lapetiteceinturesworld

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Hi, folks!

I am looking for a beta reader for my Peaky Blinders fanfiction, which is still in progress. It is based on the events of the first season, with a few changes from the original. In this AU story, Grace emerges as a con artist who takes on Thomas Shelby's assignment in Birmingham, which involves helping him against Campbell, who is determined to get back the stolen weapons from the city's gangster boss. I am not writing this novel in a linear fashion, so you should know that Act 1 is not even finished yet, but Act 3 is, and Act 2 is almost done. I am looking for someone who likes Peaky Blinders and the relationship between Tommy and Grace. I would like to finish the novel next year, but of course, man plans, God executes. It may seem strange that I'm looking for beta readers before I've finished the novel, but I thought I'd give it a try. It's definitely 18+, not as brutal as it could have been, but I didn't skimp on the naturalistic elements. It's not very action-packed; I placed greater emphasis on the psychological aspect and the style. It's quite long, and it's only going to get longer. 😅 If you're interested, please let me know and we'll discuss the details. ❤️

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Damn, that's so true. 😭😅😆

Writing really goes one of two ways:

1. Write 3k words in 30 minutes

2. Takes 3 hours to write 3 sentences

There is no in between

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Will he have to bear any consequences in the future? My sadistic heart hopes so. He really needs to be put in his place. Damen seems to be heading toward complete disillusionment with Kastor, and it seems to me that Kastor's treatment of Laurent played a huge role in this. Is it possible that he will eventually go so far as to take open and direct action against him?

Hi Kaer I’m finally catching up with part 3 and I have a question, what’s Kastor’s deal with Laurent?

Kastor wants whatever Damen has because he thinks it should have been his.

He feels comfortable speaking when he really shouldn’t because Damen is so loyal and Kastor rarely faces real consequences for anything he does.

Also, he’s just not that smart.

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Ash and Shorter in Angel Eyes

So, I just finished my read through of Banana Fish.  Yes, I cried my eyes out.  I then finally got around to reading Angel Eyes all the way through for the first time, and man, what an awesome side story.  There’s so much to talk about from it, and so much to explore, but there’s something really specific I noticed, which I think ties into my other post about other people’s perceptions of Ash, and which also relates to the last conversation we see between Ash and Blanca.  

In the first three quarters of Angel Eyes, Ash comes across as very cold, as very unfeeling, and even frightening.  Even Shorter at one point is so scared of Ash that he doesn’t want anything to do with him.  Of course, by the end of the story, we realize his cold demeanor was, again, a total front.  A wall put up to keep people away from him, including Shorter, because he seriously doesn’t know who he can trust.  He’s wary of Shorter precisely because Shorter’s being nice to him, and nobody’s ever been nice to Ash for no reason.  Ash is only going by his experiences in life to inform his decisions.  His experiences tell him that anybody being nice to him is doing it because they want something from him.  This, coupled with Frankie essentially submitting to Shorter’s demand that he stop harassing Ash at the beginning, and Ash’s having already pegged Frankie as an assassin, naturally makes Ash even more suspicious of Shorter.  Eventually of course he realizes, after talking to Shorter and asking him if Frankie is part of his crew, that that’s not the case.  But he still doesn’t trust Shorter.  He still keeps him at a long distance and doesn’t tell him anything about himself.  Well, why would he?  He’s just met him a week ago and Ash’s life experiences tell him he can’t trust anybody.

Well, the thing I wanted to really talk about here, and I think this is a prime example of how it is that Ash was never this ruthless, cold-hearted killer, is the moment directly following the fight between Ash and Frankie, where Ash very nearly kills him.  He only doesn’t because Shorter shouts at him as he’s charging Frankie with the pool cue and distracts him enough with that that Ash messes up his aim.  Shorter runs after Ash afterward to thank him for “going easy” on Frankie, and we see Ash start to laugh, seeming almost demonic in his reaction as he explains to Shorter that he didn’t “go easy” on Frankie.  He meant to kill him.  Of course, when we later realize that Ash knew Frankie meant to kill him, his own intent to kill makes more sense.  But there’s a very important bit of dialog between Ash and Shorter afterward, which speaks volumes about who Ash really is inside.

He thanks Shorter, and then starts saying “So that’s it.  Deflect it slightly at the last second.  I didn’t DECIDE to go easy on him.  But now I finally know how.”  He says I “finally” know how.  

Now lets take this back for a moment to Ash’s last conversation with Blanca in the park, when they start talking about how Blanca never taught Ash how to go easy on an enemy.  He says to Blanca “”Never let your enemy escape alive.”  You’re the one who taught me that.  I never learned how to go easy on someone I’m fighting.”  And then Blanca replies, while smiling fondly, “That’s because I was told there was no need to teach you that.”.  

These two pieces of conversation taken together tell us everything about Ash, and his attitude towards the idea of having to kill, even for reasons as justifiable as self-defense.  

Blanca taught Ash how to kill with the efficiency of a professional hit man.  He taught him how to react and kill in the quickest, easiest and most efficient way possible.  He never taught him how to hold back once he was in the midst of a fight.  Once he got going, he would become a killing machine, so to speak.  And we see this from Ash throughout the series.  Once he starts fighting someone with the intention to kill them, he goes through with it with frightening precision and effectiveness.  Blanca never taught Ash how to simply incapacitate an opponent using a deadly weapon, he never taught Ash how to only maim, instead of kill.  All of his lessons were geared towards showing Ash how to take the life of an enemy, nothing more, nothing less.  Dino didn’t want Ash to carry out threats or warnings.  He wanted him as a hit man.  But Blanca’s words to Ash, that he was told he never needed to teach Ash how to go easy on an enemy, tells us that someone, Dino most likely, told Blanca that Ash was already too soft-hearted and too merciful, and that he shouldn’t bother with teaching Ash anything but how to kill.  Dino wanted to use Ash as a weapon, to carry out hits for him.  He didn’t have any use for Ash’s own ambivalent feelings about killing.  He didn’t care how Ash felt.  He needed to mold him into the most effective weapon he could.  We see Dino remind Ash, early on in the series, and in a mocking way, about how Ash always used to cry over every job Dino made him do.  Ash never wanted to kill anyone, and it was an upsetting enough experience for him that it used to reduce him to tears.  He didn’t want to do it, but Dino forced him into it, like he forced him into prostitution.  

