prettypeppermint

[prettypeppermint]

in the bleak midwinter.

for t. shelby. epilogue to 'swan song.'

In the bleak mid-winter Frosty wind made moan Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow on snow, In the bleak mid-winter Long ago.

Our God, heaven cannot hold Him Nor earth sustain, Heaven and earth shall flee away When He comes to reign: In the bleak mid-winter A stable-place sufficed The Lord God Almighty — Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim Worship night and day A breastful of milk And a mangerful of hay; Enough for Him, whom Angels Fall down before, The ox and ass and camel Which adore.

Angels and Archangels May have gathered there, Cherubim and seraphim Thronged the air; But only His Mother In her maiden bliss Worshipped the Beloved With a kiss.

What can I give Him, Poor as I am? — If I were a Shepherd I would bring a lamb; If I were a Wise Man I would do my part, — Yet what I can I give Him, — Give my heart. — Christina Rosetti, "A Christmas Carol"

As Thomas stood at the window of his office, peering out not at the festive streets but just past the hills in the distance, he once more thought of you.

You were not the bumbling, scintillating rows of carolers and frenzied shoppers. You were not the snow that disappeare under soles, muddied through a constant hurry. You were something beyond: the vanishing point of a snow-capped peak—a crown jewel against the dust-cloaked heavens. You were elusive—quiet yet screaming, sharp yet mild.

You were his wife.

And you loved him for how he saw you as something far-away, even though you were always right there, standing just behind him.

Like falling snow, you landed within him and melted away.

You watched his strong, exhausted back from the doorway. You wished you could take away his loneliness. You wished you were enough for that.

But love is weakness. And Thomas��s weakness was his blood. Thomas’s method of loving was having his family behind him—not next to him—where he could protect them. He was a man who could not love without love.

So you stood in your place: at the seam of the doorway—the threshold separating his world from yours, at the cold white peak in the distance.

Over the years, you’ve adapted yourself—your silence, your love—to fit his craters and crests. You’ve learned that business was not a priority he chose to place before his marriage, his family. It was simply the only thing he had ever known. He loved within the parameters of his truth. Just as he grew to spot the subtleties and overtones of your silence, you grew to wrap around the prickly edges of his business-strung mind.

Your way of loving was knowing. And if to understand is to love, you’ve done it best.

You smiled before slipping away, a habit of yours Thomas had learned to sense throughout the years.

~~~

Minutes went by, and Thomas’s irises still reflected that of the faraway Romani summits.

Splat.

A wet blotch of fresh snow interrupted his vision as it landed on the glass. Faint laughter permeated the frosted panes, and he looked down to see his wife and son hiding amongst powdery-white bushes, loading up on snowballs.

You knew what made Thomas happy like the back of your hand. Charlie made him happy. Grace made him happy. When business was good he was happy--but only when it could buy his family big houses and some peace of mind. When he could afford to forget about business for a small while, he was happy, as much as he didn’t like to admit it.

He watched as you bent down next to Charlie, squinted your eye, and pointed directly at his face through the window, correcting Charlie's aim before he launched another snowball.

The sound of giggles and laughter melted through the biting chill of December, and Thomas’s own coldness warmed into a smile.

~~~

It was your turn now to watch as Thomas knelt beside Charlie, a plate of cookies manufactured by the pastry chef and a glass of whiskey in his hands for Santa. It was a sweet sight.

Thomas was a lover at heart—a concoction of all the failures of his father catalyzed into all the good things a man should be. As you looked at the way his gaze softened with nothing but patience and care for his son, you were reminded of how detrimentally you loved him. This was why you chose to stay. This was the man you chose to love. This was why you allowed him to mourn the death of another woman—why you decided to fill her role knowing you could never take her place, and to care for her child.

This was happiness.

You knew then that you had too much love for this man, and you would love him like this one hundred times over.

As the maid led Charlie to bed, you ruffled his chestnut hair. You saw Grace’s features beginning to take home in his face. You saw her gaze in his eyes, her memory in his spirit.

“Good night, Nugget. Merry Christmas,” you called him by his nickname.

“Merry Christmas, y/n.”

He didn't ever address you as “Mummy”, and you surprised yourself when you found that you didn’t mind. You liked being just y/n to him. He loved you like more of an aunt than a mother, but you would always love him as if he were your own.

Thomas’s gaze followed the two of them long after they turned the corner and disappeared down the hall. He picked up the whiskey glass and made his way to his desk where he slumped into the chair. You walked over to him, now in a much longer and more expensive nightgown than the one you wore in Small Heath. You liked how money never changed you or Thomas—only your wardrobe and his schedule.

You lifted the glass from his hand in one languid motion, setting it down on his desk in front of a small, framed portrait of you with Charlie.

“I thought that was for Santa,” you teased. Your lips became a slow smile as you sat on his armrest. When you swung your legs across his lap and began playing with the various quills and expensive paperweights on his desk, he caught a glimpse of that youthful girl in Small Heath.

“I’ll tell him I’m sorry then, for stealing his booze,” he replied, bringing a hand up to play with your hair. You heard the restless nights and stirring thoughts in his voice.

You picked up the picture of you and Charlie and examined it. Suddenly, you were made very aware of just how young you were compared to Thomas, but how Shelby blood had rendered you mature with little time.

You placed the frame back down and looked into your husband’s eyes. “Merry Christmas, Thomas,” you whispered, your faces centimeters apart, still calling him by that same formal name just how he liked it.

His gaze flitted to your lips. In this light, you noticed, his eyes looked exactly of that cursed sapphire. Their brilliance despite his exhaustion never failed to slightly fascinate you.

He closed the gap between you in a soft kiss. You draped one arm around his neck while the other traveled to his lapel--a seemingly pure gesture if it weren't for the card you swiftly drew from it, pleated into a tiny square.

You noticed a wilted corner peaking from his otherwise pristine ensemble the second you were close enough to spot it--a tiny, white peak almost invisible against his navy chest. You knew that that single touch of white was the root of all his recent tension.

You pulled away and held it to his face--“Nice try."

Thomas was always a quick one--sharp and astute next to any man. But the double-edged vice of being a woman was that you would always be quicker. Sharper. When it came to wits, you had him beat.

Before he could decide how to handle this, you began to unfold the card, stopping when you saw a black thumb and the beginning of a palm. There was no need to look any further.

