#tommy shelby fanfic

[awritesthings1]

All The Things We Don't Say

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Female Reader

Summary: An anthology of your life with Tommy, from friends to strangers to lovers, and all the little moments in between.

Warnings: 18+, implied DV, substance abuse, childhood trauma, ptsd, overprotective tommy, swearing, brief smut, longfic oneshot, feminist themes (motherhood & being a wife in the 1920s).

ao3 link

-

Smash!

“Pick it up!”

Your daddy was a drunk. You remembered the fact since you could walk. He stayed home while the working men left for the factories, then disappeared in the late hours of the morning until his eventual return when the slam of the front door woke the household up. Mother used to hold you at night as she curled up in your bed. She was sick a lot. Always sniffing into the back of your neck when you were asleep. Sometimes the sleeve of your nightgown would get soaked while she muffled her hiccups.

She looked sad, too. In the morning, she kept the curtains drawn and stayed away from the outside world. She told you it was to keep nosey Mrs. Gretel away from her family affairs. But Mrs. Gretel had left Birmingham two months prior.

By seven years old, you were the 'man' of the house. You had gone to sleep one night, and when you awoke, your mother had vaporized into the air like a rabbit in a hat.

“She left because of you,” your father slurred at you.

You hated him.

She left behind her long-sleeve dresses, scarves, and wicker hats that covered nearly every inch of her skin. They were far too big for you then, but when your father came home at the end of the week with a stack of cash, you ran to your mother’s closet, which had remained untouched until then, to find only cobwebs. Gone. Every single one of her dresses. You looked out at the moon in those early hours of the morning and swore to it that when you were bigger, you would get him back so much worse.

And so you were left to clean up his smashed glass bottles and scrub the alcohol out of the gritty carpet. Your little hands struggled to pluck the glass from the floorboards. In a year’s time, they were covered in little scars.

On your tenth birthday, you decided you were grown enough to take matters into your own hands. When he was passed out on the floor from whatever he managed to fill his pipe with, you grabbed the small bottles he hid under a loose floorboard and poured them into the gutter at the back of your house.

You turned to run back to the door when the contents of the bottle were empty, but a ball almost tripped you over. You gripped your tattered skirt before you could lose your footing and snapped your head around with a fierce pout.

“That’s my ball,” pointed a young Thomas Shelby.

You put your small hands on your smaller hips. “You kicked it my way on purpose!”

You weren’t entirely sure, but you suspected it.

“Maybe I thought you were pretty,” he grinned.

You noticed his two front teeth were missing.

“Ewwww! I would never go out with you!” You squawked.

At ten years old, you knew better than that.

Seemingly unaffected by your distaste, he continued. “Do you live there?” He nodded to the house whose roof was falling apart.

“What’s it to you?” You frowned stubbornly, not wanting to admit that, yes, that was your house.

“The curtains are always drawn,” he answered, walking over to pick up his ball from your feet. He was the same height as you were at the time. “My brother Arthur said it’s haunted. He saw a ghost in the window once. He said it was a woman and that she starved to death.”

Your nose scrunched up. "Well, he’s a phony!”

You ran inside said house and slammed the door shut.

He kissed you down by the docks that winter. It was your first kiss, and a clumsy one at that, so you didn’t remember much of it.

By thirteen, you had given in and sold the rest of your mother’s belongings to support yourself. You hated yourself for it, and that nagging voice inside your head told you that you were no better than your father. Oh, and your father? Your father lost vision in his left eye from a bar fight. Too bad it wasn’t both.

Sometime later, a boy two years older than you saw your wandering hand in someone’s bag at the fair and threatened to teach you some manners ‘the hard way’. You bit anxiously on your nails and pleaded with him because he was bigger than most boys his age, when Tommy’s brother Arthur (who you’d seen hanging around the Garrison) came passing by and threatened to ‘toss him about’. The other boy, not all believing in Arthur’s temper, rushed forward, and the two ended up rolling in the dirt, but by then you were gone with a stolen pocket watch in your fist. Nearly two legs and an arm deep in poverty, some quick cash, or a hero complex? You’d take the penny.

At fourteen, a lady knocked on your door. It was a lady of the night who had come to inform your father that he had fathered a son with her. You were glad it was a boy. A girl wouldn’t have stood a chance in the slums of Birmingham. Life was hard, but Birmingham was harder. Your father had refused to listen to the young woman and shooed her off. You never saw her teary-eyed face again.

At fifteen, your father attempted to wash his hands of you by marrying you off to the highest bidder. There was no real auction, but just about anyone who suggested a handsome sum of money did the trick.

“His name is William,” you exhaled, kicking your legs over the edge of the dock.

Tommy laughed. “You won’t marry him.”

“What choice do I have, Tom?”

Your finances were getting tight, and the gloomy pressure to take up working at night like many young ladies was beginning to loom closer and closer. You hated being a woman. Boys would never have to worry about selling themselves to survive.

“I’ll put a gypsy curse on him,” he decided, squinting his eyes from the bright reflection dancing across the water.

You hit his shoulder.

“No, you won't, because then you’ll be cursing me.”

The severity of your situation began to dawn on Tommy. No amount of pestering Polly for change to spare would relieve you of your burden any longer.

“That’s it, then?” He gulped, shifting his glassy eyes to the harbor.

You sighed and followed his gaze.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad. I’ll never have to see dad again, and William promised to take care of me.”

Tommy scoffed.

You frowned at him. “What?”

He shook his head.

“What! Tom—”

“Don’t marry him.”

You rolled your eyes. “Oh, here we go, why?”

“You know why.”

You were engaged to William on the eve of your seventeenth birthday. He was a very proper man and never dared to go any further than hooking an arm around yours on formal occasions. You were never attracted to his thin mustache nor the thick lenses he wore. In fact, he was incredibly awkward at social occasions, always checking his pocket watch and avoiding eye contact with whichever circle he stood in.

Tommy began to fade out of your life around that time. Margaret—a lady who had taken you on to help with the sewing of her family’s tailoring business—told you that Tommy was spotted arm in arm with another girl that week. You expected to feel jealous, but you felt nothing. You knew love would never be your right. Love was for the more fortunate.

You spent that year learning how to be a wife. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too different from what you did as a child—cooking and cleaning up like you did when your father came home, that is. It was comforting to have a routine in place. It meant finality—no one walking in and out of your life as they pleased, and certainly no more growling stomachs. Perhaps being a wife was a skill your mother never learned. You were grateful for William’s mother, who seemed to be more than enthusiastic to show you the reigns.

After a year-long engagement, you caught your fiancé, William, locked in a compromising position with another man.

“Oh,” was all you got out before leaving his house.

You lacked the special ingredient that marriages needed: love.

You sat down at the fountain across the street. William and his lover’s silhouette were visible behind the blinds he had drawn on the second floor, which peered over the sidewalk. You watched their shadows fluster their feathers around the room like headless geese, and for a moment your head surfaced above water and laughter frothed out between your sealed lips. Perhaps Birmingham made you a little mad.

You didn’t go through with the marriage. You suspected William was relieved.

That week, your father left. You never knew whether he left on his own accord or just never made it home one night. Either way, you never really cared to find out.

With nothing left to lose, you knocked on the Shelby family’s door at Watery Lane. Finn appeared around the other side of the door a moment later.

“Is Tommy home?”

Finn nodded, spinning on his heel to alert his brother. When Tommy did appear, his shoulders were tensed. Disheveled hair never looked so stylish on him. When you saw his suspenders (which were hastily thrown on), you wanted to ask who he expected to be at the door that he planned to answer dressed in such fashion but then thought better of it. He peered down at you, then checked over his shoulder before ushering you inside and up to his bedroom.

“It’s… smaller than I thought,” you landed on, taking in his room.

After all these years, you had never stepped foot into the Shelby home. You weren’t the type of person to come door-knocking.

You turned around to face Tommy after hearing him click the lock on his door.

“Are you hurt?" were the first words he had spoken to you in a year.

“No.” You pressed your lips together, eyeing everything from the bed to the view out the window.

Silence followed closely after.

“Then why are you here?” Tommy sighed.

Your vision began to blur then. “I don’t know,” you said honestly, trying to stop your bottom lip from trembling.

Desperately, you pushed your hair back and straightened up, attempting to hold yourself together. You must have looked like a puppet being held together by a string, given how poor you looked.

Tommy’s boots pad across the wooden floor. “You love me?”

Did that word truly exist? How could you answer if you never knew what it meant to love?

You don’t meet his eyes. He licked his lips, pushing your head up to meet his with his thumb. His eyebrows rose expectantly.

“I don’t know what to do, Tom,” you breathed, avoiding his question. “I’m all alone now. No William, no father…”

His lips parted, and you watched with fascination as the cogs turned in his head. “Yes… that is a problem." His breath fanned over your face.

You gagged, a reaction you yourself had not expected, before rushing to his door, only to remember that, yes, he had locked it, before turning to the nearest silver bucket in the corner to empty your guts.

The first thing you heard when you caught your breath was, “are you pregnant?”

No, but when you stand so close to me and I can smell the cigarettes you smoke and your freshly washed skin, I can imagine a future where we are married, and I see your face growing more disappointed as we age together because you married a woman who never knew how to be a mother to your children nor a wife who knew to tend to you with affection by your bedside when you’re ill.

“No,” you choked, spitting out the vile taste in your mouth. “We never did anything.”

You wanted him to know that. You wanted him to think that you never let William touch you because you never loved him, not because William wasn’t interested in girls.

A moment later, Tommy sat beside you on the floor and quietly combed your hair away from your wobbling lips.

“So, if you’re not pregnant and you don’t love me, why are you here?”

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. How were you supposed to answer that? After letting your guts loose in his room, you thought he would surely have booted you out the door.

A knock came on the door: “Tommy?”

“A minute, Finn!” Tommy growled at the door, refusing to back away from your trembling frame.

You were so hungry. Margaret had to cut back your hours ever since her husband fell ill. She spent more time by his bedside than keeping the store open, which meant you were making less than usual. The imminent closing of the store hung over your head like a taunting crow, gouging your insides like you were Prometheus. Birmingham your chains, a woman your fate, and the bird your punishment for thinking you deserved more.

“I should go.” You shivered at the draft inching towards your skin from the open window.

Tommy’s intense gaze stuttered, falling to your lap, where you picked at the dead skin around your nails. He cleared his throat, fishing out the key from his pocket. Although it was dull and muted from the years, it gleaned brightly in your eyes as if it were the reward you came for. Flushed, you grabbed it out of his hands without sparing a glance. Electricity sparked in those precious seconds, igniting a deadly fire in your belly.

“You’re cold." Tommy flinched at your touch.

You retreated as soon as the key slid into the hole and unlocked with a click. In your haste, you left the most valuable thing you owned there in his room.

Your heart.

The months went by, and summer arrived. The stories your mother told you left you expecting a bright gleam of air that would wash over the streets and paint each tree and every patch of grass a frighteningly bright green that would even encourage grumpy Mrs. Gretel to come out to preen her stubborn roses that would just not grow. Birmingham left less to be desired. The summer days never came, and that persisting bitter bog thickened, albeit with slightly less rain. There were gray clouds, smoke from the factories, and a shivering north westerly, which pushed said clouds at breakneck speed as if they had somewhere to be. You looked to the sky one day and said a prayer for blue breezes and sweltering sun, but the sky was empty.

Sometime later, men marched the streets armed with guns in their ‘dashing’ uniforms. A war, they said, a great one. Queues lined the street for the post offices and grocers. Rain rivaled the bustle of the city. What did it feel like to love someone so much as to stand in the pouring rain next to the gutter? You wanted that kind of love. Not the love you could only give yourself because even you didn’t want your own love.

One of the soldiers decorated in medals stood on a crate at the port, yelling something supposedly inspiring that captured the attention of many young men. The words honorable and patriotic were tossed in there like a delectable salad, enticing them in the way farmers held a carrot to a pig’s snout.

You pitied their mothers. Their daughters were married off, and then their sons were swooning over the idea of dying. Birmingham was filthy, rotting, and disgusting. You needed to leave.

You kissed Margaret goodbye on the cheek one Tuesday morning. Ever since your pockets turned out empty, you had been working as a bedside nurse for her ill-stricken husband. They were good to you, and they were probably the only people you could consider family.

She patted your cheek and said, "you're doing good to serve this country.”

You hadn’t had the heart to tell her you were leaving because the city was marring your flesh, so you slipped her the sugarcoated lie of wanting to join the war effort so that you might help others who were bedridden, just like her husband.

At the train station, you stood with your suitcases held tightly in both arms. You had to set one down to hold onto your hat as a train full of men waving their caps out the window pulled into the station. Some children weaved between the crowd, wagging a newspaper above their heads, hoping to make a quick penny. To your side, women wept for their brothers, husbands, and lovers.

“Who are you wishing off?” asked an elderly woman who was clutching her cane.

“Oh, I’m not. I’m boarding the next train.”

She laughed, and you wondered how old your mother would be now. Would she have grown wrinkles and settled into a deeper laugh like this woman?

“My dear, you have a bright imagination if you think they will let a woman on any of these trains.”

A sudden anger filled your blood. “Why not?”

“These men are heading straight for London, where they will be shipped away to France to fight,” the woman explained as if it were any other day.

“I’ll catch the next train then.”

She shook her head, and her frail hand curled tighter around her cane. “They’ve stopped the trains so they can transport soldiers to London.”

You frowned. “Then how will I leave Birmingham?”

You’ll never forget her dismissive laughter.

“My dear, you won’t.”

Men boarded the train, clapping each other on the back with a wink and a laugh. When a line of men on the platform thinned, the train whistled, and you looked over just in time to see Polly, Ada, and little Finn standing with their hands crossed over their hearts as they waved to the train.

No. It wasn’t possible.

But it was because you caught the gleam of the razors sewn into their peaky caps. Tommy, Arthur, and John all stood aboard the train, sticking their heads out and waving to Polly and Ada with a grin that wrung your stomach like a wet cloth.

Those countless daydreams you spun, the intricate webs you wove, began breaking down to thin fibers. In one pathway, you stayed there in his room and told him the truth you always denied yourself. You loved him. In another, you stood next to Polly, close to tears, as you begged him to come home safely. There was a resounding click in that moment as your breath stuttered. You had been the person who wiped away those futures, thinking it was nothing but an annoying spiderweb. Oh, how wrong you were!

“Tommy!” You left your suitcases behind and stepped around the old woman as you ducked under hugs and tearful goodbyes.

“Tommy!” You cried again with the gusto of someone who certainly shouldn’t be as concerned as they were considering you left him in his room that day.

Thankfully, his eyes eventually found yours as you pushed through the last line of people. You stood there and stomached all your regrets head-on. It was funny how, up until that moment, you managed to squash every seed of doubt. Why was it that you only realized what you had when it was slipping out of reach?

He never called your name back. He just stared at you blankly as the train pulled away, unlike you, who clung to the image of his frame even as the train disappeared from sight and the crowd began to disperse. You stood there unblinking, hoping to soak up the last of him before you forgot the intensity of his eyes or the humming rumble of his voice. Because the idea of something you held dearly becoming a memory meant that it could as easily be forgotten, and that terrified you. Your eyes were watering now, against your best wishes.

You overheard Polly ushering Finn and Ada off. Finn rushed home without protest, but Ada stopped in her tracks when she saw you hunched over your knees in tears. She smiled weakly before chasing Finn home. It was then that Polly’s shadow approached your huddled frame. She didn’t say anything, and for a moment, you weren’t sure if she expected you to stand and apologize for being such a mess. That’s when a penny clattered to the ground beside you. She squeezed your shoulder once before disappearing.

You kissed that penny as if Tommy would feel the power of it across the country, then ran back to Margaret’s, having forgotten your suitcases.

“Oh…” She exclaimed, slapping her tea towel on the counter when you walked into the kitchen. “You missed your train?”

Dread made your stomach tender and your breath short.

“I’m enrolling in the Red Cross.”

-

Throughout the war, you thought of Tommy every day until your stomach lurched. Would it have worked if you had stayed? Would you both have grown old together instead of subjecting yourself to the spray of dirt when a bomb went off nearby?

A day ago, your supply rations never came. It wasn’t like hunger was anything new, but when your mind was too focused on surviving the perilous weather, it was hard to save other lives. You made work with what little supplies you had left. The morphine went stint within hours of its arrival, and the cries of pained soldiers filled the medical tent all night. You did what you could, wiped sweat from their foreheads, and wrote letters to their mothers and lovers with what supplies you could scavenge. Some were written on cardboard from shell packaging, others on torn pages from the bibles they kept over their hearts. Pens were useless—the ink ran in the rain—so you scribbled everything down in pencil.

Before you left for France, you were warned of the bullets. No one ever warned you about the shrapnel, nor the bombs or grenades. They shattered soldiers’ bones beyond repair and left bodies unrecognizable. There wasn’t much you could do when most of their flesh was missing.

Keeping faith became an impossible task. Supplies were depleted, and nurses were dejected. Sally, who had been writing home for news of her brother, recently had her letters returned with the black stamp. Death—return to sender. She spent only an hour sitting on a trunk, letting her tears fall, before she got back to work. Grief privileged those with time, something no one could afford in these conditions.

Then it came—the day Arthur Shelby was carried in on a stretcher. You were making your rounds around the beds when a truckload of yelling men pooled through the entrance of the tent.

“Nurse!” They all yelled, some limping, others setting down stretchers of men on the dirt between the filled beds.

You and two other nurses dropped everything and ran over to attend to the wounded. They were all covered head to toe in dirt, groaning and clutching limbs that were twisted the wrong way. One in particular coughed and huffed while he fought against hands, which were fruitlessly pushing him back down on the stretcher.

“Let me go!” He yelled, wrestling against an older nurse.

“It’s alright, Mary. I’ll handle this one,” you patted her shoulder as you swapped places.

You dunked a washcloth into a bucket of water to wipe away the dirt in his eyes. “Calm down; you're safe here,” you said, starting your usual script of reassurances.

When the striking blue eyes squinted up at you, your blood ran cold. You froze before taking his head in both your hands, despite his protests. “Arthur? Arthur, it’s me!”

He loosened his grip on your wrist. “Huh?”

“It’s me! Where’s Tommy and John?”

He spat blood and gritted his teeth. “Fucking hell, where’s the whiskey?”

You laughed despite the smell of blood encompassing the tent. You quickly fetched the alcohol you had been using to clean wounds and pressed it to his lips. You weren’t sure if it was whiskey or not, but you reasoned he was in too much pain to be able to tell. He drank it with a groan of pleasure. You didn’t try to snatch the bottle away as he emptied it down his palette; you just sat and grinned at the way he suckled it like a newborn baby while you cleaned away his cuts.

“I’ve never been happier to see you, Arthur.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, his lips still wrapped around the bottle.

You tried to stay by his side for as long as you could before the second wave of patients came tumbling through the flaps of the tent. One of them lost their grip on the stretcher, and the patient went sliding into the dirt headfirst.

“Fuck!” They all swore, abandoning the stretcher to drag the limp man further into the makeshift hospital.

You rushed to help when a hand gripped the back of your neck. You yelped in pain as your hair got caught in a fingernail when they turned you to face them.

And there he was: Tommy Shelby, covered in a thick layer of dirt, heaving for air.

“Nurse! Nurse!” Voices cried for you, but between the ringing in your ears and the wrath in Tommy’s blue eyes, you were frozen in place.

“The fuck are you doing here, eh?” He yelled over the anguished men.

You suddenly felt stupid standing there in your Red Cross uniform.

“I was looking for you, I—”

His dirty hands cupped your cheeks—something you were painfully aware of from the uncomfortable itch from the mud on your flushed skin—and pulled your forehead to his.

“You think this is some fantasy?” He squinted. “You think there’s any fucking moonlight to kiss under here, eh?” He spat.

His eyes held that haunted look you had seen on many soldiers that passed through the medical tent. Your eyes watered. Perhaps it was from the humidity and dirt being kicked up as nurses and patients scuffled around, not because you could hardly recognize the man in front of you. The blood smeared above his eyebrow worried you, so you reasoned that he was mad because it had been leaking into his eyes. Dutifully, you reached to wipe it with the back of your hand. He grabbed your wrist harshly, bringing it down to your side. He was in shock; you scolded yourself.

“Where’s John and Arthur?” Tommy swallowed, flexing his hands.

You led him to Arthur, who had been left in his corner while the nurses attended to more serious cases. It hurt watching the brothers reunite after their ordeal, so you left them alone no matter how much you feared them being discharged before your return. After all, everything you ever wanted sat in that corner, but it would be selfish to coddle Tommy all to yourself. Still, you couldn’t help sparing a glance when you walked up and down the tent, attending to patients.

Later that night, he came to you under the candlelight of your tent. He cleared his throat upon entry. You were lying face-up on your cot when he cleared his throat and peeled back the entrance to enter. The candlelight painted the mountain peaks of his face in a dull amber and the valleys in a frightening shadow. You sat up, pulling the thick cover over your shift.

Tommy kneeled next to you, resting on the heels of his boots. He licked his chapped lips and itched his nose. “You don’t belong here.”

Your grip on the cover loosened. “Huh?”

Nothing prepared you for when he swung his brooding stare towards you. He exhaled loudly before running a hand over his face.

“You should have stayed in Birmingham.” He said it like a warning.

“And done what?”

Vulnerability never looked good on Tommy. His head hung and his fingers itched at the back of his head—a tick you used to love; now you weren’t so sure. Because your Tommy was never afraid, but this man in front of you was alarmingly tense despite the clear efforts to mask it.

What have they done to you, Tom?

Under the dim light of your tent, you barely recognized him. A stranger’s eyes were blown wide in a frightening state of shock, something most soldiers mirrored. War washed out the sweet blue pair you knew, refitting them for a steely weapon. You hated seeing him like this, so still, so unsteady, cocooned into the corner as if afraid to take up space.

You feared you looked no better. Having worked till the point of exhaustion, you usually found yourself awakening against a wooden crate or trunk to the cries of patients who demanded your attention despite your body not having the strength to stand. Today you had been lucky and found yourself crawling distance to your private tent when your knees started wobbling and your head lulling.

The wooden reinforcing of your private tent fought in vain to shelter your bodies from the elements; it still flapped and whipped about, sometimes rocking your cot. Yet Tommy remained still like those life-size stone statues you’d find outside an important building, brooding at the dirt and locked in an internal battle. You shifted to the edge of your makeshift bed and leaned close enough that you saw how the top buttons of his dirtied uniform were missing and most of his clothes were torn.

His arm, which was breaking out in goosebumps, lay heavily across his knee so that he could rest his forehead there limply. He looked in a bad enough condition that you feared the possibility of him succumbing to the wasteland threatening him outside your tent. You wrapped your arms around the scruff of his hair and pulled his face into your stomach, where he could hide from the terrible world. On instinct, his arms wound around your waist, and you felt his warm exhale against your skin through the thin fabric of your slip.

His tin water bottle clanged against the satchel he wore, which made you wonder if he had any time to rest at all if he still had all his equipment tied to his uniform.

“I didn’t…” His voice was muffled by your slip. He cleared his throat again, shaking his head.

When he dropped the thought, you spoke up. “Have you eaten?”

He slapped your thigh haphazardly. “No, do you have a cigarette?”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, instead gently pushing him away so you could kneel beneath your bed and fish a cigarette from your satchel. You pinched one from its tin case, then thought better of it and tossed it on Tommy’s lap. Gratefully, he collected one from the case and lit it with a nearby candle. You watched his chest rise and fall as he took an especially deep drag. His eyes shut as the nicotine rushed to his head.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he muttered under his breath.

“How are you here, Tommy? One of the night nurses should’ve been on watch.”

“Oh,” smoke puffed out of his mouth, and he raised his eyebrows, “there is.”

“Then how—”

“I had to see you.”

The butterflies in your stomach dove. The blue in his eyes appeared translucent as they hazed over like a ghost. His shoulders were slumped dejectedly, and he had a hand pushing through his greasy, unwashed hair to relieve his neck from the weight of his thoughts.

He pointed to you then, with the cigarette nursed between his fingers. “I need to know why you changed your mind.”

“About what, Thomas?”

His voice slurred and slipped into a deeper register from the lack of sleep. "Why you came back. Why you came to France.” Tommy shook his head lazily. “You expect me to believe you had a sudden change of heart? What? You a patriot now?” An amused exhale curled out while he took another drag. “Well I don’t believe it.”

You began shivering despite the way your body flushed.

“How’s Arthur?” You tried to avert the conversation.

“Bloody drunk off his ass.”

“And you?”

Tommy held your stare and swallowed dryly. “Trying.”

“You can go join him if you wish.”

He looked at the entrance of your tent as if he were weighing his options, then shook his head and took another drag before clearing his throat. “It’s different now.”

Naïvely, you sank to the ground beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be.”

He sighed.

“I wish that were true.”

-

The next time you saw Tommy, you were working a shift at the hospital. After the war, you received a medal for your efforts, which easily got you a job in Birmingham. You pleaded with them to send you to any other hospital—London, Manchester, Liverpool—you didn’t care. Anywhere but Birmingham.

“You should be honored to work for me!” Exclaimed the head nurse at Birmingham Hospital, who didn’t seem too pleased with your distaste for the city.

You thought the job would be the final nail in the coffin, but you surprisingly got along well with the head nurse once you had put your animosity aside. So much so, she offered to lease you a room upstairs from hers.

Then came that dreaded night where you were finishing the filing of some documents when a patient was being rushed in. Your ears perked up, and you looked through the blinds of the office to see a man being rushed by. Something small and round had fallen off the stretcher while the nurses paid no attention, pushing him around the corner and down towards the operating theater. Curious, you exited the office.

And there on the ground was one of those peaky caps Tommy and his brothers used to wear. You knew this because you picked it up and nearly cut yourself on the blade that was sewn into the seam. You spent the next hour gnawing on your nails. Your imagination sparked ideas about the beaten man who was lying in an operating room two doors down in surgery. Was it Tommy? Arthur? John? The shadows under your eyes darkened at the thought. No, it was probably some other Peaky Blinder. The Shelby brothers were too careful. Still, you knocked over your coffee in a mad dash to the bathroom, where you heaved up your dinner.

You volunteered to stay until the morning, but the head nurse on duty for the night refused and sent you home. You didn’t sleep at all that night.

The next morning, you arrived early and made a beeline for the emergency ward. You grabbed the admission form and scanned the patient list. There were only two emergency patients who were listed under the final hour of your shift, a woman and a man, which made it easier to narrow it down to the man who was admitted at quarter to midnight in ward four, room seven.

When you peaked through the crack in the door, you knew you had been worried for a reason. Tommy lay under the covers, battered and bruised, with a swollen eye and a nasty scar where he had reportedly received surgery for trauma to the head.

You slipped inside quietly and closed the door. Tommy’s eyes were closed, and his mouth hung open, stealing miniscule amounts of air into his lungs. He looked as good as a ghost.

“Tommy…” You clutched his peaky cap (which you meant to return) between your fingers.

He didn’t move an inch, so you set the cap down by his bedside table, carefully watching the rise and fall of his chest.

What have they done to you, Tom?

On the second week, he woke up while you were cleaning the windowsill. He coughed, and you whipped around in shock.

“Nurse?” He asked hoarsely, blinking away the blinding light.

You rushed to his side, tears bursting like the fountain you passed on your way to work.

“Don’t move,” you urged when he tried to sit up.

“I have to get to London,” he slurred, only half awake.

You weren’t upset that he didn’t recognize you. You weren’t upset that he didn’t recognize you.

“Tommy… it’s me.”

He shrugged your hand off his shoulder with a hiss. “Fucking hell.”

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

“Please don’t move; I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” You couldn’t hide the way your voice broke.

He looked up at you, then, through bloodshot blue eyes. You wished you knew what was going through his head. Happy or sad?

“Am I dead?”

“No,” you smiled weakly as a tear fell.

“Can I have a smoke then?”

-

“I don’t know how to love, Tommy!”

“Yeah? Yeah? That’s bullshit! Why do you keep coming back then?” He pinched your chin, glaring furiously into your eyes. “Eh?”

He stood so close that he blocked the light from the chandelier, which mournfully hung from the ceiling. You shivered in his shadow.

“I shouldn’t have come tonight.”

“But you did!” He accused, pointing in your face.

“It was a mista—”

“You fucking did!”

“Tommy!”

“I’ve had it! If you want to leave, then fucking leave; otherwise, don’t stand there all righteous waving empty threats over my head because I know you won’t leave.” He shook his head with a wild look in his eye. “No… You won’t leave. You won’t leave because you love me. You keep coming back,” he pointed matter-of-factly.

Tommy’s eyebrows danced between being terribly furrowed and alarmingly raised during his passionate monologue. It was rare for him to emit so much emotion these days. The war changed men, and Tommy was no exception. A chilling stillness framed his presence, which even you weren’t excused from. No more laughter, no more dreams of working with horses, because he was above all that now, wasn’t he? It was ambition that ground his teeth together and hollowed his eyes. Still, you couldn’t forget that the anger came from vulnerability, because it took a lot for someone to get under Thomas Shelby’s skin.

You moved to grab your purse, to make good on his word, but he halted your movement by grabbing your shoulders, roughly at first, before loosening his grip. You softened at his frantic demeanor. He was scared—oh,  so afraid of you walking out that door again. But how could you ever explain it to him? You were never born for love. You would never know how to love him properly the way wives were supposed to because what you felt for Tommy was sickeningly deep. So much so that the mere impression of him sealed off your ribcage and ruined any chance of your heart beating for any other soul, so much so that you carried the weight of him in your bones because you could never shake him off.

When you looked back at life, all you saw was the absence of love. You used to imagine yourself growing up and falling in love with a handsome stranger, then getting married in a proper white dress to go live in your proper house. But when you looked in the mirror, you saw a ghost. The pathway of your life was laid out before your eyes once, and what you saw didn’t match the reflection. The man you were supposed to marry couldn’t even look at you, even if you cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until your fingerprints turned white and pasty.

Because what it all came down to was simple. You never got to become the person you envisioned. Instead, you were cursed to live as a blank slate and be consistently reminded of what you were supposed to be and of who you were: no one.

Tommy exhaled in a quick huff, pressing his forehead to yours so that he saw you clearer, without all the tension and bullshit in the way.

“Here it comes, Tommy.” You took a shaky breath. “I love you, but I could never be the perfect wife to you, and I would be a terrible mother.”

There, in all its ugly colors and shades, you hung yourself with the truth.

He shook his head as if he too couldn’t believe your words.

“Fuck’s sake! Forget about all that." His eyes watered out of frustration, but he was still puffing in anger. “I need you. You. Not some whore.”

You bit your lip to muffle the god-forsaken cry ready to erupt from the volcanoes you suddenly found roaring in your stomach. An earthquake overtook your hands the more you fought the inevitable eruption. You grabbed both his hands to stop yours from shaking.

“I have to be cursed; there’s no other way!”

“No!”

“My life slips through my fingers like grains of sand—”

“You’re not cursed!”

“And I can’t stop it, Tommy!”

“You’re not fucking cursed, and I’ll tell you why." Tommy cut you off. He leaned in, licking his lips, which had turned dry from all the shouting, and squeezed your hands. “Because my ancestors charmed dogs with their magic, they didn’t scare little girls with curses,” he paused. “But you… You waved a hand over my head, and now I’m no better than a dog.”

He closed the space between you, pressing his forehead against yours, and stroked both your cheeks, wiping at your tears. You held him there in a meek attempt at reciprocation.

You wished the world were ending so then you could grab Tommy’s hand and say, ‘I’m ready, Tom. The world is ending, so let’s kiss and love each other under the flames without any fear because the world is ending.’

But you were never good at expressing yourself with words, so you sealed it with a kiss, hoping he could taste the unspoken words on your lips the same way you tasted the tears. He responded in earnest, gripping you roughly by the scruff of your neck to seal the promise laden between your lips; no more running.

-

It was just your luck that you would bump into your ex-fiancé, William, while visiting a bar in London with Ada. You were buzzing from the warmth of three sweet liquors and whatever else Ada insisted you try, and everything was starting to seem a little funny by the time he approached you.

