looking over the assortment of food on the tray in your lap. You went for the fruit first, popping one in your mouth as Buggy gave a huff of annoyed air.

“The more I learn ‘bout your daddy the more I dislike him.” You shrugged, moving so you could hook your feet over Buggy’s lap, bringing the warmth of his body flush against yours. His hand was quick to find purchase on your thigh, giving it a tight squeeze as you raised a bit of fruit to his lips.

“Tell me about it?” You asked, Buggy taking the fruit from your fingers. The brush of his painted lips made your skin tingle and burn and wish to feel over them.

“Well--ya know. It's just a day you spend with the people you care about.” He said between chews. “Do nice things for ‘em. Treat ‘em extra special.”

You tried to play it off cooly by taking a bite from some of the other foods on the tray, but you were anything but cool. Your heart was beating against your rips in a near-painful manner. That giddy feeling rolling around in your chest so fast it made your heart ache with its wildness.

He cared about you. He was telling with his words that he cared about you.

“Oh? And--I’m getting treated extra special?” You asked, raising a fork full of food for Buggy to take. He did and gave your thigh another squeeze.

“No, I’m gonna treat Cabaji to a good time. I’m gonna go snuggle up in bed with him while I feed him breakfast.” You rolled your eyes at Buggy’s tease, taking another bite of your food.

“But you’re not feeding me breakfast. I’m feeding you.” You said, bringing another fork full of food for him to eat. He took it with an audible chomping sound.

“Hand over the fork then, smartass.” You smirked, keeping the fork far away from him.

“I thought you were supposed to be nice to me today.” Buggy was quick to snatch the fork from your hand, his other hand moving from your thigh to pinch at your side in a way that had you yelping and squirming to get away. The tray of food Buggy had so kindly brought to you almost found its way onto the floor to join your mug had Buggy not sent a detached booted foot to nudge it back into place.

“I am being nice. See how nice I’m being.” He insisted, skewering a piece of fruit onto the fork and choo-choo training it towards you. You mocked irritation once more at his antics but ate the fruit with a chuckle.

“I’ll forgive you if you say sorry.” You said after swallowing. Buggy gave a chuckle of his own as he grabbed your cheeks in a squishing hold, pulling you closer and closer until his lips crashed into yours.

His grip loosened, giving your lips the freedom to move in tandem with his. To taste the spices within your breakfast and the sweetness of the fruit.

Buggy pulled away all too soon and you chased after his lips, needing that little buzz of happiness kissing him gave rise in you.

“I’m sorry.” He said against your lips, which claimed yours once more.

“Humm…I don’t know if I forgive you.” Buggy gave a rumbling growl that shook through your chest, burning at your skin.

“Oh yeah? Do I need to beg for your forgiveness?” You smirked, running your fingers over his exposed arm, feeling over the smooth skin and the course blue hair that lay there.

“Begging is a very good start.” He gave that little whimper you loved oh so much to hear. One that had you grabbing him closer, the tray of food forgotten fully as he grabbed you right back.

And just as Buggy had opened his mouth to start to beg, sweet sounds your body begged itself to hear, a knock sounded at his door. One that had anger spiking in Buggy so sharp and fast he was ripping himself off of you and hurling himself from bed, leaving you a drunk kissed mess.

“WHAT DID I TELL YOU IDIOTS?” Buggy shouted as you fought to calm yourself back down.

As he screeched and howled at whoever had interrupted his alone time, you went about picking up the bits of food that had fallen in your hast to get your captain closer.

You ate the rest of your breakfast as you pulled yourself from bed, yanking on a pair of Buggy’s pj bottoms which lay scattered over the floor as you went about tidying up the red sheets, as well as picking up the mess that was your shattered mug.

As you did this, you caught bits and pieces of Buggy’s conversation with, who after a quick peek through the crack in the door Buggy had left, found Mohji standing there looking very, very stressed.

“There is a tax to dock, captain.”

“Then don’t dock. Go around the island.”

“We-we did sir. There are docks all around the island and the beaches are very populated--guards posted on each.” You threw the mug away as Buggy fumed at these words.

“And the next nearest island?”

“A day’s journey, captain.” Buggy cursed. And cursed and cursed some more.

“Fine! Pay the godsdamned tax.” Mohji left with a quick yes, captain and an apology before his footsteps rushed off. Buggy came back in looking like he was about to pop a blood vessel. It was a look that only deepened when he found you were finishing up cleaning the spilled tea. “What are you--”

“You never pay a tax. We should just go to the next island.” Buggy huffed, slamming the door shut behind him.