All you saw was a flash of hot white before you chucked the half-pleated paper at his chest. You got up from the armrest and turned away from him. You slid the whiskey glass on his desk into your hand and took a swig, swallowing a fire to condemn the anger rising in your chest.

Were you planning on leaving only me in the dark?

That's what you wanted to say. Thomas may have said something while you were conjuring up all the words you wanted to spit in his face but withheld in the bowstring of your dignity. You didn't know. You just quietly seethed in a bout of anxiety and silent rage.

A silence spanned--a familiar sound when it was just the two of you. "Thomas, have you gotten around to visiting the new kitchen staff?" you started slowly, calmly.

Your back was still to him, but you could sense he had risen from his chair. You spun around and met his wide stare. You knew that stare. He was ruminating--realizing. He was processing what to do next.

"Thomas," you said again, your words somehow slow and steady despite the racing beat of your heart. They're here.

"Charlie," was the first word he got out.

Charlie. He was sleeping right above them.

"I'll get him," you quickly intercepted. "Go downstairs and make sure no one comes out alive. I'll take care of the rest."

When you looked in his eyes, you saw an unfamiliar man. He was shaken.

"Thomas, go," you pressed more firmly this time.

It seemed to snap him out of it, and he was almost out the door before he spun around again. "And Frances-"

“I'll take care of it. Go. Now."

The next ten minutes were a flurry. You began packing everythinf you’ve accumulated over the years: memories in silver frames and dresses Thomas had bought you. You rushed up the stairs into Charlie’s room, dampening your frantic footsteps as to not disturb his peaceful dreams. In his sleeping state, your heart grew bloated with the prospective of anyone ever taking him away from you.

You paused as you neared his bedside, taking a moment of peace granted by innocence in its purest, unawoken form. As you brushed a lock of hair from his forehead, he began to stir. "Hey Nugget," you whispered.

"Mummy?" he mumbled in a half-awake lull.

You paused as you felt a pang in your chest before promptly scooping him into your bosom. "No, not mummy. It's y/n. Daddy’s taking us on a trip.”

As you left the room with him in your arms, you were met with an alert Frances. "Pack everything and prepare the Bentley. Don't tell the other maids."

While stuffing your bags full of Thomas's many important documents, files, suits, and secrets, you came across a picture of Grace in the locked drawer of his desk. You paused to look at it before tossing it in with the rest of his things.

You did the same with her perfume and pearl earrings.

And before anything had the time to shake you, your family was out the door and back in Small Heath.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

homage to the square.

for g. suguru.

You're planted on his chest, knees hanging over his shoulders as your toes just graze the headboard. He plays with the plush of your thighs on his shoulders, looking up at your slouched form smoking a blunt. You tilt your chin up to blow the smoke into the air, a simultaneous breath of relaxation as you twirl a lock of his long hair with your free hand.

He thinks of how good you look from down here, how the sunlight peeking through the window perfectly lights a lazy halo around your head as the high settles in for both of you.

He steals the blunt away from your lips with a pinch of his fingers, taking in a lengthy draw only someone like him could stomach. It's all so natural--you in nothing but your underwear and he in his boxers, hair messy and eyebags dim from a long noon nap.

You break the silence first. "Shut up," you say, stealing the blunt and inhaling. His fingers continue gliding up and down your thigh, in rhythm with his churning thoughts.

"I wasn't talking."

He didn't need to. Every time you get high, it's as if you can hear his thoughts--always so soft yet so potent, like a dimmed rumble of a distant storm or the quelled eternity of a constant fan.

You blow the smoke down into his face, as if to tease him, before looking straight at the headboard as if it were a painting. Something shifts as the familiar embrace of weed crawls into your lap and rests purring in your lungs like a cat. Time slows as you stare. He likes it when you look like you're about to say something he knows he won't want to think about later.

"Is he the strongest because he's Gojo Satoru, or is he Gojo Satoru because he's the strongest?" you say matter-of-factly as if it were a headliner in the news. To be or not to be.

His hand stops moving along your thigh, and your gaze reverts to him. "Do you compare yourself to Gojo Satoru because he's Gojo Satoru, or do you compare yourself to Gojo Satoru because you're Geto Suguru?"

For the first time in months, the tight knot in Suguru's chest begins to unravel.

You drone on. "Everyone wants to be the strongest. Who even decides that? If the whole world thinks it's Satoru, is it Satoru? If one person thinks it's you? Or me? A monkey? And no one believes it? Then what?"

You lean back, hand on his toned thigh for support. Your words stretch out the silence that spans. "Who cares? The strongest is the strongest. A monkey is a monkey. You are you. Fuck."

He ponders this as you offer the blunt back to him, somehow making sense of your nonsensical highness.

Suddenly, Geto is made very aware of the idea that there may exist a timeline in which you don't exist. He is made aware of all the spirals and divots he could've easily slipped into and not been strong enough to get himself out of if it weren't for you.

He loves you so much. You both knew it.

His fingers caress your jawline before snaking back to your nape, pulling you down for a kiss. He forgets about the blunt, savoring the familiar high in his mouth as he tastes the cotton in yours. Something in him grows hungry and he deepens the kiss, only for you to steal the blunt and pull away teasingly.

You laugh, nipping the roll between your lips, and it's like a breath of spring--when the ground begins to grow. A satiated groan leaves your body as your arms reach up to the sky and your back arches into a deep stretch--the kind that sends blood rushing to your ears--inhaling just as deeply, only for the smoke to get caught in your throat. You chuckle airily through the coughs.

"So jealous," you purr, plopping your hand down onto his lower abs to lean against it. "Maybe we're all just one soul living within each other. Like that Josef Albers painting. Squares within squares within squares"--your palm inches down past his waistband to that familiar outline in his boxers--"You inside me. Me inside Satoru. Satoru inside you and him inside me."

Something in your boyfriend's jaw twitches and he lets out a strained breath. All the blood drains from his face and into his cock. His eyes, misty pink, stare up at the seams where the ceiling turns into wall, his body a square within the square of his bedroom.

You can't help but crack a smile as you maneuver your hips so they meet his. "You wanna be a god?" you drawl lowly, "You want me to call you Satoru?"

With that, you start easing his hard-on into all your right spots, moaning Satoru's name each time you rock back and forth. Your clit feels like it's on fire; every little touch and point of contact against your skin erupts into a flash of heat.