But let’s go back to what Ash says to Shorter.  He says “But now I FINALLY know how.”  What this tells us about Ash is that he WANTED to know how to pull back while fighting someone so that he didn’t kill them.  He wanted to know how he could stop himself from always taking someone’s life if he happened to get into a physical altercation with them.  He’s happy that he’s learned how to pull back in just this one way.  He’s been trained only to know how to kill, but Ash hates killing.  He only does it because he has to.  And we know Ash never would have even tried to kill Frankie if Frankie hadn’t first tried to kill him.  Even later on, Ash let’s Frankie go, when he could have killed him.  Even here, we see Ash show mercy, despite this asshole and his crew just trying to murder him.  It’s the same as Ash only seducing Ricardo as a means of getting Frankie to make a move and show his hand.  Because Ricardo made clear his own intention to try and rape Ash.  So Ash uses Ricardo’s intention to his own benefit in forcing Frankie’s hand and to find out who sent him to kill him.  I don’t think Ash ever intended to “sick Ricardo on Frankie and let him do his dirty work for him”, like Shorter accuses Ash of.  Ash saw Frankie beat Ricardo’s ass earlier, when they got into a fight over him, so he knows Ricardo can’t take out Frankie.  Ash wouldn’t ever send someone to do a job for him like that anyway, as we see in the main story line of Banana Fish.  He takes care of his own business when someone’s after him specifically.  He never sends his own boys to do it for him.  He acts dismissive of Shorter’s accusation because, again, he’s putting up a front of cold-hearted detachment because that’s the only way he knows how to protect himself.  By showing no emotion.  Even Shorter basically tells him to utilize a form of this earlier in the story, when he advises Ash to let himself be raped if he gets caught, and to be as quiet and passive as possible.  Ash already knows those sorts of tactics, obviously.  By this point in his life though, he’s been raped so many times, he’s got more sophisticated means of getting through it. So he uses Ricardo as a means of sussing out who it is that’s gunning for him on the outside.  Because he knows if Frankie thinks he’s got a Sugar Daddy in Ricardo to protect him, it’s going to make it more difficult to kill him, which is why Frankie acts like he wants to make Ash his “bitch” in the first place.  So he forces Frankie into making his move by making him think him and Ricardo are a “thing”.  Ash was expecting Frankie and his crew to make a move on him.  When they attacked him in the library, he was ready.  Because he knew the act he’d put on with Ricardo was going to make Frankie act, thinking he needed to get Ash before Ash could find protection.  And Ash then used that opportunity to find out who had sent Frankie to kill him in the first place.  The whole thing was just so he could find out who it was that wanted him dead.

He’s using sex as a weapon, because it’s one of the few ways he has of defending himself.  I think Ash starts crying and is so upset when Shorter says if he keeps manipulating people like that, he’ll be just like the assholes who try to hurt him, because that was never Ash’s intention.  He was just trying to protect himself.  He never wanted to control anybody, or hurt them, or dominate them.  He only uses tactics like manipulation to try and keep himself from getting more hurt.  He’s not trying to hurt anybody, or control them because he wants power over them.  He’s trying to control what’s HAPPENING to him, and because what’s happening to him is being perpetrated by these bastards who want to rape him, or kill him, the best way to control the situation is to control THEM.  It isn’t some power play on his part, or born from some sick desire to dominate the other person.  It’s the only way he has of protecting himself.  He starts shaking and crying and gets so upset, because the last thing he wants is to be like the people who hurt him, and because he never did the things he did for the same reasons as them.  It hurts him badly that Shorter thinks he could be like them at all.  That he could be like that, or have that kind of twisted mindset.  He doesn’t, and he never did.  It’s why he tries to explain to Shorter later why it is that he did what he did with Ricardo.  He wants Shorter to know and understand the reasons for it.  That it isn’t because Ash likes it.  It isn’t because he gets his kicks out of controlling somebody, or manipulating their feelings.  It isn’t because he wants to have power over them, or because he gets a thrill from the idea of having power over them.  It’s because he hopes it will make his own suffering at their hands less awful.  

It’s just he was brought up in such an unforgiving and cruel world, that those sorts of things were the only means available to him of staying alive. He couldn’t say no, or fight them off, because that would just lead to his getting more hurt, either by the person doing it, or by Dino, or Marvin, or whoever had him on a leash.  Like Ash later explains to Shorter, because he’s so good looking, guys are always trying to force him to have sex with them, and he only figured that it would make it easier on himself, if he took the lead when guys made passes at him like that.  If he takes the lead and makes these bastards happy, he can control what’s happening to him, at least to some extent.  Shorter wonders then where Ash learned to do that.  Well, the answer is obviously Club Cod.  Ash HAD to learn to do that to keep himself from getting killed eventually.  To keep himself from getting hooked on drugs and used up and destroyed, like most of the kids that ended up in that club.  You can easily imagine that many of the “patrons” of that place were violent on top of their twisted sexual perversion, because those two things often go hand in hand.  A lot of them probably physically hurt the kids there, were probably extremely violent with them.  And we even see that happen to Ash in Private Opinion, when Blanca finds Ash in that motel room after he’s been raped by Marvin.  His hands had been tied to the bed frame, and he had bruises all over him.   He’s been beaten up on top of being raped.  Ash obviously had to learn to “play nice” and be seductive just to keep the physical harm he suffered to a minimum.  If he could make the men molesting and raping him think he was liking it, they were probably less likely to hurt him.  If he “submitted” and pretended to like it, if he played into their sick fantasies of being this submissive little boy that they could control and do with as they pleased, that they could have total power over, then they wouldn’t be angry, and they wouldn’t make it worse.  Like Ash even says to Shorter, the guys who rape you aren’t doing it because they want to get laid.  They’re doing it because they want to hurt you and dominate you and control you.  The more you struggle, the angrier they get that you aren’t submitting to their will, the more violent they then become, the more brutal the rape.  If they think they’ve tamed you and that they’ve broken you to their will, if you act receptive to their advances, then they’re satisfied, and they won’t hurt you more than what they think is “necessary”.  It’s truly horrific.

But anyway, back to the scene between Shorter and Ash after the fight with Frankie.  Shorter takes Ash’s laughing and words as a sign that the kid is crazy and dangerous.  He thinks Ash is laughing because Ash is a lunatic who gets his kicks killing people.  It’s a misinterpretation from Shorter.  It’s after this interaction with Ash that he starts worrying that Ash is Arthur’s assassin, come to kill him.  Ash is confused by Shorter’s sudden anxiety around him, as we see in the scene of them at night in their cell, when Ash gets up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water.  Shorter tenses up in fear, thinking Ash is going to kill him.  Ash smiles at Shorter and asks why he’s so tensed up, and then jokes, asking “You think I’m gonna rape you or something?”  Ash then smiles at him again and says, in the friendliest tone we’ve seen Ash use on Shorter so far “G’night Shorter.”  

Shorter looks completely confused, because it just doesn’t jibe with this picture he’s formed of Ash as this cold hearted killer that’s just waiting to pounce.  