He engaged in pleasantries, swishing his wine around the glass and sniffing it occasionally, like many pompous older men tended to do. There was only so much smiling you could afford before you caught your reflection in the freshly wiped bar and realized how poorly your acting skills were. Ada was no help, muttering something about finding a phonebooth and then slipping into the belated and boozed crowd. It was then that the supposed nectar in your glass began to taste like the cleaning products—that nose-scrunching stench. Thankfully, William was too involved in some tangent to notice you muffle a gag into your palm.

The dazzling hum in your ears muffled out all his words. In your drunken state, William appeared to be more confident than what you remembered, but you were unable to decipher whether it was from a change of heart or if he was trying to fall back in your good graces. Otherwise, you were blinded by the roaring bustle of the bar and the delicious swell of music that seemed to reverberate across your being.

Growing a little bored with William’s story, your attention wandered over his shoulder, still being sure to nod every now and then as if you were deeply pondering his words. Not far away from his side, a man seemed to linger—a man who was careful not to reach your eye. You must have laughed a little harder than usual because William turned sharply to the man at his side, gave him a quick once-over, then returned his attention to you, but by then it was too late, and you knew exactly what William’s relationship was with this man and where William’s confidence had come from.

“You’ll make a fine wife and a finer mother someday,” William quickly added.

You cursed the witch inside you, who laughed from her stomach and used his shoulder to steady herself. Once upon a time, that was all you longed to hear, but now, with a half-spilt martini in hand, you couldn’t care less. Both of you had found happiness despite your unconventional circumstances, and there was no more to it. You could close that chapter without any loose threads.

A little drunk, you thanked him, disappeared, and never thought of him again.

-

“I can’t do it, Ada,” you stressed, beginning to feel uncomfortable with the baby in your arms.

Motherhood came rumbling into your life like a rusty engine spitting out oil. ‘Instinctual’, the mothers down the lane from Arrow House had said, ‘it’s like your body has been preparing for it your whole life.’ How awful, you thought, and by the time one of them finished speaking about their experience with their first, your nose was so scrunched in disgust that you would need an iron to flatten out the wrinkles. It wasn’t until now that you longed to be in their shoes, because nothing came naturally to you.

“He’ll latch eventually; he’s just a little fussy,” Ada reassured.

“Is it supposed to hurt?”

“It’s perfectly normal.”

Then, after an hour of rubbing your sons back on the verge of tears, he finally began feeding from you. Ada soothed your back the whole time and cooed softly to calm both you and your unruly boy. Sometimes she brought Karl. He would obediently sit on her lap, playing with his wooden horse, while your little Charles fussed.

One time in the early morning, when you were up attempting to feed Charles, Tommy rushed in alert with disheveled hair and sunken eyes.

“Sorry,” you mouthed, deflated your hardworking husband had been disturbed from his sleep.

He ran his hands over his face and sighed. You mistook his action for frustration and desperately tried to hush your baby. Tommy moved over to the rocking chair where you sat, trying to feed little Charles in your arms.

“Don’t be sorry,” he whispered into the crook of your neck. “How is he?”

You flushed under the moonlight, suddenly embarrassed that your husband had caught you in this vulnerable position with the top of your slip peeled down. Your exposed skin hissed when he pressed a kiss against your pulse.

“I don’t think he likes me very much.”

Tommy inhaled sharply against your neck before resting his chin on your shoulder to peer down at Charles. Charles had settled since Tommy walked into the room, acutely aware of his father as his little hands made a grabbing motion for him. Diligently, Tommy relieved your arms of Charles and cradled him close to his chest. Within minutes, the little baby was gurgling happily and blinking in a way that suggested sleep was on the horizon after all.

Your husband didn’t dare make any sudden noise as he gently set Charles in his cradle. Once he was surely asleep, Tommy guided you up from the rocking chair and into your shared bedroom.

“See?” you hissed, still maintaining a soft voice, “he only wants you.”

Tommy wouldn’t hear any of it, pulling you into his arms as he sat on the edge of the mattress. Your slip was still pooled around your hips, so he took the opportunity to plant a kiss above your breasts, where your heart was.

“He loves you,” he drawled in that husky voice of his. “I know he does because I do.”

Your head ached, but you couldn’t help the way your body reacted to his words and touch. Tommy’s wandering hands teased the silk fabric that clung to your hips as you felt his nose trail down to your breast, where he kissed one of your aching nipples delicately. Suddenly hot, you hummed in delight, the back of his shorn scalp pleasant beneath your nails. A grunt, bathed in that musk of his devours your senses. Inhaling sharply, he took the bud between his full lips, sucking, licking, and nibbling gently while his hands explored further down. Your head lulled back from the pleasure, gasping and withering under his skilled tongue.

The next thing you knew, Tommy was tugging the rest of your silk slip off and reminding you of just how much he loved you.

-

“Charles! Come here!” Tommy called.

Your little boy loved to play in the backyard of Arrow House. Much like his father, Charles adored horses. Big ones, small ones, black ones, white ones—but most of all, he favored his Shetland pony. Tommy had brought it for Charles before he could even walk. He said something about it being important for his son to be raised around horses from a young age. And while you didn’t necessarily disagree, it still stressed you out to hold your baby so close to such a large, muscular animal. You knew the Arabian breeds spooked easily, so you steered clear of them and were able to keep Tommy and Charles happy.

But now he had grown up so fast and was able to run around on his own two legs, climb trees, and bruise his knees on the way down. The sun beat lovingly on the apples of his cheeks as he dirtied his trousers, kneeling by the fence to feed his Shetland (affectionately named Biscuit) hand-picked grass through the gaps.

“Charles! We’re leaving!” You called when he ignored his father.

Stubbornly, Charles spun around to pout his lip and cross his arms. He glared at you as threateningly as a five-year-old could. You bit your lip to hide your smile because he really did look like a little Tommy with those big blue eyes. It would only be a matter of time before he perfected his father’s stare. With a sigh, you shifted your daughter into Tommy’s arms before approaching Charles, who was picking angrily at the grass.

You reached a hand out toward him, "let's go.”

“No!”

“All right,” you said decisively, spinning around, “Ruby will have all the fun then.”

“No!” cried your little boy.

You stuck a hand up in surrender and started walking back to Tommy. “No, it’s all right.”

“No, no no no!” Came his protest, chasing behind you as the gravel crunched beneath his boots.

You paid no attention to him, keeping your eyes trained ahead, silently relieved that your ploy worked. Tommy watched on in amusement while Ruby suckled on her thumb, curiously watching her brother storm closer.

“You hear that, Ruby? We’re going to spoil you,” a short smile played on Tommy’s face as he adjusted her so that she sat comfortably on his hip.

“And me!” Charles added and gave his best pout.

“No, Charles, you said you didn’t want to go,” you reminded him, raising your eyebrows.

“I do! I do!”

“Hmm,” you thought aloud, and held a finger to your chin while looking to the sky in exaggerated contemplation. “Very well, but only if you get in daddy’s car right this instant.”

He climbed into the backseat of the Bentley without further fuss.

When all the bags were neatly packed in the back for the day’s festivities, Tommy came around your side to sit Ruby on your lap. Quickly, he leaned in to kiss you and pinch your cheek, which swelled into a glowing grin.

He smiled back and whispered low enough for only you to hear, “got him wrapped around your finger, eh?”

You laughed. “Him and a few other Shelby’s I know of.”

-

The thundering sound of music could be heard from outside the theater on the corner of Old Pauls. Inside, patrons mused between champagne, dancing, and making a display of their wealth by bidding on little trinkets. It was one of the many charity galas Tommy had to attend because of his new move into politics. Usually, you enjoyed dressing for those sorts of things, but tonight you simply weren’t feeling up to it. Maybe it was the drape of your dress not sitting right or the new leather shoes that still needed breaking in.

Your shimmering smile faded into the crowd as you snuck through the back door in your satin bordeaux dress. Old Pauls sat perched above the cemetery it was named after. Conveniently across the street from the buzz of the theater, it was airily quiet and stuck out from the rest of industrial Birmingham. Your heels clacked across the pavement as you wandered up and down the garden, glimpsing at stone angels and silver plaques. All you had to light your path were the streetlights and the moon.

Your diamond wedding ring twinkled under the stars as you stopped to trace a name. It was the same as your mother's, but with a different last name. Still, you always wondered what happened to her. Had she gotten married to another man and taken his name? You expected to shiver at the idea, but you found that thinking of her no longer unnerved you. She packed up the title of mother when she left you all alone in that cramped house.

Light spilled out onto the pavement across the street when the entrance to the theater swung open. A few men flew down the steps and split off in different directions. Thinking it odd, you remained crouched until they disappeared around their respective corners. That’s when you saw Tommy exit through the same doors, throwing a cigarette and wiping at his brow while he looked up and down the street. Quickly, you stood and waved your arm to get his attention. When he noticed, he stormed down the steps and stalked across the street and through the gates of Old Pauls over to you.

“I needed some air,” you spoke up before he could get a word in.

His eyes wildly flickered back and forth from yours in a frenzy. Under the moonlight, they looked almost translucent, and, save for a ghost of blue, his pupils were wide.

“Why the bloody hell are you out here, eh?” He demanded, gently shaking your head between his hands for emphasis while his eyebrows rose expectantly.

“It’s quieter.”

When he tilted his head to the sky and exhaled, your stomach dropped at the sight of blood. Your ears, which had been tuning out the music, flinched when a shrill cry from a woman rang out the theater doors. The music was gone, now replaced with screams as all the patrons rushed out, tripping over each other like it were a race. You turned back to Tommy, now as worried as the others.

“What the hell happened? Are you hurt?” You urged, gripping his white collar, now red, to inspect where the blood was coming from.

“Not mine,” he cleared his throat, grabbing the hand on his collar to tug you down the street.

The frame of your world stretched a little wider, like light pouring in through open shutters. Car doors slammed, and drivers honked at the agitated crowd who ran this way and that across the road.

“Where’s the fucking ambulance?” Shouted a man who took no care to avoid bumping into you.

You stumbled back, your hand slipping from Tommy’s on impact. Rage flickered across his features briefly, having noticed the man push through you, but he reconnected your hands and continued walking fast. When he reached the Bentley, he urged you inside, holding your hand the whole way until you were seated in the passenger seat.

“What the hell happened, Tommy?” You repeated as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Someone got shot.”

Your eyes widened. “Are Polly and—”

“They’re fine.”

You sank back into your seat as the engine roared to life. Peaky Blinder’s followed the frenzied crowd, moving together like a pack of wolves onto the streets. They only parted to let Tommy’s Bentley through. Out the window, people were fighting and throwing fists as they all tried to escape the mayhem.

“Why aren’t they letting people through?” You asked after witnessing a Peaky Blinder block the road and refuse to let a car pass.

“Doesn’t matter.”

He never told you anything when it came to business. And although you suspected this was much more than the doing of the Shelby brothers, Tommy’s face never betrayed him. Simply put, if he didn’t want you to know, you wouldn’t.

“Would anyone want to follow us?”

“No.” He exhaled deeply, cleared his throat, and then reached to give your thigh a squeeze.

You knew it was a lie when his eyebrows rose. He only did that when he was worried. Your tongue remained pressed to the back of your teeth the entire ride home.

-

The howl of the wind whistled down into the valley of the gypsy camp Tommy had brought you and the children to.

“Pack your things,” he had said one night after storming through the front door of Arrow House, “we’re going on a trip.”

Charles and Ruby cheered, but you suspected something sinister beneath his intentions.

So, there you were, picking at the grass by your feet while you perched on the bottom step of the gypsy wagon Tommy parked beneath a tree for shade. He kept quiet for most of the ride, absorbed in leading the horse around loose gravel and stones, or rather, he led you to believe he was lost in concentration. Because, when it came down to it, you knew Tommy better than to assume nothing was wrong.

The past week, he had been acting different, jumpy even. He ran into the nursery during the early hours of the morning on edge, as if expecting something to be amiss. You tried interrogating him, but he brushed it off, insisting things were fine. Fine—you began detesting that word. Fine this, fine that, but if things were really fine, then why was he on edge?

Then came the bloodshot eyes and the slamming of his desk drawer when you entered the office. Only this time he couldn’t deny the unmistakable jingle of a bullet, which rattled in the wooden compartment like some sort of airy death chime.

A black hand. One for each Shelby. And since you were now one too, that meant neither you nor the children were subjected to any special treatment. A week, he said, a week for his family to clear up the business while he stayed here watching over you like a shepherd to his flock.

And watched he did, standing next to where you sat, he found peace observing Charles and Ruby as they chased each other around the overgrown field. There he remained for an hour or so, frighteningly still, the only motion being his sharp jaw chewing on a mint leaf, somewhat reminiscent of the soldier in your tent all those years ago. Next to him, tied to the tree, the black steed filled the silence with snorts and grazed favorably on the loose roots and grass patches.

“Ruby was crying this morning. She’s scared, Tom." You sighed.

Tommy hadn’t been there when you woke up that morning in the caravan. He returned shortly after, ominous as ever, just as Ruby had begun to settle.

He tossed the stalk of his mint leaf into the grass and offered you his hand. You looked up at him in question for a moment, slightly suspicious of his intentions. Nevertheless, you slid your hand into his, and he stood you up, sat down on the higher step, and pulled you between his legs to sit on the lower step. He hugged you from behind as he slouched to rest his head on your shoulder, then exhaled deeply.

“We will be home soon,” he whispered in your ear, brushing your knuckles tenderly.

“For how long? Until we get another bullet in the post?”

Tommy’s throbbing forehead found solace in the warmth of your neck.

“You’ve never been one to run,” you continued, “what’s bothering you? We took a vow that we would share everything.”

He nuzzled his nose deeper into your pulse.

Frustrated, you tried to get up, but he held you firmly against his chest.

“Italians.”

“Italians?”

“Italians sent the black hands.”

You waited in silence for more information, but more did not come.

“Speak to me, Thomas.”

“I don’t want you any more involved than you are.”

“They’ve sent death knocking on our door; how more involved could I be?”

Tommy moved methodically, licking his lips and clearing his throat. He squinted his eyes up at the glaring sun.

“It’s nothing you should be concerned about. I’ll keep us safe.”

“Nothing I should be concerned over, Thomas? Just how many people are we at war with?”

He didn’t answer, so you turned your head away from him. Charles and Ruby had since settled by a patch of flowers. Charles was crouched over, helping his sister gather all the yellow flowers for her yellow dress.

The tension broke the surface then.

“Why are you still fighting, Tom? Is this,” you nod to your children and breathe in the fresh air, “not enough?”

You pictured Arrow House and its lavish garden, one to compete with all the wealthy families down the lane. You thought of Arthur, John, Polly, Ada, and all his family that lived to see his success. Everything, from the thoroughbreds in the stable to the fancy cars. The money itself was a testimony to his drive. What more could the gangster of Birmingham want when he already had everything?

You had gone and worked yourself up now because the world seemed blurrier than before.

Tommy, still on his guard, guided your chin to your shoulder so he could kiss the tears away. “It is enough.”

“Then make it enough. You’re respectable now, so stop the fighting.” Your voice broke at the end.

He hung his forehead on your shoulder. Like a flower sheltered away from the sun, Tommy wilted when he was away from his business. Usually, you were a strong enough light to keep him going, but whatever business he had gotten himself into was poisoning him, and ever the addicted flower, he kept running out to the fields, continuing to drink in the sunlight until it was too much and turned his leaves brow. Because business was what occupied his mind day and night, he was unable to turn the cogs of the engine off and let the air out of the tires.

A hand brushes your hair away to kiss the spot beneath your ear, airing out the destructive thoughts.

God, you loved him anyway. An overpowering feeling that ruled over calculating minds like Tommy’s and faint hearts like yours. You were no better than him—both addicted to a little sunlight.

-

The framed photographs on the wall shook as your third-eldest slammed the door to her room closed.

“I hate you!” She cried from the other side.

Your husband, Tommy, sighed to the ceiling, then stalked past you to his study, no longer interested in anything your daughter had to say. They had been at it for the last ten minutes arguing over some boy she was seeing, and your ears were just about ringing having witnessed it from the sidelines. You were left there in the hallway, an unwilling participant in the unspoken feud between father and daughter, and you understood that whoever you went to console would take it that you were siding with them, even though you just wanted to keep your family together.

Going to your daughter was the instinctive answer, but you knew she needed time to cool off. Tommy was the only reasonable choice.

You knocked on the door to his office before letting yourself in.

“Come to lick my wounds, eh?” He mused while smoking a cigarette.

Your lips wormed into a thin line. “This needs to stop, Tom.”

“Yeah,” he said, tapping the ash into his tray, “it will fucking stop.” He points with his cigarette, “I’ll make it fucking stop.”

You sighed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

The chair screeched as he stood. “I’m her father, and if I say she can’t see that boy, she can’t. It’s only a childish fling; she’ll get over it.”

He poured a whiskey and downed it by the time you walked around his desk so that you were face-to-face with him.

“They’re in love, Tommy.”

“Yeah?” He scoffed. “Well, that can be undone.”

You held his glare, a challenge lighting in your own. “So easily, you think?”

He paused mid-drag, catching onto the underlying meaning in your words. “No,” he said, setting the cigarette down in the ash tray and grabbing your shoulders. “Don’t act like that.”

“Act like what?”

“Like you’re threatening our love over some fucking boy that’s charmed our daughter. They’re too young.”

“He’s sweet.”

“Oh, sweet and nice, I’m sure. But he’ll have no place in this house.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I fucking said so!” He spat.

“Don’t yell at me.”

“Or what? You’ll leave me?” He huffed in amusement. “You won't; you love me too much.”

“You’re so certain?”

He paused for a moment and stared at you as if he couldn’t believe what you had said.

“Yeah, because we still fuck like two people who love each other, eh? And you’ve not told me no before, so if the day comes and your body no longer wants mine, then I’ll be worried. But until then, don’t test me with empty threats." His face hardened.

He knew you like the back of his hand. All bark, no bite. You loved him inexplicably, even after all these years, gray hairs and all. His face, body, and soul nourished you until you were satiated and full. And even if his eyebrows furrowed at times, you were willing to bet that it was for aesthetic, a shapely shadow gathered over the years from being the stoic leader the Peaky Blinders and Shelby family needed. How could you fault him for it?

Because, at the end of the day, you were a team. Even if he played the role of an overprotective father a bit too convincingly, he only ever wanted what was good for your daughter. Everything he worked for, ultimately, was for his family. A family man. And that came with its virtues and vices because, despite what Tommy thought, he wasn’t perfect; no one was.

Shrinking under his hands, you breathed a sigh and appeased him. “End this feud, Tom. Find peace with her. I don’t care what you do, but by the end of it, I expect to be able to sit down at the dinner table without having to beg my husband and daughter to look up from their plates.” You stroked his hands, which held your shoulders, and finally blinked up at him.

A haze of softness swept across his glare and melted the glaciers to a thin sheen of blue. The seams of exhaustion frayed one by one through his muscles. He nodded, licked his lips, and leaned down for a kiss of absolution. Not entirely prepared to surrender, you tilted your head so that he found the corner of your mouth instead.

“It will be done, love.” He brushed the apples of your cheeks tenderly. “And by tonight,” his voice lowered, “I promise you’ll forget all about it.”

Only then did you accept his kiss, eager to put the grievance to rest. Tommy, on the other hand, had other plans and stepped forward so that you were pinned between his desk and hips. He quickly began to gather your skirts above your waist, but you pulled away just as fast at the hiss of air against your exposed skin. An unsolicited gasp escaped his mouth when your knee brushed him there, and you sucked your bottom lip between your teeth, looking deep into his eyes.

“Promise me you won’t break her heart. She might not be old enough now, but I don’t want you to put her off love forever,” you caressed his jaw.

“No,” he agreed, breathier than usual, flexing the hands that were still caught up in the fabric of your skirt.

“And our Daisy may never say it, but I know she loves you dearly. So please, Tom, be gentle with her. I don’t want her to grow up despising you. Tell her you love her, kiss her forehead, hug her.”

He deflated, and you watched him swallow his pride. Cogs turned against the sweltering lust, threatening to deplete the clever thoughts in that powerful head of his in favor of your careful touch. Please, please, please, you begged without uttering a word; agree with me on this, Tom.

Tommy leaned back down to rest his forehead on yours; his face gave nothing away. You were sure he had found something to say, which would make you feel like a fool for asking. However, when you embraced those faint subtleties of emotion flickering across his face like candlelight, so miniscule you might blink and miss it, you found nothing of the sort to suggest any hostile nature. Because Tommy loved you.

“I will.”

-

A/N: Tried doing a long one shot, what does everyone think? Yay or nay? Comment to be added to the tag list!

Taglist: @maliceofwonderland , @fairytale07 , @goblinjnr , @ilovepeoplesdads , @multidimensionalslut

[kinkyniragi]

...and an algorithm that doesn’t panic at the sight of heat

(Follow this link to my suppressed masterlist)

i know what this situation needs…explicit fanfiction

[briefinquiries]

Tommy Shelby x Reader: In the Lion’s Den

Summary: When your estranged father shows up unannounced in Birmingham, slipping into your home like he still has a right to be there, you do what you’ve always done, stay quiet, keep the peace, and pretend the past can’t hurt you. But Tommy Shelby isn’t a man who misses the signs, and when he discovers the bruises you tried to hide, he makes one thing clear: no one lays a hand on what’s his and walks away unscathed.

Word count: 5.2k

Warnings: domestic abuse, physical violence, and trauma, including past and present abuse by a parental figure, choking, panic attacks, and PTSD. Mentions of war trauma, blood, minor injuries, and threats of violence

A/N: welp, I’ve fallen back down the peaky blinders rabbit hole.

The day started like any other.

The warmth of the fireplace crackled softly in the background as you sat curled on the couch, a book in your lap. Tommy was at his desk, going through paperwork, cigarette smoke curling lazily in the air. It was a rare quiet evening, one of those moments where the weight of the world seemed just a little lighter.

Then, there was a knock at the door.

Your brow furrowed slightly. It was late– far too late for visitors. Unless it was Arthur staggering by, drunk again. You glanced at Tommy, who sighed, flicking his cigarette into the ashtray before standing. He made his way toward the door, his steps slow and deliberate.

“If Arthur's pissed on the doorstep again, I swear to God…”

Tommy pulled the door open, expecting Arthur’s drunken frame to be swaying on the other side, slurring apologies for waking the house.

But it wasn’t Arthur.

His stance shifted ever so slightly, his sharp blue eyes scanning the man before him.

You barely registered Tommy’s hesitation because the moment you saw him, the breath in your lungs turned to ice.

Because suddenly, there he was. 

Standing on your doorstep, smiling like he belonged there.

Your father. 

Your hands clenched in your lap.

“Surprise,” he drawled, stepping forward slightly. “You’re not going to invite your old man in?”

Your body remained frozen. “What… what are you doing here?”

Your father let out a chuckle, his eyes scanning the entryway as if he was appraising it. Then, he stepped forward without waiting for permission. “What? A father isn’t allowed to come see his only daughter once and a while?”

You blinked, your stomach twisting. “How did you get the address?”

He waved a hand. “Your brother gave it to me. Had to practically bully it out of him.”

Your jaw tightened. 

“What a place,” he mused, looking around before his eyes landed on Tommy. “And you must be the husband, aye?”

Tommy stood there, unreadable, his gaze cool and detached. He stepped forward, offering his hand, because that’s what men like him did– offered respect until given a reason not to.

Your father shook it.

“Thomas Shelby,” Tommy introduced himself, his voice measured.

Your father smirked. “Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of you alright.”

Tommy merely hummed, but his attention flickered back to you. He saw it then– the way your arms had wrapped around yourself, your fingers gripping your sleeves, your body tensed like a coiled spring.

You barely spoke all evening.

At dinner, Tommy tried to gauge your mood, throwing you small glances, subtle touches, but each time, you withdrew. When his hand brushed yours under the table, you flinched.

Just slightly. But Tommy noticed.

That night, after you’d made up the spare room and your father went to bed, Tommy pulled you into the hallway. His fingers tilted your chin up, his thumb brushing against your jaw.

“Everything alright?” His voice was soft, but there was something in it– something heavy.

You forced a small smile. “Of course. Just tired.”

Tommy studied you for a long moment, his gaze searching. He didn’t look convinced.

You exhaled, glancing toward the closed door of the spare room, then back at him. “I’m sorry he just showed up like that. I– I didn’t know he was coming.”

Tommy shrugged slightly, his thumb still absently stroking your cheek. “It’s alright. Family’s always welcome here. Lord knows mine barges in whenever they damn well please. It's kind of nice having it be yours for a change."

You let out a dry laugh, but it was hallow as your stomach twisted. “Right. Thank you.”

He watched you for a beat longer before sighing. “You sure you’re alright?”

You nodded, almost too quickly. “I’m fine.”

He exhaled through his nose, brushing a stray lock of hair from your face gently. Tommy watched you for another second, his thumb pausing at your cheekbone before he finally nodded.

“Alright, love.” His voice was quiet, but you knew him well enough to hear the doubt behind it. He wasn’t convinced.

You both made your way to the bedroom in silence. Tommy moved around the room, shrugging off his vest, unbuttoning his shirt. You sat at the edge of the bed, staring at your hands, the weight of your father’s presence pressing heavy on your chest.

You should have told Tommy the truth.

You should have said something.

But you couldn’t. You didn’t know if it was the shame that stopped you– not wanting Tommy to know where or what you really came from… 

He saw you as strong, capable, resilient.

But if he knew… If he knew that you used to be a girl who flinched at raised voices, who held her breath when footsteps neared, who learned how to measure a person’s anger like a storm on the horizon, would he still look at you the same?

The thought made your throat tighten.

You lay beside Tommy, facing away from him, curled in on yourself. A moment later, his arm draped over your waist, pulling you into his warmth.

“You’re tense,” he murmured against the back of your neck.

“Just tired,” you said again. 

He studied you for a moment before sighing, obviously unconvinced. But he kissed your shoulder anyway. “Get some rest, then.”

It took a long time before you finally did.

…

The days stretched on.

Your father made himself comfortable in your home, slipping into the space between you and Tommy like he had a right to be there.

He drank Tommy’s whiskey like it was his own, spoke to him like they were equals, like there was no history of violence, no reason for you to avoid looking him in the eye.

And yet, you did what you had always done…

You played the part: the dutiful daughter. The quiet peacemaker. The one who let his sharp words roll off her back like they didn’t cut.

But the part that made you sick to your stomach, was how easily you fell back into it. How, in his presence, you became her again– that pitiful version of yourself… that scared little girl who walked on eggshells, who measured her words carefully, who held herself so still when he passed by, like movement alone might set him off.

You hated it– hated that he still had that power over you. Hated that, despite the years of distance, despite the fact that you had built a new life for yourself, he still made you feel so small.

You tried desperately to keep Tommy from seeing that version of yourself. You smiled when you needed to. Laughed at the right moments. Acted like everything was fine.

But the longer the visit stretched out, the harder it was to hide your discomfort.

Days passed. Then nearly a week. Your father showed no sign of leaving.

One afternoon, while Tommy was away at work, you found your father in the hallway, stretching, rolling his shoulders like he’d spent the day laboring instead of lounging.

You took a deep breath.

“Dad.”

He looked up, raising a brow as if you had interrupted something important.

“How long are you planning to stay for?” you asked, keeping your voice even, cautious.

He shrugged, running a hand through his graying hair. “Dunno. Not sure yet.”

You shifted your weight, forcing yourself to hold your ground. “I just– Tommy has a lot going on, and I don’t want to impose.”

Your father scoffed, waving a dismissive hand. “Oh, please. Your husband’s got plenty of room. He’s not hurting, is he?”

You swallowed your frustration and tried again.

“Did you tell Mom you were coming?”

His expression changed. 

The lighthearted arrogance drained away, replaced by something darker, more dangerous. His posture stiffened, and his gaze turned sharp.

“That’s none of your business,” he said coldly.

You should’ve stopped there. Should’ve let it go. But something inside you, some small ember of defiance, pushed forward. “It is my business. And this is my house–”

The slap came so fast, you barely saw it coming.

The sharp crack echoed in the hallway, and before you could register what had happened, you were stumbling back, one hand flying to your cheek as heat bloomed across your skin.

Your breath hitched. Your father loomed over you, his face twisted in a sneer. “You don’t get to speak to me like that. Do you understand me? What I say or don’t say to your mother is between me and her. Understood?”

You nodded quickly, pressing your lips together, trying to swallow down the lump in your throat. “Sorry– I– I was just–” you stopped yourself. “Sorry.”

Your cheek burned and your heart pounded in your ears as you turned on your heel and walked away.

You closed yourself into the bathroom, locking it behind you before turning to the mirror.

The mark was already forming. A bright red outline, the shape of his palm clear against your skin. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes. You inhaled deeply, steadying yourself, gripping the edge of the sink until your knuckles went white.

…

That evening, you made dinner. A nice dinner. A meal you knew Tommy liked– something warm, familiar. A distraction. Maybe even something to please your father.

You set the table carefully, your hands only shaking slightly as you arranged the plates. You kept your face turned slightly away, hoping the dim lighting would mask the worst of it.

When Tommy got home, the door creaked open, and the familiar weight of his presence filled the space.

You were stirring something at the stove when his arms slipped around your waist from behind.

His touch was warm and grounding. His lips pressed a soft kiss to your shoulder as he murmured, “Smells good in here.”

You smiled– forced and practiced. “I thought I’d make us something nice.”

His arms tightened briefly. “God, it’s been a long day,” he murmured.

Then, as he leaned in, pressing another kiss just below your ear, he turned his head slightly, just enough for his gaze to catch the side of your face.

You felt him go still. His hands, steady on your waist, tensed.

His lips parted. “What’s this?” he asked, finger ghosting along the edge of your cheek.

Your stomach twisted. You knew what he had seen. The mark. The redness that you couldn’t fully hide. 

You turned your head slightly, brushing him off. “Oh, it’s nothing. I–” You exhaled, forcing a lighthearted tone as you stepped away from his embrace. “I walked right into that hallway shelf. Must not have been paying attention. I was stupid.”

Tommy didn’t say anything for a long moment. You could feel his eyes trained on you, sharp and assessing, as you moved around the kitchen. Before he could challenge your excuse, another voice cut in.

“Tommy!”

Your father stepped into the room, grinning, swirling a half-full glass of whiskey in his hand. “Good to see you, son. How’s business today?”

Tommy and your father sat at the table, engaging in light conversation. Your father asked about business. Tommy responded, his voice steady, polite.

But his eyes kept flicking to you.

You barely spoke. You moved carefully, quietly, only nodding when necessary.

Tommy noticed. He saw the way you kept your head slightly down. The way your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes. The way your hands trembled slightly when you reached for a glass.

You forced yourself to sit through dinner, every bite feeling like it might turn to ash in your mouth. Every sip of water was just an excuse to avoid speaking.

You were suffocating. You needed to get out.

So, when the dishes were cleared, and the conversation between Tommy and your father began to stretch into the evening, you pushed your chair back and stood.

“I think I’ll turn in early,” you murmured, keeping your voice light. “Didn’t sleep very well last night.”

Tommy’s gaze snapped to you immediately.

Your father barely glanced up. “Night, sweetheart,” he muttered, already swirling the last of his drink in his glass.

Tommy, though– he studied you. You didn’t meet his eyes.

He opened his mouth like he might say something, might challenge you, might ask you to stay, but after a moment, he simply nodded.

“Alright, love.” His voice was careful. Measured.

You forced a small smile before slipping from the room.

…

It was late when Tommy finally came to bed.

You heard him before you saw him, the slow creak of the bedroom door, the quiet sound of his footsteps across the floor.

He moved carefully, as if not wanting to wake you.

You kept your breathing steady and your eyes closed and pretended to be asleep. 

The mattress dipped slightly as he crawled in beside you. For a moment, there was nothing but silence. Then, slowly, his hand came to rest on your hip. His touch was gentle, hesitant. You didn’t move. Didn’t react.

A deep sigh left his lips, and you felt the warmth of his breath against the back of your neck. His grip on your hip tightened slightly, just for a moment, before he exhaled again and let it relax.

You waited for him to say something– to ask, maybe demand answers. 

But he didn’t.

Instead, he did what Tommy Shelby never did. He hesitated.