Almost to his surprise, a moan rips from Suguru's throat. He can't contain himself when you're like this--playing such a dangerous game, walking his patience like a tightrope. His head gets heavier each time you move, and it feels like it's sinking endlessly into the cold pillow beneath it.

Somewhere in the fog is the last of his senses telling him how potentially fucked up this is, but the way he could feel every single detail of your pussy through the wet fabric that separates you two tells him not to care.

"Come on, Satoru," you tease between labored breaths, your pace achingly slow from the static in your legs and the fact the bed feels like water, "Show me how the strongest fucks."

With heavy brows on his eyes and a heavier conscience, he finishes from just your lazy friction and Gojo’s name.

Your boyfriend grasps a fistful of your hair from behind and practically pulls you off his dick. The room spins as you roll to the side and accidentally singe the sheets with the forgotten blunt between your fingers. You start to babble something about waterbeds, and he's already on top of you and hard again.

He takes one last good look at his sweaty mess of a girlfriend. "You're fucking crazy." And he likes it.

He plucks the haphazard bud from your fingers and takes an obnoxiously long draw before trapping the smoke in your mouth. His tongue swirls it into your gums and you groan down his throat. When you start to choke, he only deepens the kiss by pushing further into you.

When he comes up, seemingly not for air but for you to get some, he looks like a different person. His hair sticks to his glistening skin as he towers over you on his knees, and the way he's looking at you has your fingers traipsing down your abdomen into your panties.

He watches as you get yourself off and groans. "Say my name," he mutters, reaching up to take your throat in his grip.

You smirk as your body contorts underneath him. “Satoru," you draw out, panting as you feel your own heat pool between your fingers. Time slows and somewhere during it all your fingers get replaced by his dick. The sting barely registers and all you feel is chills from your core to your scalp as he hits all the right places.

He hooks an arm sloppily under your thigh and hoists your leg over his shoulder, his free hand kneading the plush on your hip. You laugh as he flattens his tongue against your clavicle and licks up to your jaw, stopping at your jugular to nip at the skin. “Who's the strongest?" he mutters against your skin, and his voice is like gravel in his throat.

"You are," you breathe, giggling when you reach for the blunt just to remember you have no idea where it is.

"Again."

"You're the strongest"--a whine--"You're my god. You're my one and only fucking god."

"Good girl. Fuck."

The way he fills you up with each deep thrust makes you see stars on his ceiling--an endless galaxy of opportunity. You've never been so relaxed yet so filled with ecstasy.

"Open," he mumbles with a couple light taps to your cheek. You laugh when you realize the blunt's been in his hand this whole time. You do as he orders, letting your tongue lull out of your mouth for full effect. He spits in it before lifting your jaw to close around the roll. You grin.

"Don't drop it," he says, and before you can even act confused, his pace quickens to an incomprehensible speed; it's almost too much for you to handle. The blunt becomes a gag in your mouth as stifled yelps and quivers rack your whole body. The pad of his thumb works at your clit and it takes everything in you to try and not pee.

You almost pass out then and there, saliva sticking your cheek to his pillow as a noise you've never made before escapes your chest. Your back arches and hips buck wild, and you're still climaxing even after his cum's already leaking out of you. It's all stretched out--time, your orgasm, you, everything.

You don't even register he's finished inside you already, mind still high in the clouds and pussy clenching around his imprint on your walls.

Suguru rolls over to the side, and you both gaze up hazily at the square ceiling. He plucks the chewed-up snub of a blunt from your lips, wet from your drool, and tosses it in the trash across the room.

Not a word from either of you--only the comfort of being within.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

amazing grace.

for t. shelby a prelude to 'the gift of silence. (how sweet the sound)'

“My, what a dear sight: Thomas Shelby, Peaky Blinder and founder of Shelby Brothers Limited, fucking a whore on the same desk he signs business deals on.”

Your languid body, draped with the tender silks of your night slip, leaned against the door frame. The strong oak plowed against your supple shoulder and tugged at the pink lace pooling in your clavicle. A slim cigarette drooped like a petal from your rosy fingertips which rested near your naked thigh.

You watched, unamused, as Thomas repeatedly rutted into the thing, his eyes staring directly into yours. Despite the dimness of it all--of the sex-stained chamber and the way the dying lamps made the room appear dipped in oil--his sharp, diamond eyes still cut through the haze.

You took a quaint draw of your cigarette and fixed your gaze on the girl, tilting your head at the way she convulsed and thawed into the mahogany. You pushed yourself off the frame and let yourself in, crossing the threshold into sin.

Your bare feet made slow steps across the dry panels and stopped in front of her. You used your hand free of the cigarette to pet the crown of her head, smoothing down her jostled, earthy locks.

You shushed her softly, quietly, though it came from a dwelling deep within your heart. Your fingers tightened at her roots and pulled her head up so you could see her disheveled face. "You're a pretty one," you stated, observing the way her nose sloped perfectly into her cupid's bow. Her shaky, glossy eyes could barely keep your gaze as they kept rolling to the back of her head. Obscene moans and small cries escaped her bobbing throat.

You took another puff from your smoke. "I know you think you've caught a big fish, but really--Thomas Shelby isn't any less a minnow than every other man in this Godless city when it comes to pretty lasses like you." Your voice was befitting of the night--quiet and something of the tide.

You traced her tear-stained cheek with your thumb. "Do you know why you're here, bent over his work desk in the first place, love? It's because the last pretty thing that wandered into Mr. Shelby's trousers put all our heads on the line--right after her own, pretty little blonde one."

Immediately after the last sour-coated words left your lips, the girl burst into a million ecstacies, and Thomas gave her one last soundless pound before leaving her empty and hollow on the nippy wood.

You let go of her head and it dropped to the desk--as if she craved its cold companionship.

Your eyes found Thomas's.

"So this is who you are now? A whore fucker is no more than a whore, himself, y'know."

"Who I fuck"--he zipped up his knickers and took a swig of Irish whiskey left out from the morning on his desk--"concerns no one. Least of all you."

You slowly snubbed your cigarette out on his expensive, lacquered desk. "Don't get cute," you said, pulling out a couple extra shillings than girls like Lizzie are used to seeing after a long day. You stretched at her unbuttoned collar and pressed them into her bra. "On you go, love. Don't come back.” You said the last part mainly to yourself, but it didn't go unnoticed in the weight of the room. You loathed her life for her.