We see Shorter again later in the library, still worried that Ash might be the assassin, but then he realizes that he just doesn’t get that vibe off of Ash, and doesn’t sense that he’s got anything to do with Arthur.  Which of course is true, and Shorter gets his first real glimpse of who Ash actually is, when he finds him in the stacks, sitting up on a ladder and just reading.  It’s the first moment Shorter realizes that Ash looks just like the angel on his Christmas card, and we start to see Shorter’s fear of Ash dissipate in that moment.  

The thing is, Shorter’s perception of Ash gets skewed for a while by the fear mongering of the other inmates.  Nico, who we eventually realize is working with Frankie, is the first to stir it up, to start disseminating the idea that Ash is some kind of devil or demon, and that people should be wary of him.  He spreads this ridiculous story that he claims his grandmother told him about this evil woman who came to her village and drove all the men insane and eventually drove them all to kill each other.  Everyone laughs at first, because it’s an absurd story and Ash is just a kid.  But after what happens with Frankie the first time, Nico doubles down on his fear mongering and won’t shut up about how Ash is the devil, and how he’s evil.  He’s trying to turn the other inmates against Ash, because he’s with Frankie, and Frankie is working for Arthur.  And eventually, even Shorter starts to get effected by all this talk, and starts to be afraid of Ash to a paranoid degree.  Eventually Shorter realizes it’s just bullshit, and Ash really IS just a kid who’s just struggling to survive, and they become friends after that, and Ash no longer seems like this cold, emotionless and frightening devil, but just a cool kid he can shoot the breeze with and really talk to.  By the end, they’re real friends, sharing jokes and laughing together.  It’s only at the end of Angel Eyes that both we the reader and Shorter himself finally see the real Ash.  Again, just this sweet kid who’s surviving in an uncaring and brutal world. 

It also tells us everything about how it is Ash became the boss of his gang on the outside.  Shorter remarks how, after the fight between Ash and Frankie’s crew in the library, everyone in the prison started treating him like a “Capo”, and that it made Ash really uncomfortable.  We see again here how Ash never had any desire to become a boss, or to have any power over other people.  He never had any designs to that effect.  Never any schemes to take over any gangs or territory on the outside.  He’s even confused when Shorter starts talking about how clever Arthur was, in trying to nip the threat of Ash in the bud, because Arthur could see that Ash was the kind of kid that would naturally draw others to him and gain followers just by being there.  So he gets Ash sent to reform school and then tries to have him killed there.  Ash doesn’t even know what Shorter is talking about because he never had any intention himself of becoming a gang boss.  He fell into it because of his natural abilities, and when he got out of reform school, he had a whole group of street kids who’d decided he was their leader while on the inside and wanted to follow him once they were out, and it obviously just snowballed from there, with Ash taking over Arthur’s territory, etc…  But again, it stands as testament to how Ash never wanted this life at all.  He never cared about money, or power, or control over the street gangs.  Like he eventually tells Eiji, him being exceptional wasn’t something he ever wanted, because his gifts are what led him to eventually being thrust into a life of violence and crime which he detested and never wanted.  

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

The only thing I can say: I'm looking forward to it! 😍😁🤗

I have no idea how, but the smut I'm writing has somehow become a plot-driven crime story. Send help!

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Could you maybe reblog this post if you think respecting trans peoples' names and identities is a basic right and not a political opinion?

No pressure. Just seeking some validation of my sentiment. Due to some. people

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Reblog if you're okay with receiving asks for backstory info on any/all of your fics.

If not all, specify which ones in the tags.

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

I live for this! Thank you very much for this extensive and comprehensive reply, Angela, covering both the near and distant future! I read your reply with a grin - I will not mince words and defend my dignity: five times in all. :D Fuck you, government! When I read this part of your response, I wanted to bang my head against the wall - more like the one's that denied Ash employment - and grinned like a madman when you got to the part about how the government administration later came to Ash's door to offer him a job that had been denied to him with pompous judgment just a few years earlier. I can easily imagine the feelings that rejection must have triggered in Ash, that door slammed in his face. He was reminded, once again, of who he was and always would be in the eyes of society, bringing back his past self, the child, the teenager that said society were supposed to save from what they were now condemning and blaming him for. They weren't there for him when he was a six year old crying in fear, not understanding what had happened to him, being seen as a murderer for defending himself when no one else would, including his own father, and being written off for life as something that others used up and disposed of. It must have been awful to be confronted with this again, as an adult, how little the world had changed, and how he would forever remain in the eyes of it as what his abusers saw him. It must have been a particularly deep blow at that point in his life. He had found the love of his life, they were happy together, they had built a life, he had family, friends, someone to turn to and others who could turn to him. He wants to do something with himself, with his knowledge, with his abilities, something worthwhile, something to be appreciated, and then a stranger steps in and takes away the feeling of starting over and finally having a solid footing. After such a humiliating annihilation, he must have felt that it was all the same, no matter how many courses he could complete, no matter how many years he could spend learning, improving himself, others would come up with epithets about him, hearing his name, that his loved ones never thought about him. It was so good to read that Eiji was there for him, they got through it together, though I have no doubt that this progress was far from smooth, they had many difficulties in the few months before Ash could sort out what had happened and move on. I think he must have had the same thoughts I had when the government itself approached him personally a few years later with a job application. These bastards, who were robbed him of any chance of the life he wanted to live, went to him and laid everything at his feet. The fucking USA government! They wants him. Not so much a violent gangster, but a promising young talent! Karma is real, bitch! Of course Ash slammed the door on them! Everything he wanted was his and more, and he didn't need a tie-dyed, suit-coated son of a bitch to give it to him.

Hi, dear Angela! I'm a huge fan of Just Say Yes fanfiction, I'm re-reading it, for me it's a powerful comfort novel that soothes me, makes me smile, laugh and cry - these are good tears, not the kind I shed during Banana Fish, those were the kind of tears where you would ask others close to you: why haven't you shot me down and ended my suffering? XD My question to you would be, after Just Say Yes, how do you envision Ash and Eiji's life going on, what direction will their life together take, and how will they continue to grow together? You're one of my all-time favourite authors with amazing talent, imagination and writing skills and I hope to read more of your novels in the future.

Thank you! This wonderful feedback on my story has really made my day! The fact that it's soothing, as well as entertaining, is really significant for me--I write to entertain, so it's like a super-extra thing that it also can bring you comfort. <3<3<3

So you want to know what would happen to Ash and Eiji after "Just Say Yes"? That's such a fun thing for me to contemplate!

Well, first of all, Eiji jumped straight into training again. He and Jill worked hard to get him back into Olympics shape (his fondness for working out made this easy!). He made it to Paris in June and did his best and won gold! Ash (who applied for a passport right after the end of the fic) went with him, and was able to cheer him on. Eiji kept going and, four years later in 2028, he won silver at the Los Angeles Games. After that, he retired from the pole vault on his own terms.