And it was at that moment you realized, he was waiting for you.

Waiting for you to come to him.

But you weren’t ready. So, you remained still, your heart hammering against your ribs as his thumb trailed lazily along your hip. Then, he stretched his arm carefully around your waist and pulled you close.

… 

You kept up the act– kept making dinner. Kept playing hostess. Kept pretending like the walls of your own home weren’t closing in on you.

A few nights later, you found yourself in the kitchen, stirring a pot on the stove, when you heard the front door swing open.

The sound was jarring, clumsy, forceful, followed by the sound of staggering footsteps. 

The hair on the back of your neck stood up before you even turned around. Your father stepped into the kitchen, his shirt wrinkled, his eyes glassy, the stench of whiskey thick in the air.

He wasn’t just drunk, he was angry. A cold wave of fear ran down your spine.

You froze, hands gripping the edge of the counter as he loomed in the doorway.

“Look at you,” he slurred, waving a hand at the dinner on the stove. “Little housewife, cooking for your big, important husband.”

“Dinner’s almost ready,” you said, picking up a glass cup from the counter and trying to keep your voice steady. “You should sit down.”

His eyes narrowed. “What? You're giving me orders now?”

Your grip tightened on the glass. He took another step closer.

“You always were a smug little thing, weren’t you?” He muttered, shaking his head. “Always had something to say.”

You held your breath as he took another unsteady step forward, his eyes dark and unfocused, but sharp enough to cut straight through you. “I didn’t mean–”

“Now that you've married a Shelby, you're arrogant, too. Tell me,” he interrupted, the word twisted with venom. “Was it him who kept you from coming home all this time? Or was it you? Think you’re too good for your own family now? With your rich fucking husband at your beck and call?”

Your grip on the glass tightened. “You’re drunk.” You tried to turn away, but your father reached out to clutch your wrist. 

“Don’t walk away from me.” His grip tightened, his fingers digging into your skin like a vice.

Your stomach twisted violently. “Let go,” you said, your voice shaking despite your efforts to sound firm.

He didn’t. Instead, he yanked you back toward him, forcing you to stumble. The glass in your hand wobbled precariously, liquid sloshing over the rim.

“The king of fucking Birmingham, aye? And you’re what? His housewife? Or his whore?”

“Stop it,” you cut in, trying to wrench your wrist free. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I don't care who you're married to. You don’t get to fucking tell me what to do,” he spat.

Your pulse hammered, panic rising in your chest. “Dad, just stop– you’re drunk.”

He let out a bitter laugh, the sound jagged, cruel. “Drunk?” He sneered. “I’ve been drinking since before you could fucking walk, girl. You think you know better than me? Think that slimey Shelby husband of yours turned you into something special?”

“Tommy,” you swallowed thickly, forcing the words out. “Is a good man. I know that term might be hard for you to comprehend–"

A dark flash crossed his face. And then– the slap. It struck you with enough force to snap your head to the side, the sting burning hot across your cheek. The room blurred for a moment, your ears ringing.

Your father didn’t give you time to react. Before you could move, before you could process, he shoved you hard against the wall.

The glass slipped from your fingers, hitting the floor and shattering, fragments scattering across the kitchen tiles.

Your back collided with the surface, your breath leaving you in a sharp gasp. The pain barely registered before his hands were on you again– this time around your throat, squeezing. 

Your hands flew up, clawing at his wrists, your body struggling instinctively. But his grip was tight, unrelenting.

Your chest heaved.

Your lungs burned.

A strangled sound escaped you, but it wasn’t loud enough. Not enough to stop him.

His breath was hot against your face as he leaned in. He was seething. His teeth clenched together as his eyes bore down on you with pure hatred. 

Your vision blurred. Your limbs weakened. The edges of your consciousness began to flicker, the darkness creeping in.

In the hazy distance, you vaguely heard the sound of the front door opening, followed by heavy footsteps.

Then, the pressure around your throat disappeared instantly as your father was ripped away from you. You collapsed to the floor in a heap, gasping, your hands flying to your throat as air rushed back into your lungs. Your body shook violently, but you barely noticed.

Because in front of you, Tommy had your father by the collar, slamming him against the kitchen table with enough force to rattle the dishes.

The look on Tommy’s face was lethal.

Your father coughed, groaning, trying to push himself up. But Tommy was on him before he could move.

His fist connected with your father’s jaw– once, then twice. The crack of bone meeting bone echoing through the room.

Blood splattered across the floor. Your father groaned, but Tommy wasn’t done. He grabbed him again, dragging him up by his shirt, slamming him against the wall this time.

Your father choked, spitting blood.

Tommy leaned in, his voice eerily calm now. “You ever touch her again, and I’ll kill you with my barehands. You hear me?”

Your father wheezed, coughing weakly. “Fuck you–”

In an instant, Tommy pulled his gun.

He pressed the barrel beneath your father’s chin, tilting his head back slightly, forcing him to meet his gaze. The air in the kitchen was thick, the only sound the ragged breathing of the men in front of you.

Your father’s eyes widened, his drunken haze fading into something closer to fear.

Tommy’s finger flexed on the trigger.

Your stomach twisted violently.

“Tommy,” you pleaded, voice barely above a whisper.

His grip didn’t loosen.

At least not right away. His chest heaved, his knuckles white around the handle of the gun. 

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Tommy exhaled sharply and lowered the gun.

“Get the fuck out of my house,” he spat before releasing your father’s collar. 

Your father crumpled to the floor, coughing, gasping.

Your father didn’t wait to be told twice.

His hand clutched where Tommy had struck him, his movements shaky as he scrambled to his feet. Blood dripped from his split lip onto the kitchen floor, but he didn’t bother wiping it away. He staggered toward the door, barely able to walk straight, a mix of pain and drunken stupor slowing his steps.

He didn’t even bother to grab his things. Or have the courage to look back at you.

Just stumbled toward the exit, his breath ragged and uneven, one last curse muttered under his breath as he shoved the door open and disappeared into the night.

Tommy followed him to the threshold, his cold gaze never leaving the man’s retreating figure.

Then, click. The sound of the lock sliding into place echoed through the house.

Tommy exhaled sharply, pressing his palm against the door, as if physically barring your father from ever stepping foot in this house again. His shoulders were tense, the muscles in his arms flexing as he gripped the wood tightly.

Your focus shifted to the glass– the shattered pieces lay scattered across the floor, sharp edges gleaming under the dim kitchen light.

Your hands trembled as you scrambled forward, sinking to your knees, desperate to clean it up. You needed to fix this. You needed to make things right.

Tommy was angry. You knew he was.

And if there was one thing you had learned in your life, it was how to keep the peace. How to stay quiet, to smooth over the damage, to do whatever it took to make things okay again.

So you reached for the shards, ignoring the way your fingers shook. One after another, you gathered them in your hands, barely noticing when a sharp edge knicked your skin.

A thin line of red beaded at your skin, but you kept going.

If you could just get it all cleaned up– 

Strong hands stopped you, fingers curling around the wrist you had collected pieces in.

“Love.”

The word was soft, but firm.

You hadn’t even realized he had moved, but now he was crouched in front of you, his hands gently prying your fist open so that he could take the glass from you.

You tried to protest, shaking your head. “I– I just need to clean this up, Tommy, I–”

“Leave it,” he said quietly, reaching his arm up and discarding the shards on the countertop.

Your lip trembled. “I– Tommy, I–”

You couldn’t finish the sentence. Because the panic was setting in now, hitting you all at once. Your hands shook violently, the tremors traveling up your arms, your whole body beginning to quake. Your breath came in short, sharp gasps, your chest rising and falling too fast.

You were unraveling.

“I– I can fix it, Tommy, I have to–” Your words broke apart into a sob as you tried to pull away from him, your limbs weak and frantic all at once. “I can fix it–”

Tommy didn’t let you go. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said gently. "It's alright."

Your eyes flickered back to the rest of the shattered glass, your mind spiraling. “It’s a mess, I made a mess, I– I didn’t mean to, I–”

“Love, stop…” His voice was a tether, grounding you even as you spiraled.

But you couldn’t stop.

Your fingers clawed weakly at his arms, desperate for something, anything, to keep you from sinking completely.

“I’m sorry,” you choked out, your whole body trembling so badly you could barely keep yourself upright. “I– I didn’t mean to–”

Tommy swore under his breath. Then, without hesitation, he pulled you in. His arms wrapped around you, strong and steady.

You let out a broken sound, your fingers gripping his shirt in fists as sobs racked your frame. You were shaking so hard it felt like you might come apart completely.

But Tommy held you together.

His hand cradled the back of your head, anchoring you to him. “Shh,” he murmured, his voice thick with something you couldn’t quite name. “Stop, just stop.”

The words tumbled out anyway. “I– I swear I didn’t mean to make him angry, I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to–”

You felt the way his breath hitched, the way his hold on you tightened just slightly. 

“Do not apologize,” he said, voice low and steady. “Do not apologize for that man. You hear me?”

You shook your head, barely able to breathe. “But I– I should’ve just–”

“No.” Tommy’s tone left no room for argument.

His hand slid from your back to cup your face, forcing you to meet his gaze. His blue eyes were burning now– not with rage, not with violence, but with something unwavering.

“Now you listen to me,” he murmured, his thumb brushing away a tear from your cheek. “He did this. Not you.”

A sob caught in your throat, but he didn’t let you look away. 

Tears blurred your vision, but the panic still gripped you tight, its claws lodged deep in your ribs. You shook your head weakly. “I– I should have done something.”

Tommy’s gaze darkened, his hands firm but gentle as they cradled your face. “Like what?” His voice was unwavering, pushing you to say it.

You swallowed, your breath coming in shallow gasps. “I should’ve just kept quiet. But I pushed him. I should’ve known better.”

The moment the words left your lips, shame burned through you like acid. It felt filthy to say it out loud.

Tommy inhaled sharply, his grip tightening ever so slightly. His thumb skimmed over the fading red mark on your cheek, the bruises forming along your throat, and something behind his eyes fractured.

“He would’ve done it anyway,” Tommy said, his tone quieter now. “No matter what you did. No matter what you said. Because men like that don’t need a reason to hurt people.”

Realization washed over you.

He didn’t blame you.

Tommy didn’t blame you.

You had spent your whole life believing it was your fault. That every slap, every harsh word, every cruel punishment was something you had earned.

But Tommy didn’t see it that way. He saw him as the problem. He saw him as the one at fault.

Not you.

The weight of that realization shattered something inside you, splintering through your chest like glass. You let out a broken sound, your body crumbling under the weight of all of it.

And Tommy caught you. He pulled you into his arms again, crushing you against him, holding you so tightly it felt like he was trying to anchor you to the world, to him.

And you let him.

You clung to him, your fingers twisting into his shirt, needing to feel the solidness of him, the warmth, the safety.

Tommy pressed his lips to the top of your head, lingering there as his breath shuddered against your skin. And he didn’t let go. Not when your sobs finally quieted, not when your breathing finally steadied, not even when your body had stopped trembling in his arms.

He just held you.

His hands ran slow, soothing strokes down your back, grounding you in the steady rhythm of his touch. His breath was warm against your hair, his chest solid beneath your cheek, rising and falling in time with yours.

For a long time, neither of you spoke. 

Then, finally, his voice broke the silence. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

You stiffened slightly, but his grip didn’t loosen.

“I would’ve thrown him to the wolves the second he walked through the fucking door,” he murmured, his jaw tightening against your forehead. “Christ, I thought you wanted him here.”

You swallowed, gripping the fabric of his shirt in your hands, but you didn’t answer. You didn’t know how.

Because how could you explain that some wounds never really heal? That no matter how far you run, no matter how much time passes, the fear always lingers– deep, insidious, always waiting for an excuse to crawl back up your throat and choke the words before they ever leave your lips?

You felt Tommy sigh against you. His arms tightened, just slightly, like he was bracing himself.

And then, his voice dipped lower. “I should’ve pushed harder,” he murmured. “I knew– I knew something was wrong. And I let you tell me it wasn’t.”

That got your attention.

Your breath hitched, and you pulled back just enough to look at him, your hands still fisted in his shirt.

“Tommy, no.” Your voice was hoarse, shaky, but firm. “This isn’t your fault.”

His jaw tensed.

“I just wasn’t ready to talk about it,” you admitted, voice barely above a whisper. 

Tommy studied you for a long moment, his blue eyes unreadable. Then, finally, he nodded, exhaling slowly.

“How long?”

You gazed up at him questioningly.

"How long has he been hurting you for?"

His blue eyes burned into yours, steady, patient, but unrelenting.

You took a breath, one that barely filled your lungs, and whispered,

“I think I was six the first time. I accidentally left the laundry out in the rain. Ruined his favorite suit."

You felt the shift in him. The way his hands, still cradling your face, tightened slightly. The way his breathing turned just a shade too slow, too controlled, like he was forcing himself to stay calm.

"I figured I deserved that one. It was an expensive suit and… well, we didn't come from money."

You swallowed, your throat tight, forcing the words out even as they scraped against something raw inside you.

“But the next time it happened, it was something smaller. I don’t even remember what I did.” You let out a weak, humorless breath. “I think I knocked over a drink. Or maybe I spoke when I wasn’t supposed to.”

You shifted slightly, staring at the spot on the floor where the glass had shattered earlier, as if it might somehow piece itself back together.

“Eventually, the reasons stopped mattering, I guess,” you murmured. “He’d get angry over anything. If you looked at him the wrong way, or even if you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Your fingers twisted into the fabric of Tommy’s shirt, a subconscious need to hold onto something solid.

“When I was nine, he threw me against the table." Your throat felt tight, but the words were coming now, unraveling like thread. “I hit the edge. It cracked a rib, I think. I couldn’t breathe right for weeks.”

Tommy exhaled, sharp and controlled, like he was holding something down, something dangerous.

“The next day, he brought me flowers.” A bitter smile tugged at the corner of your mouth. “To say he was sorry.”

Your voice wavered. “I don't know why but kept them in my room until they wilted. Because no matter how badly he hurt me... I think I still wanted to believe he loved me.”

The words felt foreign coming out of your mouth, like admitting them made them more real. More pathetic.

"I don't know what happened," you admitted. "He showed up here and I just... I panicked. It felt like I was that nine year old girl again. Just trying to make him happy, despite how scared he always made me. It felt like... Like I didn’t belong to myself anymore."

Tommy's hand rose to cup your face, his fingers brushing tenderly over your bruised cheek. His thumb traced the fading outline of your father’s fingers, and his gaze darkened, his lips pressing into a firm line.

Then, after a long pause, he spoke. “Fear that deep that never goes away,” he murmured, his voice quieter now, distant. “Not completely.”

You blinked at him, something heavy settling in your chest. He wasn’t just talking about you anymore.

“France?” you whispered.

His jaw tightened slightly. “Aye.”

His thumb brushed absently over your skin, but his gaze had drifted, staring past you now, as if he was seeing something else entirely.

“I used to think I’d come back and it would be over,” he continued, his voice steady, but different. He was using that careful, guarded tone he used when speaking of the war. “That the things I saw, the things I felt... they’d stay behind, buried in the trenches where they belonged.”

A humorless breath left him. “They didn’t.”

A silence stretched between you. You wondered if he had ever admitted that the war hadn’t ended when he stepped back onto English soil.

Just like your past hadn’t ended when you left home.

Your fingers curled slightly against his chest, your breath uneven. “How do you live with it?”

Tommy’s eyes refocused on you.

“I haven’t quite figured that one out yet,” he admitted.

His thumb brushed absentmindedly over your collarbone. “But it helps to find things that keep you here.” His voice dropped lower, his eyes locked onto yours. “Things worth staying for.”

Tommy exhaled, his fingers pressing lightly against your skin. “And maybe one day, you wake up, and you realize that even though it's still there, that fear doesn’t own you anymore.”

You swallowed thickly, your voice barely above a whisper. “And what keeps you here, Tommy?”

His hand on your chest tightened slightly, his fingers curling over your heart. His breath brushed against your skin. Then, softly, almost so softly you didn’t hear it, he sighed. “I thought that was obvious.” 

His hand slid up, fingers trailing along your jaw before cupping your cheek with a tenderness that made your chest ache.

“I’ll always protect you,” he murmured, his voice low, steady. Certain. “I mean it,” he said. “You never have to be afraid in this house again. Not while I’m breathing.”

The way he said it– it wasn’t just a promise.

It was a fact.

A truth carved into the very foundation of who he was. 

You swallowed thickly, pressing your forehead against his chest, letting his warmth, his presence, his words wrap around you like armor.

Tommy’s arms came around you again, strong and steady, holding you like he never planned on letting go.

[runnning-outof-time]

CHAPTER 2: I Want to See You Again

Summary: Jane and Tommy finally see each other again. Jane reveals the urgent matter she was hoping Tommy would help her with. Some of the details have Tommy feeling on edge.

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x fem!OC

Warnings: none

Word Count: 2809

A/N: I’m sorry this chapter took so long to share. I hope Tommy and Jane’s first meeting after 13 years makes up for it! Hope you don’t hate it! :)

COMMENT/MESSAGE ME TO JOIN THE TAGLIST!

[ CHAPTER 1 ] [ SERIES MASTERLIST ]

"Ms. Rivelli, your guest has arrived," the maitre d announced, a smile present on his face as he stepped to the side to reveal said visitor.

"Thank you," Jane politely smiled at the employee, maintaining eye contact with him until he turned on his heel to return to his podium out front. She did this in hopes she could buy herself a few more moments, unsure if she was ready to see him or not. She could already feel his eyes on her.

An involuntary shudder coursed through her body when she finally willed herself to look at him. She didn't expect him to look so powerful.

He wore a long, black coat that was left open to reveal a neatly tailored, grey waistcoat. A black tie sat perfectly atop a white shirt, and it was held in place with a gold tie clip that adorned a horse's head. Jane inwardly smiled at that detail.

His head was covered by a peaked cap that was an exact match to the grey color of his waistcoat. The sides of his dark hair were closely shaven, and for a moment Jane wondered what he looked like with the cap off. It made her miss the longer, more haphazard hairstyle he had back in 1910. Surely the war had been the reason for this change. It definitely matched his new persona though.

His face was more lean now as well. His cheeks sat high and his jaw looked like it was chiseled right from a block of marble. The blueness of his eyes was still striking, but the light they held when Jane first met him was now absent.

"Jane," he spoke her name as a greeting, his voice more gruff now than she had remembered it to be.

"Hi, Tommy," she offered a soft smile as a return greeting. "Sit. Please," she then motioned to the open seat across from her. She watched Tommy nod once before moving to sit across from her. Their eyes locked again once he was seated. Jane's mouth went dry as her nerves bubbled up once more. She squeezed the pad of her thumb under the table in hopes to alleviate some of her own tension. "I...uh, I want to thank you for meeting with me. I wasn't sure that you would given the time that's passed and how things ended between us," she finally broke the silence, hoping that her nerves didn't completely shine through in her words.

"Your letter came as a surprise to me, Jane," he commented, speaking in a level tone.

"I had exhausted all other options. I wasn't sure where else to turn," she admitted.

"What is the urgent matter?" he asked.

Jane took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She didn't think they'd be getting to the main reason for the meeting so quickly. It seemed as though Tommy had no time for pleasantries; he was conducting this as a matter of business. Jane couldn't blame him though. Thirteen years have passed since they last saw each other, and it's not like the split was exactly amicable. Still, she wished there would have been some time to ease herself into the topic, some time for her to work up the courage to ask him for what she needed help with.

"It's my brother...Anthony. He's been working for a, uh..." she paused with her explanation, taking a moment to think of how to label the group her brother was working for, "a family organization for some time now. He does mostly lower level jobs for them, like errands."

"What family?" he questioned her before she was able to divulge any more information.

"The Changrettas," she answered.

"No," Tommy's answer was abrupt, and he made to get up as he said it, placing his hands on the table as he stood from the seat.

"Tommy, please," Jane pleaded, quickly reaching out and placing her hand on his in hopes it would stop him. It worked, and her eyes widened the second his intense ones matched them. She was surprised it worked. "Please hear me out," she begged for more of his time.

Time felt like it froze at that moment. Neither made a move as a tense silence built up around them. Jane held her breath in hopes that her chances of getting his help weren't already shattered. Tommy's gaze broke from her just for a second to glance down at her hand, which was still resting atop his. He wasn't sure what he felt. Wordlessly he sat back down, deciding to hear her out.

"Thank you," she breathed out a sigh of relief, finally lifting her hand from his so that she could use both of hers to smooth out the napkin sitting on her legs. She kept her eyes focused on her lap as she spoke again: "he's there because of my mother."

"Mother dearest's attempt to control his life too, eh?" he quipped, his statement making her eyes dart upwards. He kept his stoic expression as she looked at him with raised eyebrows and slightly parted lips. The crass nature of his comment had obviously surprised her. He wasn't quite sure he cared that it did. His resentment towards Isabella Rivelli still lingered after all of these years.

Jane swallowed back her initial response, tilting her chin up slightly, hoping to put on the guise that his statement bothered her less than it actually did, before saying: "not anymore...she died." She could have re-hashed their final moments spent together in 1910 and go on about her mother's hand in them, but she wanted to keep focus on her brother.

"Oh?" Tommy's single word response was spoken as a question, inclining her to tell more.

"She fell ill with the Spanish Flu five years ago. Couldn't recover no matter what the doctors tried," she shared more details.

"I'm sorry," he offered a condolence, his words void of any significant emotion. She couldn't be mad at him for it though.

"Yeah, me too. But it's in the past," she brushed it off. "My brother won't quit though," she then steered the conversation back to its original topic. "He continues to work with them even though I told him time and time again nothing good will come of being with that family, and that he should get out and find something new. I was hoping that maybe you'd be able to make him see sense," she finally got around to what she wanted him to help with.

"He's old enough to make his own choices, Jane. Nothing I say to him is going to change his mind if it's made up," Tommy pointed out.

"He always used to look up to you though, Tommy. Maybe if it comes from you, he'll actually listen," she didn't let him off that easily, trying another avenue in hopes he'd change his mind and help her out. "I'm worried about him. He's been acting differently as of late...he's come home bruised several times now and won't disclose how he's gotten them no matter how many times I ask him. I know there's something wrong, and I know it has to do with the job he's doing. He needs to be finished with it. He won't listen to me...maybe he'll make the change if it's you who speaks to him."

The worry was evident in Jane's voice. Tommy knew how close she was to her brother; knew how much she cared about those she loved.

He took a moment then to remember Anthony. He was only thirteen when Tommy and Jane were first together, and boy did he enjoy spending time with Tommy. He'd always come out to the barn and try to soak up any knowledge that Tommy would offer up on caring for the horses. It was easily apparent that the younger boy's mother wanted him to age up into a proper gentleman. But it was also easily apparent that said boy wanted very little part of that and found more comfort outside than he did in a stuffy dining hall schmoozing other rich guests. In many ways, Tommy saw his younger self in Anthony. That's why making this decision was so hard for him.

"Please, Tommy," Jane's voice cut into Tommy's thoughts, bringing him back to the conversation at hand. His eyes met her pleading ones, and he held her gaze for a moment or two longer. Each beat that passed made the knot in Jane's stomach twist tighter.

She held her breath until Tommy let out a sigh. "Fine," he said, clearing his throat after speaking. He uttered the word not in a tone of reluctance, but rather simply as an agreeance. "I'll try and speak to him," he added, nodding his head.

Relief flooded over Jane as she heard his decision. She almost wanted to move around the table and hug him, but she didn't. She couldn't. "Oh thank you, Tommy. Thank you so much," she expressed her gratitude, her worried expression melting into a relieved smile.

"I can't promise he'll listen though," he reminded her, "he's still capable of making his own decisions."

"I understand," she nodded, still just happy that he agreed to helping her.

Silence fell over both of them then, and they used that moment to—finally—take drinks from the tea they'd all but forgotten about. Thankfully it hadn't gone cold on them.

"You're not married, Jane." Tommy was the one to start their conversation up again, this time with a new topic. He'd been wondering about this since the maitre d referred to her by her maiden name.

"I'm not," she answered willingly, shaking her head as she spoke. "Are you?" she then turned the question on him.

"I was. She died," his answer was rather abrupt, and it made her eyes widen. She hadn't expected that sort of response from him.

"I'm sorry, Tommy," she quickly apologized for his loss, feeling a pang of sadness in her heart for him.

"So am I," he agreed with her, sounding rather dismissive on the subject.

"I uh, if I may ask..."

"I couldn't find much out about you, you know. Asked around the city. There wasn't much to be said," he cut her off, continuing on with what he originally wanted to talk about, hoping his doing so would steer them away from that topic. If they stuck on it too long he may have just told her why he'd gotten up to leave at the beginning of their conversation.

"I don't frequent the city," she followed suit in responding, deciding it better to now follow his lead instead of making another attempt at circling back. She figured if the roles were reversed, she wouldn't have wanted to dwell on it either.

"You worked in the war office though," he brought up the bit of information he did find on her before coming to this meeting.

"I did. I felt it was my duty to help out in some way. My mother didn't approve, but I didn't care. I got a job as a secretary and kept all of the records that passed through the office organized and on track," she explained her job with pride. She paused for a moment then. A soft smile formed on her face as she kept her eyes locked with Tommy's. She couldn't help but exhale a soft, inward laugh as she debated whether or not she wanted to disclose one of the other reasons why she took the job. After a few, silent moments, she spoke: "besides...I did so in hopes you would have come in one day."

"Jane..."

"It's true," she was quick to cut him off for fear of what he might have had to say, and she sat up straighter in her seat before continuing, "Martha told me you and your brothers had enlisted. She was a wreck when John went away,"

"Everyone was," there was an evident tone shift in his voice. It was almost absent in nature, and Jane could certainly have understood why.

"Anthony..." she began, wondering if she should compare her family's wartime experience to his. Tommy seemed to tip his head sideways slightly, showing Jane that he had interest in what she had to say. So she continued, "he wanted to enlist when he turned eighteen, but my mother wasn't having any of that. She sent him to work at my grandfather's factory because she knew that they weren't drafting any of the workers who were producing munitions, which was what the company had shifted to doing. She knew that it fell under the 'reserved occupations' exemption. He was frustrated with her, but I was thankful he didn't go fight."

Tommy nodded along with what she was saying. When she finished, silence fell over them. He really didn't have anything to add, or anything to say in response to her statement.

"Martha continued to tell me what you and your family were up to after I couldn't see you anymore. I was thankful for her doing so...I missed you something crazy," she couldn't help but feel a little sheepish in admitting that last statement. "She was good for John," she added in hopes he wouldn't comment on her admission.

"She was," he nodded, successfully taking her bait and commenting on what she said last rather than the sentiment that was present in the second sentence. He didn't miss it though, and for a moment it made him think back to how he felt after they split all those years ago.

"How is John now?" Jane asked, making sure the conversation flowed forward.

"He's good. He uh," Tommy paused, clearing his throat before continuing, "he's taken a new wife. Has a couple more kids now."

Jane couldn't help but laugh at the thought of the small army John Shelby had created. "And Arthur?" she asked about one of the other Shelby siblings.

"He's good as well," he didn't offer much detail on his older brother.

She didn't seem to care, continuing on with another question: "how about little Finn?"

Tommy eased up as he heard what she was asking. He figured it was only fair that he delved more into how his family was doing since she had shared about hers.

"He might be the tallest of all of us," he admitted, a smile tugging on the corner of his lips as he spoke. Jane giggled at the statement and upon hearing the sound Tommy felt something course through him that he hadn't in a long time.

"Your Aunt Polly? Does she still play a big part in your life?" she asked another question.

"She does," he nodded, "she helps me with a lot of the decisions regarding the business."

There was one more Shelby family member Jane hadn't asked about. She was purposefully saving her for last. Much like how Anthony was with Tommy, Ada Shelby was with Jane. "And how's...how's Ada doing?"

"She's good. Got married and had a kid, but her husband died of influenza. She lives here now; in London and helps me out quite a bit although she's hesitant to do so," he gave the most information about his sister, knowing how fondly Jane thought of her.

Another pang hurt Jane's heart. "Maybe I'll have to pay her a visit sometime," she decided, nodding to herself as she spoke; like she was agreeing with the statement she was making.

"She'd like that," Tommy nodded also. He took a moment then to fish the watch he owned out of his waistcoat's pocket. He opened the lid and quickly checked the time before returning it to its home. "I'm needed somewhere soon," he told Jane, his eyes finding hers once more.

Jane nodded upon hearing what he had to say. She completely understood his needing to leave, but couldn't ignore the feeling of sadness that was now creeping up on her. She secretly hated that this meeting was finishing up already. But who was she to stop him from what he had to go do? "That's ok. Thank you so much again for meeting me, Tommy. I owe you," she smiled at him, hoping to convey how she was grateful for the fact that he accepted this invitation and was going to help her out.

"I want to see you again, Jane."

The words that left his mouth made her eyes widen slightly. She was completely taken back by the forwardness of his admission, but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't happy to hear him say it. Being with him now only made her want to spend more time in his company.

She relaxed her muscles that had involuntarily tensed upon hearing his surprising statement and let a smile slowly form on her face. "Ok. I'll see you again."

CHAPTER 3 (coming soon)

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[littlepeakydevil]

Part 30: Forever Yours

Chapter 1: Just Us

Warnings: Divorce, sexual content, insecurity, and brief references to past suicidal behavior.

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He asked her to marry him the night after their wagon was set ablaze.

They were entangled together on the ground. Naked, with their clothes spread out underneath them to provide some semblance of padding against the grass. Phantom snorted, his white tail swishing from side to side where he was tied to a nearby tree. Above them, stars twinkled in the clear night sky.

Lily sat up from where she was laying with her head on Tommy’s chest. The arm he had wrapped around her didn’t let her get very far, just enough to peer down at his face. There was an earnestness in his features. His fingers stroked against the freckled skin of her shoulder.

Lily smiled affectionately at him, brushing back his fringe where it fell across his forehead.

“Ask me again after you’re actually divorced,” she said.

He blinked, as if only just remembering that he was, technically, still married. 

He and Lizzie had signed and filed the papers that would finally sever them from each other before he and Lily left to deal with Michael in Canada. But these things took time. Even with the bribes he made to speed the process along, it would be at least another month or two until everything was finalized and official.

Tommy drew her back down so that she was resting on his chest, pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

“Mm. Fair enough,” he hummed. 

She relaxed at the understanding she heard in his voice, relieved that he wasn’t upset. Tommy reached for his coat when he felt her shiver a little at the cool night air, draping it over them both. Lily curled up closer to him, letting her eyes slip shut. It was alright.

They had time. 

—

“So what do you want to do now?” 

They were astride Phantom, Tommy seated in front of her with the reins clutched in his hands. Lily’s palms rested on his waist to help keep her balance, his back warm against her front where they were pressed together.

He didn’t say anything, and she wondered if he hadn’t heard her. 

“Tommy?”

“I think that we should stay dead.”

She frowned at his back, not quite understanding. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I don’t think we should go back.”

“To Birmingham?”

“Birmingham. Parliament. Any of it.”

Lily cocked her head, now truly puzzled. “Why not?”

He looked over his shoulder at her, eyes sparkling with amusement. “Alfie keeps so highly recommending playing dead. I’m thinking that it might be time that we actually tried it out.” 

“What about the family?”

His smile fell a little. “We already made sure that everyone’s taken care of before we left. We can keep an eye on them from afar, but…”

“...But?” she prompted when he trailed off. His ribs expanded under her hands with his sigh. 

“I think that it’s time I finally set them all free. It’s what they’ve always wanted.”

She felt her lips turn down, arms reaching around to clasp at his middle and give him a squeeze. 

“They love you, Tommy.”

“Yeah.” There was something dull in his voice that told her he didn’t entirely believe it.

“And the kids?”

“Duke is already an adult. And he’s done fine without me for most of his life already. Charlie…” he cleared his throat, and she could sense him battling with the constriction of guilt and sorrow that both of them always felt whenever they thought of the little boy. “Charlie is better off without me.”

“That’s not true,” she tried to argue weakly.

“Even if it wasn’t, he doesn’t want anything to do with me. With either of us. I’ll not trample on his wishes.” Tommy’s voice dropped. “I owe him that much.”