A minute sigh, heavy with something dire and secretive, escaped Thomas's nose as the lax girl collected her stray garments from off the floor and flitted out of the room. He never looked at her, though she seemed to burn for it.

Thomas leaned the small of his back against the edges of his desk, staring off at something distant in that vacant way he always does.

"It seems as though everybody in the city respects Thomas Shelby except yourself,” you said.

You never called him Tommy, and you never would. Nicknames are for kin and lovers, and he was just pristine, clean-cut Thomas.

He didn't respond. He didn't move save a subtle tensing of the muscle in his jaw. You made your way next to him, propping yourself up on the desk. Your legs dangled in the air as the hem of your slip rode up your thighs. He passed his whiskey glass over to you without sparing you even a glance, and you took a sizable swig.

Since it was evident he wouldn't be doing much of the talking, you started up.

"Men are weak. They get dumb in the head when anything with a cunt passes by. A primal urge--makes you animals." You looked at the wooden wall and imagined you were seeing the same thing he was as he stared right through it. A moment of silence--a hidden breath--hitched and made the room swell--the wood crack.

"I loved Grace, too. In my own way," you continued softly, matter-of-factly. You handed the glass back to him. He could tell you've had a little too much already. "I saw something in her that I had been chasing my entire life. It made me admire her."

"And what's that," his voice croaked, raspy from the silence that grew familiar to his throat's walls--like a tumor.

"She had love." Slowly, as if unfolding like a picture, you began to see the invisible landscape Thomas saw in the grain of the walls. "It made her strong. Gave her something to fight for, and then later something to lose."

This, Thomas realized, was the most you've confided to him in years. You looked so vulnerable, so lush in your unguarded, slightly slouched form. He saw glimpses of your Irish youth in your tired yet glistening eyes.

You were never a predictable woman.

A silence spanned and stretched at the air in the room. The more it did, the hotter you got.

"I've never had that, Thomas. And you should be grateful you did for at least a little while, because even if you fail at your multiple hands and end up rotting in the canal, you would have died a man who knew love. So stop slouching and moping and fucking sorry whores and get back on your feet."

He didn't like the way curses sounded coming from your mouth--from that pretty little voice. Your usual mellow demeanor had faltered for the first time in front of him.

You didn't wait for him to hand you the glass this time, as you swiped it out of his grasp and downed the last ounce of amber fire. "You're Thomas fucking Shelby. But right now you're just pathetic."

At this, his hand clasped around your slender neck, almost simultaneously with his lips as they crashed into yours. He repositioned himself between your legs so his knee could pry and tease at them. His callused hand was strong and warm as it crept from your throat to that sweet nook between the back of your neck and the bend of your jaw. His fingers cupped your cheek and raked through your freshly washed hair. Your slip had collected in a wrinkle of crests at your hips and you subconsciously waited for your exposed thighs to be seared with his radiating palms. But he stopped himself. He pulled away. And yet again, there was that vacant distance.

"Don't tell me about not knowing love. I loved Grace the way you've always loved me." His voice was so low you had to furrow your brows to make out every word--every syllable--so that you could ensure you weren't going crazy. "I see it. Every day. I fuckin' feel it every time you look at the back of my neck. You love me. And you're filthy for it."

For an impossible measure of time, you saw him for something he wasn't.

His thumb swiped past your chilled earlobe, bringing your forehead to his. "She sang these songs. And I heard in all of them your stories."

You wanted to shoot him. And kiss him. And kill him. Hell, you just wanted him.

"But I could never have you. No, not when you put on such a tough act with a face like that and make a mess of yourself and everything else--messes I needed to clean up and protect you from." With this, he gave your face a little shake with his hand still embedded in your locks.

It was impossibly gentle and genuine and moronic. It was simply just impossible.

His whiskey-licked breath stung with every lap he took at your salted wounds. You both stayed like this until the ticking of the clock became jilted and painful.

You looked into his wayward eyes one final time, swallowing a heavy sigh before slowly slipping off the table, past his burning body and out the door.

It was as good a goodbye as any.

All humans have ever needed was love, so why is it that when it's finally within the palms of our hands--no matter how much we cherish it, kindle its erratic flame, breathe life into it--it always seems to betray us?

x.

[prettypeppermint]

swan song.

for t. shelby. a continuation of 'the gift of silence. (how sweet the sound)'

Sacrifice was your greatest gift. It clung to your name like a drawn bowstring, pregnant with prospective yet surmounting to nothing. You gave to your family until their deaths pried your outstretched palms away; you gave to your future self through tired feet and hard-earned sweat. Now, you've given to Thomas Shelby. Your very own love language.

You would give just about anything to take it all back.

He was kissing you--tasting you. He was asking for more and more of you every day through his longing gaze and patient fingers. You hated making him wait for something unattainable.

He wanted you a certain way--pliant, moldable. Soft.

He wanted you only to take from you. He wanted to collect you piece by piece.

A giver and a God.

"Tell me," he muttered into your mouth, tasting the way your thoughts grew sour on your lips. He read you in a way not kindled through love but through years of hardened business.

You pulled away half-heartedly. Your mind wrapped around him and you needed air.

"Say you love me," you ordered, staring into the core of his glacier-capped irises. There was no hope--no apprehension. You've digested every unspoken word already. You knew.

He peered down at you through his heavy line of lashes. "What--are my acts of service not enough?" he said lowly, an air of an insatiated euphemism in his voice.

A swell.

A silence.

An atonement.

"I love you." His finger traced a lock of hair into the canyon of your ear.

"I don't believe you."

A scoff seared through his teeth--a breath through the cornice of his lips.

"I've been thinking recently. During the day; during the night"--you began walking aimlessly around his office, fingering book spines and swiping the dust off of ledges--"during that ungodly hour before work. And thank God I have, because now I know you've been lying to me."

Thomas analyzed you--dissected every syllable. He listened.

"When you look into my eyes, I see nothing but her in yours."

It always goes back to Grace.

The lack of pain in your voice irked him on a deep, almost irrational level.

"At first I was hurt--confused. But now"--you circled back to him--"now, I feel nothing. I am nothing." You waited for him to interject despite knowing he never would. Sometimes, you were too painfully clear of his character; of just how much control he had over you; of how many ways he could hurt you while protecting you--love you while losing you.