Kenichi gave him his job back at Dainobu, so he stayed employed there this whole time. Once he retired, however, his photography career really took off. He did gallery shows and was featured in magazines and art publications, and he became a bit of minor celebrity in the Manhattan art scene.

Ash finished school. After that, he was at loose ends for a while. He applied for a government economics job, but some agents showed up to explain why he was absolutely never going to get any kind of job that required any level of security clearance. This pissed him off and he got a bit reckless for a few months, but Eiji was able to reel him in. Together, they brainstormed other career options, and then Max ended up knowing a guy who was the head editor of a serious business/economics magazine. Ash got a job writing articles.

After about a decade of getting really great attention for his articles, Ash turned to writing books about the American and global economy, and eventually, representatives the US government came to see him again, this time to offer him an advisory role with the executive branch. Ash turns it down, because he wants to stay in New York with Eiji. "DC can go fuck itself," he said.

About a year after JSY, Eiji finds a dog in the park. He tries for weeks to find the dog's owner, but eventually Eiji decides just to keep him. Ash thinks the apartment is very small for a dog, but he can't say no to Eiji and the dog (Buddy) settles into their lives. When Eiji is away for competitions, Ash can be seen letting Buddy yank him around the neighborhood on a leash. After one of his trips, Eiji comes home to find a tiny black tuxedo kitten sleeping on Ash's pillow. Apparently, Ash found her in dumpster. He named her Harper after Harper Lee.

I could go on forever, especially if I go into the side characters (Shorter and Sunny's wedding, Nadia's baby, etc.), but I think this should be enough right now. You've made me very happy, asking a question like this. I've really enjoyed writing this out! <3

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

You are so precious, @thefandomlounge! ❤️

nothing will ever amaze me the way fanfiction authors do. like, you wrote silly little stories about my favorite little guys? and i can read them?? for free??? that’s fucking wild.

you poured your heart and soul and very being into your writing and then put it out there for anyone to read? insane.

you spend a truly incredible amount of time writing novel-length, high quality stories, again, FOR FREE, that anyone can read, again, FOR FREE??

shoutout to every single fic author in existence, you guys are fucking incredible and i love all of you so much

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Hi folks! I come today with a long, emotional and painful scene. ❤️

There was no emotion on Tommy's face. He didn't even have to bother pretending to be impassive. It was not isolation and not detachment. It was what it looked like: he had torn off the feelings as if they had never existed. As if he were not a human being. As if he knew himself not to be, that he could never be fully that again, and now he was showing it to her. He wanted her to see him through his transformation, Grace realised in disbelief. To make her disgust by it.

"The Germans. Soldiers just like me. The same toys on the blackboard, the size of which can never be comprehended by reason. Among them was the boy with the green eyes. They found their way out of the tunnels, through the mud, through the filth, took me back into the darkness, no matter how I fought with them. I looked down at my hand. It was covered in blood." His eyelids fluttered as if he wanted to look down at his hands resting palms up. Finally his gaze stayed where it was. By then the nihil of destruction had reached him. Everything was happening in his eyes. "I thought: whose hand is this? It cannot be mine. I can’t exist in a reality, where these hands belong to me just as any other parts of my body. A terrible, burning wave of pain washed over me from my shoulder. I was shot. I thought: finally. Finally I can lie down on the ground and die. All it need was a little bit more. But that little suddenly become too much." Hollowed-out, frozen dread, and burning fright like the fire that heats the blast furnaces of factories. "I opened my eyes, I was there again. Just me, Danny and Freddie. We fight for our lives like rats for the last piece of raw meat. I was writhing on the ground, in my nose a mixture of ammonia, gunpowder and some sludgy, sticky, disgusting mass, crawling to the ladder. Danny screamed, Freddie… I had no idea what had happened to him. I couldn’t make out anything in the darkness, not the shapes of people or the walls of the tunnels, I could only hear the voices and smell the smells. It was as if I had become blind. I begged with the last shreds of my faith for someone to gouge out my eyes, to save me from the ability to see this… I kept crawling and crawling, after a while I began to think that my legs were torn off, that I had no body anymore, but even then I didn’t give up. I clung to the pain, digging my nails into it through the darkness to stay conscious. Ever since Greta’s death, I’ve had this tainted, bile-tasting smell of sickness and death with me. "He shuddered, his face contorted in disgust. "I wanted to vomit. I think I did. I opened my mouth and then some hideous, unnamable taste filled my throat. I couldn’t breath he gasped. My shoulder was on fire. I wanted to die. All my prayers were for a German soldier to plunge his bayonet into me and bring me death. I wanted to give up, yet I dragging myself forward, because somewhere nearby was a ladder. If I could take my hand on it, I could climb to the surface and get out. In the end I never reached it" he breath out the last words.

Before Grace was aware of what she was doing, she was already observing that she had started a determined protest.

"Yes, you did! You left the tunnel behind. It feel’s like you still there, like you’re being swallowed up by the darkness, but you’re already here with me, in this actual, concrete reality." Both her hands were on Tommy's cheekbone, causing Tommy to blink rapidly. "Can you feel that? Because I feel you." Resisting the demand in her blood to put Tommy's face on a level with her own, to give him no choice but to look into her eyes. The words rolled from Grace's lips with a wild freedom. "You are warm and alive. The pain is gone. The bullet wound is here without looking," she traced with her fingers the bruised skin behind his shoulder, its jagged unevenness reminding them both of its origins. Tommy sucked in air, his chest rising. Grace's palm found its way back to his face. "This is real, Tommy. The tunnels, the suffering, the heat, the taste in your mouth, the green-eyes soldier boy can’t touch you. Those things can’t hurt you anymore, because I’m here. You and me, this place is real, safe and constant. We made it that way. You can touch it, you can feel it," she said urgently. "Everything else is in the past. Memories and fears."

Tommy squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. "They'll come for me again. I know they will," he repeated, his voice hushed. The shaking of his head stopped, his eyelashes fluttered open. "Whenever I close my eyes, they are already there."

"And I am here!" Tommy stared at her in bewilderment, and as she glanced into the irises surrounding the dilated pupils, Grace took the opportunity. She locked their eyes commandingly, blocking the chance of looking away from her, he couldn't even try. Her hold tightened on Tommy's cheek. She leaned toward him with a blazing glare. "In front of you, in your arms. If they want you, they'll have to ended me first! I will not give you without a fight!"

Tommy stared at her in a dazed stupor. "Would you fight them for me?"

Any other time the question would have left his lips with a hint of mocking, making it clear that the irony was as much his own as Grace's. But now it sounded as if it freed in him genuine hope, yearning, trust and fear. He didn't believe anyone would fight for him, Grace understood that early on. He knew that there was no one in the world who would dare to go with him to the field littered with the dead. Until now.