“He’s still just a kid. His feelings might change.” 

Tommy let out a small sound of acknowledgement at her words, but Lily could tell that he was as unconvinced by that sentiment as she was.

“I want him to be a better man than I was,” he mumbled quietly.

“And you think that will happen if you’re not in his life?”

Another sigh. “I think that Lizzie will be a better parent and influence on him than either of us could be.”

Much as it may have hurt, Lily couldn’t disagree with him there. If she was being brutally honest with herself, neither of them had probably ever really been cut out to be parents. It would be better for Charlie to remain with Lizzie. He could actually have a chance at a peaceful, normal life.

If you really love that boy, you’ll let him go.

“Yeah,” she agreed in a whisper, voice shaking. Tommy’s hand dropped to rest on top of hers, squeezing.

“They’ll be okay.” He looked back over his shoulder at her, and she could see it in his eyes that the decision was already made. 

Lily searched his gaze, and nodded slowly. “Alright, then.” 

He maneuvered Phantom around a fallen tree.

“What will we do?” she asked. 

Tommy shrugged. “Whatever we want. We could stay on the road for a bit. It wouldn’t be too hard to pinch another wagon. Or we could have a new house built out in the country. Maybe a ranch where we could keep horses. We could even look into starting up a program providing equestrian therapy to war veterans, like you used to talk about.”  

A small smile pulled at the edges of her lips. “You’ll get bored within a week. Remember the last time we tried to take an extended holiday?”

“Yeah,” Tommy said, no doubt experiencing the same flash of memories that she was of their disastrous attempt to take some time off after the vendetta with the Changrettas. “It feels different this time.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “it does.” There was a lightness in her chest that was not there last time. Like the heavy weight of the earth she was once buried under had finally been lifted.

“Besides, if we do get bored, we could always look into doing some more work for Churchill. I’m sure he could find a use for two dead people.”

Lily hummed at the suggestion. A bloom of hope started to sprout in her chest. He was right; even without the company or the family, they could surely find ways to keep themselves busy. 

“I meant what I said with Holford.”

She tilted her head, remembering. “Peace at last?”

“Mhm.” He lifted one of her hands to press his lips against her knuckles. “Of all my women, you’re the only one I could ever imagine a peaceful life with.” 

Lily hesitated, eyes fixing on the back of his head. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, but…

He hadn’t taken off his ring.

Not after Lizzie left. Or after he signed the divorce papers. Not even during the entire month they’d spent together out in the wagon, thinking it was the last weeks of their lives.

It was only just before they were about to shoot themselves in the head that he finally slipped the golden band off. Placing it with gentle care to join the rest of his most precious possessions in the wagon.

She shouldn’t have let it bother her. She told him, after all, that he could keep it on for as long as he wanted. And it had burned up alongside everything else inside the wagon. But…

Lily could not help but wonder what sort of significance his reluctance to remove it might mean. 

“Lils?” Tommy took notice of her shift in mood. When she didn’t immediately answer, his head craned back around to look over his shoulder, fixing her with a concerned gaze. “Oi,” he gave her a little nudge. “Get out of your own head.”

She blinked, shaking herself from her thoughts and snorting. “Pot meet kettle.”

He raised an eyebrow, lips twitching in an attempt to suppress a smile. “Is something wrong?”

“No, it’s…” she bit her lip. “It’s nothing.”

“If you really would rather we go back–”

“It’s not that,” she amended quickly. “I just…wasn’t sure if you would want to go back. To the company. To Lizzie…”

Tommy jerked the reins back hard enough that Phantom skidded to a stop with a small whinny. His head snapped around to stare at her, expression indicating that he knew exactly what she was getting at.

“I asked you to marry me last night.”

“I wouldn’t have held you to it.”

The look in his eyes turned sad. “You didn’t think that I was serious?”

“I…” she hesitated. In all honesty, a part of her hadn’t. He was just caught up in the exhilaration of finding out that he wasn’t dying. That was all.

With a quick, fluid movement, Tommy dismounted from Phantom’s back. Reaching out, he guided her to follow him off the white horse. The second her boots hit the soft forest dirt, he was taking hold of her face, tilting it up to look at him. 

“What is it?”

Lily closed her eyes. Drew in a deep breath. Opened them again. 

“You didn’t want to take off your ring.”

His brow furrowed. “I what?” 

“You didn’t want to take off your ring. The one she gave you. Not until we were about to shoot ourselves. So I assumed that…”

“You thought that meant something?” he asked, eyes widening. “Love, no. I wasn’t…I just felt bad, that’s all.” He brushed a stray bit of hair away from her face and shook his head self deprecatingly. “I’d gotten too used to wearing the bloody thing. I half forgot that I even had it on until the very end, there.”

“Oh.” She suddenly felt rather silly. Tommy’s expression softened, leaning forward to kiss her forehead. Lily let herself tip forward into him.

“You should have told me it bothered you. I would have taken it off earlier if I’d known.”

“It wasn’t that big of a deal.”

He gave her an unconvinced look. Something sad crossed his features. “You really thought I’d change my mind at the last minute?”

Lily shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know…”

He gripped her by the face again. His eyes were still softened with affection when he looked at her, but there was a sternness there too. Something steady and unwavering. “I love you. I choose you. Every time.” He kissed her, thumb stroking against her cheek. “It’s okay,” he whispered between kisses, body pressing closer to hers. 

“Tommy,” she rested her palms on his chest, leaning back just far enough to look up at him. Guilt clawed at the inside of her throat. “If you’re abandoning your family because of me…”

“You're my family.” His expression set stubbornly. “And I’m not abandoning anyone. They’re adults. They can take care of themselves. It’s not just about you. I…” his throat bobbed with a swallow, “I’m tired, Lils.”

She felt herself soften, reaching up to stroke his fringe out of his eyes where it had flopped forward. “Love…” 

“Look at me,” he leaned his forehead against hers. “We’ve given them everything. It’s our turn to be happy now. I think we’ve waited more than long enough for that, eh?”

She felt her lips twitch upwards, already starting to melt into him. The selfish desire to finally take what she so badly wanted, what she had waited years for, was quickly overriding any lingering guilt.

Was this not something she had often thought about? Taking him away from the family who, in her opinion, had never properly appreciated him anyway. Surely after everything they’d been through, they couldn’t be judged too harshly for seizing this chance at happiness.  

Tommy pulled her into his arms, cradling the back of her head in his strong palm and tucking her against his chest. 

“Corpses can’t get married,” she pointed out. 

“Sure they can. With the right bribes.”

She snorted fondly against his neck. 

“Besides,” he added, “we’re technically probably only missing right now. It’ll be awhile until we’re legally declared dead. If ever.”

“Holford might talk.”

“He might. But even if he does, they won’t find us. We’ll be ghosts.”  

She leaned back and touched his face. “Are you sure?”

“There are plenty of ways for us to hide. There might be rumors, but–”

“No,” she shook her head. “Are you sure that you want to leave it all behind?”

When he met her gaze, she found nothing but steadfastness there.

“Yeah,” he nodded, “I’m sure.” His lips brushed against hers, feather-soft. “I’d be happy if it’s just us from now on.”

“Just us?” she asked, a small smile tugging on her lips. She couldn’t say that the idea wasn’t appealing. Especially after having to share him for so long.   

“Just us,” he reiterated, and kissed her again.

Prev Part • Series • Part 30 • Next Chapter

[multific]

Through Smoke and Shadows

Thomas Shelby x Reader

Summary: Thomas Shelby’s nights are haunted by ghosts of the war, his past clawing at his throat like smoke from a battlefield. You are the only one who can soothe him.

The first time you hear him scream, it’s a sound that shatters the night.

Your eyes snap open in the darkness of the bedroom, heart hammering as you turn toward him. 

Thomas is tangled in the sheets, sweat beading at his brow despite the chill in the air. His face is twisted, teeth bared in a silent war with the demons that have followed him home from France.

“Tommy,” you whisper, touching his arm. He flinches violently, eyes snapping open, wide and unfocused. 

For a moment, he’s not here. He’s in the trenches. He’s surrounded by mud and blood, the stench of death thick in the air. 

And then, his gaze lands on you.

His breath becomes irregular like he’s just surfaced from drowning. 

You reach out again, softer this time, letting your fingers brush his cheek.

“It’s me,” you murmur. “You’re home.”

Thomas exhales sharply, his body collapsing into itself. He runs a trembling hand down his face, rubbing at his eyes as though trying to scrub away the images that linger. 

You don’t ask what he saw. He never tells you anyway. 

Instead, you pull him into your arms, feeling his heartbeat racing beneath his ribs. His body is tense, always bracing for another attack, another fight.

He doesn’t cry. He never cries. But in the quiet of the night, wrapped in your arms, you feel the weight of his silence like a stone pressed against your chest.

The nightmares never stop.

They come like clockwork, leaving him breathless and shaking. 

And when the morning sun rises, Thomas drowns it all in whiskey.

“You’re drinking earlier now,” you remark one morning, watching him pour a glass before he’s even touched his breakfast.

He doesn’t look at you. “It helps.”

“With what?”

His jaw tenses, his fingers tightening around the glass. “With everything.”

You cross the room, placing a gentle hand over his. “You don’t have to do this alone, Tommy.”

He pulls away as if your touch burns him. “I already do.”

The words sting, but you refuse to let them cut too deep. 

You know him. You know his sharp edges and the way he keeps everyone at arm’s length, even those he loves. 

Especially those he loves.

“You think I don’t see it?” you ask, voice steady. “The way you wake up gasping for air, the way you bury yourself in work so you don’t have to think? The way you drink yourself numb so you don’t feel anything at all?”

Thomas exhales slowly, staring down into the amber liquid in his glass. “And what would you have me do, eh?” he says, voice quiet, almost broken. “Tell you every bloody thing I saw? Every man I buried? Every scream I still hear when I close my eyes?”

“No,” you whisper. “I just want you to let me in.”

His shoulders slump, the weight of his ghosts pressing down on him. For a long moment, he says nothing. Then, in a movement so small you almost miss it, he reaches out. His fingers brush against yours, hesitant, uncertain. 

A silent offering. 

A plea for something he doesn’t know how to ask for.

You take his hand.

It doesn’t happen overnight.

Thomas is not a man who heals easily. He still drinks too much, still buries himself in business and cigarettes, and still wakes up in the dead of night with shadows clawing at his throat. 

But slowly, something shifts.

One night, when the nightmares come, he doesn’t pull away. He lets you hold him, lets your fingers thread through his hair, grounding him.

One morning, he reaches for coffee instead of whiskey.

One evening, as the fire crackles in the home, he takes your hand in his and holds it without saying a word.

And one day, when the ghosts come whispering, he turns to you instead of the bottle.

It’s not a perfect love. 

It’s messy, tangled with pain and fear and too many unspoken words. But it’s real. 

And for the first time in a long time, Thomas Shelby lets himself believe that maybe, just maybe, the war inside him doesn’t have to be fought alone.

~Masterlist~

ˇAO3ˇ

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/DO NOT TRANSLATE, STEAL OR REPOST ANY OF MY WORKS TO THIS OR OTHER PLATFORMS/

[princessofmarvel]

Business and dates

summary | when grace leaves, it leaves the shelbys with a heartbroken thomas. polly takes this as an opportunity to get him with the girl she's always wanted him with

pairing | thomas shelby x fem!reader

word count | 2.30k

genre | fluff! with just a tad of angst! 

requested? | yes! thank you so much for your request! i had so much writing it, and i am kind of proud of this one, lol.

warnings! | mentions of bullying, and the reader not eating from being worried! and, i have not proof read this yet!

author’s note! | Hi! Thank you all for being so patient as I worked on this! Requests are open for drabbles, and headcanons only at the moment for these characters! And as always, I do I have really bad OCD that causes me to write in some random capitalization, and punctuation, But I think that we don't have to worry about that in this fic lol. And let me know if there are any mistakes, but please be kind!

No one knew what had happened that day. All anyone knew was that Grace was suddenly gone, and that she had left the Shelby family with a heartbroken Thomas. And the person left to pick up the pieces was his lifelong best friend, who has been in love with Thomas since the day they met back when they were just small kids. 

Thomas was having a decent day, school had just let out and he was walking back home (alone because his older brother Aurther thought that it would be funny to run off before Thomas got out of class) when he saw a young girl getting picked on. 

“Stop it! This is my favorite skirt!” Thomas heard her yell to the kids that had her on the ground, kicking dirt onto her clothes while laughing and taunting her. Thomas knew that these kids were practically afraid of him, so he knew he could get them to leave the girl alone.  He also knew that his mother would scold him if she found out that he didn’t do anything to help her. 

“Oi! Leave her alone, or I'll put a curse on you!” Thomas called out as he made his way up to the group, and pulled a razor blade out of his pocket. The kids practically scattered the moment they heard Thomas’ voice. Leaving just him, and the girl with dirt on her clothes. 

“Thank you” He heard the girl say in a quiet voice as he put his hand out to help her back up. 

“What caused that?” He asked, curious as to what the girl could have done to anger the other kids so much. 

“I-I told them that I wouldn’t do their homework.” She said back to him, as she tried to get the dirt off of her skirt.  Thomas told himself that he should have known it was something like that. There wasn’t anything serious that this girl could have done to upset them so much. 

“Come on, I’ll walk you home, you live on Watery lane, right?” He said as he started walking, with the girl running a bit to catch up with him. He knew her name, he recognized her from school. She lived right across from him, but they never said anything to each other. She had been over to play with Ada sometimes, but they never spoke. 

Neither one of them said anything as they walked, it wasn’t until they got to her home that Thomas spoke up. 

“They shouldn’t bother you again, no one should.” He said as he stood outside her doorstep, seeming almost sorry since he knew his reputation, and how kids would stay away from him in fear of getting cursed. 

“It’s alright, I don’t really have any friends anyways.” The small girl said, while rocking back and forth on her heels. 

“Why don’t you come play at my house? I know my family won’t mind.” He said to her with a small smile. Truth be told, Thomas didn’t really have many friends either, and he saw an opportunity to make one. 

Ever since then, the two were inseparable. They did everything together, they were even each other's first kiss. Her family was weary at first, but soon saw how protective the Shelby boys (and the rest of the Shelby family) were over her, and grew to like them. The two were like this up until Thomas was called to war

“Tommy, this has to be a mistake.” The girl cried into Thomas’ shoulder as he held her. “All three of you at the same time? What kind of cruel joke is this” 

“The universe has a funny way of doing things.” He mumbled into her hair, his hand resting on the back of her head. “I’ll come back, sweetheart.” 

“You don’t know that, Tommy” The girl said as she pulled her head out of his shoulder, and looked up at him, eyes red and puffy. 

“You really think I'm leaving you yet? You think I'm going to leave you before you get married? Please, your future husband doesn’t get off that easily.” He said with a small laugh while trying to lighten the mood as he held her face with his hand. “Nothings taking me from you, not yet.” 

“You better come back, Shelby.” She said as she looked up at him with glossy eyes. “Or, I’ll bring you back just to kill you myself.” 

Thomas laughed and kissed her head, as the air in the room changed. He didn’t know why, but he leaned down and kissed her lips softly, all he knew was that he couldn’t leave without giving her a kiss, even just a light one. “You’ve got nothing to worry about” He said as he pulled away. 

She believed him, she tried not to worry. She didn’t worry until his letters stopped coming. After a month of not hearing from him she worried so much she got sick. She wrote him everyday, sent him a letter at least once a week, if not twice. No word of his death ever came. 

The day Thomas arrived home, she was sitting at the kitchen table with Polly. His heart broke when he saw her, she was paler, and her face was skinny, all signs to her not eating properly. Neither one of them said a word to each other for a week. It wasn’t until (Y/n) decided that she had enough, and stormed into his room. 

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” she shouted, growing red in the face. 

“What are you talking about?” He asked, not meeting her eyes, already knowing what she was talking about,

“You! You come back, and are completely different! You’re cold, and mean to everyone, which maybe you were that way to some people before, but never to me! Never to your family!” As she yelled at him, she started to sway as if she was about to faint. Before she could hit the floor, Thomas grabbed her and set her down on the bed beside him. 

“You need to eat something.” He mumbled, not looking at her which infuriated her more. 

“I thought you were dead.” This caught his attention as he heard her start to cry. He finally turned to her. “You stopped writing.” 

“I didn’t know how to write to you, you would ask me how I was, and I couldn’t find it in myself to tell you about how I had just watched a man die. I thought it better to not write.” He said, pulling her into his chest. “Why are you not eating?” 

“You worried me, anything I ate just came back up.” She mumbled into his chest. 

“I told you not to worry.” He said with a small laugh coming from his chest, the first in a long time. 

“Tough shit, Shelby.” She mumbled back, while pulling her head out of his chest. 

They sat in silence for a few minutes, just staring at the other, until Thomas finally spoke up. “I’m trying to get back to normal.” He mumbled, barely loud enough for her to hear, she wouldn’t have if they hadn’t been so close. 

“I know, it will just take some time.” She said while she caressed his cheek. “And, I’ll be here to help you heal.” 

After that day, nothing ever really went back to how it was before the war. But it was like that for everyone. Thomas had gone back to normal as much as he could. He had his moments, but everyone did. And, (Y/n) didn’t lie, she was there every step of the way, even in the bad times she never left. 

The two never fought again until the day Grace left. She had tried telling Thomas before that something was up with her, but he just wouldn’t listen. The only other person that seemed to notice it was Polly. 

“He’ll never go for it.” John pipped into the conversation. Polly was currently trying to figure out a way to cheer Thomas up, and the idea she had was to put Thomas with (Y/n). She already considered the girl a daughter, and she always wanted her with Thomas. To her, it was the perfect plan. 

“That's why we don’t tell him! All we tell him is that he has a business meeting at the new restaurant, he’ll show up, expecting some business man to be there, but instead (Y/n) will come in wearing the most beautiful thing I can find, that he’ll just have to stay.” Polly explained to the boys and Ada. 

“Alright, but how are you going to get (Y/n) there, dressed up, without suspecting anything?” Ada chimed in. 

“We’ll tell her a boy stopped by and asked to take her out.” Polly said, as if it was obvious. 

“Please, she’s not going to just agree to go out with someone, especially if she doesn’t even know who it is.” Arthur muttered. 

"Actually she might.” John announced to everyone. “Just to make Thomas jealous, she mentioned it back when Grace was around.” 

The Shelby’s set everything into motion that night. Polly told Thomas he had a meeting, then she told (Y/n) about the secret man that wanted to take her out. 

So Thomas sat in his suit, waiting for this man to show, when he saw (Y/n) walk through the door, dressed like a vision in her red, drop waist, beaded dress, with an old pearl necklace to match. She looked around the room, until her eyes landed on Thomas. 

“What are you doing here?” She asked him, as she walked up to his table.

“Business meeting, what are you doing here?” He asked, suddenly growing jealous at the thought of her being here for another man. 

“A date, and what business meeting? I know your schedule, there wasn’t one planned, did you make one?” She asked, wondering who on earth Thomas could be meeting for business at this hour. 

“No, Polly told me I had one, who’s the date?” He asked, his jealousy rising. 

“Not sure, Polly told me-” A look of realization crossed both their faces “Polly” The two said in unison. 

She decided to sit down, now laughing to herself. “You’re the date.”

“You’re the business.” Thomas responded, a small smile growing to his face. 

The two sat there for a minute, before Thomas spoke up. “You do look stunning.” 

“Polly picked it.” She said, with a small laugh.

“I bet she did.” Thomas said with a laugh, and a sigh. “She’s wanted us together for ages.” He mumbled. 

“And what do you want?” The girl asked. Thomas had always had a feeling that (Y/n) liked him, he was just never sure how much, until he looked up and met her eyes that were filled with nothing but love and want.

“You in my life.” He said, keeping his eyes on her. “I thought a relationship between us would mess everything up. I couldn’t risk losing you.” 

“Thomas.” The girl said, grabbing his hand across the table. “You could never lose me, even if we did have a relationship and it failed, I would still love you. But, I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this.” 

“I have distracted myself from you for as long as I can remember. I wouldn’t let myself fall for you.” Thomas said, standing up from the table, (Y/n) following. 

“It’s okay to fall, Thomas, who knows, maybe it won’t hurt.” She said, as she placed a hand to his face. Without thinking, Thomas leaned in and kissed her with everything in him, causing her to hit the table, his hands on the side of her face being the only thing to keep them from falling. The pair kissed until they needed air. When they pulled away, he rested his forehead on hers. 

“Let’s give this a try.” He whispered, looking into her eyes. 

The girl smiled and gave Thomas a quick peck, before they left the restaurant, her holding his arm. The walk back to the Shelby home was mostly quiet, until she spoke up. “Thank god for Polly.” 

[novashelby]

Office Fun- A Tommy Shelby x Reader Drabble

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader Word Count: 550 Warnings: Affair? Sexual content? Summary: Tommy has been ignoring his mistress a bit too much until she shows up at his job.....

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“You’ve been ignoring me,” a voice came from the door that leaked just enough light through that Tommy could see. He’d been at his office in the factory and it’d been nearing two in the morning. Time stopped making sense to Tommy years ago, and sometimes night felt like morning, day felt like night, and morning felt like evening. Irrelevant, really. Or so he thought, but only if he saw the bags resting under his eyes from his mistress's side, he’d know that sleep was not irrelevant. He leaned over his desk, fingers gripping the wood, stressing over numbers that weren’t matching. She grinned, kicking the door shut with her heel. The way she’d been holding her coat over her body told him only one thing.

“You walked in the cold naked?” he said, sighing, looking back down at the file. “I’m not that simple-”

The air clicked along with her heels against the wooden floor. “Never said you were,” she purred, leaning against the side, her fingers sliding along the wood. His eyes traveled up her arm to her eyes as she blocked his work. She always wore that said so much without having to speak. He sighed, falling back in his chair, silently inviting her to move in. She slipped between him and the desk. “But you are a man. Possibly the most warm blooded, but cold hearted man I know, Tommy Shelby.”

He matched her snark. “And so you came here in the winter air as you did just to prove a point? To whom? Yourself or I? I know I like sex.” 

“And so do I,” she agreed, hoisting herself on the desk, allowing her legs to spread. 

He grabbed a smoke from the almost empty carton and licked along the edge before lighting it. After tossing the lighter, he took a deep inhale and blew, not meaning for it to travel to her face. “And you’re here and I’m here. We’ll play along with each other’s banter just before you’re bent over and my cock is buried in you. You know this, I know this.”

“I hadn’t come here to prove anything, Thomas,” she teased, her fingers playing at the wool belt that kept her jacket snugged tight. “I came here because I’m horny, neglected, and most of all, pissed. Your wife had no business saying such an insult to me this morning.”

Tommy’s eyes travelled to the clock that ticked on the wall. “Yesterday morning,” he corrected for no reason other than to be an asshole. “Because you burnt the toast-”

“And I wouldn’t burn toast,” she snipped, slipping from the desk to his lap. Her legs slipped through the arms of the chair to wrap tightly around him. Her hand teasing up to his jaw, she leaned in. Slowly grinning as her nails dug into his flesh. “If you just moved me up and her out.” 

Tommy twitched as her hips grinned down, his hand going up, grabbing the back of her neck, bringing her in closely. “That’s a bit unfortunate for you because some of your appeal is this flimsy affair.”

“And the rest of my appeal isn’t worth more?” she teased back.

“The rest of your appeal comes from how well you drain my balls.”

[queenshelby]

Paper Bride (Part One)

Pairing: Thomas Shelby (40) x Fem!Reader (20)

Warning: Arranged Marriage

Chapter One: The Price of Daughters

You always knew your family wasn’t clean.

You were young when you first overheard the words ‘opium’ and ‘shipment’ whispered through the slats of a wooden door. Young enough that you didn’t know what they meant. Old enough to know you weren’t supposed to hear them. Old enough to understand that your father’s wealth didn’t come from his olive groves or textile mills. That the men who came to dinner didn’t talk like businessmen. That the gifts — silks, jewels, perfumes from Shanghai — always arrived with a quiet nod and a heavy briefcase.

You weren’t stupid.

Your father never laid a hand on you. Not once. But power has its own kind of violence, and you learned quickly how silence could be a blade. How absence could bruise deeper than fists.

Still, in his own way, he protected you. He kept the worst of it behind doors, behind words in languages you weren’t supposed to understand. He smiled at you across the breakfast table and told you you’d go to Paris one day, to study art, just like your mother wanted. He let you pretend. Let you believe there was still time to choose your life.

But then he was shot.

And the illusion — of freedom, of safety, of Paris — shattered like porcelain on the marble floor.

Your mother tried, God bless her. She held you and your younger siblings close that first week and whispered that everything would be all right. But whatever power she once had vanished with the bloodstained coat she took from the hospital to remember him by.

Widows in your family didn’t run empires. Your uncles did. The oldest of whom was a man of appetites, not ideals. He liked his brandy dark and his women young. He didn’t much like being told no. And he saw you, barely twenty and grieving, as a loose thread to be tied up — or cut clean. You were a business opportunity for him and heard the words ‘marriage’ for the first time two months after your father’s funeral. Not from your mother, not even from your uncle, but from a servant girl in the hallway.

The name ‘Thomas Shelby’ drifted to you like smoke — never spoken to you, only around you. First from the maids, whispering like children telling ghost stories. Then from your cousin in the courtyard, voice low and urgent when she thought you weren’t listening.

“He’s dangerous. A politician now, they say. Fought in the war. Killed men with his own hands. He runs things. Big things. And he’s not that old — maybe forty. Still, that’s twenty years older than her,” he told one of your siblings and that is when you knew for certain that your life was about to change. You were the oldest in the family and your father was gone and could no longer protect you.

You didn’t ask questions — not because you were obedient, but because you knew the answers wouldn’t matter. In your family, daughters were never asked. Only offered.

What you did piece together, in fragments and silence, was this: the trade route was shifting. British involvement in the East was getting messier. Deals needed new faces. Someone powerful. Untouchable. Someone whose men carried legal badges and illegal weapons. Someone whose family name opened ports and closed investigations.

Someone like Thomas Shelby who, according to rumours, was a man high up in the British underworld. A Member of Parliament as well as a gangster.

Who else would your uncle shake hands with and then seal it with a bride?

Because that was the condition, wasn’t it?

Your family only traded with family. It was tradition. It was how your mother ended up with your father and it was how your cousin ended up with one of Al Capone’s family members too.

A paper contract could be burned. A shipment intercepted. But a marriage — a marriage bred blood. It tied fortunes together and now it would tie you to him, a man you heard so many gruesome stories about.

---

You first encountered him two weeks after you first heard the rumours, in your mother’s sitting room.

The air was thick with tension and cigar smoke, the lace curtains drawn against the glare of the afternoon sun. Your uncle sat like a king in your father’s old chair, a half-empty glass of dark liquor resting on the armrest. Two of his men stood by the door, not speaking, but watching. Always watching.

Your mother stood near the window, stiff as a statue, lips pressed into a thin line. You hadn’t seen her this pale since the day of the funeral.

And then he entered. Thomas Shelby. Your future husband.

He didn’t stride in like a man eager to impress. He walked in like the room already belonged to him. A fitted charcoal suit, dark tie, long overcoat draped over his shoulders despite the heat. His gloves stayed on. His eyes — sharp and unreadable — swept the room once, then landed on you.

“Is that her?” he asked, his gaze shifting towards your uncle who nodded, smiling like a man who had just laid his winning card.

“Yes,” he confirmed, but Thomas Shelby did not look impressed.

“How old is she?” he asked, gaze still fixed on your face.

“Twenty,” your uncle answered before anyone else could speak and Thomas tilted his head slightly, brows drawn.

“She looks younger,” he observed, displeasure evident on his face.

Your mother stepped forward then, voice taut. “She is of age. And educated. And well raised,” she told him, but Thomas Shelby didn’t respond to her and turned to your uncle again.

“I’d prefer someone older,” he said, which wiped the smile off your uncle’s face.

“Older?” he echoed. “Most men we deal with in your position would have preferred someone younger.”

Thomas’s eyes darkened.

“I’m not most men,” he said coldly. “And I’m not looking for a fucking plaything. I want someone who understands what’s at stake.”

The room froze. Even your uncle’s men seemed to shift uncomfortably.

But your uncle recovered quickly, ever the dealer. “Then you’ll take her. Because she’s the only one we’ve got who’s old enough, and blood enough, to make this binding. We don’t trade outside the family. You know how it works.”

Thomas didn’t answer right away. His gaze flicked to you again — not unkind, but sharp. Like a man measuring risk.

A long silence settled between them before he finally spoke again.

“Have the papers sent to Birmingham,” he said before he turned and left without another word.

And just like that, it was done.

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[cherrycranes]

A Proper Thank You (Tommy Shelby x Fem!Reader) [+18]

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x female reader Summary: You're Tommy's younger girlfriend who he loves to spoil. Thankfully, you always know how to thank him. Word count: 2,954 Contents: (Minors DNI) Age gap (reader is in her 20's, Tommy is in his 40's), smut, daddy kink (a serious use of the word "daddy"), oral sex (male receiving), cum eating. Author's notes: Another collab with my bestie @fuckiingloser. Don't forget to give her some love too! Mandatory "english is not my first language" disclaimer. Love ya!

You were not the first young woman to be with a man in his 40's. It was still very common even if the times were changing. But there was something about this relationship that did mirror the societal shift. You were his sweet girlfriend who he paraded around town, who shamelessly sat on his lap while he worked and who shared his bed. Quite the scandal for those still stuck in Victorian times who would expect this to happen only between a married couple. Good thing the Victorian times had ended over 30 years ago. 

Tommy loved having you by his arm half of the time. The other half he loved having you under him. Or on top, he wasn't picky. He got a kick out of the variety of looks some people would give him for having a pretty, young girl as his sweetheart. But above all things, he absolutely adored the way his pretty baby looked at him whenever he spoiled her rotten.

Today, you went with him to a horse ranch near Southam. A lovely place where Tommy intended to see that beautiful look in your eyes once more. He smirked, seeing you caress a beautiful mare’s nuzzle, the animal calm and docile under your touch.

“Aye, I think she likes you.” Tommy announced with pride, already planning to buy the horse for his beautiful girlfriend.

“You think?” You turned your head to look at him and admire his poise. The cigarette kissing his lips, the fine dark suit, the piercing blue eyes. So intimidating to many, so dear to you. “She’s beautiful…” Your thoughts and eyes returned to the mare, giving her another soft pet.

“You two make a very pretty picture, baby girl.” He dropped his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out skillfully before making his way to you. His big arms wrapped around you from behind while he rested his chin on your shoulder. You smirked when a surprisingly sweet kiss was planted on the side of your head. Thomas Shelby was never sweet to anyone, not even in the dark humor jokes of those who knew him. His portrait could have easily been annexed to the definitions of “rugged”, “serious” and even “ruthless”, yet, here he was. This was what his lips that had spat out curses and threats were doing. Kissing. And very gently at that. 

Above all women, you had a special place in his soul. You had him wrapped around your finger like those expensive rings you wore. Anything you wanted, you could have it. And if tomorrow you were to ask for a heart on a silver plate, he would tear anybody’s chest open and serve it to you himself.

You leaned into him, just in time to meet his husky whisper:

“If you want her baby… She’s yours.” 

With a big, spoiled princess grin, you turned around and looked at him in complete elation.

“Thank you, daddy!” Your sweetness intoxicated him, the way you looked into his eyes killed him, and the way you called him “daddy” raised him from the dead. He absolutely loved it. 

A calloused hand came up to touch your cheek, his thumb gently rubbing over your bottom lip. He admired the joy upon your beautiful face and studied it devotedly.

“Anything for my girl.” He spoke softly, his sexy Birmingham accent made your knees feel weak and your pussy become wetter. In a heartbeat, Thomas spoke to the farm owner, purchased the mare without even caring about the cost and made the necessary arrangements so you could have your pretty horse. 

After a successful purchase, Thomas helped you into the passenger seat of his car, driving you back to town. You would have your horse tomorrow morning, right now, business called.

He drove you to the Garrison, the Shelby's family owned pub for a Peaky Blinder business meeting. Usually, women were not allowed, but you were not just a woman. You were Thomas Shelby’s woman. And the people who knew would rather chop a limb off than dare to deny you access.