"Then I realized: I'd rather be yours than nothing. Isn't it sad--a lass like me? Maybe I should first learn how it feels to be my own--to know every crease of my skin and grow comfortable in my flesh how you've grown so comfortable in mine."

The man you loved, whom you had sacrificed for one final time.

Your muscles yearned to reunite with him, but you held your arms to your sides in protest. "Thomas Shelby, you love me how a man should, but not how a woman should feel loved."

And now you'll spend the rest of your life chasing a notion--a concept--made only somewhat tangible by a man who could give you no more than all of him. Now you'll lose yourself searching for someone to search for you. Now you'll see him in all the men who fail in forgivable ways and love kindly.

A piece of him you will keep; a piece of you he will throw away. Until the next.

"You love me," he states, seemingly unphased. "And I love you."

"You don't know what love is, Thomas. How could you, when you've never loved anyone more than they've loved you?

"That's the ultimate testament of the caliber of a man's heart. It was never me, Thomas. It's her name you whisper in your sleep. Hear it. Accept it. Remember my voice saying it. Cling to it for the rest of your goddamn life so you never tell another woman you love her again."

For the first time, he noticed, you sounded defeated.

For the first time, he saw the vices of Birmingham shade your rural clarity.

Your voice sounded different without the usual fight in it; it revealed the exhaustion you forced down with cigarettes every morning and night. Suddenly the violet shadows under your eyes introduced themselves. Suddenly you looked 5 kilograms emaciated.

It was then that you became another woman in Thomas Shelby's life. You were no longer of the Kilkee coast or the sweetened countryside. You were ruined, and now you were just like the rest.

No girl who ever got tangled up in Shelby business ever makes it to London.

A swell.

A silence.

An empty impenitence.

"Goodbye, Thomas."

While he waited for you to fight for him, you once more decided to give.

Twice more, he took from you.

You wanted to feel his warmth against your lips once more. You had suddenly wished you'd savored your last kiss. "I hate what you've made me," you whispered.

He hated how the words sounded--how they tainted your tongue.

"You hate what you've become for me," he corrected.

You gave him a lonely, far-off stare, as if you were looking straight through him. He knew he had lost you.

You ignored his previous remark: "I hate how you made me think it was safe to fall in love with you."

You hadn't realized your eyes had welled up with an undeniable glaze until you felt a drop of glass wetness fall from your cheek. "I hate how you've turned me into another one of your women."

When Thomas didn't move, or walk closer to you, or even soften at your unraveling, you felt sour all over. Suddenly, you wanted it to hurt.

"No one has ever loved me in my entire life," you said to yourself, almost inaudibly. It sounded so ridiculously girlish and naive, unlike anything he had ever heard you say before.

A swell.

A painful one in the grit of your heart.

You felt heavy as you slowly turned and left his office.

†

He found you passed out in the chapel, your chest sprawled across the altar, your palms still clasped together in weak prayer. A mistiness clung to your eyelashes. He was once again reminded how much he loved how you looked in your sleep: like a soft lull of the shore had washed over you and cured a light peace into your soul.

He stood over you, counting your breaths and watching your lungs expand with life just to expel it. You smelled of ash and rosaries and beeswax. A tear rolled over the apples of your cheek and onto the peak of your nose.

"Silly girl," he rasped lowly before sitting on the floor and pulling your limp form into the cradle of his chest. His palm met the crown of your head to pull you further into his weight, his other hand hooking around the lonely bend of your waist. He felt his shirt seep with moisture, and he knew you were awake.

"She was a piece of my past I can't go back to take away," he said, his chin resting atop your head, voice bitter yet smooth like coffee on a good day, "But if any part of her had led me to you, I wouldn't go back to change a moment of it even if I could."

Your shoulders shuddered silently, and your sobs permeated directly through his chest and into his heart. He always knew just what to say, to the point it scared you.

"Give it time," said Thomas, petting your head in rhythm with your heart, "Give it time."

While you gave, he invested. He invested in all the times you've chipped away at yourself for him, and he kept them in his heart until the next time he would use them--like a business transaction.

But could you blame him for loving you how he knows best?

To understand his love was more than enough. Yet, your consistent upturned and empty palms rendered you greedy.

He collects your wet cheeks between his hands and brings you to look up at him. In his eyes, you saw the end of a road.

Was this all there was? Maybe so.

"Let's get married. Right here, right now"--he swiped his thumb across the slick of your undereye--"That way you'll be mine to keep. No more goodbyes."

You felt the Lord's eyes on your kneeling form. An odd feeling of shame and acceptance washed over you and clogged your chest.

It was then that you knew: loving Thomas Shelby was never going to be beautiful. It wasn't simple or painless or any of the things love should be. And it would never be the same kind of love that it was yesterday.

But what could you do? What could you do if you loved him nonetheless?

If you would always be loved how broken women are loved?

x.

[prettypeppermint]

crane's paradox.

for dr. j. crane.

The water dribbled down your back like tear tracks, shushing your steamed and tender skin. He moved the showerhead in methodical circles against your rosy shoulder blades, large hands pilfering at your kelpy locks.

He sat on a stool adjacent to the tub, loving you with water--a language of change.

Despite the serenity taking place behind you, the scene before you was one of demented horrors--every irrational terror rationalized before your eyes. The water was black and bottomless, ostensibly swallowing your naked body up--oxidizing your skin and fermenting your organs. Your legs twitched periodically, trying to feel for the confines of the tub but getting continuously tricked by a vast emptiness. Faces emerged from the depths, twisted and morphed into something barely human. They groped at your waist and chest, each hand a searing blaze against your flesh.

The water rippled frantically as your every fiber trembled, frozen in a rock-solid state of shock. You couldn't blink.

The more he washed, the more blood trickled down the various valleys and edges of your form, swirling with the ridges of each tiny stream that eroded at your scalp, your back, your face. Ghosts of self-inflicted clawing stung your face.

Jonathan was wordless--a silent force of love. You didn't even realize he was there with you. You often felt alone, even in love. But feeling alone in fear was an entirely new feeling of dread.

"You were a bad girl today, angel.” The words barely permeated your foggy skull before you realized he was lifting you out of the water, “Bad girls need treatment so that they can be good again." He cradled your languid figure against his chest, drops of rose-tinted water leaking from your calves and the tips of your toes as they dangled across the nook of his elbow.