“We can’t just “go to the next island” ‘cause today is Valentine's Day. Not tomorrow. And this island has the best beaches for miles.” You blinked at him slowly--beaches. You loved beaches. Loved the sun on your skin and the sand between your toes. It was a fact Buggy knew of you. A love he had learned of during both of your time on the Going Merry.

“Are you--are you taking me to the beach?” You asked calmly, trying to not get your hopes up. Buggy huffed away, trying to settle his raging emotions as he snagged a small, light blue bag from under his vanity.

“Take a look.” He said, pulling a smile to his face that seemed to help him calm down greatly.

Fake it until you make it was the philosophy you believed Buggy went with to get through life. It was a pretty good philosophy--one you might even pick up living by.

You took the bag from Buggy’s hand, pulling the red tissue paper out to find a few pieces of folded, polyester outfits within.

The first you pulled out was a pair of blue, yellow, and red diamond-patterned swim trunks. Trunks that were definitely meant for Buggy who was now genuinely grinning again as he watched you open the gift.

The next thing you pulled out was a matching bikini. It was tasteful, but still cut in a fashion you knew Buggy was eager to see you in. In other words, small but covered the important bits pretty well.

The suits were bright and flashy and so Buggy. You loved it.

“Wha’d ya-” You didn’t let him finish his question before you were attacking him in a hug and in smacking kisses to both his cheeks.

“I love it! Thank you, baby.” Buggy grabbed hold of your hips, finding your lips for a kiss.

“How ‘bout you get ready and I’ll make sure everything’s in order with this shitty tax, hum?” You nodded, kissing him again quickly before rushing off to the bathroom.

The beach was crowded, just as you had heard Mohji tell Buggy, but you and your captain found a space a little ways away from everyone. And, as an added bonus, it was far enough away from the water that Buggy’s nerves were put at ease.

You dug your toes into the sand as you watched Buggy set up camp, pulling beach chairs open and laying a blanket down before your chairs. He placed a picnic basket down on top of it, one he had surprised you with on the way here. Buggy even put up an umbrella, though that was mainly for him.

And he did this all in just his flashy swim trunks.

The sun was no help in the growing heat in your body.

No help as you watched the muscles throughout his arms and legs work. No help as you watched his blue hair, which he had put up in a flowy ponytail, fall over his shoulders, leading the eyes to his chest. A chest covered in a dusting of blue hair that you had run your fingers through many, many times before and wished to do now.

It had you almost wishing to take Buggy by the hand and drag him all the way back to the Big Top just so you could see those muscles work to pull those swim trunks off. So you could see the delicate skin that lay hidden beneath and run your tongue--

“Tah dah!” Buggy exclaimed, a pound smile on his face as he gestured towards the set up.

“Good job, baby.” You praised, swallowing down the sudden dryness in your mouth. Buggy beamed like one of the rays of sunlight shining down on you two under your praise.

“You gonna take that cover off? Let me see how good you look in that bikini?” You nodded, placing your beach bag into one of the chairs before yanking your cover-up--which was just one of Buggy’s old t-shirts--over your head.

Buggy gave a low curse as you showed off your new swimsuit--you moving your body in a way that put it on full display for him.

“You like?” You asked as you watched Buggy’s tongue shoot out to wet his lips.

“Do a little twirl for me.” You did so without question, moving your hips in a sultry rotation that earned you a low groan from your captain. “Shit, songbird--maybe we should call it quits? Head back to the ship.” You smirked as you faced him once more.

“Humm we could…but no. I want to get some sun.” You said, the clown all but whining in displeasure. “You were the one who chose this bikini. You only have yourself to blame.” Buggy dramatically pouted.

“Let me at least put lotion on ya. Don’t want you to burn.” You shrugged dismissively.

“I don’t burn.” Buggy’s hands flexed at your continued denial to let him touch you.

“I do.” You scanned over his body slowly, making the clown all but squirm under your gaze.

“Would you like me to put lotion on you?” He nodded frantically, sending a detached hand for the lotion in your bag. He all but shoved it in your hands before sitting down on the blanket before you.

You knelt down behind him, putting a dollop of lotion on your hand. You moved his hair over his shoulder before beginning to rub the lotion in, your captain humming and leaning back to be closer to your touch.

You took your time rubbing it into his skin, tracing shapes into his skin, and digging your fingers into the tenser bits of muscle you came across. The whole time Buggy was a huming, groaning mess and it was making your body utterly ache to have him hum and groan in other such pleasurable ways.