I'd fight the whole world for you, Grace thought. She managed a smile.

"No one's scarier than me when I'm in a rage."

The sound Tommy made was the equivalent of a snort and a sniffle. "My personal experience compels me to confirm this." A brilliant light flickered in his eye. His gaze warmed, but Grace kept her belligerent expression. She replied in an undertone of intimidation.

"Anyone irresponsible enough to hurt someone I'm trying to look after will learn very quickly, at the cost of a hard lesson, why that would be a terrible idea."

A shadow of a smile appeared on Tommy's lips to match his sparkling eyes. Grace relaxed against her will. The convulsive force of gripping Tommy's face in the palm of her hand was no longer tense in the joints between her fingers. Released from the grip of tension, she was still a little afraid that her gratification was premature. Caressing the skin of Tommy's cheekbone, her hesitation disguised as self-control.

"Do I enjoy your protection?" Tommy questioned. Curiosity accompanied the enquiry.

"I am your captain." The sentence followed the announcement included a raised eyebrow. "Do you dare question your superior officer, Sergeant Major?"

Without real devotion, Tommy smiled faintly. He stopped his rising hand in the air between their faces. He eyed Grace with reservations, concerns. Whatever he saw in her, and Grace really couldn't tell what it might be, she supplemented with a nod of agreement.

Tommy ran the back of his hand over her chin. On her cheek, he continued the endearing strokes inspired by kindness, affection and gratitude.

"I wouldn't do that. It is forbidden by military protocol. However, allow me to make an observation. Since you hold the rank of captain, shouldn't it be the other way around? The differences between our ranks dictate that my duty and purpose in life is your service and protection."

Grace had a more flexible view than that.

"No one in my jurisdiction can lay a hand on my people. Unconventional leadership is combined by peculiar principles." She lowered her voice and, tilting her head to one side, motioned toward the other side of the room. "Come back to bad!"

Tommy paused between stroking motions. "You say that like a commander to a member of her team?" There was something about the way he handled the words. It was as if he was testing the limits of this new formation, with which he had made friends at first sight.

Grace projected a seriousness worthy of it.

"I ask you as a woman who wishes to embrace her lover." Then, after a moment's thought, with half-lidded eyes, she approached Tommy. Her hand trailed down the side of his neck, evaded his mouth, touched her lips to his ear. "I miss your warmth," she murmured softly, invitingly.

Tommy's eyes closed. His resigned sigh had an amused theatricality that made them chuckle quietly.

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Thanks for tagging me, lovely @somepeakyblinders 😊

Now, let's see this!

Last song: Can't go on without you by KALEO

Last movie: Violet Evergarden: The Movie. You all best believe I cried my eyes out 😭 But mostly I'm watching series, not movies.

Currently Watching: Monster anime

Currently Reading: Actually re-reading the captive prince first book

Last thing search for writing purposes: I was looking for videos on youtube that go deeper into the topic of dialogues and subtext, listening to analyses and reviews of different types of dialogues.

Tagging: @squuls, @thefandomlounge, @daisybrekker, @peakyv

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Hello! Exceptionally, there is no dialogue in this scene, which is unusual for me, but I wanted to show that sometimes glances speak louder than words. Hope you will like it! 💕

Ada's arrival saved her from attracting attention with her behaviour. Polly opened the double doors and Ada walked in, with Karl in her arms. The youngest member of the Shelby family was welcomed in official circles, and with what a loud voice, and what joy! Freddy did not go with them. If he resented that Ada introduced their son to the company of the Peaky Blinders, and if it caused a quarrel between them, it did not affect Ada's mood.

She laughed as she handed her son over to Arthur, who passed him on to John, from whom Esme had taken him. Grace originally hadn't intended to, but she found herself smiling broadly and laughing, joining the others. She was surprised when Esme asked if she would like to borrow the baby. Grace accepted. She tucked her arms under his head and supported him from behind, lifting Karl to her chest as her friends had once advised her to do. She smiled down at Karl, who rewarded her with a gurgle of baby laughter. Grace ignored the outside world. It was beyond her perception to hear the approaching, heavy footsteps. Suddenly, the exuberant gaiety of the participants around her had diminished to restraint. The laughter died away, but the smiles never left their lips. Grace could feel the presence of a man standing at her elbow. An ink-black sleeve and a broad palm crept into her eyes. Hands skilled both in violent and gentle movements slid under hers, together they held Karl's head, covered with soft, fluffy hairs growing on his vulnerable skin. Grace didn't dare swear to it, but it seemed as if some of the people around them were holding their breath.

Grace lifted her chin. Her eyes immediately and instantly lost in Tommy's. He stared at her in that way again. She remembered that in that morning had been no different. He looked at her the same as he did now as she cradled Karl in her arms. With intense, inextinguishable longing. As if he wished that they could one day share a similar future. That the child they cared for, protected, would be theirs. A defenceless, fragile little being, created together, who unites all they represented.

Grace understood it then, but she couldn't place this desire, alien to her. For that reason, she did nothing with it. She left it in her memory, not forgotten, not rejected, merely untouched. At that time, she could not explain it to herself. Since then they had grown closer, and she understood Tommy better. Spite of that, she wasn't ready to accept what he'd provoked in her, and there was no point in forcing it. The time might come for that, too. At the right moment.

It was a blessing that no one in the room could hear her beating heart. The longing had ignited flickers of fire in Tommy's eyes, which had previously only acknowledged rational cruelty as the ruler of their frozen realm.

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

I thank you for reading. You can't imagine what it feels like to have people out there in the big world who love my writing and look forward to my novels. Since this short installment went out, I've shared other snippets from the novel. I'm currently working on it, I'm making pretty good progress, but I can't say when I'll be able to publish it for you to read. In the meantime, I'll be posting these little pieces with you every month. Your words mean a lot, thank you, darling.❤️❤️

Hi, Grace and Tommy fans out there! Out of the blue, I decided to post short scenes from my upcoming Tommy and Grace novel here on tumblr, just snippets that I hope you'll enjoy. I'm a slow writer, so the novel is moving along quite slowly but steadily. In the meantime, while it's being finished, I wanted to give you a piece of it now, so that you know how many people love this fantastic couple, and so that you feel you're not alone in your adoration. If you like these short posts, let me know and I'll publish more in the future. :)

"There's something else I'm curious about," Grace mentioned, after Tommy's head had come to rest on her shoulder again, and she was staring at the rays of light scattered across the floor, pondering. "What the meaning of that two words you used to describe me?"

"What do you mean?"

"It sounded like femeie nebună."

"Do you understand Romanian?" Tommy marveled.

"A little. Don't avoid the question!" she warned him after Tommy hadn't said a word for half a minute.