With his hand on your lower back, Tommy guided you inside the rowdy bar towards the private Peaky Blinders table. Everybody was waiting for your arrival between sips of irish whiskey and puffs of smoke. Thomas took a seat and you took yours on his lap, the feeling of your weight on him as natural as the feeling of air entering his lungs. 

The men at the table did not bat an eye, your presence was the new normality. And in a way, a sign that things were good, that Thomas was relaxed and no conflicts were on the horizon. If something bad or difficult was preying upon them, you would be hidden away in some safe heaven and not happily sitting on Tommy’s lap. Perhaps, the only other emotion a few of the men could feel when looking at you was a secret, deeply buried longing. Anybody would love to have a beauty like you sitting on their lap. Not that they would allow Thomas to hear them admit that.

The meeting started around you, some usual business and many details you didn’t care for. Thomas concentrated, his thumb mindlessly rubbing back and forth on your clothed thigh. You liked the skirt you wore, the fabric was soft, and it incited Tommy to touch. It was not exactly close to the feeling of your bare skin when you fucked him, or when he would make you sit naked on his lap while he worked in his house studio, but it was pleasant. 

The more the meeting dragged on, the more you started to grow restless. And a little bored, in all honesty. Sitting on his lap sounded glamorous and sensual in theory but in practice it was a test of resilience and patience. Being a sweet arm candy girl like you required more than a pretty face and a hot body. You also had to possess the skills to tell when a meeting was dying out and calculate the exact perfect moment to lean closer to Tommy’s ear and whisper something to save you from boredom.

“You know… I never properly thanked you today for getting me my beautiful horse… I think daddy needs a proper thank you…” Thomas turned to look at you with a raised eyebrow and a little smirk.

“Is that right?” He leaned closer to you until your noses bumped together, giving your thigh a squeeze. “And just how would you thank daddy, then? Hmm?” He whispered, the meeting a mere background noise now. You leaned towards his ear again, whispering so quietly so only Tommy could hear.

“I wanna suck your cock… Or you can fuck me over your desk in the back?” You purred so innocently despite the pure filth of your words. His cock told you all you needed to know about his opinion. The twitch inside his pants impossible to miss. You pulled back to stare into his eyes and take in his tiny smirk. He knew that resistance was futile and completely incompatible with him when it came to you.

Without excusing words or explanations to the other gentlemen, Thomas scooted you two out of the booth, taking your hand and guiding you to the back. He kicked the small office door open and locked you both in. You could almost feel his piercing blues tracing the shape of your ass under that fashionable skirt you wore. 

“So...” You started, walking over to his desk and luring him to take a few steps closer to you. He towered over you, his rough hands touched your hips with interest. “How does daddy want me?” You purred innocently, looking into his eyes.

Thomas’ cock hardened even more in his dress pants. Your figure, your soft face, your pretty eyes, your voice, you. Lust took over his eyes.

 “On your knees baby… you know what daddy wants.” His voice was husky, overcome with his need for you and your pretty little mouth. You grinned, a hungry look in your eyes replicating his own. Steadily, you sunk to your knees, the fabric of your skirt your only padding on the cold floor. Tommy leaned against his desk and watched you work your magic. Your fingers undid the button of his pants with torturous care.

“You know… If you wanted to fuck me in front that whole room of men… I’d let you. I’d let you do whatever you want to me..” You were a tease, you killed him slowly. His breath hitched a bit, his possessive streak driving him to total insanity. You were right. You would let him do anything he wanted. He knew. But hearing you say that made the fire of his lower stomach ignite him whole.

“Oh, I know you would… You’d be my good little girl, wouldn’t you?” He whispered, brushing a hair out of your beautiful face. You nodded so innocently, and then lowered his pants down until they pooled around his ankles.

“I'll always be your good girl… I’ll always please you and let you use me however you need…” You whispered back, a soft sensual smile gracing your lips. Tommy couldn’t help but groan at your words, his painfully hard cock pulsing in his boxer briefs right in front of your face.

“God, you’re such a good girl… You’ll be good for daddy now won’t you?” He cooed. 

“Always.” You purred in devotion. Your hands reached up to grab the band of his boxers and, with one swift, well trained motion, pulled them down. His large throbbing cock sprung free for you to drool over. Mere inches away from your face. 

“You gonna thank your daddy properly, hmm?” He asked with a sexy smirk, heavily accented and incredibly husky. You nodded obediently, your eyes going from his beautiful irises to his hard cock. It had been over four months since you became his sweetheart and you still felt enamored at his sheer size.

“Yes daddy…” You answered softly then looked back up to his pretty blue eyes. “Gonna suck your cock and drain these perfect balls just how you like…” You made it a point to speak so innocently, stirring something in him. He could have lost himself right then and there from your words alone. It took him a second to fully take in the idea. The dirtiest promises coming from the prettiest girl he has ever seen.

“Fuck baby… You’re gonna be the death of me someday, you know that?” He asked in a playful little smirk, and you attacked. Your soft hand wrapped around his aching hard cock. He groaned softly.

“But at least you’ll die happy.” You purred, gifting him a few seconds to prepare himself before finally leaning in to swirl your tongue skillfully over the head of his dripping cock. Thomas let out a guttural moan, his hand gripping his desk behind him in an attempt to steady himself. His head fell back, the texture of your wet, warm tongue erasing each and every thought off his mind. It all became you and you only. You licking him, tasting his sensitive tip, you pleasing him.

“Fuck, baby… My perfect girl…” He managed to choke out, affected yet addicted. Your tongue swirled over him expertly, and you looked up at him. A sweet happy hum reverberated in your throat as you tasted the salt of his precum. Every drop that ran down his tip not making it far thanks to your eager licks. Your hum sent vibrations up his cock, making him feel like his knees were about to buckle under him. The only time he appreciated feeling vulnerable.

Tommy looked down at you servicing him, taking your sweet time on his sensitive tip. The fire in your eyes recognized his and burnt with it. 

“Holy-f-fuck.. my girl knows how to suck her daddy’s cock so good….” He groaned, and you took more of his lengthy cock in your mouth, working your way down and sucking it, your tongue massaging it slowly.

He tried his best to maintain his composure and control, but another swirl of your tongue made him admit to himself that he would not last long.

“F-fuck, baby girl… You keep going like that…” He groaned, gripping the edge of the wooden desk harder and urging you.

You bobbed your head on his cock in a skillful rhythm. The sounds coming from you were so filthy and obscene. Nothing could have torn his gaze away from you. It was a war between him and his throbbing cock. He wanted more, desperately needed more, but his orgasm neared closer than his next breath.

 “You’re too good to me, baby girl… You’re gonna make daddy come… And it’s gonna be right in your pretty mouth, and you’re gonna take every last drop, aren’t you?” He cooed with one hand touching the top of your head for support. You bobbed your head, up and down his shaft, with your nose bumping his pelvic area. You looked up and hummed in response. You always swallowed.

Noting his increasing pleasure, you pushed yourself to take more of his thick cock. You gagged a little and earned a loud moan from him akin to music to your ears.

“Goood girl… Good girl.” With his praise like a mantra, he watched over you, almost out of breath. “That's it. I'm gonna come for you… ‘m gonna come in this mouth and you’re gonna swallow all of it, aren’t you baby?” He repeated, unaware by now. No thoughts inside his head, only your perfect mouth that pulled back for just a second.

 “Yes, daddy.” You purred, looking up at him with innocent eyes before taking him in your mouth again, this time working faster and with much more intensity. Constantly swiping against the underside of his thick cock.

Thomas had to resist the urge of bucking into your mouth and fuck your face just the way he likes, but he found the willpower to stay calm. This was all about you pleasing him, putting that mouth of yours to work and thanking him. 

“Good girl, such a good fuckin’ girl…” He praised, his orgasm so close to hitting him and knocking him flat out. “Now, remember, baby girl… What’s my rule?” His voice almost cracked. Dominance was a hard thing to upkeep when his balls tightened this hard and your throat hummed around him. Your pussy grew wetter at the mention of the rule, one you had committed to memory.

“Before you can swallow, you have to show it to daddy... Need to see my come all over your pretty tongue, hmm?” Thomas said, barely hanging on at this point. One of his hands holding your hair back and the other gripping the desk behind him for stability.

You hummed as loud and as best as you can, his thick cock barely giving up space for sound to travel. You kept sucking him, and his resistance was hung on by a thread, ready to snap at any moment. His moans, his heavy breaths, the hot puffs of air he lets out, the way his cock throbbed in your  mouth… You wanted him done for. 

Your hand came up, gently cupping his balls and giving them a soft squeeze. His breath hitched and he cursed under his breath.

“Holy fuck, baby-” He choked out, and everything snapped inside him. “Coming..” That was the only word he managed to utter before his resolve crumbled and his orgasm hit him like a tidal wave. His hand grabbed your hair firmly, but not painfully, keeping you there, ready to take it all.

Your movements stopped in anticipation and his cock pulsed inside your mouth. A salty load of cum coated your tongue completely and his sensual low groan filled your ears. His eyelids fluttered shut for a moment and his lips stayed parted. When every last drop was unloaded, he opened his eyes back again and looked at you intently.

“Show daddy…” He murmured, his voice a little strained. You obeyed, pulling off him and sitting back on your knees. With pride, you stuck out your cum-painted tongue for his viewing pleasure.

“My good girl.” Tommy praised. You were indeed so good. So obedient. So perfect for him. “You can swallow now, baby girl.” 

His hand petted the top of your head with appreciative softness, and you, living up to his praise, did as he said. The salt taste of his cum mixing with your saliva before passing down your throat. A soft hum of approval coming from you made him smile ever so gently.

He reached down to pull up his pants, tucking his now soft, sensitive and tired cock back into his boxers and buttoning his dress pants. He reached his hands down, pulling you up from the floor easily into his arms. When you were close to his face, you gave him a cheeky little smile. His hands cupped your face and gently pulled you in for a burning hot, passionate kiss. His tongue invaded your mouth, making him taste himself on you. A pervertedly satisfied smile crept into the kiss.

Slowly, he pulled back, looking at you with half-lidded eyes.

“You know… If all it took to get you to do that for me is to buy you a horse… I think I'll buy you a horse, or anything else you want every single day for the rest of your life.” Tommy whispered in a mix of sensuality but also pure, deep love. 

Your eyes twinkled a bit and a soft smile appeared on your face. He was just as obsessed with you as you were with him. 

“Deal”.

[awritesthings1]

Gone with the Leaves

Pairing: Tommy Shelby / Wife Reader

Summary: Despite your happy marriage to Tommy, you feel an undeniable jealousy towards Lizzie. Perhaps a day in the forest will do you some good.

ao3 link

A/N: I'm starting a tag list, comment if you want to be added :)

-

“You write like you’re running out of time,” mused Lizzie Stark, former prostitute, now Tommy’s secretary. “They have typewriters for those types of things, y’know?”

You saw the volley of cannonballs that launched and subsequently landed on Tommy’s desk as the words left her mouth. It wasn’t that you expected more of poor old plain Lizzie, but you thought that the time she had spent lying on her back staring past the shoulder of a customer at the ceiling would have taught her to read a room. Nevertheless, she stood there, quite amused with herself, smiling stupidly at your husband.

Tommy, who had been sitting at his desk all afternoon attending to letters, the ledger, and god knows what else, peered up from the paper. “What did you say?”

This time, it was your turn to be amused. He pointed accusingly at Lizzie, who by then had realised her impetuous mistake. Her wide eyes fluttered to you desperately, like a bee that had indulged itself in so much pollen that it became stuck in its own honey. No, that was putting it lightly. She looked to you like a frightened child who knew exactly what kind of trouble they were in.

You made sure you looked the other way.

“It was only a silly joke,” came her spluttering apology.

Tommy squinted, and his mouth curled into a frown. Smoke chased the deep exhale from the cigarette hanging between his lips. Your husband carried this terrifying look to him that many feared. Without the peaky cap to cover his striking blue eyes, you saw his glare cut away the cords in Lizzie’s throat with just one look. How could poor Lizzie defend herself from eyes that had witnessed nightmarish things?

“I’m not clear. Is it funny that I sign my letters by hand, or are you above using ink now that you have graduated from the bed to the desk?”

Lizzie’s mouth wormed into a thin line, yet she still looked to you for help. Of what help she thought you would possibly spare, you weren’t sure. For once, Lizzie used initiative and showed herself out.

Your heels clacked across the wooden threshold of your husband’s office. Now that no one was there to disturb you both, you sat down on Tommy’s lap. By then, he was leaning back on his chair, work abandoned for the time being until he could wash the sour sight of Lizzie Stark from his eyes.

“You know I don’t like her,” you said plainly.

There was no need for fake smiles or lies with Tommy. You knew him, and he knew you.

Tommy exhaled loudly, stubbing out the last of his cigarette on his ashtray and taking a swig of whiskey before his calloused hand found your waist.

He clears his throat. “It’s only business with her.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I like her any less.”

Tommy loved you, not Lizzie Stark, yet you couldn’t stomach the undeniable jealousy that arose with her presence. Perhaps it was a natural inclination women had toward their lovers. Lizzie had never done anything outwardly wrong to you. So, what was it then that turned your plain teeth into hissing fangs?

Everyone knew that Tommy was one of her paying customers before you met him, but so were all of Small Heath. You never felt insecure in your relationship with Tommy; there was no need to feel threatened by a prostitute. Yet that wouldn’t stop the catty feline that emerged from its slumber when Lizzie’s wandering eyes battered at your husband.

No. Lizzie Stark would never know what it felt like to be loved by a man like Tommy. What you held in your hands each night was a transcendental, unconditional type of love—one that surpassed the heart and soul, which drew two beings together in the most unconventional yet fitting way. The way that covers kept you warm at night, Tommy watched over your hearth and kept the fire burning, even if he were on the other side of the country.

You closed your eyes, leaning into the valley between Tommy’s neck and shoulder as you listened for the bah-dum-bah-dum of his heart. They sat together in silence, cherishing each other’s presence, while Tommy rested his cheek on your head. Outside, the world waited, barking at their front door and scratching at the delicately carved wood. Even the rain lashed at the windowpanes, playing together like one elemental orchestra.

The hand not resting on your waist rose to gently stroke up and down your arm. You shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold.

“I think you have some work to attend to in the bedroom,” you mumbled into his neck.

Your nose searched for the spot where he applied his aftershave.

“Eh?” Came his gruff response.

Your hand wandered down his suit in answer.

-

The sheets were bundled around Tommy’s naked waist when you sauntered back over to the bed with his case of cigarettes in hand. Gratefully, he took the case from your hand, wrapping an arm around your shoulder to pull you into the warmth of his chest. Then he began the usual routine. He fished out a cigarette to offer, but you shook your head no, so he slid it once, then twice, across his bottom lip. On the bedside table, he grabbed the half-empty matchbox to light the cigarette.

Tommy was the resident chain smoker in your house. With an appetite for tobacco and whiskey, you often wondered just how he sustained himself throughout the day. Of course, there were the home-cooked meals at Arrow House waiting for his return, although that didn’t stop you from worrying any less. It was pathetic, really, sitting all alone in his study, twiddling your fingers, and sitting beneath his portrait like you were praying to him. Tommy was no god, no matter how much he tried to convince everyone else. Yet whenever headlights passed the window and lit up the office momentarily, you would stand up and peer out, hoping to spot your husband exiting the car.

He cleared his throat, drawing your attention back to the present. You loved watching the way the cigarette shifted between his lips when he spoke, even more when his hooded eyes looked over at you. Tommy was a man of few words, simply because he didn’t need language to communicate. His body spoke for him in tongues for all his enemies to understand. And more importantly, in a way your body understood.

Your hand abandoned his tattoo to stroke a thumb across his full bottom lip. Lust swelled there, eager to chase the rest of the night away into a haze of pleasure until the sun rose. As tempting as it was, you sighed at the thought. You would rather spend this time taking in your husband, remembering the fine details across his face and body, from the scar in the hollow of his cheek to the rough texture beneath his shoulder blade where a bullet was once lodged. You wanted to trace the sockets of his eyes the way a blind person would, treasuring each valley, mountain, and cut of skin as if it were to disappear the second you stopped touching him.

“You’re beautiful,” you decided, bathed in candlelight, tangled up between the sheets and Tommy’s arms.

Tommy’s brows furrowed, and the cigarette hung dangerously loose from where his lips curled into a frown. He grunted, clearly dissatisfied with your words. Tommy wasn’t beautiful. He was hard, ambitious, and unmovable force.

Beautiful was a conventional word savored for the finest women. To you? It meant so much more. Crafted in a way that would cause people to stare, sure, but there was also a poetic sense to the word. The type of beauty you would use to describe a well-written novel or heart-wrenching poem. Thomas Shelby stood for something, and that was beautiful.

“Then what are you, eh?”

A lazy smile floated onto your face, so much so that you had to bite your lip to refrain from looking devastatingly pleased at his answer.

A woman, a dreamer, a friend, a reader, an achiever. “A wife.”

He huffed, raising his eyebrows playfully.

Why was it that most women felt like they could only fit the frame of one? With Tommy, you were never limited to the endless possibilities. You treasured being a wife the same way you treasured your other roles. Marriage wasn’t the end all be all. Perhaps that’s another lie men spun—that perfectly capable women stopped existing as soon as a diamond ring slid onto their finger. How sad, you thought, to waste away all that potential when men were still free to pursue stupid ideas like war and dog fights.

Tommy was unbothered by traditional ideas like that. Change powered his ambition; he had no time for parallel lines. You could be his wife, a writer, a singer, or a mother—whatever you wanted—and he wouldn’t think of you any less.

You hummed, chasing that cigarette from his lips and stubbing it out in the ash tray by his bedside table. Tommy didn’t seem too heartbroken about it. In fact, there was some mirth in his gaze. His hands traced up your naked spine, pulling your body further into his until you could smell the smoke in his breath.

“Yes,” he breathed in loudly through his nose, “my wife.”

-

The following day, you were invited to the Basnett's hunting party. You would’ve been more enthusiastic to write about your excitement to attend if the whole ordeal hadn’t been so troublesome. Because a few days prior, when you were visiting your husband’s office, you had caught sight of the letter on Lizzie’s desk, a letter that was supposed to reach you days earlier.

“What’s this?” You asked.

“Oh, nothing interesting,” Lizzie had said, too occupied with filing her nails while on the clock.

You kept your composure for the sake of keeping the peace. You didn’t wish to disturb Tommy if he were to walk by.

“This is a letter addressed to me,” you pressed.

“Oh.” She stopped for a moment, then leaned over to read the letter you had pulled from the messy pile. “No, it’s addressed to Tommy.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Shelby,” you hissed quietly, with emphasis on the missus.

“Hm, I didn’t notice.”

“You are paid to notice.” You fought the urge to comment that she was paid for other things not long ago. “How long has this been sitting here?”

Lizzie tapped her cigarette ash into the tray. “The post boy dropped that lot off yesterday.”

Even if it was only two days late to reach your hand, by society’s standards, that may have well been taken as you snubbing the invitation. Frustratingly, you had to cancel your plans that day and personally deliver your letter to the Basnett’s door, citing some excuse of it having been lost in the post.

“That woman is up to no good.” You said glumly that night into Tommy’s chest.

“I’ll speak to her,” he promised in that stoic tone of his.

Whether he had been true to his words, you weren’t sure because Lizzie made an effort to avoid you when possible.

“Oh! Mrs. Shelby! How wonderful for you to join us! Come in, come in. The men are readying their rifles for the hunt outside. How exciting!” Gushed Lady Basnett, shooing you into the atrium of her lavish mansion.

Your riding boots clacked across the floor before being muffled by an intricately woven rug. You stared up at the chandelier, childishly wondering if it would hit you if it were to fall at that moment.

“Right this way, Mrs. Shelby!” Lady Basnett ushered excitably.

You debated if all her energy was for show—to please her husband and be the good wife he expected of her. After she showed you through to the veranda and down to the circle of wives who had gathered under the trees while their husbands readied for the hunt, you decided that no, she must truly enjoy planning social occasions like this, as evidenced by the way she kissed Sarah’s cheek in greeting with a wide grin.

It pleased you to know that Lady Basnett found joy in something. Ever since her eldest died in the war, she has been known to be a bit of a recluse.

“Oh, what a beautiful ring! May we see it?” Doe-eyed Catherine asked.

She was one of the younger wives, like yourself. Catherine married an older man, twice her senior. Many of the wives here faulted her for it behind her back, but not you. You saw more of yourself in her than you did in any of the other women. Because, despite the age gap, the girl seemed to be utterly head-over-heels in love with a man society deemed old-fashioned for her. And how could you blame her when you swore an oath to a gangster of all people?

You obliged and let the wives twist and turn your hand to better inspect the diamonds on your ring finger.

“It’s perfect!”

“How many carats?”

“My Mary would be so jealous!”

After dutifully showing your wedding ring, you noticed the men beginning to mount their horses.

Catherine hooked her arm around yours. “Come on, we are going to be left behind!”

She jovially pulled you along the stone tiles at a speed that made you grateful for wearing riding boots. The backyard was grand in the sense that the acres they owned stretched vastly into the nearby forest. Although there were impressive features, like the hedge they had grown into a maze and the trees that were shaped into birds.

“Lady Basnett owned an aviary of budgies. Dear little things they were, she was devastated when they all escaped one night after the groundskeeper forgot to close the door,” Catherine commented, having noticed the way your head was turned.

You laughed, because you could precisely picture Lady Basnett as the type to fawn over little budgies.

Catherine led you to the horses, where some of the wives were already perched, waiting for the party to leave. None of them carried rifles, but rather wicker baskets strapped to the saddle for the picnic they planned to have at the top of the hill while they waited for their husbands to finish hunting.

Together, you set off, having mounted the back of Catherine’s mare. Deeper into the forest you went, the black mare trotting over loose dirt and rocks. Both of you remained at the end of the pack, preferring to keep to yourselves in light conversation.

Then it all happened so suddenly. One of the rifles went off up ahead, and a flock of birds rushed at you from the break in the foliage, startling your mare. You gasped in shock and reached for Catherine’s jacket to hold on, but only skimmed her. She went face first into the dirt while you were swept into the air like a leaf and fell with the grace of a rock. The ground thundered as the mare galloped into the distance.

“Fuck!” Catherine spat.

(On her fall she had taken a mouthful of soil and leaves.)

“They’ll come back,” you tried to reassure her.

-

Hours later, the two of you still had not been found.

“I was a prostitute before George found me, y’know.”

No, you didn’t know.

“That’s why I’m so young and he so old,” she smiled fondly, laughing as if it were the most normal thing.

You couldn’t find it in your heart to dislike her because of her circumstances. She was your friend, and a true one at that.

What was it that Tommy said? The past is the past.

-

The sun began to set when one of the men from the hunting party found you both huddled together under a tree. Kindly, he let the two of you ride the rest of the way back despite your hesitance to mount another horse.

When you returned to Lady Basnett’s, with Catherine in arm, the sun had been set for at least two hours. You hadn’t realized what trouble you had gotten yourself into until you noticed Tommy’s Bentley parked in the crowded driveway of the mansion. Men stood at the gate, armed and waiting. Catherine opened her mouth to remark how ridiculous it was, but you kept your lips sealed after recognizing the guards to be Peaky Blinders.

Tommy had to be beside himself.

A young boy who was playing between the cars popped his head out when the gates squealed open. His ears perked up, and he ran inside, clutching his peaky cap, to probably inform the adults inside of your arrival. People pooled out onto the front steps, the women covering their hearts and sighing with relief, and the men holding their hats to their chests. But when your husband, Tommy, came storming out, they parted like the red sea.

He stalked across the gravel like a predator, his eyes trained on you with an unblinking stare.

“Are you hurt?” He ignored Catherine, cupping your face and frantically looking between both your eyes as if you would disappear.

Upon further inspection, his eyes were bloodshot, and the white sleeves of his blouse were bundled into the golden garters. Your hands itched to muse his disheveled hair into place, but with all the curious onlookers, you thought better of it.

“No.”

George, Catherine’s husband, was quick to whisk her away inside. You heard Lady Basnett’s voice trailing after them: “Oh my, what a terrible thing. Come now, let me pour you some tea.”

Unfortunately, tea wouldn’t make up for any lost ground with Tommy.

“We’re going.”

You knew better to open your mouth to disagree. This was Tommy being afraid and carrying on. He retreated into himself. It didn’t look pretty or like he cared, but he cared; you knew he cared. It was only that no one else was allowed to know that the great Thomas Shelby felt any emotion.

At Arrow House, he swallowed two glasses of whiskey before saying a word. You were pulling at the hem of the overcoat that Tommy had shook off his shoulders to give you for the ride home. Your fingers just couldn’t stand the anxious silence that rang throughout the room.

“What the fuck happened?”

He stood in front of you, stoic as a soldier but cracking around the exterior thanks to his hand, which itched for the cigarette case inside his pocket. (A nervous tick of his.) You grab his hand between your own before he can fish out the case.

“The horse got spooked. It bucked Catherine and me off, but we’re fine.”

His thumb rubs across your knuckles as he looks past your shoulder out the window.

“Do you know where I was when I got the call? Eh? I was handling some business when Lizzie came in and told me some posh old woman was on the line, saying you were missing.”

He exhaled sharply, dropping his gaze to you, where you noticed his eyes soften.

“I thought…” He broke off.

His chin dropped, and he went to itch his nose with his other hand.

“What did you think happened? Is there something I should know about?” Concern leaked into your voice.

“No,” he huffed, clearing his throat. “It doesn’t matter. You’re home, and you’re safe.”

You bit your lip to stop yourself from saying anything that might push him over the edge. He was fragile in a state like this in the sense that he pushed the stronger, more vivid feelings to the side because you were his wife, not a Peaky Blinder. No, you would never be, even though you married one.

Often, you would wish you could turn into the leaves that swept off the pavement and into the air. Imagine then how much easier life would be for you both—to forget the animosity of life and rise above it all, breathe in that crystal air, and then finally exclaim the truth because up there no one could hear them or cared enough to try anyway.

Cautiously, you let go of his hand and traced your fingertips up to knead away the tension in his jaw.

“Thomas… Do you remember what you asked of me? To help you with the whole fucking thing—”

“From now on—”

“Thomas—”

“From now on, let me know where you are going. I will organize a guard to watch over you.”

‘You write like you’re running out of time,’ Lizzie’s poorly placed joke from the start of the week reverberated in your skull.

Was he?

“I need you,” he breathed, the smell of whiskey fanning over your senses.

You nodded, pressing up on your toes to kiss him. A soft breath escaped him when you pulled away.

“You have me.”

[missmomof3]

Deep Regret (shelby sister fic)

Sorry if this is awful, this is my first time ever trying to write a fanfiction. I'm not sure what this would be classified as but probably too long to be a drabble. Maybe an imagine? If anyone reads this, thank you and I am fine with criticism (I'm sure I did lots of things wrong) but please be kind.

Summary: y/n shelby always tried to make her family happy, but they all believed Grace over her and soon most bonds were disintegrating, especially with Tommy, who she'd always loved and looked up to.

TW:character death, not proofread, possibly missing some so read at your your own discretion.

"Y/N get in here!" Tommy yelled from his office at you where you were sitting in Michael's office doing your homework.

"What did you do this time" Michael asked, irritated but fortunately not at you, he hadn't turned on you.

You had always been Tommy's favorite sibling, him more of a father than a brother to you until Charlie was born. Until recently you'd even lived at Arrowhouse with Grace and him. But after Charlie was born suddenly Grace began complaining to Tommy of how disrespectful you were when no one was around. That you called her names, taunted her and even until they married, had nicknamed little Charlie "the bastard". But just to her, not around anyone else. You hadn't ever done any of that and at first were confused when Tommy began yelling at you frequently and you weren't allowed alone with Charlie anymore.

He held a family meeting without you there to discuss your behavior. By the time that happened you weren't friendly to Grace anymore because what was the point when you'd be in trouble anyways. The family had noticed the tension so for the most part believed Tommy when he told them of your troubling behavior and they began being short with you and before long it felt like all you had left was Ada, Finn and Michael. Polly was no Grace fan but was disappointed in you for supposedly insulting a baby and felt like you should be grateful Grace had agreed to let you live in their house. John, Esme, Arthur and Linda took that line of thinking as well, deeply disappointed in how you went from being one of the sweetest people they knew to being so disrespectful and cruel. They especially were disappointed that you'd be so two-faced and only do this while no one else was around. At least have the backbone to own your behavior was their thoughts.

So now here you were, living with Polly because even though she was disappointed you were still her niece, but living with hostility everywhere. You were still polite when you saw Grace, but now you held yourself back from everyone so their accusations and lack of faith in you didn't hurt so badly.

Responding to Michael's question with a shrug, you got up to walk into Tommy's office ready to be told off again for some imagined offense.

"Sit down y/n," Tommy said coldly, "and explain to me why you felt the need to make my wife cry last night."

Family dinner was held at Arrowhouse last night, and even though you hadn't wanted to go, Ada promised she'd be there and insisted you go with your head held high, knowing you were innocent. She never believed Tommy, remembering how it felt when Grace's betrayal took her Freddy away. Remembering you sneaking to her place to help with Karl, and how alone she felt thinking her brother betrayed her. It baffled her how her family could believe Grace over you, but whenever she brought it up they all asked why Grace would lie when she loved Tommy and she knew how much sending you away and practically severing his bond with you had hurt him. So she, Michael and Finn still staunchly defended you but gave up on getting through to anyone. That's why last night you stuck close to Ada, never being alone with Grace, in the hopes this very incident wouldn't be happening.

"Tell me, oh brother of mine, what did I do to Grace now?" You asked, no longer worried abour his reaction to your attitude since you had already grieved the loss of your relationship.

So he started laying out some imagined conversation that happened in the kitchen when Grace went to ask Mary a question. According to her you'd seen her and started criticizing her hosting skills, telling her what a disaster the upcoming charity gala would be.

You smirked at his tirade, because this time you knew you had proof. "Call Ada, ask her what happened last night" you said, standing up and getting ready to leave.

"I haven't dismissed you yet," Tommy clipped, grabbing your arm. "I am putting you on notice, if you do anything to embarrass Grace tomorrow night at the gala, I will have no choice but to completely cut you from the family the minute you turn 18. That means no help, no using the Shelby name, you'll be on your own."

"Bold of you to assume once I'm 18 I'll be sticking around here" you said, rolling your eyes, "I know my place now, at the bottom. When I'm an adult I'll take care of myself. I'll miss the family I had, but I'll make my own." Then you left.

Tommy sat with his head in his hands. You'd never know how much his heart broke to imagine you completely gone from his life. He didn't know how to reach you anymore. His sister, closer to a daughter. He still loved you so much and had hoped tough love would work, but he missed you deeply and choosing his wife and son had felt like removing a large part of his heart. If only you could have stayed the sweet girl you once were, before jealousy had taken over.

When Grace first went to him with your behavior, he hadn't wanted to believe it. But the more she went to him and the more you denied it the more arguments it caused between him and Grace. Until finally she told him he was putting his true family aside for a girl who wasn't his daughter, who would eventually marry and leave him, while his wife and son suffered in the meantime. It became easier to give in, to be angry at the strife in his house that you were causing. Especially when it stopped as soon as you moved to Polly's.

But he couldn't ignore the voice at the back of his head reminding him Grace was an accomplishhed liar while you had always been awful at it. So he called Ada. 30 minutes later he was more conflicted than ever but knew he needed to get answers from Grace. Ada confirmed you had never been alone with Grace, never even went to the kitchen. Then he spoke to Polly who also had never seen you leave Ada's side. Now Polly was beginning to demand he find out if they had been wrong all along, if her niece had been sacrificed for familiy unity. Michael had been chipping away at her beliefs for awhile now and this seemed to confirm it.

That night, Tommy sat Grace down, determined to find out the truth. After a lot of obfuscation and denial it all came out. She'd been feeling guilty for some time now whenever she saw how heartbroken and torn her husband was, but she was petrified he'd love his son less than his sister, and with her standing in the family being only strong because of Tommy's love for her and Charlie, she panicked and in that panic had thought if she got y/n sent away, Charlie and by extension herself, would always be his top priority.