Once every last bit of skin was covered, you moved around to sit before him, his eyes dazed and struggling to focus. Eyes that scanned over your body, which he began to reach for.

“Uh-ah. No touching.” Buggy huffed, those green-blue eyes snapping to look into your own.

“Why not?”

“Because I only get to touch.” This earned you another, rumbling groan, and those eyes lulling closed. You watched him shift, his trunks seeming to grow just a bit tighter around his crotch. You smirked at his flushed state.

“Let’s go back to the ship.” He asked on a whisper, as if your answer might change. You put another dollop of lotion onto your hand and began to rub it into his shoulder, chest, and abdomen.

“Later, baby. You went through all the trouble to get these swimsuits, make us lunch, and pay that tax.” You said, his sea-glass eyes opening to watch you near mournfully. With a chuckle, you leaned forward and placed a soft, lingering kiss on his painted lips. A kiss he savored and whined when it ended. “Thank you. You’ve made me feel extra special today.”

A small smile pulled to Buggy’s lips, that warm emotion flashing through his eyes. A look you thrived under whenever he graced you with it.

“Of course, songbird. Speakin’ of extra special, I have another gift for ya.” He said, sending both of his chopped hands towards the basket.

“Another one? Buggy, baby, that’s too much--” Buggy shushed you with a quick kiss. He pulled away as his hands reattached to his body, the box he had grabbed thrust into your hands.

“Nothin’s too much for my songbird. Now open it.” He said excitedly. You sighed, your own excitement dancing around in your chest.

You tugged at the box’s flaps, freeing them from the colorful tape holding them closed. A small gasp left you as you pulled one of the gifts out.

It was a notebook. A beautifully elegant notebook that, in looping letters, said Songbird’s Songbook #1.

And there were more notebooks within the box. Books of different colors and designs but had the same title drawn on the cover. Each was labeled with a number as well.

You felt your eyes prick and you fought to keep from making a fool of yourself in front of Buggy.

“I-Buggy…” You said in a small voice, looking back towards the man you cared for so, so much. A man who had changed your life for the better--who had pulled you from such a dark, dark place.

Guilt panged in your chest. A guilt that rose your anxiety and had you tapping your fingers against the hardcover of the songbook.

“I didn’t get you anything. You should have told me you were doing all this. How--this is--baby, I want to get you something too. Something as thoughtful and beautiful as this. I--” Buggy cut you off with a soft, comforting cradle of your face between his ungloved hands.

“Baby, you’re gift enough for me.” You huffed, feeling those tears begin to pool in your eyes. “I don’t need anything but you. Don’t worry. Please don’t worry.” But you couldn’t not worry. Because you were worried every day that you wouldn’t be good enough. That he would find some reason to toss you away--to abandon you.

“Hey--if you really want to give me something, you could sing for me.” You blinked a few times to clear the tears stinging your eyes on a nod. “Ya? Okay--hey, stop that.” He chuckled, running his thumb under your eye to try and comfort you further. “A song and your company would be a perfect gift.” You nodded again, clearing your throat from its tightness.

“What--what would you like me to sing?” You asked, leaning your cheek further into his palm.

“How ‘bout that song you’ve been workin’ on?”

“It’s not finished.” He nodded, his smile pulling wider.

“I know. But it’s still my favorite.” You smiled, that giddy, warm feeling filling your chest like a flash of lightning. With a quick kiss to his lips, you two laid out on the blanket, facing one another as you began to sing your song softly.

Buggy watched you like you were the most interesting thing in the whole world. Watched you with that warm look in his eyes and an easy smile on his lips. His hand found its way to feel over your side, running his fingers up and down your skin.

You sang your song of lonely and restless need. Of freedom and the sea and of a feeling for someone so strong it could drive them mad.

When you finished your unfinished song, which you had added just that much more to since the last time you had sung it to him, Buggy pulled you in for another soft, lingering kiss that had your heart soar like some dove.

You almost grabbed him back into you when he pulled away but thought better of it--there would be plenty of time to hold and caress each other after this little beach trip.

Buggy went about presenting you with lunch then in a flashy manner. The lunch was simple but perfectly catered for a beach day.

After lunch, you two sat in your beach chairs. You soaking up the sun and Buggy sitting in the shade of his umbrella, hand in hand.

Once you had had your fill of sun and sand and the sound of crashing waves, you helped Buggy pack everything up before heading for the Big Top.