"Maybe we shouldn't have started this conversation," he murmured under his breath. Releasing Grace from his arms, he leaned against the bedpost, not bothered by the hard bedrails pressing into his spine. With raised eyebrows, Grace stared back, giving Tommy a meaningful glance. Her lover first sighed, then spread his hands wide as a final gesture of relinquishment, then lowered them resignedly. "Crazy woman."

"What?"

"It means: crazy woman."

If the accusation of being dramatic doesn't hold up, neither does the suggestion that she doesn't pull herself together quickly after the shock of an unexpected event. This included when her lover called her crazy women.

"Did you really call me that?" she was indignant, but Grace herself realised the contradictory impression her grinning lips gave. This did not stop her from continuing. "In the middle of our first quarrel?" she complained. "And why is that exactly?" Tommy shook his head, laughing. Grace's upper body half turned towards him and she rested her legs beside herself. "And what did I ever do to deserve such an honourable title as crazy?"

"Shall I sort? You pointed a gun at me. You threatened to blow my brains out if I ever thought of using you again to achieve my goals. For the record, that part was justified. I watched you shoot your shitty cousin... if I counted right, six toes, like it was the most natural thing in the world, and then warned him that if he insulted you again, you'd rip his tongue out. He attacked you, and you broke his wrist. I heard from Polly that you stole her pistol and needle from her purse as you walked past her and replaced it with a whisky bottle and a wooden stick. Then you pointed the needle at her throat and threatened to shoot her too. When I heard that, I couldn't believe my ears. That was surprising, even for you. Nobody ever dared treat Polly like that before. I'm quite impressed, Miss Burgess," he tilted his head. There were sparks of amusement in his eyes, with a hint of genuine astonishment and a touch of harmless sneer.

"I simply laid down the rules." Grace had no intention of making excuses. She didn't embellish the facts, because there was nothing new in them. Everything happened exactly as Tommy had just described it. Grace had been aware that the Shelby sisters' aunt had not taken her to heart, and from her past experience, and from the number of times Polly Gray had tried to get her out of her own way just to prove herself superior, and when she had failed, had always countered with some outrageous insult, Grace had drawn the reasonable conclusion that she did not like Polly either. Grace could not deny that she considered her certain qualities worthy of respect, but Polly was too much of a competitive spirit, not helped by her spectacular jealousy of the influence she felt Grace was exerting over Tommy. As if the only way a man and a woman can work together is for one to manipulate the other through trickery. "No one can falsely accuse me and then walk free and expect to get away with it."

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Hi, guys! Fight scene round 2 started 😎

"Is this really what you want?" As if he could not contain himself for a moment longer, Grace recoiled back at the unexpected and temperamental question. Tommy's ferocity matured her surprise into astonishment. The steeliness and implacability that flamed in his face were a devastating combination. "No matter how much I think about it, it seems impossible that you really desire for this. Or is this the life you dreamed for yourself? You dare not sleep for fear that the phone will ring and someine will inform you that something had happened to me, something bad. You have to wait for me until late at night. I couldn't have dinner with you, I couldn't hug you before bed because I knocked the teeth out of a dirty criminal in an alley. A fucker just like me. On top of everything else, I almost left you here, without any answer. You really need this?"

Grace closed her mouth, left open in dismay. When she reopened it, the words were rolling off her lips in a harmonious rhythm, though her tolerance was wearing thin.

"This is the price of being with you, so the answer is thousand times yes. So what if you're late? What if we had a fight? When I saw the blood on your head, the first thing I thought was, thank goodness that's all that happened. Thank God you're alive."

"You had your chance, and you still have it for another life. Dublin is waiting for you back."

On the table, she clenched her fists and clung to what little moderation she had left.

"I don't deny it would certainly be more comfortable. With little excitement, but all the more appreciable calm. But I no longer yearn for that other life. The only thing I long for is to wait for you at night." Why isn't that enough for you? For heaven's sake, what else did you want from me?! Who do you think you are to doubt me? Have I not proved enough? You don't know what I've gone through to be here today! With you. "It's rarely easy, but there's never a time when I wish I'd chosen that other life."

She thought that was the final word, that this absurd topic would be ended here. But Tommy had clearly still not get what he wanted to hear. And there was no denying that he was growing spectacularly frustrated by it.

"Has it never once occurred to you to wish I wasn't who I am? Wish I were someone who was simpler to be with? Someone easier to talk to? Whose hands are not covered in blood? Have you never once wished that I would change?"

"And you?" Grace had nothing left in her hands but fingernails digging into her skin, hand bone tensing painfully, damp heat of anger heating her palms. "Wouldn't you appreciate a woman who didn't see her stepfather's disgusting face in front of her eyes just because you wanted to hold her wrists down? Wouldn't you find it easier to deal with a more obedient, more trainable partner, who wouldn't even think of holding you accountable, but would be grateful that you hang jewels on her wrists and put money in her pocket?"

"No!" Tommy's outburst was as loud as a shout. Grace leaned back in the chair, but by then Tommy had already clomped to the middle of the room. His palm gripped into his hair as he ran it from his temple to the down of his head. Grace's lips narrowed into a tenuous line. She turned in the chair, her gaze following Tommy's agitated movements, pacing the floor barefoot. "Fucking hell!" He spun frantically towards her, looking at her in horrified shock. His shallow, desperate breaths made it seem as if every time the air hit his lungs, it sliced into his chest. "How…" he gasped. "How can you even ask me something like this?"

"And how could you say I wish you would become someone you're not?!" Grace yelled at him, and the force of her rising voice frightened her more than anything else they done to each other today.

"I'm sorry, all right? Fuck, I'm sorry, Grace! Until you asked me that, I had no idea what it must feel like."

Anger could make her vocal cords snap at any moment. She looked away, her eyes colliding with her arm on the table. During her deliberate, short but thorough inhalations and exhalations, she moved her fingers, pressed them against the tabletop. It would have been easy to forget the pinch and sharpness of the four little crescents that left a mark on her skin. Yet Grace clung to this discomfort, focusing on it, as she did on the tingling numbness in her hands. It was an inconceivably vile move on her part, for it solidified into certainty of what Tommy had previously only sinisterly suspected. But she could not for a minute longer endure the style in which he had atrociously interrogated her! And with what he had said… He stamped into her soul.

From behind her she heard Tommy pant rapidly. Why are we doing this?, was all she could think about. They shouldn't be hurting each other like this. This shouldn't be about that. Everything else in their lives could be taken away by pain, but they couldn't let it take this one.

Grace let out a long sigh. She looked back over her shoulder. Her gaze found Tommy immediately, as if there was a compass hidden in her heart with an arrow always pointing in his direction.

"Thomas. Tommy. Come back!"