"I'm so very sorry it all turned out this way," he cooed, setting you down on the foot of his bed--the crisp snow hills of his duvet. He towered over you as he brought a towel to your locks and began drying them off with the touch of a feather. "But when you go exploring in forbidden places against my orders"--he makes his way down, patting each arm dry before wiping down your breasts--"you'll end up getting hurt."

Your eyes were forlorn and affixed on a faraway place, hallucinations still warping themselves into the tendrils of his hair and the wall behind him as he moved. He began dressing you in a set of white, lacy undergarments he had picked out for you prior. "And you know how much I detest seeing my angel hurt."

He slid the material up your legs and hoisted them over your hips with a trained dexterity. After clasping the brassiere between the place where your shoulder blades would kiss, he leaned down to press his tongue to the crest of your shoulder. Your skin was still radiating a firey warmth from the bath.

"But isn't something about it so thrilling? The thin membrane that separates fear and desire? The cerebrum keeps the left and right brain from ever touching, yet in doing so it maintains the unabridged function of the brain as one; they communicate through proximate isolation. Funny, isn't it? How that slim distance maintains the entire equilibrium--the entire function of the organ. Tell me, my love--would there be a Thisbe and Pyramus without the wall that separated their passion for each other? It's fascinating--the way in which the truest form of love prevails in the slimmest, most dire times of pain and fear. Oh, how I adore seeing you like this--at the mercy of my creation. So perfect--so effortlessly lovely and delicate even in this state of absolute terror.

"Let me love you--let me ease the pain out of you. Let me break the membrane that separates us, and we can join as one."

The last words grazed the chill of your earlobe as his breath teased at your pulse. You weren't sure when he'd wrapped his arms around you and locked you against his torso, but you began unraveling in his firmness. Your tensed muscles relaxed, and the visions began to subside. You saw them dissipating from the air; like mist having gone from an autumn morning before the leaves and birds awoke to notice the absence of the chill; like water swirling down the drain.

"I'm scared," you managed to croak. It came out dry and barely intelligible from hours of coaxed silence. He embedded shushes into the crown of your head.

This wasn't the work of the toxin; it was the hollow pit of desolation it left you with afterward.

"Jonathan, I'm scared," you repeated. The last consonant got lodged in your throat as a stifled cry scraped its way out before it. It was a foreign sort of comfort--crying into his skin and melting against his hold. "I'm so scared. What did you do to me?"

But Jonathan didn't do anything to you; it was you who snuck into his lab despite the rules he set for you. It was you who walked into an untimely experiment of torture on Scarecrow's most recent lab rat.

He pulled you into a kiss, the span of his fingers stretching around the entire back of your head. It was soft yet hungry, yearning yet kind. You seemed to be caught in all sorts of dichotomies today.

"You know I would never lay a finger on you," he muttered against your lower lip, "You're too soft--too delicate. As long as you're with me, I promise nothing will ever hurt you again.

"Now let me take care of you," he lulled, gently laying you back against the cool sheets, "Let Doctor treat you."

His lips gently ghosted the thin skin above your belly button before he looked up at you with an almost alienating, stoic countenance. "Say it."

Something went cold in the blue of his eyes--a shadow cast by a passing cloud.

"Please," you whispered, "Please fix me, Doctor."

x.

[prettypeppermint]

the oeuvre.

for you.

04/01/25 - in the bleak midwinter.

5/22/24 - homage to the square.

11/21/23 - swan song.

09/19/23 - crane's paradox.

09/04/23 - the gift of silence (how sweet the sound).

08/28/23 - amazing grace.

08/22/23 - complicatedly breathtaking.

08/15/23 - j.

08/13/23 - grottos.

08/11/23 - the unchosen one.

08/05/23 - earth & ocean.

09/25/22 - actions speak louder than words.

05/02/22 - kissing your way out of arguments.

07/07/21 - fools.

06/30/21 - just one.

05/15/21 - sometimes.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

the gift of silence (how sweet the sound).

for t. shelby. a continuation of 'amazing grace.'

You weren't speaking to him. And it was slowly driving him up the wall.

Not that you were normally a chatterbox in the face of Thomas Shelby; you rarely spoke to him unless you needed something. You were always more of a looker; your eyes bore into his from across the room whenever you overheard something you shouldn't have; you studied his slight quirks and subtle movements and stared blankly at his handwriting when verifying papers; you looked when nobody else did. In a sea full of heads, your eyes were always turned against the tide--snowy sea glass amongst pebbles in a blinding summer's ocean. He noticed your gaze when you thought no one did.

Sometimes, wisdom lies in silence rather than words. You knew that above all others.

Come to think of it, that night was the most you had ever talked to him directly since he'd known you. It was the most candid he’d ever experienced you. And he was frightfully prepared.

It wasn't the fact you weren’t talking that bothered him--more so the absence of your voice--something he never thought to irk him until he realized just how much he wanted you to spare him a whisper. He wanted to see you all worked up the way women get sometimes; he wanted to watch you unravel. But you were always so tightly bound.

It's been days since he kissed you--touched you. Thomas was a man of self-control, and he knew it was both the first and the last time he'd ever be selfish with you again. He didn’t know it, but he yearned to wade a bit longer in the satisfaction of knowing you were at least a bit frazzled by him. But you seemed as much out of place as snow in December.

He didn't like how you were added to his long list of tasks and responsibilities. He didn't like how you weighed down his shoulders.

Even with all the help you gave around these parts, you were always just a burden to his mind--the way you smelled of a place far away, the coyly cold shoulders you gave and the moles on your hips. He didn’t like it one bit.

Because now he was the one staring at the back of your neck, at the way your ringlets bounced in a manner almost comical against your serious face. Everything about you seemed to be a paradoxical phenomenon: your coquettish features that rarely spared a smile for anyone, your soft eyes that revealed hardened thoughts, your bouncy curls and the ribbons that sometimes adorned your braids and the lacy little ensembles that complimented your loveliness.

You were so ironically unapproachable. You never missed the quips and spare jokes about it: that people could sense your presence because the room gets cold, that a smile would sit prettier on your mouth than all those cigarettes.