This saddened him greatly for a multitude of reasons. Her lack of faith in him even though he'd never been the betrayer in their relationship, his poor choices, his cruelty to you, the loss of that bond. It all hurt.

The next day, before heading out on business he demanded a family meeting be held. He made Grace come with him and confess all. She did, because deep down she felt awful that she'd ruined the life of a sweet girl that had never been anything but kind to her. She'd seen the loss of spark in your eyes and couldn't deny any longer how horrible her behavior was. Maybe this could be fixed. At least your relationship with your family, especially Tommy. He missed you deeply and maybe the memories of all the years he'd loved and taken care of you could combat the time he'd spent alienating and breaking your heart.

The family was horrified but not shocked. Deeply disappointed in Tommy and themselves they made a plan to begin making it up to you. Tomorrow, after the gala, they'd all individually apologize and set about making things right. Work was cut short so they could all get ready, but at least tonight they'd be knd to you and start treating you like the beloved little sister you'd always been.

Tommy and Grace rode in silence to the gala. Grace didn't know how to bridge the gap and Tommy was lost in thought. Before they got out he turned to her and said "After you apologize to y/n, we can begin fixing us. You're Charlie's mother and I still love you, but you broke my trust and cost me someone precious. So right now, let's just focus on righting the wrongs we both have done." Grace agreed sadly, knowing it would be a long time before she had her husband back, but accepting this as the consequences for her bad decisions.

For you the night was going great! Everyone was suddenly friendly, and even Tommy had a warmth in his eyes at you that you hadn't seen in a long time. Grace had made a point of complimenting you and suddenly everyone wanted to talk to you. It made the night pleasant, but you weren't getting your hopes up. You'd built walls and they weren't coming down because suddenly people treated you like you were family again. You stuck around Ada and Finn.

While everyone had been having epiphanies and making plans to repair relationships today, you'd been doing some thinking of your own. Mostly thinking about how different your life might have looked had you had parents. They maybe would have loved you unconditionally. Maybe your relationship with your brothers, their wives, your aunt would have been better if they hadn't also had to help raise you. For so long, you hadn't felt you were missing anything because you had brothers, a sister, an aunt, and more recently a cousin and sisters-in-law that loved you ahd made you feel protected and like you belonged. As a child you'd had multiple people to go to for love, advice and help, it never occurred to you that that could all be taken away. Even during the war, the letters you got from your brothers and the presence of Finn, Ada and Aunt Polly had always kept you from feeling lonely. Now you knew that could be taken away and now you knew loneliness. Now you felt like the orphan you were.

Tommy was walking away from some duchess when he caught your eye and motioned you over. You went over hesitantly, hoping you weren't about to be chastised for something. As you walked up to him, he was in conversation with Grace about her necklace. Hoping to slip past them without being seen as everyone was moving into the banquet hall to eat, you suddenly heard someone yell out "For Angel!" with a gun in their hand. At once time slowed down and sped up and all you could think of was little Charlie losing his parents and becoming like you. Not even realizing you were moving, suddenly there was a sharp pain in your stomach and you were falling into another person.

Everything became chaos. Tommy was horror stricken as he held his baby sister's head in his lap while Grace was putting pressure on the wound. He yelled for someone to call an ambulance and kept trying to get your attention, because you were still breathing but staring at the ceiling like you could see someone there.

"Please, y/n, please look at me, stay with me, don't leave me" he begged, running a hand soothingly through your hair as tears streamed down his cheeks, all the while remembering years of time spent together, how you would climb into his bed after the war and just lay beside him when he'd have nightmares, grounding him and reminding him he was home, safe and warm, not in a tunnel, no enemy shovels around.

Grace had one hand putting pressure on your wound, the other holding your hand while she cried as well. She was horrified at what her behavior stole from you, while you had literally saved her life. Thinking back on the sweet little girl back when she was a barmaid, asking her to sing because her voice was "beautiful" Soon she was nudged roughly out of the way by John who took over putting pressure on your wound, tears streaming down his cheeks. His thoughts on the girl he used to throw in the air when she was little, her always trusting he'd catch her.

Arthur was beating the man who had fired the bullet, he couldn't make himself stop. All he could see was you in his arms as a baby, your finger wrapped in his and your eyes looking at him so trusting, and how much he'd let you down by not going against Tommy.

Polly was on the phone getting an ambulance, begging them to hurry, trying to keep herself calm as she remembered all the times when you were little and would hold out your arms, confident you'd get picked up and cuddled, she could almost feel the warmth of your head on her shoulder.

Ada was holding Finn, praying silently for her sister, most recently at an age where she was fun to shop with, try on clothes together, the girl who would confide in her because she trusted Ada's judgement and knew she was safe to be herself with her.

Michael stood at the door waiting for the ambulance, doing his best not to cry, thinking of his cousin who, even feeling alone and rejected by almost everyone, would listen as he spoke about his girlfriend, and who would joke around with him while doing homework.

Esme and Linda stood by Grace, quietly crying, both thinking of how welcoming and sweet you'd been when they were introduced to the family. Esme knowing no one and yet you immediately treated her like a sister, helping with the kids and softening some of Polly's harshness during the London expansion. Linda wishing she'd gotten to know you better, but remembering how you'd hugged her when she and Arthur got married and said how you knew she'd make him happy and help him find peace.

Regret and sorrow ran so powerfully through the large ballroom it felt like they were a physical presence.

[briefinquiries]

Tommy Shelby x Reader: By Order of Blood

Summary: Tommy Shelby thought sending you away would keep you safe, until the carriage was intercepted. Now, as he cradles your trembling, broken body, he swears two things: he will never let you go again… and the men who touched you won’t live to see another sunrise.

Word count: 8.5k

Warnings: angst, violence, injury descriptions (mentions of blood, torture, SA), PTSD, nightmares, and panic attacks, emotional distress, and revenge-driven violence (also includes lots of hurt / comfort).

A/N: Lost all motivation to write my normal stuff recently, but currently rewatching peaky blinders and feeling all sorts of ways about my boyyy tommy shelby.

"Tommy, please. Don't do this." Your voice was barely above a whisper as the weight of the moment pressed down on your chest like a stone.

You reached for him, fingers trembling as they grazed the fabric of his coat. 

But he didn’t budge. He stood rigid, back straight, his jaw locked so tight you could practically see the muscle ticking underneath his skin. A cigarette burned low between his fingers, a thin wisp of smoke curling in the dim light.

His face was unreadable, a mask of cold detachment. It was the same one he wore when giving orders that decided life or death. 

"You’re leaving tonight," he said, his voice quiet but firm.

You shook your head before he was even finished speaking, your breath catching. "No– no, I don’t want to leave."

Tommy exhaled slowly, as if he was gearing up for a fight. "This is not about what you want."

Your throat tightened. "Tommy, please–"

"You’ll be safer away from me."

You let out a dry, hollow laugh. "Safer?" The word tasted bitter on your tongue. "Tommy, I’m safe when I’m with you. The further away you are, the less safe I’ll feel."

For a second, you thought you saw something flicker in his eyes. Hesitation. Regret. Maybe even doubt. But then, just as quickly as it appeared, it was gone. Buried beneath layers of steel.

His shoulders stiffened, his fingers tightening around the cigarette. "You’ll have guards."

"I don’t want guards." Your voice wavered. "I want you. What if something happens, Tommy? What then?"

His breath hitched, but he remained stoic. "It won’t," he said firmly.

You searched his face, desperate for something, anything, that would tell you he wasn’t as sure about this as he was pretending to be. That this was tearing him apart, too. But all you saw was cold resolve. Complete certainty. 

A hollow feeling spread through your stomach as the truth settled in your bones. He had already made up his mind. And there was nothing you could say to make him change it.

Panic pressed against your ribs. You wanted to tell him that being away from him would be worse than any danger that lurked in Birmingham. But you couldn’t find the words.

For a long moment, neither of you spoke.

Then, Tommy took one last drag from his cigarette before putting it out with slow, deliberate movements. When he finally looked at you, his blue eyes were unreadable.

"The carriage is waiting."

The words hit you like a blow, stealing whatever fight you had left.

You felt yourself nod, but you didn’t say anything. There was nothing left to say. Without another word, you turned and walked away, the sound of your footsteps echoing in the silence.

And Thomas Shelby let you go. 

…

The wooden seat beneath you felt cold and unforgiving. But not nearly as cold as the hollow feeling in your chest.

You sat stiffly, arms folded across your body. Your stomach churned– a mixture between fear, anger, and grief. Each emotion fought for dominance, and yet all you could do was stare blankly at the road stretching endlessly ahead of you, your surroundings blurring past the window.

You tried to rationalize his actions and remind yourself why he made the choices he did. But this didn’t feel like protection anymore. 

It felt like a punishment. 

The hours dragged. The rhythmic clatter of hooves and the occasional creak of the carriage were the only sounds filling the silence. You hadn’t spoken a word to the driver or to the men Tommy had sent to guard you. You refused. Who cared if they thought you were some entitled brat?

But then, suddenly, something in the air shifted.

You weren’t sure what it was at first. Maybe it was just a feeling, an unease that coiled in your stomach like a vice. But then you noticed the hooves come to a gradual stop. One of the guards riding ahead straightened in his saddle, glancing toward the dense trees lining the road.

Your pulse quickened, but before you could even part your lips to ask what was wrong, you heard the gunshot.

A sickening crack followed by shouting. One of the men slumped forward on his horse before crashing onto the dirt road in a heap. The horses screamed, rearing violently. The carriage lurched, sending you slamming into the side with a sharp gasp.

Another shot. Another thud. 

The second guard fell before he could even draw his gun. Then the driver let out a strangled yell, yanking hard on the reins. 

But it was too late.

Figures emerged from the darkness of the trees, their boots pounding against the dirt, moving fast. Panic seized you. Without thinking, you scrambled toward the door, heart hammering, fumbling for the latch. You could still get out, still run, still–

But when you threw your weight against it, the door didn’t budge.

The impact from the gunfire, the carriage rocking on the uneven road– it had bent the frame inward. The wood creaked, but the metal hinges were jammed tight.

"No, no, no–” you pleaded. You pushed harder, shoulders slamming against the door.

Then, the other door was yanked open violently, nearly ripping off its hinges. You barely had time to turn before rough, gloved hands grabbed you, wrenching you forward. You thrashed against them, kicking, clawing, screaming for them to let go. 

"Shut her up!" A voice snapped. 

And just like that, the back end of a gun slammed into your gut, knocking the air from your lungs. Your vision blurred as your body doubled over. Fingers fisted in your hair, yanking your head back so hard your scalp burned.

One of the men leaned in, his breath hot against your cheek.

"I guess Shelby should’ve sent more men."

Your heart pounded violently in your chest as the other men chuckled darkly.

Your hands shook as you tried to fight, but there were too many of them, too many voices, too many shadows closing in around you. You screamed again. 

Then, a final, crushing blow to the side of your head sent the world tilting. Your knees buckled. 

And then– total darkness.

…

The office smelled of whiskey and smoke as the low glow of candlelight flickered against the walls. Tommy sat behind his desk, fingers wrapped around a glass he hadn’t yet touched.

Across from him, Arthur was talking. Something about business, numbers, men needing paying, but Tommy wasn’t listening. He had been distracted all night.

His mind kept circling back to you. It didn’t matter how many times he told himself he made the right choice– that sending you away had been for your own good, that it was the only way to keep you safe. That image of you, eyes wide, pleading, your fingers brushing against his coat before he had forced himself to turn away remained at the forefront of his mind.

"Tommy, please," you had begged. 

He had ignored the way it made his chest ache, forcing himself to shut down the part of him that wanted to keep you close.

Because this was the only way.

Right?

But if it was the right choice, then why the fuck did it feel like such a fucking mistake?

"Tom?" Arthur’s voice cut through his thoughts.

Tommy blinked, setting the untouched glass down with slow, deliberate movements. His fingers tapped against the wood, a restless habit. "What?"

Arthur frowned, watching him closely. "You haven’t heard a single thing I’ve said, have you?"

A muscle in Tommy’s jaw twitched. 

Arthur exhaled, rubbing a hand over his face. "Jesus, Tommy. Forget about it. You did the right thing, yeah? She’s safer out of Birmingham. You said so yourself."

Tommy leaned back in his chair, running a hand down his face. He shook his head, reaching for the cigarette pack on his desk, desperate for something to quiet his mind. But just as he struck the match, the door burst open.

Tommy’s head snapped up.

John stood in the doorway, breathless and pale.

"Tommy–" he panted, eyes wide with urgency. "The carriage– we just got word– it was intercepted–"

For a moment, the words didn’t register. A slow, heavy silence fell over the room. Tommy just stared at him, cigarette burning between his fingers, unmoving. Then, a sharp, cold wave of panic slammed into his chest.

His chair scraped against the floor as he shot to his feet. "What?" His voice was dangerously quiet.

John swallowed hard. "One of the scouts came back. The men– the guards you sent– they’re dead. Driver too."

The room tilted. A deafening ringing filled Tommy’s ears, drowning out everything else.

No, no, no. No. 

"Where?" Tommy demanded, his voice now urgent, raw, trembling with barely contained terror.

"We don’t know yet–"

Tommy’s chest heaved, his breath coming sharp and ragged. "Find out," he snapped, grabbing his coat. His hands were shaking. "Find out right fucking now."

Arthur was already up, grabbing his gun. "We’re going after her, Tommy."

Tommy ran a hand through his hair, pacing, trying to think, trying to breathe, trying not to fucking lose it.

He had sent you away.

He had sent you away.

His heart pounded violently, his throat tight with a kind of fear he had never felt before.

Not anger. Not fury. Not vengeance.

Fear.

Because if they had taken you…

If they had hurt you…

Tommy couldn’t finish the thought.

Because the moment he did, he wouldn’t be able to fucking breathe.

…

When you woke up, the first thing you registered was the pain. 

The deep, aching throb in your skull. The metallic taste of blood coated your tongue, thick and suffocating.

Your body felt heavy, your limbs sluggish as you tried to move, only to realize that you couldn’t.

Panic slid into your chest, sharp and immediate as you became aware of the restraints, of the rough, biting feel of rope digging into your wrists, binding them behind the back of a chair. Your breath hitched, vision swimming in the overwhelming darkness that surrounded you.

You struggled against the restraints, muscles screaming in protest, but the chair barely creaked beneath your weight. The air was damp, thick with the scent of rotting wood and stale sweat. Somewhere in the distance, you heard the faint melodic drop of water.

A basement. Maybe a warehouse. Somewhere completely forgotten.

A door creaked open and your breath stilled. There were footsteps– slow and leisurely. 

A shadow loomed at the edge of the room, then a man stepped forward, boots scraping against the concrete floor. The dim light of a lantern illuminated his features, dark eyes full of amusement, a smirk twisting his thin lips.

"Well, well," he drawled, tilting his head. "Look who's awake."

Your stomach coiled in disgust as he came closer, circling you like a predator playing with its prey. You clenched your jaw, forcing yourself to stay still, to keep your expression blank.

The man stopped just beside you, tapping a finger against his chin, mockingly thoughtful. "You’re prettier up close," he mused. "Is that why Shelby keeps you so close? Well… not this time I guess."

A beat of silence. Then, his voice dropped into something colder, sharper. "Where’s he keeping his next shipment?"

You didn’t answer but his smirk only widened. "Playing the silent game, are we?"

He moved closer to you, and before you could react, a sharp, stinging slap cracked across your cheek.

Your head snapped to the side, your vision blurring with the impact.

"You’ll want to answer me," he said menacingly. "Or this is going to get a hell of a lot worse for you."

You clenched your teeth, forcing your breath to stay even. 

He let out a disappointed sigh. "Stubborn little thing, aren’t you? Brave, even?" He stepped closer, gripping the arms of your chair, leaning in until his breath was hot against your ear. "But tell me, sweetheart… how brave do you think you’ll be when we’re through with you?"

You refused to let him see your fear. But inside, terror clawed at your ribs, sinking in deep.  

The man stepped back, studying you. His smirk hadn't faltered, but you could see the frustration flicker in his dark eyes.

"Not talking, eh?" He exhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders as if this were some inconvenience, some tedious task he had to complete before moving on with his night.

Then, without warning, his fist slammed into your stomach.

Your body jerked violently against the ropes, a strangled gasp ripping from your throat as the air was stolen from your lungs. White, hot agony flared in your gut, the chair beneath you rocking from the force of it. You coughed, your body instinctively trying to double over, but the ropes held you upright, forcing you to endure it.

Still, you said nothing.

The man let out a humorless chuckle. "Tough girl, huh?"

Another blow. To your face again. You bit the inside of your cheek, swallowing the cry that threatened to escape.

"Tell me," he continued casually, shaking out his fist, "where the Peaky Blinders keep their weapons."

You lifted your head slowly, breathing heavily through your nose. Then, you spat blood onto the floor at his feet.

A muscle in his jaw ticked. And then, his hand fisted in your hair, yanking your head back so sharply you let out a strangled gasp.

"I was hoping you’d be difficult," he murmured, tilting his head. "It makes this so much more fun for me."

Deep fear curled around your bones like ice. Because you knew exactly what men like him were capable of. He let go of your hair abruptly, your head snapping forward from the force of it, pain splintering through your already throbbing skull.The next blow came before you could brace yourself. It was a heavy, brutal punch to your nose. Pain exploded behind your eyes, your body lurching sideways, nearly toppling the chair. Your ears rang, the room spinning wildly.

Your nose was dripping. It took you a second to realize it was blood, warm and thick as it trailed down your lips. Still, you didn’t speak. 

He let out a long, slow breath, tilting his head as he studied you. "I can do this all night," he said lightly, as if he weren’t already beating you bloody. Then, something darker crossed his expression. 

"But maybe," he continued, voice lower, silkier, more dangerous, "I could find other ways to make you talk."

Your stomach churned at the sight of his gaze, predatorial. Every muscle in your body seized as he took a step forward, one hand reaching for his pocket. Then, metal glinted under the dim light.

A knife. Not small, not discreet, but long, sharp, wicked.

He flicked it open with an almost lazy motion, rolling it between his fingers like a coin, as if the weapon was nothing more than a casual accessory to him. "You know," he mused, tilting his head, his eyes dragging over your bound, broken form with something close to amusement, "I've always wondered how many pieces a person can be cut into before they bleed out."

He crouched beside you, the blade dancing along his fingers, before slowly pressing the cold steel under your chin.

"Tell me what I want to know," he murmured, his voice almost gentle, like a whisper of silk against your skin. 

More silence. 

He smirked. A devilish grin spread across his face. “Maybe I'll start with the fingers."

Your heart pounded violently, every nerve in your body screaming at you to run, fight, do something– 

But what were you supposed to do? The ropes bit into your wrists, your limbs too weak, too battered, your breath too shallow.

"Think I'm bluffing?" he asked, watching your reaction. "Think I won’t carve you up, nice and slow?"

The knife dragged downward, grazing lightly along the column of your throat, just enough to prickle your skin, to remind you how easily he could cut deeper.

He leaned in closer, his breath hot against your cheek.

"Because I will, sweetheart," he whispered, almost fondly. "And when I'm done, I’ll send the pieces back to Shelby. One by one."

“I don’t know where the weapons are,” The words spilled out before you could even think, desperate, shaky, but holding just enough bite to make them believable. “Tommy doesn’t tell me those things– says it’s not a woman’s business to know– that we’d break too easily if we got questioned.”

Your breath hitched, your pulse roaring in your ears as you held his gaze, willing yourself to look small, weak, unimportant.

He laughed. Low, dark, amused. He leaned in again, the overwhelming stench of sweat and smoke rolling off him in waves.

"You think I believe that?" His voice was smooth as he tilted his head, watching you with something cruel, calculating. Your breath came in short, shallow bursts, your hands twisting uselessly behind your back, fingers numb from the ropes cutting into your skin.

You didn’t answer. Because you knew better. Men like him didn’t want the truth. They wanted excuses to hurt you.

He sighed, feigning disappointment. "See, sweetheart, here’s the problem with your little lie." He reached into his coat pocket, pulling out a scrap of paper, something smudged with dirt and blood.

"One of your guards had this tucked in his coat. An order from Mr. Shelby himself," he said, unfolding it with a lazy flick of his wrist. "Says to keep you safe. Says not to let you out of their sight."

The bastard grinned as he tossed the paper onto your lap. "Now, why would Thomas Shelby go through all that trouble for someone who doesn’t know anything?"

You felt cold all over. He knew. No amount of lying was going to save you now.

"Yeah," he murmured, standing upright. "That’s what I thought."

His hand shot out suddenly, gripping your jaw, forcing your head back. You winced, but didn’t look away. A cruel smile spread across his face. "That’s good," he murmured. "I like when they look at me."

Then, cold steel pressed against your cheek. You flinched violently, your breath stuttering, but he only grinned wider, his grip tightening, holding you in place. 

"You’ll tell me what I want to know," he promised, his fingers digging into your bruised skin. "Sooner or later."

The blade slid downward, slow, deliberate, tracing the delicate line of your jaw.

Then, it pressed in. A sharp, searing pain bloomed beneath your skin, and you gasped, body jerking instinctively, but the ropes held you tight, trapped.

A thin line of warm blood trickled down your cheek. He hummed in satisfaction. His thumb dragged across your bottom lip, slow, taunting. "Maybe I’ll give you some time to think about it," he mused, releasing you with a sharp shove.

…

Tommy paced the office like a caged animal, fingers tugging through his hair, his mind racing faster than his body could keep up.

The room was too small, too fucking suffocating, and the longer it took to get information, the more his chest tightened, the more his hands shook.

"Where the fuck is she?"

No one had an answer.

Tommy turned on John. "Who told you? Who gave you the fucking word?"

John swallowed, shifting on his feet. "A scout, one of our boys in Small Heath– he saw the wreckage. The guards, the driver… all dead, Tommy."

His stomach dropped.

Bodies.

But no mention of her.

He felt sick. Cold. A new kind of fear he hadn’t felt since the war clawed its way up his throat like bile. He clenched his fists, forcing himself to focus. If they had taken you alive, that meant they wanted something from you.

He had to find you. Now. A sharp knock on the door cut through the tense silence. Isaiah stepped in, breathless, eyes wide.

"We’ve got something."

Tommy’s head snapped up so fast his vision blurred.

"Where?"

Isaiah wiped a hand down his face, shaking his head. "We don’t know for sure, but one of the lads caught wind of a group setting up shop in an old distillery just outside the city– on the outskirts near the river."

"Who?" Tommy’s voice was deadly calm, but the way his hands shook slightly at his sides betrayed him.

Isaiah hesitated. "You’re not gonna like the answer, Tom."

Tommy’s chest tightened. "Say it," he demanded.

Isaiah exhaled. "Sabini’s men."

The room went deathly quiet.

Arthur swore, kicking the leg of a chair so hard it splintered.

Sabini.

That filthy fucking bastard had been waiting for an opportunity to strike, and Tommy had handed it to him on a silver fucking platter when he sent you away. Tommy felt his pulse roar in his ears, drowning out every other sound in the room.

He turned to Arthur. "Get everyone. We move now."

His brother didn’t hesitate. As Arthur stormed out, barking orders to the rest of the men, Tommy grabbed his coat, his revolver already in his hand.

He didn’t just want to kill them.

He wanted to wipe them from existence.

Because they had taken you.

And Thomas Shelby was going to burn the fucking city down to get you back.

…

Your wrists were raw from the ropes, skin rubbed red and torn from how hard you had fought– fought for nothing, fought for no one to come, fought just to survive another minute, another second.

You were too weak to fight anymore. Your entire body was screaming in agony, every nerve burning, every muscle aching with exhaustion.

Your stomach throbbed violently, a deep, searing pain radiating from one of the larger gashes that had been carved into your skin. You could still feel the sting of the blade as it sank into your flesh, the warm trickle of blood spilling down your ribs, soaking into the shredded remains of your clothes.

What was left of them, anyway.

Your dress had been ripped apart, torn from your body in jagged, humiliating shreds, exposing bruised, violated skin.

The men had touched you, their hands roaming, gripping, forcing you still, their laughter ringing in your ears as they stripped you down like you were nothing more than something to be used.

You had fought, God, you had fought, thrashing, kicking, but their hands had been stronger, crueler, unyielding.

Now, you could feel the cool air biting at your skin, the exposed places where they had left their marks– dark bruises, bloody scratches, shame carved into your very bones. Your arms shook, the fabric clinging to what was left of you, offering little protection, little dignity.

You felt disgusting.

Ruined.

And even though they had been interrupted before they could take it any further, the damage was already done.

The way they had laughed. Cruel, mocking, like your pain was amusing, like your struggle meant nothing.

"Shelby won’t want you now."

The words had sliced deeper than the knife, burrowing into your chest, your ribs, your bones.

"Damaged goods."

"Bet he won’t even look at you when we’re done."

It was all still there, burned into your mind, bleeding into your skin like an invisible brand you would never escape.

And your ribs– God, your ribs. Every inhale was a battle, every breath felt like knives digging into your sides, sharp and relentless. You didn’t know if they were bruised or broken, but the deep, throbbing ache that rattled through your chest made you certain that something was damaged beyond repair.

Even the slightest movement sent sharp, unbearable pain lancing through you, making your vision blur, making bile rise in your throat.

Your face was swollen, beaten, the metallic taste of blood thick on your tongue.

Your body flinched violently as hands roamed over you, rough fingers gripping, bruising, tearing fabric, exposing too much. A cruel chuckle ghosted over your ear.

"Not so tough now, are you?"

The words barely registered through the haze, but the hot breath against your skin did, the weight of a body pressing against you. Suffocating.

You turned your head, gasping sharply, choking on a sob as your body tried to shrink away, but the ropes held you firm, like an animal waiting for slaughter.

Another pair of hands gripped your thigh, fingers digging hard enough to bruise.

You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to disappear inside yourself, trying to will yourself into a place where this wasn’t happening, wasn’t real.

Then– footsteps, shouting.

Not inside the room, but outside.

The hands stilled.

More voices now, low, urgent, laced with something that sounded close to alarm.

"Go check it out," one of the men shouted.

A few of them grumbled, hesitating, as if reluctant to leave, but then another loud thud echoed from beyond the door, followed by the distant clatter of metal hitting the floor.

The man above you cursed, pushing off of you abruptly, leaving behind a nauseating heat where his body had been pressing against yours.

"Fucking deal with her," he ordered the one who stayed behind before storming toward the door.

You heard them shuffle out, their boots heavy against the floor, the door creaking as it was pulled shut behind them. One remained. 

Then– Gunfire. A sharp, brutal crack shook the walls. The man froze. Another shot. Then another. Shouts of panic cried outside the door, the unmistakable sound of bodies hitting the ground. And then the door burst open.

The man barely had time to turn, barely had time to lift his knife, barely had time to do anything, before a bullet tore through his skull, the shot echoing like thunder.

His body crumpled to the floor.

More boots pounded into the room. Your swollen, half-lidded eyes struggled to focus, your mind fading in and out, but you knew– you knew those voices. Someone dropped to their knees beside you.

"Fuck– It’s her." The voice was urgent, but familiar. "She’s alive. Love, it’s me– it’s John. Can ya hear me?"

He moved to untie you, but you let out a small, broken noise. Weakly, you tried to turn away, as if you could somehow hide your exposed body from him– hide from what had been done to you.

"Shit– someone get her a coat, something!" John hollered. 

More hurried voices. More boots scuffing against the ground.

Then a voice rang out. "Get out of the fucking way!"

The tone was raw, shaking with rage, sharp enough to cut through the chaos like a knife. Everyone moved aside instantly.

Tommy’s blue eyes locked onto you, widening as he took in the bruises, the gash on your stomach leaking blood, the torn fabric barely covering your body.

Then, under his breath, so low it was barely a whisper, he muttered, "Jesus Christ.” 

His coat was off his shoulders in an instant. He crouched down and carefully draped it over you, covering as much of your exposed skin as he could. The weight of it should’ve been comforting, should’ve felt like protection, but you flinched. The sudden movement sent a fresh wave of pain coursing through your body, making your breath hitch sharply in your throat. Tommy’s jaw tightened. His hands hovered, like he was unsure if touching you would only make things worse.

John knelt beside him, fingers moving to quickly undo the ropes. 

Your body swayed forward as the last rope fell away, your muscles too weak to hold you upright, but Tommy’s hands shot out instantly, catching you before you could collapse completely. He felt the way you tensed. The way your body tried to shrink away, as if you weren’t sure whether his hands were safe ones or not. 

“Can you walk?” His voice was low, controlled, but his heart was fucking pounding.

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t even manage to look up at him– like you didn’t even register his question.

Your head hung limply forward, resting weakly against his shoulder. Your breath came in shallow bursts as the weight of exhaustion and pain dragged you down.

That was all the answer he needed. Without hesitation, he scooped you up into his arms. The moment he lifted you, a sharp, strangled cry tore from your throat as the wound on your stomach pinched.

“I got you,” The sound of your pain sent a violent shudder through Tommy’s body, his grip instinctively tightening. “I know, love. I know.”

Your head lolled against his chest, another small whimper escaping your lips as his arms adjusted their hold, careful but unrelenting. His breath was uneven as he stood, keeping you pressed tightly against him, shielding you as much as he could.

Your pain was his pain now.

Your suffering was his burden to bear.

And he was going to make every last one of those bastards suffer for what they had done to you.

The night air was cold, but Tommy barely felt it. His grip on you didn’t waver, his arms locking you against his chest, shielding you from the world as he carried you through the bloodstained corridors of the warehouse.

Every step he took was controlled, deliberate, but inside he was barely holding it together. You were too still, your body too limp in his arms. 

“Almost there," he murmured, his voice softer than he’d ever let it be, barely audible beneath the pounding of his own heart.

You didn’t respond. But when his arms shifted slightly, having to adjust his hold as he stepped over a body on the ground, you let out a small whimper of pain. His grip tightened instinctively.

"Shh," he soothed, his lips brushing against your temple, voice raw. "I’ve got you."

The car was waiting outside, its headlights cutting through the darkness, and the backseat door already open. Arthur was barking orders to the men, his voice clipped and deadly, but the moment Tommy stepped outside, all movement stopped. The others watched as he carried you– silent, grim, waiting.

They had seen Tommy Shelby furious before.

But this was something else entirely.

Without a word, Tommy laid you down in the backseat, before climbing in himself. He adjusted his coat so that it covered you again before guiding your head to rest more comfortably on his lap. 

The door slammed shut and the engine roared to life. The moment the car jolted forward, you let out another soft whimper, your fingers weakly reaching for him. 

"It’s alright," he murmured, as his hand brushed through your matted hair. "You’re alright."

You heard his words, but they felt far away… like a voice carried through water, muffled, distant. Your head shifted slightly against his lap as you forced your swollen eyes open. 

And then you saw it.

Blood.

Deep red, seeping through the white fabric of his shirt, thick and dark, staining the material all the way down to his waist. Your breath hitched. For a second, you didn’t understand. Your dazed mind struggled to catch up, struggled to process how he might’ve gotten hurt. 

Then it clicked. It wasn’t his blood.

It was yours.

Your fingers twitched weakly, brushing against the soaked fabric.

"Tommy–"

The word came out slurred, almost inaudible.

His hands tensed around you instantly. "I’m here, love," he said quickly, his voice sharper now, urgent. "I’m right here."

Your vision blurred. The world was tilting again. The blood, so much blood– 

"Tommy, am I dying?"

His arms tightened around you, his grip firm, protective, as if holding you together was enough to keep you here. 

"No," he said immediately, but there was something frantic beneath his voice now, something breaking. "No, you’re not dying. You’re alright."

You blinked slowly, the exhaustion dragging you down. 

Tommy turned his head sharply.

"Drive faster," he snapped, his voice thick with something close to desperation.

Arthur was already pushing the car to its limit, the tires kicking up dirt and gravel as they sped toward home. Tommy’s hand cradled your cheek, his thumb stroking gently along your skin, even as his grip shook.

"You’re alright. But you have to stay awake," he said, almost pleadingly. 

You tried. And really, you wanted to. 

But the last thing you felt before the darkness pulled you under was the way his fingers trembled against your skin.

…

You felt the car lurch to a stop, the tires skidding against the dirt, but the world around you was hazy, your body heavy, weighed down by exhaustion and pain.