When Tommy was sitting beside her again, Grace held out her hand. Her finger trailed apologetically and forgivinly along the expressive edge of his cheekbone. Tommy's eyelashes fluttered, as if he tempted to savour the touch with closed eyes.

Inside Grace, the voices of reckoning became enormous, as if each word came to life with an angry hiss. But when she uttered them, they descended softly and in unison from her lips. They followed one another in a gentle interweaving. The soft speech was a mercy to her scratching throat. "I would never want you to be other than yourself. I wouldn't ask you to be less wild or to hold back your ambition. I would never wish you to do anything so contrary to your nature. Be who you are! Freely and independently, because with you I can be who I am too."

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Thank you! Writing emotional scenes is always a challenge, they are always the hardest. Grace is not the type to get into an argument easily, and when it comes to confrontation, the other party is more likely to initiate friction, while she retaliates with her calm but sharp-tongued responses, which put a dagger in the other party's heart. Clearly, she wants to win these clashes, defend her position and show that her arguments are also entitled to be understood and heard. It's just that this is more true in situations where there are no deep personal feelings attached to the person she is arguing with. No one dares to confront Tommy, yet if someone does feel the urge to oppose him, there comes the icy, warning, and ordering look, and that person is already backing down. There will be plenty more conflict between them in the novel, but this is the first scene in which they quarrel as a couple, and that is why this scene has a vitality and significance, because they say things to each other that the is hurt to hear, but needs to hear them anyway, because they cannot escape into their love that the other done something that has wounded them. They need to clean that wound first so it can heal.

Hi, guys! Today I have a fight scene for you. I've decided that on the tenth of every month, I'll upload a new scene detail here, once a month. As always, I hope you enjoy it and share your thoughts with me. ❤️😉

Her eyes followed Tommy's movements. He leaned into her, his whiskey-scented breath, his cigarette-smoked exhales touching her skin.

"You know, I thought you were the best thing that could ever happen to me. Not after the war. My whole fucking life. But that day at the Garrison, when you told me you were leaving, that was the first time I thought, what if I was wrong? What if you're not the best, what if you're the worst?"

If he'd hit her, it would have been easier to recover from that.

Grace kept the answer to herself for a full minute. She nodded, indicating that she had taken note of what she had heard. She opened her mouth. She forced the words out of her constricted throat, not letting any of them escape. This time it was Tommy's turn to listen.

"I have no intention of denying any of what you have just listed. Yes, I wanted to run away. Yes, I have become unworthy of your trust. I now understand that this is something that will take us a long time to get beyond. And I have no doubt it will be even harder in the future. But now you answer me: is this your long-term plan? To hold me accountable for everything I've been guilty of? Because, if you are determined to blame me forever, you could not have been more wrong. I warn you, Thomas Shelby, I will not let you to do it. I am not deserving this. And neither do you. In that bedroom," she gestured with her wagging forefinger toward the door behind Tommy, "on our first night, I promised you forever. This is it. This is what forever looks like. It's complicated and messy and painful. But I want it. I want it with every inch of my body. And you?"

Reaching for his face, her fingers warm, nervous against his skin. The desperate look moved from Tommy's eyes to hers. Tommy's eyelashes drooped, his jaw began to drop. Grace slipped her finger underneath, lifted his head. The charcoal-black eyelashes at first showed only a slit of slate-blue irises, then gradually opened. Grace held Tommy's gaze to her eyes. No exception: Tommy would not tolerate Grace running away from him, so Tommy could not escape from her either.

"Do you want the same? Does forever mean the same to you as it does to me? Because if it, you're staying here. Not for me, for us. To fight for forever together, because it's not just gonna fall into our laps. We have to work for it. I'm ready for that. I'm just waiting for you to make the decision. If you feel the same way as I do, you'll come back to the bedroom with me and we'll sit down and talk about it. If you not..." Her voice is trailing off. Her hand dropped, she took two steps back. Her arms hung limply at her sides, her palms prickling with a feeling of absence. "If not, I'll know you want something else," she finished. "'That forever means something else to you than what it means to me."

She moved out of Tommy's way, revealing freedom to him again. It would be so easy for him to take it. He would just have to walk out to her, slip into his coat and shoes, and with that he could be free - of her, of their relationship, and all the burdens of it.

But Tommy didn't make a move. He looked at her as if trying to make sense of what had happened. Like he was trying to find out if she was really planning to give up on him. As if he didn't dare trust it, but longed for Grace to take its place as a bastion in front of the exit. But, like Tommy, Grace had not yielded. Just as with Clive, all was said and done. In the moonlit room, the path remained open for Tommy. Grace didn't limit his choices, his options. From here he could go wherever he pleased.

Grace didn't even consider looking the other way, to glance away. If Tommy did indeed reject her, she would watch him make his decision and see him follow through. She won't miss a single moment of it, she wanted imprint everything in her memory.

Years ago, she promised herself she would never beg for anything or anyone. She didn't care if the sky fell on her, and if that meant losing the person who had been the best thing that had happened to her for years, then it is the way it should be. Then it could not have turned out any other way. Grace doesn't put a price tag on her self-esteem. Especially not to get a man's commitment. Never again in her life. She had suffered that humiliation once.

Tommy's lips parted. He took a soundless breath. "I want," he said, and then, with closed eyes, nodding, he repeated the word in a breathy sigh. "I want."

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Tommy and Grace are both passionate people, although they have different temperaments. I'm always wondering how to resolve a fight between them in a way that it's not just a pointless argument, but has substance, has consequences, has more questions to ask. With someone like Tommy, it's difficult to resolve an argument in a way that gives you a full understanding of what he thinks and how he feels about certain things. I believe in healthy conflict when we need to clarify things, to speak our minds, even if it hurts. It's an AU in the original Peaky Blinders world, where Grace is a con artist, but I fully stand by the original series in that Grace and Tommy have to come clean about a lot of things with each other so that their relationship can then become even stronger, even closer.

Hi, guys! Today I have a fight scene for you. I've decided that on the tenth of every month, I'll upload a new scene detail here, once a month. As always, I hope you enjoy it and share your thoughts with me. ❤️😉

Her eyes followed Tommy's movements. He leaned into her, his whiskey-scented breath, his cigarette-smoked exhales touching her skin.

"You know, I thought you were the best thing that could ever happen to me. Not after the war. My whole fucking life. But that day at the Garrison, when you told me you were leaving, that was the first time I thought, what if I was wrong? What if you're not the best, what if you're the worst?"

If he'd hit her, it would have been easier to recover from that.

Grace kept the answer to herself for a full minute. She nodded, indicating that she had taken note of what she had heard. She opened her mouth. She forced the words out of her constricted throat, not letting any of them escape. This time it was Tommy's turn to listen.