You appeared unperturbed by the smog-capped skylines and rubble-ruined streets of Birmingham; all the sins of the city never wore wrinkles between your brows or sowed smoky wisps along your hairline. It was almost as if you were preserved in that eternal Kilkee ruralness--as if you brought a piece of the Irish coast with you to this Godless city. Farmer's daughter. Fisherman's treasure. You were outlasting and evermore. You were something of the sea.

"I said I needed fifty hand-copies of last month's inventory on my desk by this morning," Thomas breathed matter-of-factly, leaning against the door frame as you indulged in your morning smoke, an old whiskey in his hand. He liked the way your bare shoulders looked as they reflected the breaking dawn--the way the sun collected in your collarbones and made your hair shiny.

It was his turn to stand at the doorway. It was his turn to bear his weight at the threshold.

"I put them on your desk two mornings ago," you responded, matter-of-fact, “Perhaps you forgot to look under your arse, Mr. Shelby.”

Where along the line had he become Mr. Shelby?When did plain, old Thomas leave your vocabulary? He liked it when you called him that--just Thomas.

You never intended to sound so coy all the time. Aunt Pol like to say you were just a pretty girl with a sharp tongue and a sharper mind--sometimes to your own doom.

At that, Thomas tossed a hefty stack of unsorted paperwork on the coffee table you were sat at. He watched as your rosy elbows wobbled under the wood and ash flitted from your slim cigarette.

"You forgot these, Ms. l/n." he rasped blankly, trying to see through to your eyes from the back of your head.

Without looking at him or the papers, you stood up and took your time neatening them up before heaving the stack into your arms. As you passed by his figure in the doorway, you discarded your cigarette in his whiskey glass.

He was left staring blankly at the empty scene before him--one that was once fulfilled with your presence--a sense of longing boiling up in his core. It was out of character to be so subconsciously infatuated with the idea of getting a rise out of you. It was almost ridiculous.

Mr. Shelby seemed to be a master at pushing good things--good women--away.

"A bit harsh on the girl, don’t you think?" Aunt Pol piped knowingly from behind him, emerging from her watchful shadows once you had retreated to Thomas's office.

"No different than I've always been," he said, eyes still trained on the spot at the chair that was once yours.

"Don't take women for the fool that you are, Tommy. I see the way you've been eyeing her--picking her apart. I'll have you fucking another whore before you sink your claws into another girl with a bright path ahead of her."

"Her path ends here, Pol. No girl who ever got tangled up in Shelby business ever makes it to London."