You jolted further awake when Tommy shifted, pulling you onto his lap before he pushed the door open.

Then, a rush of cold air. Sharp as it bit at your skin. Tommy stepped out, his grip on you unwavering, unrelenting. There were voices, then footsteps. The sound of boots pounding against the ground. 

Polly’s familiar voice. "Oh, my girl," she gasped. “What have they done to her?”

You tried to lift your head, to focus, but your vision swam, the world tilting in and out of darkness. 

Polly was moving fast, her skirt rustling as she rushed toward you, her hands reaching for you before you even realized what was happening.

"Get her inside," she ordered, her tone sharp, controlled, but beneath it there was fear.

Tommy didn’t hesitate. You felt the urgency in his body, the tension coiling tight in his arms as he carried you up the steps, past the doorway, into the dim warmth of the house.

Everything was spinning. 

When he set you down, the wound in your stomach pinched and a warm rush of liquid poured from it. You clutched at it– felt the blood pooling between your fingers. 

"Tommy, put some pressure on that!" Polly’s voice cut through the haze, sharp and commanding.

Your breath hitched, your body already trembling from exhaustion, from blood loss, from the deep, horrible throbbing wrapping around your ribs like a vice.

Tommy moved instantly, his hands already reaching for you. You felt him brush your hands away before pressing a towel firmly against the open wound on your stomach. 

The moment the pressure hit, white-hot pain exploded through you.

You screamed.

 Your body arched off the mattress, hands flying to his wrist, gripping hard, your nails digging into his skin, trying to push him away.

"I know," Tommy rasped without budging, his jaw clenched so tightly it looked like he might break his teeth.

You tried to twist away, but his hands didn’t move, didn’t falter, didn’t let up.

Your vision swam, a high-pitched ringing buzzing in your ears, agony coiling through your body like fire, licking up your ribs, burning through your spine.

Polly was moving fast, grabbing bandages, ripping fabric, preparing whatever she needed, but all you could focus on was the pressure, the unbearable weight of Tommy’s hands pressing against your stomach.

"Fuck," Tommy cursed under his breath. "Pol, do something. Help her–"

"I need supplies, Tommy," Polly snapped. "I need you to go get them."

You saw Tommy hesitate.

"Tom," Polly’s voice was firmer now, demanding. "Go. Now."

A beat. Then, the pressure on your stomach lifted as he moved away. The moment Tommy’s hands left your body, you felt the loss like a cruel snap of cold air.

Your breath hitched, your body instinctively tensing, but Polly’s hands were already there, replacing his. 

She pressed tightly against the wound, and fresh agony ripped through you, another strangled cry spilling from your lips.

"Shh, darling," Polly murmured, her voice softer now, gentler than before, but still edged with urgency. "I know, I know. We’re going to get you all fixed up."

You let out a soft, weak noise as Tommy moved, as if your body somehow knew it was losing its only source of warmth, of safety.

"I’ll be right back," Tommy’s voice was hoarse, raw, full of something broken.

And then, the door swung shut. 

Your fingers clutched weakly at the sheets, your body writhing slightly, trying to escape the searing pain, but Polly held firm. "Easy," she murmured, one hand moving up to smooth your hair back from your face, her touch gentle despite the blood coating her fingers. "Just breathe."

You tried. But every inhale sent sharp daggers through your ribs, every second felt like your body was tearing itself apart.

"That’s it," Polly encouraged, even as her hands remained firm, even as she continued pressing into the wound. "Just keep breathing, sweetheart."

Footsteps. A door swinging open.

Then, his voice.

"Here," Tommy said, sounding breathless as he stormed back into the room. His hands were full of supplies.

Polly barely glanced up. "Put them on the table."

He did, his movements fast and urgent. But the moment he turned back to you, his face fell.

His blue eyes flickered to the blood pooling around Polly’s hands, to the torn fabric soaked with red, and then, to your face.

Your body was trembling, your breath coming shaky and weak, your skin far too pale.

Tommy’s hands curled into fists. Polly looked at him before releasing the pressure on your wound.

"It’s not clotting," she said, flat, grim. Polly exhaled sharply, grabbing the needle and thread. "We’ll have to stitch it up."

His jaw clenched, his throat working around words he couldn’t say, his hands hovering uselessly at his sides. Without a word, he took his place back beside you, his hands finding your shoulders, his grip steady, firm, unyielding.

Polly met his gaze. "Hold her down."

And with agony in his eyes, he did.

A sharp, searing sensation that tore through your body like fire, ripping you from the darkness and into the cruel reality of the moment. Your eyes flew open, your breath catching instantly as a white-hot, unbearable sting shot through your stomach.

A scream tore from your throat before you even knew what was happening.

"Keep her from moving!" Polly’s voice was urgent, firm, cutting through the haze of pain and confusion as she clutched the bottle of alcohol she was using to clean your wounds.

Then, strong hands gripped your shoulders.

"Shh, love, I know, I know."

Tommy pinned you down, his weight pressing against you just enough to keep you still, but not enough to hurt you.

You fought against it anyway, your body thrashing violently, panic and agony blurring together as Polly’s hands worked quickly, pressing something sharp against your skin. Another wave of pain crashed through you, and you sobbed, gasping, your body twisting uselessly beneath Tommy’s grip. 

"Please–" Your voice cracked, weak and frantic, as the burning sensation only grew worse. “Please, stop–”

Tommy’s grip tightened, his breath harsh against your ear as he whispered, "I know,” he repeated. “You have to let her do this."

You couldn’t do it, couldn’t bear the pain, the sting, the relentless wave of agony pressing down on every nerve in your body.

But Tommy wasn’t letting go. His hands stayed firm, keeping you still as Polly continued, her voice clipped, professional– but you could hear the pain in it too.

"It’ll be over soon," she murmured, but it barely reached you over the sound of your own ragged sobs.

Another sharp pain seared through your ribs, and your body arched violently, another broken cry ripping from your throat. Your fingers latched onto Tommy’s arm, gripping him so tightly your nails dug into his skin.

He didn’t flinch.

His voice was hoarse, desperate, like this was hurting him just as much as it was hurting you. "I got you," he murmured, his breath warm against your temple. "I’m right here, love. Just hold on. Just hold on."

But you couldn’t.

You felt yourself slipping away, the pain too much, too unbearable.

Your sobs grew softer, weaker, until the darkness swallowed you whole.

…

Sleep clung to you like a heavy shroud, pulling you under, keeping you trapped beneath the surface.

But then… voices.

Low, hushed, urgent.

You weren’t awake, not really. But the words drifted through the haze, barely reaching you, like an echo through water.

"I don’t know what happened in that room," Polly said, soft but grave, laced with something heavy, unspoken. "But our girl was hurt beyond what the eye can see."

There was silence– so suffocating that you could feel it settle over the room like a funeral shroud.

Then, Tommy’s voice, low, rough, dangerous in a way you had never heard before.

"What are you saying, Pol?"

A pause.

"You saw the bruises on her thighs, Tommy. The way her clothes were torn."

The words barely registered before a deep, unbearable shame clawed its way up your throat.

You wanted to pull the blanket tighter around you– to disappear, vanish, sink back into the darkness where none of this was real.

But your body wouldn’t listen. Your fingers twitched, barely moving against the sheets. Another silence. Longer this time. Heavier.

Then, Tommy’s voice, but it was different now. Not sharp, not angry. Shaken.

“Jesus Christ."

Another pause.

Then, a sound you never thought you’d hear from Tommy Shelby. A shaky exhale, almost like a breath that had been trapped in his chest for too long, forced out in a way that wasn’t entirely controlled.

You wanted to open your eyes.

Wanted to reach for him, for Polly, for something that made you feel whole again.

But your body was too broken, and your mind was too tired.

…

The room was quiet when you woke up.

Not the kind of peaceful quiet that brought comfort, but the kind that felt hollow, empty, like something had been ripped away. Your body felt heavy, every inch of you aching, wrapped in a deep, throbbing pain that radiated from your ribs, your face, your legs.

For a moment, you didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe too deeply.

Just listened.

The soft crackling of the fireplace. The distant murmurs of voices downstairs. The faint scent of whiskey, tobacco, and something familiar lingering in the air.

Then, movement

Your eyes shifted, and that’s when you saw him.

Tommy.

He was sitting in a chair beside the bed, his head bowed, his elbows resting on his knees, hands clasped together like he had been praying but never finished the prayer.

His hair was disheveled, his coat abandoned somewhere, his sleeves rolled up. He looked worn down.  Like he had been carrying too much weight for far too long.

Your throat felt tight. When you shifted slightly, trying to ease the ache in your body, the mattress creaked softly beneath you.

Tommy’s head snapped up instantly. His blue eyes locked onto you, and for a brief second they widened, raw and unguarded, before he jolted forward, hurrying to your side.

"Hey–" His voice was rough, low with exhaustion, relief, and something deeper, something broken. “Hey, hey, hey. I’m here. I’m right here.” 

You tried to speak, but nothing came out. Your throat tightened painfully, your lips parting as if to form words, but all that came was silence. Then– tears. Hot, silent tears spilled over your cheeks, streaking down your skin before you could stop them.

Tommy’s breath hitched, his face contorting slightly, as if the sight of you like this physically hurt him.

"Hey," he repeated, his hands reaching up, cupping your face carefully, his thumbs wiping away the tears as fast as they fell. "It’s alright. You’re alright."

But you weren’t. And you both knew it.

More tears spilled, your body trembling despite the warmth of the blankets, despite the fact that Tommy’s hands were steady, firm, and safe. You let out a weak, shaky exhale, your breath stuttering.

Tommy’s jaw tensed, the pad of his thumb still brushing along your cheek.

"You’re safe now," he whispered, his forehead nearly pressing against yours. "You hear me?"

You closed your eyes and nodded weakly, but the tears kept falling. They wouldn’t stop– wouldn’t slow, no matter how hard you tried to breathe through it, to swallow it down, to push it away like it wasn’t happening.

His hands never left your face, gentle, steady, as if he thought you might shatter completely if he let go.

He watched you closely, his expression tight, unreadable, but his eyes gave him away. They were soft. Without a word, Tommy shifted, slowly, carefully, and sat on the edge of the bed. His weight made the mattress dip. And then, he reached for you. Not all at once. Not suddenly. Just gently. One of his arms slid behind your back, the other under your legs, his movements slow, deliberate, giving you time to pull away if you wanted to. But you didn’t.  So, when he finally pulled you into him, when he gathered you against his chest, you just let him. Because the desire to be held so gently by him outweighed the pain in your stomach. 

A soft, shuddering sob broke from your throat the second your face pressed into his shoulder. His arms tightened and his chest rose and fell beneath you.

"I’ve got you," he said.

You just cried harder. Cried into his shirt, into his chest, into the only thing that felt remotely safe.

And Tommy just held you.

Like you were the only thing in the world that mattered.

… 

The hands were everywhere. Gripping, clawing, pressing against your skin.

Hot breath ghosted over your ear, cruel laughter filling the darkness as rough fingers bruised their way over your body.

"Not so tough now, are you?" 

You thrashed, but you were trapped, bound, helpless. No matter how hard you fought, kicked, screamed, you couldn’t get away.

"Shelby won’t want you now."

"Damaged goods."

"Bet he won’t even look at you when we’re done."

No. No, please.

You screamed.

You jerked awake violently, gasping, drenched in sweat, heart pounding in your chest like it was trying to escape. The room was dark, shadows stretching across the walls, but the nightmare was still there, lingering, suffocating.

A figure moved beside you, reaching for you–  Too close. Too fast.

"Don’t fucking touch me!" The words ripped from your throat before you even registered them, your voice sharp, frantic, trembling with terror. 

"Hey, hey, hey. It’s me. It’s just me."

You sucked in a sharp breath, your pulse roaring in your ears as the terror began to splinter, reality bleeding through the nightmare. Your eyes darted to his face.

Not them.

Tommy.

A shuddering sob broke from your lips as you reached forward. Tommy caught you immediately, his arms wrapping around you, holding you firmly but carefully.

"Shh, you’re alright," he murmured against your hair. "You’re safe. I’ve got you."

His warmth grounded you, but the nightmare still clung to you like poison, lingering in your skin, in your bones. You inhaled, your cheek resting against the curve between his shoulder and neck. His scent wrapped around you, familiar and safe. He smelled of whiskey, tobacco, gunpowder, something darker, something uniquely him.

The fabric of his shirt was soft, worn, and beneath it, you could feel the subtle heat of his skin, along with the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. It was faster than usual, uneven, like he wasn’t as composed as he wanted to be.

The silence stretched between you for a long time, a heavy, fragile thing hanging in the air.

Then, Tommy’s voice finally broke it. "What did they do to you?"

You stiffened. Every muscle in your body locked up, panic flaring hot in your chest. Your breath shook, your fingers twisting into his shirt as your mind raced, panicked, hesitated. 

If he knew, would he still want you?

"Shelby won’t want you now."

"Damaged goods."

"Bet he won’t even look at you when we’re done." 

The cruel messages from the men lingered in the forefront of your mind. You were damaged. Used. Broken. What if he’d see you differently now? What if he never touched you the same again? What if he’d– 

"Please,” he cut in. “I have to know." 

Slowly, you swallowed, your throat tight, aching, before you finally forced the words past your lips. "They–" your voice was barely a whisper. "They touched me, Tommy."

The air in the room shifted as Tommy stiffened. Then his jaw clenched, his breath sharp and ragged through his nose. Before you could process it, he was moving. Standing up and turning toward the door. For a second, your brain didn’t register it– or understand.

Then, it hit you. 

He was leaving… Heading straight for the door. Panic slammed into your chest, raw and frantic.

"Tommy–" Your voice broke, but he didn’t stop.

No, no, no– 

"I’m sorry, I– I tried," you choked out, your throat burning, your hands reaching for him but too weak to move from the bed. "I swear, I fought. I– I should’ve fought harder, I–"

Tommy froze in place.

You didn’t realize you were crying again, but the words kept spilling out, rushed and broken, desperate to keep him here, to explain how hard you fought. "I’m sorry," you gasped, barely able to breathe. "Please– please, don’t go– don’t leave me– I’m so sorry–"

Tommy turned sharply, crossing the room in two strides, and then, his hands were on your face, cradling you, forcing you to look at him.

"No." His voice was firm, steady, but his eyes… His eyes were shining, raw, and shattered. "This is not your fault."

Your breath hitched, but he didn’t let go.

"I should’ve been there," he whispered, voice thick with agony, regret, fury… at himself, at the men who did this, at everything. "You hear me? I should’ve been there. And I should never have sent you away. I was wrong. And I’m so fucking sorry."

A tear slipped down your cheek, and Tommy wiped it away with his thumb, his touch careful.

“I thought–” you stammered. “I thought you were going to leave.”

"Christ, I’m not leaving you love," he murmured, his voice so quiet, so broken it nearly undid you completely. "I just–" he swallowed thickly, his jaw tightening. "I want to go back there and kill every last one of those bastards for what they did to you."

You closed your eyes, your body shaking, exhausted, drained. But when you leaned forward, Tommy caught you instantly, pulling you into him, holding you tightly against his chest.

"Please stay," you whispered, your voice thin, fragile, desperate. "Please, Tommy– don’t go."

His hands tensed against your face, thumbs still brushing against your cheekbones, his blue eyes searching yours, reading every ounce of fear buried beneath the words.

"I’m not going anywhere, love," he murmured, his voice low, rough with emotion, as if saying the words out loud solidified them in stone.

A quiet, broken noise escaped your throat– not quite a sob, not quite relief, but something in between.

His hands slipped down, his arms gathering you close. Your forehead pressed against his chest, his warmth grounding you.

He dipped his head, his lips brushing against your temple, barely a whisper of contact, but the weight of it was enough.

"I never should’ve sent you away," he murmured, his voice softer now, but still laced with the guilt he would never forgive himself for. "And I promise you, love, I won’t make that mistake again."

Your fingers weakly clung to his shirt, your body melting against him as the last of your strength gave out. 

And Tommy held you together.

[runnning-outof-time]

Repay the Favor | Tommy Shelby x Reader

Part TWO of A Little Thank You, but can also be read by itself.

Request: yes by @look-at-the-soul - sent as blurb request

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x fem!Reader

Summary: Another altercation happens at the Garrison. Both Tommy and (Y/N) have a chance to repay the favor.

Warnings: series typical violence (Tommy sees red and takes a beating too far), language, brief manhandling, mention of blood, smoking

Word Count: 2857

A/N: thanks so much for all of the love on the first part of this story! This part was really fun to write —it wasn’t the prompt that won the poll, but I got this idea and just had to write it! The prompt used is bolded. I hope you like what I did with it — Enjoy! :)

COMMENTS & REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED — I’D LOVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF THE STORY!

Comment/Message me if you’d like to be tagged!

A busy day at the Garrison had finally come to an end. (Y/N) was working on emptying the buckets from around the pub floor, one of her final closing chores of the evening. She was so ready to head home and call it a night.

The sound of the main door opening didn’t even make her look up. “I’ll be finished shortly, Mr. Shelby. The bottle you requested was delivered earlier today. I left it out on the shelf in the stock room,” she greeted and informed the man she thought had entered the building.

Even though Tommy had told her to address him by his first name, Arthur and John hadn’t made that distinguishment yet. She still addresssed them as ‘Mr. Shelby’.

Arthur always liked to come in after closing. He never sought out company, saying that an empty pub was one of the places where he did his best thinking.

The response that (Y/N) got, however, quickly told her that the person who arrived was not Arthur Shelby.

“Go pour me a drink, will you?” The voice was deep and unfamiliar. It made her look up from what she was doing. Her eyes fell on a man she hadn’t seen in the pub before.

“We’re closed, sir,” she told him, maintaining a level, professional voice. Her hesitancy was heightening with each second that passed.

“I didn’t see no sign on the door,” the man commented, jerking his thumb in the direction of the doors to emphasize his point, “you’re the barmaid, yeah?” His eyebrows were now raised as he took a few more steps in her direction.

“I am,” she nodded, her voice still level.

“Then go pour me a fucking drink,” he insisted, a tinge of anger seeping into his voice.

“Sir, we’re closed,” she was also insistent; keeping her boundary clear. The books were already balanced for the night, and who knows…pouring him one drink could have the potential of this man staying all night.

After being on her feet all day, all (Y/N) wanted was to go home. It seemed like she wasn’t going to be getting that wish so easily tonight, though.

“I don’t give a fuck if you’re closed,” the man began, his words coming through gritted teeth as his stalked even closer to her, “I’ve been working like a dog all damn day; I’ve earned my keep, so I won’t come in here and be told by a fucking barmaid that I can’t be served a glass of fucking whiskey!” he went off on a rant, his eyes widening with anger as he came to a stop right in front of (Y/N).

She was trying all that she could to keep her composure, but she’d be lying if she said that his actions weren’t intimidating her.

“Sir…”

“Pour me. A fucking. Drink,” he cut her off, his words being spoken through his teeth in a low, seething tone. He then reached out and roughly gripped onto (Y/N)’s chin, allowing him to pull her closer to him against her will, “do it now,” he commanded her, a smirk creeping onto his face as he continued, “before I decide to have my way with you.”

(Y/N) opened her mouth to speak, trying with all of her might to keep herself composed while this man’s fingers were surely leaving imprints on her skin. “I’m not afraid of you,” she spoke with as much confidence as she could muster.

The man just grinned at her statement, obviously not caring that she was standing up for herself. He knew he was the one with the power in this situation. “We’ll see about that when you’re…”

He could even finish the sentence. The man’s hand was ripped from her body without warning as his entire body jerked backwards; being pulled by someone (Y/N) couldn’t quite see.

“What…the fuck?” The man sounded entirely confused by this third person entering the situation. Before said person was able to do anything else, the man raised his right arm, bent it and sent his elbow flying backwards; connecting with the person who’d put hands on him.

This didn’t do much to thwart the new person’s attack though. The man was immediately pushed forward in response to the elbow, and it was then that the identity of the mystery person was revealed.

“(Y/N), move,” Tommy spoke in a serious tone, his eyes locking onto hers for a split second.

(Y/N) couldn’t say much, the adrenaline coursing through her body making it tough to string anything together. It was all happening so fast. She trusted her feet to move her behind the bar as the man who attacked her stumbled and turned to face Tommy.

“‘M just tryin’ to get a fuckin’ drink, mate,” the man said as he lunged toward Tommy.

“This place is closed. Should’ve fucking listened to her,” Tommy responded, stopping the man before he was able to do anything, pushing him away once again. The man then looked around, seeing what was close enough for him to grab. His eyes settled on one of the chairs (Y/N) had set on top of the table so that she could mop the floor. “Don’t do that,” Tommy, who realized what the man was thinking, said in attempts to curb the man’s decision. “Just go home and don’t come back here.”

“I want my fucking drink!” the man exclaimed, forgoing the chair and charging Tommy yet again. He immediately took hold of Tommy’s collar, gripping at it in attempts to wrap his hands around his neck. Tommy grabbed onto the man’s waistcoat, bunching it up as they both grappled for a better position on their adversary.

The man was able to move his hands upwards, finding space above Tommy’s collar to wrap his fingers. He grinned at this victory, sniggering as Tommy’s eyes widened. Both had realized that he’d now gained the upper hand in the fight.

This power balance didn’t last long as Tommy quickly managed to find a break in the man’s composure, using this moment of gloating the man was doing to remove his hands and push him away.

The man stumbled slightly, still not deterred, before charging right back to his opponent. He managed to land one last punch with a wild swinging of his fist before Tommy squared up and responded with one of his own. This blow sent the man falling to the floor, and Tommy wasted no time clambering on top of him.

Something snapped inside of him as he corralled the man beneath him. Despite the current position he was in, it was obvious that this man wasn’t giving up on the fight. His arms were flailing around, grabbing onto Tommy’s overcoat in attempts to knock off his balance and remove his weight so that he could be on his feet again.

Tommy didn’t let that happen though. He took one of the buckets (Y/N) had been going around emptying into his hands and briefly wielded it over his head before bringing it down to strike his opponent in the face. The man’s flailing stopped in an instant, obviously stunned by the blow. This didn’t stop Tommy though. It was like everything was now tinted over red as he began to repeatedly strike the man in the head with the bucket.

“Tommy!” The voice sounded muffled, like it was far away. Tommy’s eyes were practically shut now. He was back in the tunnels, fighting for his life against this enemy underneath him. He wouldn’t, couldn’t let up for fear that if he did, the man would spring back up and finish him off. “Tommy, stop!” The voice sounded like a woman’s. It had to be his mind playing a trick on him. “He’s finished!”

Then it clicked. (Y/N). His surroundings returned. He was no longer contained in a tunnel….he was at the Garrison. The man below him was no longer a German solider….it was the man who he first saw with his hand gripping (Y/N)’s chin. (Y/N).

Tommy brought the bucket down, steadying himself as his chest heaved for breath. He became aware of the silence that filled the room and didn’t dare look down at the man below him. After taking a few more deep breaths, he finally lifted his head. He looked around, searching for the woman who’d brought him out of the animal-like state he previously was in.

(Y/N) was resting up against the end of the bar. She was peering around the corner, and had watched the entire altercation happen. A deep breath — perhaps a sigh of relief — escaped her lips when Tommy’s eyes locked onto hers. Once she deemed the situation safe, she moved out from behind the bar and rose to her feet. Slowly, cautiously she made her way over to where Tommy was still kneeling. She tried hard to focus on him and not the bloodied man laying lifeless on the ground

“You should’ve left, (Y/N),” Tommy spoke sternly, trying hard to hide the fact that he too was shaken up by the altercation. It had been awhile since he’d let himself go back to that place; let himself become engulfed by the rage that seemed to reverberate off of the tunnel walls. He hated that (Y/N) had also watched him go to that place. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”

“Tommy, you’re hurt,” (Y/N) ignored his statements, her eyes focused in on the cut above his eyebrow.

“You should leave,” Tommy also ignored what she had said to him, still stuck on trying to carry out damage control.

“Let me see your head,” she continued on with what she was now worried about, moving even closer to him before bending down to get a better look at the injury he’d sustained.

“You shouldn’t be here, (Y/N),” Tommy was still stuck. His voice was teetering on breaking and he hated it. He hated that he wasn’t the one who was strong in this moment; hated that she’d now seen him for who he truly was.

He’d spent months trying to keep up good graces, spending every second of the extra time he had at the Garrison in hopes of being able to talk with, or even just to catch a glimpse of, her.

It had been that way since she’d been hired. For once, he let Arthur make a decision in the business, and — for once — Arthur had chosen correctly. (Y/N) was the best thing that had happened to that establishment in a long time.

Her kind gesture that came in the form of the flowers she brought him a few weeks ago only served to heighten his desire to see her; to be around her. She’d been on his mind since she exited the snug that day.

But now things had the potential to change drastically. She’d never seen him like this; never experienced this other side of him. He was worried that all of the trust that had been built up between them would now come crashing down.

“I’m not afraid of you, Tommy,” she told him, her eyes locking onto his as she spoke. “You saved me from that man; from what he was looking to do. You did what you needed to do in that moment, and I’m not afraid of you for it. God knows how things would have played out had you not arrived when you did.” Her words were spoken with earnestness, and she hoped that it would cut through whatever whirlwind that she was able to see was raging in his mind at that moment. “You’ve got a cut above your eye. Will you let me look at it?” she brought attention to his injury then.

“I’ll be fine, love,” he brushed off her offer.

“It looks rather bad,” she commented.

“(Y/N)…” he trailed off, saying her name in a sort of a warning tone in hopes to tell her not to push back on how he was responding.

“Let me look at it, please,” she insisted, forgoing the warning, “I won’t be able to sleep if I leave without doing so.”

Tommy thought for a moment. Much like when she was injured and he was offering help, it was quite obvious that she wasn’t going to let up on her stance. She wanted to help him.

“Ok,” he finally gave in to her insistence, nodding his head slightly.

“Good,” she nodded back, appeased with the outcome of their conversation.

“We can go into me office. First aid things should still be in there,” he said, allowing her to stand first before he finally moved from the man he’d beaten.

(Y/N) waited for him to be fully on his feet before she led him back to where the offices were located in the pub. Tommy made a mental note to make sure she exited through the back door of the building, and to also get some men in here to clean things up before the pub opened the next day.

“Sit,” she commanded him, motioning to the chair behind the desk as she moved to grab the things she needed.

“Instant, eh?” Tommy commented, the slightest grin forming on his face as he listened to what she told him to do.

He sat down and watched as she gathered some things before finally moving over to where he was. She placed the materials on the desk next to her before she reached out and gently tilted his chin upwards so that she could see his face better. Thank goodness she had something to be focused on now, because otherwise she would have melted from the way he was looking at her.

First she grabbed a clean cloth and began to wipe the blood from around the cut. Doing this allowed her to get a better look at how bad the injury was. “I don’t think you’ll need any stitches,” she commented, her eyes briefly leaving his face so that she could put some antiseptic onto a cloth. She was still able to feel Tommy’s eyes watching her intently. After wiping the cut with the cloth, she put a small piece of adhesive plaster on it in hopes to keep it covered. She took a step back once she was finished. “I think you should be good now,” she affirmed with a smile.

“Thank you, (Y/N),” he said appreciatively, his eyes unable to leave her.

“Consider it me repaying the favor,” she smiled at him.

“What type of flowers do you like?” Tommy asked a question, switching up the topic of conversation.

“Primroses.” At first (Y/N) thought nothing of it. Then the randomness of the question clicked. “Why did you ask me that?” she asked, her brows furrowed.

“I want to thank you for repaying the favor,” he responded in a nonchalant manner.

“You don’t need to do that. Saying ‘thank you’ is more than enough for me,” she insisted, “besides, this is the least I can do given how you helped me out there.”

Tommy pursed his lips, hoping to make her think that he was mulling over what she’d said. He wasn’t though…his mind had already been made up. “Alright,” he agreed with her, or rather with himself, “it’s late…can I walk you home?”

“Only if I’m not holding you from anything in doing so.”

“You’re not.”

“You may walk me home,” (Y/N) smiled at him, moving to throw the things she used in the bin. Tommy had lit a cigarette and was waiting at the office’s door by the time she finished. She smiled softly at him and he took it as his go-ahead to leave the room and lead her out of the building.

Today was (Y/N)’s first day back after everything that had happened that evening a few days ago. She was thankful that she was in for the opening shift because she was able to have some time alone in the pub before patrons started coming in.

What was waiting for her on the counter was something she hadn’t expected at all.

Sitting in the middle was a vase filled with a lovely selection of primrose flowers. A soft gasp left her lips as a smile formed on her face. Then she noticed the note sticking out of the top of the bouquet. Moving over to the counter, she grabbed the small piece of paper and read what was written on it: I still wanted to repay the favor. — TS. The words made her laugh. Her smile widened and her heart fluttered as she looked at the flowers again.

“Wonder who those could be from?” Harry, the barman who worked alongside (Y/N), commented with a grin as he emerged from the stock room.

“Oh, I don’t know,” (Y/N) played coy. They both knew who these flowers were from, and a knowing look was exchanged before Harry continued on with his morning duties.

(Y/N) looked at the note again, her smile widening once more.

Mini Series PART 3: Not At All

MASTERLIST

Tagged: @mystcldydrms @succubaby @cloudofdisney @look-at-the-soul @elenavampire21

@mrsalwayswrite @julkaamazing @evita-shelby @theshelbyslimited @peakyswritings

@just-a-blackhole @watercolorskyy @strayrockette @Peakyduchesss @alexxavicry

@captivatedbycillianmurphy @yummycastiel @dark-academia-slut @mischievouslittlecreature @stevie75

@lyarr24 @signorellisantichrist @zablife @anotherblinder @cillmequick

@dandelionprints @garrison-girl-08 @insanitybyanothername @depxiety @justrainandcoffee

@dragons-are-my-favorite @mrs-bond @cljordan-imperium @brummiereader @everythingelseisextra

@little-diable @thomashelbyswife @shaddixlife @ryecosse @padfootdaredmetoo

@novashelby @wonderlanddreamer @cherrycilly @lau219 @meister95

[kinkyniragi]

War Goddess

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Reader

Word count: 4,8k

Summary: You are Tommy’s wife. You hear him moan in the dark, caught in another war-drenched nightmare—except this time, he´s coming in his sleep. He asks you to help him in quite a special way and you say yes...You’re not sure what terrifies you more: The violence he craves… or the power he gives you.

CN: Tons of smutty smut (but with a plot, of course ^^), Tommy forcedly being submissive, war trauma and healing attempt, heavy psychological themes tbh, Tommy being vulnerable but not able to suppress his dominant side, power and gun play, degradation, humiliation, bondage, blindfolding, kind of spicy interrogation, oral and anal stuff, edging, hard sex as usual. This is a fictional story depicting consensual BDSM scenarios for mature readers. All characters are adults. Please practice kink responsibly and safely.

Author’s note: My longest one-shot so far…Feel free to leave comments and share my story if you enjoy it—I truly appreciate every bit of motivation to keep writing. Even though I'm not a native speaker, I'll do my best 😉

***

The bed is warm. His back is damp.

You wake before him, as you often do, your body curled against his. A fine sheen of sweat glistens on his chest, his jaw clenched. He mumbles something — unintelligible at first — then clearer, just enough for you to catch fragments.

“In the walls—"

He jolts, his hand clenching into a tight fist.

“They´re coming—"

“Hey, shh…” you whisper, trying to soothe him, but before your fingers can even find his skin, he cries out — loud, raw:

“Fuck—NO!”

He’s nowhere near waking.

You run your hand gently across his fevered cheek, but even your softest touch can’t reach him. He’s too far under — trapped in whatever nightmare his mind has pulled him back into.

“Please—” he pleads, voice cracking with anguish. “Take what you want—"

And then, startling you into stillness, you feel it: the hard press of his arousal against your stomach.

You freeze.

What the hell is happening in his head?

He shudders and turns his head. His lips part once more.

“Use me—hurt me—just don’t kill me…”

The words spill from him in a strangled mix of fear and something else — something desperate, broken, wanting. A twisted yearning that doesn’t make sense, and yet feels all too familiar to you.