The ship was as quiet as the grave, the rest of the crew out enjoying the beautiful day and exploring the island you had paid to stay on.

“I don’t get mad,” Buggy started, pulling you towards the circus tent that stood proudly close to the bow of the ship. “But I might have one more gift for ya.” You smiled and squeezed his hand a little tighter.

“Then I owe you one more song.” Buggy squeezed your hand right back with a nod.

“I would love that, songbird.” He led you to the entrance, placing all of your beach gear on the deck before turning you around and covering your eyes with his hands. “No peaking.” He whispered in your ear, sending a shiver down your spine.

You held onto his hands as he led you into the circus tent, your steps a little stiff from your momentary blindness. Buggy positioned you and turned you just a little bit this way and that before you felt his breath on your ear again.

“Okay…ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Buggy chuckled before removing his hands from your eyes.

You gasped at the sight before you. A wonderful scene, one with a candlelit dinner table, a meal still steaming and ready to eat. You gathered it must have just been laid out, meaning one of your crewmates was making a mad dash for the exit.

Flowers covered the surrounding area, filling the space with their forally sweet smells. Music played softly in the background as well. Songs from your favorite artists and inspiration since childhood.

But on top of the dinner and the candles and the music, sitting in the middle of the circus ring was a shining, sleek piano. Another one of those songbooks lay on the music stand, a single rose pressed between its pages.

“I’ll have it moved to one of the backrooms so you can have a little more privacy to practice and create your music. I know you’ve been needing a piano so--” You snapped around and attacked Buggy in a tearful kiss before he could finish.

Your captain was quick to wrap you up in his arms, pulling you flush against his warm body. Your lips moved in perfect synchrony. In a sweet, tearful kiss that gradually grew more needy. More wanting and fiery.

You pulled away, littering kisses over his cheeks and jaw and neck, your hands sliding their way downward. Fingers pulled at his bright swim trunks and you were just about to follow your hands downward when Buggy stopped your descent. You whined but it was silenced by his burning kiss.

“Nah-uh. Want to make you feel good.”

“But--” A voice stealing kiss found you again, Buggy’s body moving you backward until you ran into the piano he had just gifted you.

His feeling hands found the strings to your bikini and loosened the top so that the triangle-shaped fabric fell away from your breasts, hanging loosely around your waist. Those stunning eyes of his darkened in lust at the sight of you, his tongue coming out to wet his lips in something akin to hunger.

Your fingers were gripping the back of his neck and guiding him towards your pebbled nipples, Buggy readily following your lead. His teeth grazed over the sensitive heft of your left breast, making a low moan pour from your chest. A low thing that turned mewling when his lips encased your nipple, sucking and flicking his tongue over its peek.

You held him closer, your body giving out onto the keys of the piano, making the instrument give a screeching ring that echoed throughout the circus tent.

Buggy’s strong arms grabbed you around your thighs and shoved you up onto those keys, abusing the poor, elegant instrument once more with your weight.

You would have been worried about breaking such a beautiful gift had a pleasure-filled fog not begun to roll through your mind, blocking out any sense or reason.

He removed his mouth with a pop from your breast only to latch it around your untouched and lonely left breast. Your fingers scraped over the back of his neck, pulling low moans of his own from his throat, the vibrations of it buzzing at your body and adding to the growing wetness between your legs.

Buggy’s hands grabbed for the bottom of your bikini, yanking them off with help from his chop-chop abilities to fully do so without pulling away from you.

He switched breasts again, biting lightly at your flesh and making you squirm in his hold at the flashes of pleasure that pulsed through you.

You spread your legs further, giving Buggy full access to your weeping pussy. It wanted his touch--needed it and you were beginning to grow desperate.

A chopped hand crawled its way down your stomach, finding its home on top of the mound of your pelvis.

“I should make you beg for it, ya know.” He murmured around your breast, flicking his tongue over your nipple and pulling a needy little whine from you. “For teasing me at the beach.”

“Y-your fault. You--” You sucked in a shuttering breath as he dipped a finger into your dripping folds. A finger that rounded your cilt but never once dared to touch it, sending you just enough pleasure but never enough to scratch the deep itch that had been building within your body all day. “You bought the damn bathing suit.”

Buggy chuckled, pulling away from your nipple to lick a wet trail up the valley of your breasts, sinking his teeth into your neck. A pinch of pain that only melded and mixed with that dulled buzz he had lifting in you.

“I wanted to match. So fuckin’ sexy.” And his finger finally moved to land on your clit, rubbing circles into it and sending your body radiating in ecstasy.