"I have no intention of denying any of what you have just listed. Yes, I wanted to run away. Yes, I have become unworthy of your trust. I now understand that this is something that will take us a long time to get beyond. And I have no doubt it will be even harder in the future. But now you answer me: is this your long-term plan? To hold me accountable for everything I've been guilty of? Because, if you are determined to blame me forever, you could not have been more wrong. I warn you, Thomas Shelby, I will not let you to do it. I am not deserving this. And neither do you. In that bedroom," she gestured with her wagging forefinger toward the door behind Tommy, "on our first night, I promised you forever. This is it. This is what forever looks like. It's complicated and messy and painful. But I want it. I want it with every inch of my body. And you?"

Reaching for his face, her fingers warm, nervous against his skin. The desperate look moved from Tommy's eyes to hers. Tommy's eyelashes drooped, his jaw began to drop. Grace slipped her finger underneath, lifted his head. The charcoal-black eyelashes at first showed only a slit of slate-blue irises, then gradually opened. Grace held Tommy's gaze to her eyes. No exception: Tommy would not tolerate Grace running away from him, so Tommy could not escape from her either.

"Do you want the same? Does forever mean the same to you as it does to me? Because if it, you're staying here. Not for me, for us. To fight for forever together, because it's not just gonna fall into our laps. We have to work for it. I'm ready for that. I'm just waiting for you to make the decision. If you feel the same way as I do, you'll come back to the bedroom with me and we'll sit down and talk about it. If you not..." Her voice is trailing off. Her hand dropped, she took two steps back. Her arms hung limply at her sides, her palms prickling with a feeling of absence. "If not, I'll know you want something else," she finished. "'That forever means something else to you than what it means to me."

She moved out of Tommy's way, revealing freedom to him again. It would be so easy for him to take it. He would just have to walk out to her, slip into his coat and shoes, and with that he could be free - of her, of their relationship, and all the burdens of it.

But Tommy didn't make a move. He looked at her as if trying to make sense of what had happened. Like he was trying to find out if she was really planning to give up on him. As if he didn't dare trust it, but longed for Grace to take its place as a bastion in front of the exit. But, like Tommy, Grace had not yielded. Just as with Clive, all was said and done. In the moonlit room, the path remained open for Tommy. Grace didn't limit his choices, his options. From here he could go wherever he pleased.

Grace didn't even consider looking the other way, to glance away. If Tommy did indeed reject her, she would watch him make his decision and see him follow through. She won't miss a single moment of it, she wanted imprint everything in her memory.

Years ago, she promised herself she would never beg for anything or anyone. She didn't care if the sky fell on her, and if that meant losing the person who had been the best thing that had happened to her for years, then it is the way it should be. Then it could not have turned out any other way. Grace doesn't put a price tag on her self-esteem. Especially not to get a man's commitment. Never again in her life. She had suffered that humiliation once.

Tommy's lips parted. He took a soundless breath. "I want," he said, and then, with closed eyes, nodding, he repeated the word in a breathy sigh. "I want."

[lapetiteceinturesworld]

Hi, guys! Today I have a fight scene for you. I've decided that on the tenth of every month, I'll upload a new scene detail here, once a month. As always, I hope you enjoy it and share your thoughts with me. ❤️😉

Her eyes followed Tommy's movements. He leaned into her, his whiskey-scented breath, his cigarette-smoked exhales touching her skin.

"You know, I thought you were the best thing that could ever happen to me. Not after the war. My whole fucking life. But that day at the Garrison, when you told me you were leaving, that was the first time I thought, what if I was wrong? What if you're not the best, what if you're the worst?"

If he'd hit her, it would have been easier to recover from that.

Grace kept the answer to herself for a full minute. She nodded, indicating that she had taken note of what she had heard. She opened her mouth. She forced the words out of her constricted throat, not letting any of them escape. This time it was Tommy's turn to listen.

"I have no intention of denying any of what you have just listed. Yes, I wanted to run away. Yes, I have become unworthy of your trust. I now understand that this is something that will take us a long time to get beyond. And I have no doubt it will be even harder in the future. But now you answer me: is this your long-term plan? To hold me accountable for everything I've been guilty of? Because, if you are determined to blame me forever, you could not have been more wrong. I warn you, Thomas Shelby, I will not let you to do it. I am not deserving this. And neither do you. In that bedroom," she gestured with her wagging forefinger toward the door behind Tommy, "on our first night, I promised you forever. This is it. This is what forever looks like. It's complicated and messy and painful. But I want it. I want it with every inch of my body. And you?"

Reaching for his face, her fingers warm, nervous against his skin. The desperate look moved from Tommy's eyes to hers. Tommy's eyelashes drooped, his jaw began to drop. Grace slipped her finger underneath, lifted his head. The charcoal-black eyelashes at first showed only a slit of slate-blue irises, then gradually opened. Grace held Tommy's gaze to her eyes. No exception: Tommy would not tolerate Grace running away from him, so Tommy could not escape from her either.

"Do you want the same? Does forever mean the same to you as it does to me? Because if it, you're staying here. Not for me, for us. To fight for forever together, because it's not just gonna fall into our laps. We have to work for it. I'm ready for that. I'm just waiting for you to make the decision. If you feel the same way as I do, you'll come back to the bedroom with me and we'll sit down and talk about it. If you not..." Her voice is trailing off. Her hand dropped, she took two steps back. Her arms hung limply at her sides, her palms prickling with a feeling of absence. "If not, I'll know you want something else," she finished. "'That forever means something else to you than what it means to me."

She moved out of Tommy's way, revealing freedom to him again. It would be so easy for him to take it. He would just have to walk out to her, slip into his coat and shoes, and with that he could be free - of her, of their relationship, and all the burdens of it.

But Tommy didn't make a move. He looked at her as if trying to make sense of what had happened. Like he was trying to find out if she was really planning to give up on him. As if he didn't dare trust it, but longed for Grace to take its place as a bastion in front of the exit. But, like Tommy, Grace had not yielded. Just as with Clive, all was said and done. In the moonlit room, the path remained open for Tommy. Grace didn't limit his choices, his options. From here he could go wherever he pleased.

Grace didn't even consider looking the other way, to glance away. If Tommy did indeed reject her, she would watch him make his decision and see him follow through. She won't miss a single moment of it, she wanted imprint everything in her memory.

Years ago, she promised herself she would never beg for anything or anyone. She didn't care if the sky fell on her, and if that meant losing the person who had been the best thing that had happened to her for years, then it is the way it should be. Then it could not have turned out any other way. Grace doesn't put a price tag on her self-esteem. Especially not to get a man's commitment. Never again in her life. She had suffered that humiliation once.

Tommy's lips parted. He took a soundless breath. "I want," he said, and then, with closed eyes, nodding, he repeated the word in a breathy sigh. "I want."