You shouldn´t be aroused by what you are witnessing.

But you are.

***

You love him. That’s never been the question.

It’s what comes with loving him. The silence, the scars, the smoke that never clears. The way he disappears for days without a word. The way he comes back smelling of whiskey and gunpowder, like some battle you weren’t invited to.

Tommy has always been the hell of a dominant partner — what most would call an alpha male, without a second thought. Your safety, your well-being, they’ve always mattered to him, no doubt about that.

But only on his terms.

In daylight.

And by night.

Tommy doesn’t ask. He takes. And because you love him — and because you know he loves you, in whatever way he knows how — you’ve always let him.

***

You don’t speak of it the next day. You want. But your throat closes up.

He never talks about the war, not really. But you see it when he wakes in a cold sweat. When he touches you like he’s claiming land. When he looks at you like you’re the last thing standing between him and the abyss. But in this night, something shifted. Through the fevered haze of his words, his dreams have begun to take shape. Some buried trauma seems to claw its way to the surface — twisting, merging with an arousal that has no business being there, showing up as a wet dream in the dark. It shouldn't turn your stomach and your thighs into this aching knot of questions.

But it does.

Almost every night, Tommy lives through terror. Submission and destruction leading to a heavy climax he must be aware of the morning after... You wonder if there’s a way in — a way to reach him, to pull him from that place. To help him.

***

A week later, you're both drunk in the sitting room — the kind of drunk that slows time and peels away your last defenses. He watches you over the rim of his glass. His hair’s undone, shirt half open. His tie lies forgotten on the floor.

“You’ve been looking at me differently,” he says. His voice is low. Controlled. But not cold.

You blink. Try to smile. “Have I?”

He stands. Takes a step closer. Then another. Your little drinking session has had an unintended side effect: you're off guard now — and he's noticed. Which gives him the perfect opening to question the shift in your behavior.

“You heard me, didn’t you? That night.”

You don’t answer. But he sees it anyway. He always does.

His voice, usually sharp with command, softens unexpectedly. It disarms you more than you'd like to admit.

He stares into his glass of whiskey, thoughtful, then downs it in one swallow. Without looking up, he starts to speak.

“It was the tunnels. France. 1916. We knew they were under us. Digging. Germans. Could hear it through the fucking mud. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t breathe.”

His sudden honesty confuses you. You had hoped that sharing a few drinks might loosen his tongue, maybe draw something out of him — but you hadn’t counted on much. His illegal dealings with the whiskey trade were hard to hide from you, of course — not least because he was his own best customer, though he liked to dress it up with the word "tasting."

Still, his seasoned tolerance meant that getting him drunk enough to slip wasn’t an easy game to play. Tommy and loss of control — those were two things that almost never coexisted. At least, not in the daylight world.

So the fact that he's opening up to you now — telling you things about what he's lived through — You want to believe it’s because he’s letting go. Because something in him is softening, and he’s showing you a part of himself he doesn’t let others see.

But you know better.

You’ve known Tommy too long not to recognize the strategy behind every move he makes. Nothing he does is ever without calculation.

He’s in front of you now.

“One night... I dreamed it wasn’t them anymore. It was you. Digging through. Breaking in. Pulling me under.”

A pause. Then:

“I panic. It’s life or death — a fight to survive. But... it’s you. The woman I desire. The woman who desires me…”

His jaw tightens under the weight of the words, clenched around a knot of fear, terror, helplessness. Tears track silently down his cheeks.

You listen, spellbound, aching to reach for him — to comfort him — but his entire body is so coiled, so rigid, you know he’d likely shove your hand away in fury.

“Everything blurs. The memory… it slips, dissolves. And then—fragments. They come back. Again and again. The same dream. Every damn night. No escape. I have to—”

Beads of sweat shine on his forehead. His fingers rake through his hair, fisting it so tightly his knuckles go white.

“I have to end it. The me inside the nightmares... he needs to understand it’s over. That it’s safe to let go. That it’s time to surrender.”

He reaches into his holster. Pulls the pistol.

Hands it to you.

“Next time… when you want me, really want me… use this. Hold it to my head. Overpower me. Take me. Hurt me. Fuck me raw. Do whatever it takes to let me overcome this fucking nightmare. I really mean it. Do you understand, sweetheart?”

Your fingers close around the metal. Still warm from him.

“You trust me that much?” you whisper.

He leans down, mouth to your ear.

“I need to.”

He pauses, then adds with a sharp edge to his voice, “But don’t you fucking dare look inside the magazine, eh?”

You hold his gaze, unflinching.

Impatiently, he presses on, “Got it? I trust you. Just trust me. No hesitation. Not for a second.”

As the weight of the pistol settles in your palm, you realize he’s not asking for danger. He’s begging for freedom.

From his ghosts.

And only you can give it to him.

***

He’s already asleep when you enter. Lying on his side, arm curled under the pillow, his breath deep and steady. The moonlight drapes him in silver, catching on the line of his jaw, the slope of his shoulders, the faint sheen of sweat on his bare back.

You’ve prepared everything to make him relive the nightmare — without real danger, and with a happy ending. At least, that’s the plan.

Maybe you’ve gone too far, but here you are: wrapped in the long coat of his uniform, and beneath it, a whisper of black lace and silk over-the-knee stockings.

A femme fatale. A war goddess.

Ready to take on the fight with men and their ghosts.

Silently, you set down the items you've brought with you. A glass of cool water goes on the nightstand within his reach — he’ll need it later.

You stand there for a moment, watching. Your chest rises and falls. Faster. You know what you’re about to do. And you know what it means.

This isn’t a game to him. It never was.

You pick up the pistol. It’s heavier than you remember.

You slip onto the bed without a sound, carefully turn him around by the shoulder, straddling his hips, knees sinking into the mattress. Carefully, you slip the makeshift noose around his neck, crafted from a pair of your silk stockings. It tightens just enough to be felt — a whisper of threat, a breath of control.

He stirs as your weight settles over him but doesn’t wake. Not yet.

Your fingers trail down his chest. You feel the twitch of his muscles. His breath hitches.

You lean in, pressing your mouth to the shell of his ear. Then, with a sharp crack, you strike the wooden headboard several times with the pistol and shout his name — loud, commanding, unmistakably in charge.

“Don’t fight me, soldier,” you continue.

He tenses.

Eyes still closed, but his body wakes before he does — blood rushing, skin hot and sweaty.

You shift your weight, and his hands move instinctively to your thighs, still half-lost in whatever liminal place he drifts in.

He jolts awake, eyes wide with panic.

And that’s when you raise the pistol, slowly, deliberately, until he’s staring straight down the barrel.

Then you let the cold metal touch his temple.

He freezes.

The air turns electric.

He looks at you. Sees the gun. Sees your eyes. Besides his panic, there is something else, a slow, dark hunger blooming behind his gaze.

He exhales through his nose, sharp and hot.

You lean down and kiss him, deep and brutal, until he groans against your mouth and grabs your hips. But you don’t let him lead — not tonight.

Tonight, he’s yours.

Your fingers tighten around the pistol as you straddle him, your thighs framing his hips. With your other hand, you give the silk noose around his throat a slow, deliberate tug — just enough for him to feel your control over every breath he takes. You feel him hard beneath you — not just aroused, but wide awake now, sharp with tension. And still, he doesn’t move.

He’s waiting.

For you.

“Lift your hands above your head,” you command quietly.

He obeys.

There’s a clarity in your movements now, a calm, predatory resolve that leaves no doubt: you’re going to take exactly what you want from him.

The pistol slips soundlessly into the bulging pocket of Tommy’s military coat. Then you reach for the coarse hemp rope you had set aside — rough, unyielding, unforgiving — and begin wrapping it around his wrists. One loop, then another, until he’s bound. You secure the ends to the slatted headboard above him.

He watches you in tense, breathless silence, his chest rising and falling. You can see how hard he’s working to restrain himself, to keep from grinding hungrily against the heat between your thighs.

The oversized coat is carelessly fastened by a single button, gaping just enough to tease him with the barest glimpses of skin, of lace, of promise.

If Tommy only knew what else you were going to deny him tonight.

From the inside pocket of the coat, you draw something slick and black. Before he can register what it is, darkness swallows him whole.

Your silk sleep mask — what a perfect idea.

With his vision gone, his world narrows to sound, to sensation, to you. Every brush of fabric, every shift of weight, every breath you take.

You reach once more into the pocket where you stashed his gun, then let the heavy coat slide off your shoulders with a slow, deliberate rustle. For a moment, you wait, letting the silence stretch, then — click.

The unmistakable sound of the safety being released.

His body flinches beneath you. But he doesn’t speak.

He just lies there, blindfolded, bound, and waiting.

Ready for whatever’s coming next.

“You’ve been keeping secrets from me, soldier,” you say, voice low and even. “I think it’s time you talk.”

A pause. Then his answer, tight, unsure: “I— I don’t know what you mean…”

You slide the cold barrel of his own pistol along his temple. Not hard. Just enough to remind him who's holding the cards tonight.

“Start with what you think about when you’re alone. When you’re hard. When no one’s watching.”

He shifts under you. The ropes strain softly against the wood.

His answer comes hesitantly. “I… I think about things. Sometimes.”

You let the silence stretch, the pistol resting lightly against his temple.

“Go on.”

“I imagine… being under you. Not… not just like this. More.”

You lean in, your lips grazing his ear. “More how?”

He swallows. “Your thighs… I think about your thighs. And you… above me.”

You smile. “Above you?” you echo, feigning confusion. “You mean like now? Or do you want something more than just to be pinned?”

He says nothing.

“I think I know what you mean,” you continue softly. “You want me to sit on your face, don’t you? Use you like you’re nothing but a tongue.”

His breath catches.

“Say it.”

A beat. Then, quietly: “...yes, ma’am.”

You don’t move.

“Say it properly. I want to hear it.”

His voice is thick with shame and arousal. “I want you to sit on my face… ma’am. Use me.”

You feel it in the tension of his body—every muscle pulled taut beneath you, not from resistance, but from the unbearable strain of surrender. It isn’t the act of pleasuring you with his mouth that costs him; he's done that before, eagerly, with a fervor that bordered on reverence.

No, it’s the confession.

The admission that he wants to be used.

That he craves your weight, your power, your indifference to his pleasure. That he needs you to strip him of the armor he wears even in your bed.

And still, some part of you waits for the snap—for the moment he can’t take it anymore, when he breaks the ropes or tears off the blindfold, flips you beneath him and reclaims the control that defines him. You see the war in his clenched jaw, in the way his hips shift beneath you as if his cock could argue with his mouth. He wants to dominate. It's in his blood.

But somewhere deeper, darker, older, is this need: to be undone by you. To be freed from himself—not with mercy, but with force.

And you?

You’re willing to take him there.

As many times as it takes.

You lower yourself slowly, knees firm against the mattress, thighs bracketing his head. His breath hitches as the heat of your arousal nears his lips—he can smell you now, wet and aching, your desire soaked into the soft fabric barely shielding you. You don’t speak. You wait.

His voice, hoarse: “You don’t know what you do to me. Or maybe you do. Please… end me.”

A smile plays at the corners of your mouth. You remove the last barrier.

“You’re going to earn your reward, soldier,” you murmur. “Not with your cock, though. That’s not yours to use. Not yet.”

You press yourself against his mouth. He groans—hungry, eager—and you feel the warm pressure of his tongue between your thighs. Every movement is reverent, desperate, grateful. He drinks you in like a man parched.

“You’re so fucking hard, aren’t you?” you whisper, teasing. “Throbbing. Aching. Can’t wait to bury yourself—but you’ll have to wait. Only good boys get what they want. And you haven’t told me everything yet.”

His voice is muffled, but the words reach you, trembling with devotion: “Thank you, ma’am. You taste... incredible. I love this. I love being used by you.”

You slide your fingers through his hair, tighten slightly.

“Then prove it,” you say softly. “Confess more. Tell me the rest of your dirty little truths while you worship me.”

His breath hitches, hesitant at first, voice low and trembling: “I… sometimes imagine your finger… while you’re… using your mouth on me. It feels wrong, but… maybe that’s why it’s so… intense. Like I’m… losing myself in a way I’m not supposed to. It’s… a bit unsettling, but I can’t stop thinking about it.”

You didn't expect this turn of events, but you don't let it show and act cool. “Inside you? What do you mean by that? Don’t be afraid to say it.”

You can hear that the tension is almost breaking him. He struggles with the words: “I… I think about you… pushing something inside me…when you’re pleasuring me with your mouth.”

You lean closer, your tone gentle but insistent: “Push something inside you… What exactly, Thomas? I want to hear it.”

He swallows hard, cheeks flushing beneath the mask, finally admitting with a whisper: “Your finger. I imagine you… using your finger… while you’re making me yours.”

You see the mix of shame and relief in his posture as he speaks the words aloud, the weight of his confession hanging heavy in the room.

You press your thighs a little tighter around his head, sensing his pulse racing beneath you.

For a second, you hesitate.

You’d stepped into this role for him willingly—eager, even—but the rawness in his voice takes you off guard. You hadn't anticipated this. Not that the subject itself is unfamiliar. Anal play was never taboo between you. On the contrary, he’s had no trouble taking the lead there before, no hesitation in pressing deep, in claiming you in every way he could.

Especially on days when business hadn't gone his way, or after another shouting match with his brother Arthur, he seemed possessed by the need to use your body in that degrading, desperate way. Not for pleasure, at least not primarily. For control. For relief. Like you were the only thing that could soak up his chaos.

And when he did, there was always that gleam in his eye, that hungry, near-feral focus that told you he wasn’t holding anything back. That when he had you like that, he felt powerful. Unstoppable. Like the world could burn and he wouldn’t notice if he was buried in you.

And now… now he wants to feel the opposite.

That image grounds you. Gives you direction.

You lift yourself from his face slowly, relishing the shaky breath he pulls in as you grant him air again and at the same time let him endure the uncertainty of how you will react to his confession.

Finally, to his surprise, you pull the sleep mask from his eyes. You want him to watch exactly what happens to him next. Sliding down his body with the smooth confidence of someone in full control, you let your tongue drag along his hot skin until you come to rest at his most sensitive spot, teasing him just enough to make him twitch.

He gasps, hips flexing instinctively—but you hold him still with a palm to his thigh.

You dip your head, let a slow strand of saliva trail from your lips to your fingers. Your eyes stay on his as you coat your middle finger, then reach lower, circling gently around his entrance—soft, slow, testing. Not entering. Just letting him feel that you could.

And will. When you decide.

“How many times,” you ask sternly, “have you imagined me forcing my way inside you? Don’t lie. I want details. Or I stop."

A tense pause. You can feel him swallow under your gaze, his breath shallow.

“Too many,” he admits hoarsely. “In the dark. When I can't sleep. When the flash backs come.”

He hesitates, then continues, the words dragging over gravel: “I imagine you… holding me down. One hand over my chest. Your mouth driving me mad. And then your finger. Slick. Insistent. Not asking.”

His body tenses as his dirty fantasies fall out of him, raw and real. “You don’t stop. You know exactly what it does to me. You edge me until I’m desperate. Until I’m begging.”

You listen closely as he stammers through his shame, your eyes locked on his. Your tongue circles the tip of his hardness with practiced precision, drawing a sharp, helpless breath from his throat. Meanwhile, your fingertip begins to apply gentle pressure—testing, teasing—until you feel him yield, inch by inch, his body pushing back, unmistakably begging for more.

"Fuck, just do it," he hisses through gritted teeth, jaw clenched in lust and defiance. "Claim me."

His chest rises with each breath, muscles tense, but his hips don’t lie—he’s aching for it. And yet, his voice lowers dangerously, his command laced with warning: "This never happened. You breathe a word of this to anyone and you’ll regret it."

His wrists twist in the silken bonds as if they were about to break free at any moment. As if the balance of power were about to reverse at the last moment because he can't bear it any other way.

"One time. That’s all. I needed to get it out of my system. After this, it goes back to the way it was. I’m in charge. Understood?"

Your finger presses in, slow and controlled. His body tenses against it, breath staggering. The sound he makes is halfway between a growl and a gasp, raw and involuntary. Still, he doesn’t stop you. He lifts his hips ever so slightly, as if giving in to you hurts less than resisting.

"God, don’t stop," he mutters, voice strained and dark. "Just—"

You take your time, tongue still working him in tight, knowing swirls, your finger moving with increasing confidence. The way he trembles beneath you, the broken sounds spilling from his lips—it’s more than arousal. It’s surrender. And it’s yours.

When you sense him teetering at the edge, you pull back. Slowly. Cruelly.

"Fuck!" he chokes out, head thrown back, fists clenched in the silk. "You—"

You do it again. And again. Bringing him close until his body is slick with tension, his voice hoarse from begging without words. Every time you stop, his eyes search yours with something like desperation—and still, he won’t say please.

Not yet.

Your finger is buried deep inside him, pressing against that sensitive spot with relentless precision, sending waves of agonizing pleasure through him. The warm, salty taste of his precum lingers on your tongue, rich and intoxicating. He groans, eyes fluttering shut, wrists tugging at the restraints. His entire body coils tight, every muscle trembling beneath your weight.

Finally, he cries out, “Please… I— I can’t…”

“Can’t?” you whisper. “That’s not what I saw in your eyes when you begged me to use you like this.”

With satisfaction, you let him believe for a moment that he can now experience relief. And then—you pull away.

His cry is raw, broken, the sound of a man unraveling.

“No, soldier. Not yet,” you pretend to be calming, “You don’t come until I say you can. You gave me that power, remember?”

You rise slowly, deliberately, your breath steady as your fingers glide over his sweat-slicked skin. His muscles twitch under your touch, every nerve drawn taut. You lean in, lips grazing the line of his jaw, breath warm against his cheek, and then, without hesitation, you guide yourself onto him.

Your body takes him in inch by inch, a slow, relentless claiming. His breath hitches, turns into a sharp gasp as you sink down fully, burying him inside you. He throws his head back, jaw clenched, wrists straining against the bonds.

“You think being inside me makes you in charge?” you whisper, voice laced with heat and mockery. “No, soldier. You’re just where I want you—hard, helpless, and desperate.”

He groans, shaking his head in defiance, but his hips betray him, rising to meet you, his body aching for more.

“You wanted this,” you say, grinding down with a slow, punishing rhythm.

He groans again. This time it’s almost a sob. “Yes,” he breathes.

“You think you still have control?” you taunt, increasing the pace just enough to keep him trembling on the edge. “Say it. Say who this cock belongs to.”

His eyes squeeze shut, teeth gritted, every word a battle. “…It’s yours.”

“Say it properly.”

He chokes on the next breath, voice low and broken: “My cock belongs to you, ma’am.”

You smirk, leaning in to bite gently at his throat. “Good boy.”

He's drenched in sweat, his eyes wild, teeth clenched hard as he tries to hold onto the last thread of composure. But it's gone. He's gone.

“I see you, Tommy. Even when you hide. And right now, you’re mine. My weapon. My ruin. My beautiful, broken thing,” you whisper.

“Take the gun,” he rasps, voice barely human. “Do it…now.”

You freeze for a heartbeat. He’s serious. His eyes are shining, bloodshot, locked on yours.

“You said… you'd surprise me,” he pants. “You said you’d do it. You have it, don’t you?”

He swallows, every word a plea and a command all at once. “Pick it up. Point it at me. While you're… riding me. Please. Fuck. Just—please.”

Your hand reaches for the revolver where it lies on the table. It feels impossibly heavy in your palm. You keep grinding against him, relentless, as you lift it and point it at his chest.

You remember what he told you. Don’t look in the magazine. Trust me.

And you hadn’t looked.

Not then.

But now the weight of the revolver in your hand feels heavier than it should. Loaded? Empty? Just one round waiting? You have no idea.

And that’s exactly how he wanted it.

You glance down at him—sweat-slicked, eyes wild, desperate—and you wonder: Did he ever want to win this round? Or lose it? You panic, but no matter what, you are aware that you have long since reached the point of no return.

Your breath grows uneven, ragged, blending with his in a tangle of gasps and broken sounds. The room pulses with heat and noise, the rhythm of skin on skin, breath on breath, your pleasure building in sync, your bodies answering each other.

“Pull the fucking trigger,” it bursts out of him.

You knew this was coming.  And you hesitate for what feels like eternity. His eyes bore into yours, begging and burning all at once.

“Pull it.”

He growls now, louder. “Do it. DO IT.”

You squeeze your eyes shut—

Click.

Silence. Nothing.

You throw the gun aside with a shaky breath just as his cry tears through the room, loud, guttural, pure release. His body jerks beneath you, cock pulsing inside, spilling more than just heat. It’s everything—grief, helplessness, pain, old wounds he never dared name. All of it floods out of him at once, like his body finally found the only way it knows how to let go.

His wrists wrench free of the silk just as his body arches up into you. The bindings fall, forgotten. He seizes your waist and turns you on your back, breathing ragged, eyes wild. There's no hesitation anymore.

His fingers slide between your legs, slick and sure. His mouth follows, tongue teasing all of your sensitive spots, relentless, until you’re gasping, knees weak. Only when you're shaking, breathless, right on the edge, he flips you onto your stomach, pushing your hips up with practiced hands. He has long since recovered and is half hard again; a few strokes are enough to be ready again. He thrusts back in with a deep groan, hips snapping against you.

Now it's your turn to cry out.

And this time, he doesn’t stop until you do.

And when you come, you don’t hold back. Your knees give way, and you sink onto the mattress. He falls on top of you, still buried inside your core.

You cry out under his heavy weight, breaking apart, shaking, eyes wide open, he wraps his arms around you tightly — possessively, like the old Tommy is being back, but also like someone trying to anchor himself to something real.

His lips press to your hair.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

You don’t answer. You’re not sure you can.

But as the sweat cools on your skin and your heartbeat settles against his, one truth presses in quietly:

He didn’t just surrender tonight.

He chose to be known.

And that frightens you more than if he’d begged for the trigger a second time.

***

You liked that? Then you may also like "Tender is the Wound"

<<<Check my Masterlist>>>

Special Note: This story contains the idea of IRRT (Imagery Rescripting & Reprocessing Therapy) a special therapy technique to treat PTSD.

>>>Read more about it<<<

***

Taglist

@jbrownta @mythicalcowboyatheart @shelbybabysblog @simpfortoomanymen @moonbeamott @gothic-chinadoll @weaponizedvirtue @ashibairo @darkdaydreamer

[dilf-issues]

Vanilla | C.M

Requested by Anon: hey dunno you take requests but since your writing is so hot , I'm willing to ask if you consider writing about roleplaying with Cillian and his wife or gf to break the dull routine they were stuck into , the way he suggested that to her being embarrassed and the sweet moments they ditch the characters in bed. He could bring his characters *cough cough * Tommy shelby. Thank you x

Synopsis: In which your boyfriend, Cillian, finds out you’ve been reading erotic fiction about his character in the Peaky Blinders, Tommy Shelby. Cillian shows you how much of a great actor he is.

Warnings: Age gap, the reader is in her 20s and Cillian is in his 40s. Roleplaying, extremely rough sex, dumbification, degradation, face slapping, spitting, pussy spanking, oral sex, unprotected sex, breeding kink, and a little cnc. THIS IS KIND OF DARK SO BE WARNED. Everything is consented it’s just that... Cillian’s gonna be rough, like ROUGH

.

Cillian had been busy. He had an upcoming new season this year and his schedule was packed. You haven’t spent time with him in quite some time now. He constantly apologized for not giving you enough attention and promised to make it up to you.

He decided to fulfill this promise.

Since he was the main character in his series ‘Peaky Blinders’, he did have massive privilege in the production. He had never done it before since he had been such a dedicated person to work with, however, he felt like he should sacrifice his work just for you. He wanted to spend the time with you, maybe have some dinner together at a nice restaurant. Just the usual things the both of you would do. Every time he had some free time he would do some nice things for you, treat you like a princess.

He came home from work that day, he got permission to take the week off and he even got back early from set. He wanted to surprise you, he had a flower in his hands a box of your favorite soft cookies. It was all so perfect.

When he came home, he saw that the first floor was empty and there were no signs of you anywhere. He went upstairs since he reckoned you were in the bedroom, probably taking a nap or reading a book.

Cillian was so happy. He was a man who barely showed any emotions in public but with you, it was different. He had a wide smile on his face, ready to surprise you but when he opened the door, he didn’t see you on the bed.

Instead, he heard the shower running and so he hummed to himself, setting the gifts down as he sat on the bed to wait for you.

As he patiently waited, he noticed your phone was still on. You were the type of person to let the screen go on forever instead of turning it off every 3 minutes like him. He glanced absentmindedly as he saw you were reading some sort of story on your phone. His actions were harmless, he just wanted to see what you were reading.

His eyes skimmed through the words as his blood runs cold.

‘Tommy had me bent over his desk, ass red and swollen from all the beatings. My pussy was leaking down onto the expensive wood, desperate for his cock to ram inside me.

“Please, Mr. Shelby, I need your cock!” I plead like a good whore as he growled.

“You are nothing but a filthy cocksleeve”

Tommy? Shelby? His Tommy Shelby? The character that he played?

It seemed like all of the blood started circulating to his face as he flushed at the filthy thing he had just read. Y/N? His sweet Y/N was reading something like that?

Cillian couldn’t believe it because someone as young and pure as he would never be this dirty. Because of their age gap, he saw her as someone that he needed to protect, shield from the rest of the goddamned world. His fragile little princess that he wouldn’t dare to inflict even a slight force in fear that she might break and shatter into pieces.

The sound of the shower became silent and it interrupted his thoughts, he quickly placed her phone where it belonged as he stood up and smoothened the spot on the bed where he sat to make it seem like he just came in.

When you had walked out, it took you a moment to notice Cillian standing there with your gifts but when you did, you gave him a small scream as you ran towards him, your figure wearing nothing but a small towel.

“Cillian?! You’re back? You brought me gifts!” You exclaimed as her wet body embraced him in a hug. Cillian was somewhat still blank from what he was reading earlier.

‘If she had liked that kinda stuff so much he could push her on the bed and beat her ass right now’

His eyes widened at his own thoughts as he tried to push them away, “Yes princess, I thought maybe I haven’t been paying attention to you now have I? I’m all yours for the week, baby”

You pouted as you nodded at him, and then he realized how submissive-looking you were. You had always had a demeanor of what he would expect someone much younger than him to have, however, Cillian was starting to look at it in a new light.

It doesn't help the fact that he still has his Thomas Shelby haircut for the filming.

It also doesn’t help she was almost naked in front of him, he hadn’t fucked her in weeks. It’s almost fitting.

Maybe doing something about it wouldn’t hurt now would it?

Oh... But it’s definitely gonna hurt you...

Cillian watched closely as the girl before him admired his gifts for her in awe. His eyes became more and more lusted as he figured out a way to approach you.

“Love, can I ask you a question?”

You hummed at him innocently as she raised her brows at him, “Anything, Cill...”

“What have you been reading on your phone, hmm?” Her eyes widened slightly as her heart started to pound in her chest. Cillian was looking at her so intensely that it was slightly scary. She didn’t know if she should lie, or if she should tell him the truth. However, since he had asked... It was obvious he knew the truth.

“Cillian I can explain” You sputtered, panicking on the inside as Cillian started closing whatever gap that both of you had, he was looking down on you in a way he had never done before. You felt the chill run down your spine as you felt the back of your knees hitting the bed.

“Explain” He commanded.

“It’s just... You know I love you and you know I should be honest to you no matter what. But... I just... We haven’t been together in a long time lately and even when we do... It’s always the same...” You felt guilty saying this to him, it’s not like he was bad at sex. He was great. However, you were getting bored with the same soft and loving sex you two always had. “I just... I hope you can be a little rougher, that’s all. You’ve always been... So soft”

“Soft... Hm?” He tilted his head to the side as he stared at you almost mockingly, “Be careful of what you wish for, love”

You had felt your heart stop when Cillian’s smooth Irish accent suddenly turned into the dark Brummie accent you had always heard about on the TV. The one you had always touched yourself to when he wasn’t around.

Then out of nowhere, Cillian had roughly pushed you on the bed as you fell down and whimpered softly. He pulled off the towel on your body as you were left naked, “C-Cillian!”

“Who the fuck is Cillian, eh? Have you been fucking whoring yourself out to another man?” Cillian cursed at you as he quickly took his clothes off, “You’re my whore. You’re mine to fuck, you got it?”

Then you can physically feel your gears shifting in your brain, “T-Tommy?”

Your body shivered as you felt yourself getting wet, you were all naked and you were ready for him. You felt your legs spread instinctively as you heard him laugh, “You really are such a desperate fucking cunt, eh?”

‘Tommy’ had bent down as he gripped your face by the cheeks and roughly shook your head, “Who do you belong to? Who do you fucking belong to?”

“Y-You Cill-Tommy! I belong to you!” Tommy smirked, as his hands traveled down to your navel, teasing you as he drew figures on the skin, making you whine, “Open your fucking mouth you dirty whore”

You wasted no time opening your mouth for him, wide with your tongue out. Suddenly, he did the unexpected when he spat in your mouth, “Fucking swallow it, princess”

You swallowed his spit like a good girl as you held out your tongue to show to him, suddenly seeking his praise and validation however it never came. Tommy just hummed as he let go of your face harshly, almost slamming your head onto the plush bedding.

Characters aside, Cillian was never like this. Throughout the year of your relationship, he had always been gentle and kind, treating you like a soft feather and taking care of you. Maybe because it was because he was much older he had felt like he needed to treat you gently. You never realized Cillian had this side to him. He had always had this side, you just never awaken it.

“Spread your legs wider” He commanded, his voice dark as his character, you listened to him, eager to show him you were his good girl as he hummed looking down at the glistening flesh in between your legs. You were so wet it had dripped down and leaked onto the bedsheet. Without a warning, Tommy gives a hard slap to your cunt and you screamed out. You thought he was doing it once but it seems like it came over and over again, beating your swollen pussy and clit until it was throbbing and red. You cried out of pleasure and pain, as you begged him. You didn’t know what you were begging for but it was sure not for him to stop.

“You fucking like this don’t you? Fucking hell, look at you. You’re fucking wet, you like getting fucking beaten and bruised huh? What a fucking whore. You are nothing. You are only good for fucking, you are only here to fuck. Remember that, you fucking cunt”

Tears were flowing down and you were desperate you were so desperate for his cock. After each word, Tommy spat on your body, leaving you all wet and filthy combined with your own sweat and arousal.

“P-Please! P-Please, fuck me, Tommy! Please I need your cock. Please I want your cum. I need it inside me!” You pleaded like a whore as he slapped your face. You moaned out as his hand traveled down your neck and choked it just enough to make you feel the air around you restricting. “Tommy, I can’t, I need your cock”

He scoffed, pulling down his pants as whipped out his cock. It was so hard to the point where it became purplish-red, the veins covering the base as the head leaked with pre-cum.

“You want my cock?” He lined up his tip on your vagina, “You fucking get it you cocksleeve”

Without giving you a warning and time to adjust, Tommy slammed his cock inside your cunt and he wasted no time ramming into you roughly. Not like you needed time to adjust since you were sopping wet. All you can do is choke out his name and moans as he grunts with each slam.

His pace was rough and deep and for someone like hin with his age, he had the stamina to go on and on fucking you so rough till you can feel him ramming in your stomach.

No words could even cum out of your mouth as your eyes rolled back as he fucks you braindead.

Spit drooling at the side of your mouth as you babble like a cock hungry whore underneath him.

“I’m gonna fucking cum and you’re gonna take it. You’re gonna fucking carry my babies, and even then it is not gonna stop me from fucking you stupid”

You could feel him twitching as his thrusts were getting sloppier and sloppier, you could also feel your orgasm coiling in your tummy as you cried out once you let it all go, the liquid splashing all over the both of you as you squirt on his dick.

You were heavily overstimulated and you screamed as Tommy fucked the cum out of him.

The warm seed spilled inside your walls as he grunted in pleasure, leaning down as he bit your neck and drew blood to the surface.

Tommy looked at you all fucked out, eyes still rolling at the back of your head as you continue to babble nonsense to nothing.

He breathes heavily as he lays down beside you, carefully moving your body to cuddle up to him.

“Like I said, my love... Be careful of what you wished for”