“Oh--oh gods--yes--thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you!” You rambled into his hair, holding his face that much closer to your neck, which he continued to bite and suck a deep bruise into. “I-I love this fucking suit--oh my gods!”

Your hips began to move on their own accord, rocking against his finger and his cock, which had tented his trunks in his own arousal.

More, more, more.

You need more of him. All of him.

With these foggy thoughts in mind, you reached your hand down to tug his suit as low as you could. It was an action that only exposed more of that happy blue trail which led to your real goal, still hidden breath those bright trunks.

“C-Captain--Captian, please, please, please! I-I need you in me please!” You begged, continuing to pull at the band of his trunks to spur him on.

“F-Fuck--yeah, baby. Anythin’ ya need.” He grit out pulling away just enough to shove his swimsuit down, letting his cock spring free from its restraint. He hissed at the sudden exposure to the chiller air, his tip already leaking milky pearls of precome.

You grabbed for him, running your thumb over his slit and spreading it around the mushroomed head of him. Your mouth fell open on a needy pant as he thrust mindlessly into her hand, bringing his cock that much closer to your sobbing pussy.

Digging the heels of your feet into that perk little ass of his, you dragged him closer and closer until he was pressed oh so nicely against your entrance.

It took only took one thrust and your guiding hand to have him sinking inch by glorious inch into your aching pussy. Your walls flexed and relaxed around him, sucking him deeper and deeper into you.

“Oh fuck.” Buggy cursed in your ear as he bottomed out, his last unchopped hand coming up to grab a fistful of your breast. You nibbled at that pierced ear, humming your growing satisfaction for him.

“M-move, baby. S-so good for me.” You breathed, raking your fingernails up and down his back, sending shivers through your captain’s body.

“Yes--fuck, yes, songbird.” He said on a whimper, his hips pulling him all the way out all the way to his reddened tip, only to sharply thrust back into you. You gave a deep moan of his name, hanging onto him for deep life.

Each thrust sent low humming through your body. Humming that grew louder and louder and louder until it was all you could hear.

Each bite and suck at your neck spread sparks along your skin like the start of some wildfire.

Each circle and flick of your cilt ignited and deepened that built within the depths of your abdomen.

Buggy chuckled against your skin, his thrusts never once faltering in their steady, pleasure-pulling pace.

“Wh-what?” You panted, grabbing hold of his chin to look into those sea-glass eyes. Eyes a swirl of blown-out lust and mirth.

“J-just--heh--this wasn’t what I had in mind when I said--m-makin’ music.” He huffingly laughed, a rather brutal thrust pulling a deep moan from your chest. A thrust that pushed your body harder into the keys beneath you, the piano letting out a horrid sound at the sudden movement.

“I-It’ll be inspiration.” You wavered, moving his lips against yours in a sloppy dance of tongues and spit.

That deep build rolled around within you. Rolled and spurred your hips to move that much faster against Buggy’s. The added pressure of his pelvic bone slamming against his finger, which pushed against your clit that much harder had that white buzz spread through your thighs, into your hips, and then to rush wildly down through your core.

Buggy pulled from your kiss, free hand shooting up to hold your neck in a loose hold so that he could watch your brows furrow and mouth hang open in a gasping call of his name as you came. Your walls fluttered and clenched around his cock, pulling your name and nicknames alike from Buggy’s panted lips.

He pushed fully into you, nose brushing against yours as hot ribbons of come shot into your constricting pussy in spurts.

Buggy whimpered, burying his face in the crook of your neck. His body fell slump against yours, only held up by your legs around his waist and your arms around his waist. You held him tight, pressing your forehead into the side of his head, breathing in his scent with each heaving pull of air into your lungs.

“I think--I think we broke the piano.” You panted with a chuckle, kissing his shoulder. Buggy groaned, his body finding strength enough to hold you back just as tight.

“Whatever--I’ll steal you another one. I’ll steal so many pianos you won’t know what to do with them all.” You kissed his shoulder once more, a large, goofy grin pulling to your lips. One that, just like that warm feeling in your chest, you couldn’t help.

“Thank you. Today was very extra special.”

Original Requester for main Songbird series: @srgtjamesbarnes

Tag List: @lostfirefly , @fanaticsnail , @empressofmankind , @synoname-wordsmith , @cefni , @solarrexplosion , @luvrsbian , @misadventures0fdes , @fanshavegottensotoxic , @wasabiprophet , @ane5e , @friedtacokitty

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