Aunt Pol glared at his nape before leaving him there, sinking in his own wallows.

~~~

"Where're my copies?"

"I threw 'em out."

A moment of silence pulsated through his blood and rose to his brain. He had found you sitting and smoking in your usual spot, merely thirty minutes after his most recent orders. He slowly walked up to your lax frame, still dawned in your silky, lacy little thing of a nightgown.

"I trust that you know those were Mr. Kimber's papers, Ms. l/n," he rumbled lowly--dangerously, "Papers I won't think twice about having you dig through the trash for on the street in nothing but your slip."

"You've done worse," you responded calmly, taking another draw of your cigarette. Recently, you've been blowing through more than your daily 6, and he never failed to notice the little things.

He stepped even closer, his hands buried adamantly in his pockets so they wouldn't reach out for you. Why was loving Grace so easy, and loving you felt like a sour seed in his stomach? As if it would burrow holes in his organs and infect his blood until you did something about it?

"You're gonna get me those papers or I'll have you thrown out to the streets after happy hour."

With that, you stood abruptly from your chair and walked with brisk strides toward the wastepaper bin at the leg of the center table. You plunged your hand into it and pulled from the depths of millions of cigarette butts Thomas's precious Kimber papers. You slapped them on the table riddled with ash and peanut shells and flipped through each page for him, fully filled out and stamped with fresh ink.

Then you climbed atop the table, standing precariously on the splintering wood in your dainty, red dance heels so you could have the upper hand for once.

"You don't get to disrespect me because of your fragile, faulty, little boy of a heart. You don't get to disrespect me because I have an ounce of self-preservation in the face of a man with the power you have. And you don't get to disrespect me, because I am y/n l/n, and I don't work for men who lead with the brain in their cocks." It came out eerily steady, unlike any rage he'd ever been at the receiving end of before.

It was like a flash of soundless lightning; you were gone as soon as it happened, having stepped down from the table to retreat to your sun-spotted, smoke-stained corner. And he was left with the storm that came afterward, soaked in an alien feeling that hadn't made itself quite known to his heart yet.

But much like how most things rear their ugly heads at night--drunkards emerging from their taverns and whores from their brothels--Thomas Shelby's ugly little things were no exception.

Night changes a man; it shrouds him in regret and urges forced down throughout the day and lust unravished.

Night made Thomas hungry.

And so he found himself watching over your sleeping form folded at the waist and draped across the table you've been sitting at the entire day, where you've done nothing but stare out the window and let the smoke abuse your lungs. Your cigarette, now a measly stub, was still haphazardly pinched between your tired fingers. He found that smoking didn't suit you--it tainted your rosy face that otherwise emulated an ethereal countryside purity. The Irish foreshore was still fresh on your cheeks.

In sleep, you reverted to the girl you were born as: simple and lovely and kind as a bird.

He felt the sour seed growing.

He slipped his hand around your wrist and maneuvered your body onto his back with ease before carrying you to his room where he set you down on his sheets. His hand instinctively reached for the pipe on the nightstand, but it trembled before tightening into a fist that fell limply at his side.

What he hadn’t known was that you both experienced night terrors, but as he lay awake on the floor next to his bed with your writhing and moaning frame, it became abundantly clear.

He wondered what was haunting your conscience and digging its way into your sleep. Maybe you've been through a few wars of your own. None that men would know, anyway.

As his mind continued shifting and shuffling, he felt a warmth press into his back; you had stepped off the bed and laid down on the cool, dry planks next to him--back to back and facing away from each other. He could feel your silk stick to your sweat. Time froze, and within that time, so did the nightmares.

Seconds drawled into minutes before it all became a blur as shadows morphed into stories on the moonlit wallpaper. It stretched and stretched.

"Do you want to know what I dream of at night?" you slurred, breaking the industrial silence. Your voice was thick with an unrestful break from the world.

When Thomas didn't respond, you continued: "I dream of my home in Ireland: its salty mist and green softness all around. I'm standing there, on a plain, looking out over the ocean. I'm smiling. And each time the tide hits the rocks and recedes back into its basin, I see something emerge from the salt onto the rocks. They're people--bodies--their skin so bloated and fermented from the salt I can't even recognize them, but it feels like I should. Like I know them. And I'm stuck on this plain, trying to make out the faces of my mother and sisters and brother as they keep piling up. Over and over and over. I can't stop it. Because the tide always ebbs. It gets closer and louder, and I'm still smiling. And I pray I wake up before it gets to me and I'm the one on the rocks, rotting and unrecognizable. And I feel awful for it."

Another silence spanned, and Thomas realized he was foolish to ever wish it away. Because silence was how you both communicated. Silence was the language only the two of you were fluent in. Silence bridged the gap that words created. Silence was what he wished for when he heard the shovels chipping at the wall night after night.

"Thomas, you love me." It was a mere whisper, as if you too were scared of ending the silence--the gift of time.

"I love you," echoed Thomas. It was so low and so guttural, as if sprouting from that very sour seed that--within the span of the night--had grown into something pulpy and bittersweet instead.

With that, you both dozed off. And Thomas woke up without the sound of the shovels.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

complicatedly breathtaking.

for r. fischer.

The way your breast perfectly tear-dropped into the lacy fabric enveloping it--a wilted petal to a rosebud; the small sliver of air between your powder-pink bra strap and the slight concave of your breast line before it rolled into firm padding; the way the grottos of your collarbones pulsated and hollowed when your breath momentarily hitched in your pretty, little neck.

The simplistic details of the way his love painted you in this breathless, soft, portrait of a girl.

He loved the way your hair smelled against his nose and tickled at his lower lip when you pooled into the pit of his neck, tears melting into his skin, wearing nothing but your lacey undergarments which seemed to decorate your body rather than strip it of its decency.

He treasured that about you. About how you could never look dirty doing anything unless he had his way with you.

You were complicatedly breathtaking and simply beautiful.

He cooed into your scalp--as if kindling a dying ember or hushing a fallen dove. You were cuddled into him, naked legs curled up between his thighs and arms draped over his nape. You seemed like a sculpture that had come to life and dawned soft, plush flesh and warm blood. His lean arm tucked itself away into that familiar, pleasant valley of your waist. His piercing eyes--mirrors of the sky and reflections of the sea--peered at the top of your head. His other arm lifted with a lackadaisical heaviness as his fingers came up to brush a strand of wet hair away from your pretty face.

"What's hurting, angel?" he husked with an undeniable softness. His fingers trailed down the slope of your shoulders and back up again, eliciting goose flesh all over.

You pressed a wet cheek against your spot on his chest before letting out a breath that had been airlocked tight somewhere deep inside you. "Why do you love me?" you whispered, saliva coating your words like rain to a slick umbrella. You had soothed into a calm, now tracing small hearts on the freckled skin of his chest.

You felt the arm around your waist rub back and forth in that bend, both reassuringly and somewhat self-effacingly. He craned his neck to give your scalp a quiet, sacred kiss.

"I love you because you breathe life into things I didn't know could live," he whispered slowly, fingers ghosting up and down your spine like a cellist's, "And you love harder than you'll ever hate. And sometimes, when I look into your eyes long enough, I see an earth full of sunlight and plants and everything green and lush and alive that was taken away from me before I knew what fresh air was."

You weakly smiled into his skin before nuzzling further into him. Before you could doze off, he gently lifted your chin to meet his gaze.

"I love you because you're a breath of fresh air. And without you, life is damp and suffocating like I've always known."

You kissed him.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

j.

for dr. j. crane.

You were a fairy cuddled up in a perfectly curved, perfectly velvety petal as your naked peaks and valleys cradled into his strong figure. You felt safe in his firmness. He felt like home.

His hand tapped at your thigh, matching the rhythm of his heart, as his other hand gripped an open book by the spine. Your knees were tucked; cheek and palm on the ebb and flow of his lungs; breaths steady and deep. You could lay here for hours: naked and languid and melting into his stalwart huskiness.

You looked up at him--at the slight crescents between his brows and the piercing focus of his irises as they glided across the page. Something in his jaw would twitch every now and then, and his Adam's apple would bob as he swallowed a stoic thought. He felt your head move and peered down, and all he saw were your eyes--that ravishingly, undeniably feminine gaze.

Your love would've been a dangerous game with anyone else. But with him, you felt like nothing could ever hurt you. You felt invincible. Because he was the one who held you at night--who you would cry on and nestle up to when you had a nightmare.

"What's on your mind, pretty girl? Hm?" He brought his arm up to your small head and petted your hair, his long eyelashes dampening his gaze as it melted into yours.

The way he looked at you; it was as if you were the only thing that mattered in the world.

Oh, and his voice--rugged with fatigue and slick from hours of silence. You loved hearing your name slip from his throat and jump off his tongue as if it belonged somewhere deep in his core.

You felt your eyelids grow heavy as his palm continually smoothed your hair down in gentle herculean motions. Protection and safeness radiated from his every fiber. You never felt so treasured.

"Nothing," you sighed, breaking eye contact as you rested your cheek on his chest once more. His lips made their way to the top of your head as he gave you a soft peck before continuing to glide his palm down your shiny hair. After a moment of silence which swelled with the intermingling of your peaceful breaths, you added, "I want to stay like this forever. With you." It came out groggy as you drifted off in his arms.

A quiet smile tugged at his lip. "I'll make sure of it. Just for you."

It was the last thing you heard before waking up to cold sheets and an empty bed. You knew he had to flee in the middle of the night. You knew it was to keep you safe. You sat on your knees with your calves splayed out, your wispy locks of hair tickling your bare shoulders. On the pink, satin pillow next to you was a note:

My girl,

I'm sorry for yet another late-night disappearance. Trouble in paradise, it seems.

I've left you a gift underneath your pillow. Use it when you need me and I'm not there.

I love you always, j.

Your fingers slipped under the mound of satin and prodded at something cold and metal, but not foreign in your grasp. Pulling it out from underneath the pillow, your slender fingers wrapped around the barrel of a Weble-Fosbery automatic revolver.

A single pink ribbon had been neatly wrapped around the grip, adorning it with a small, powder pink bow. As you brought the firearm closer to your face, you noticed your initials carved into the frame in pretty, cursive letters.

Just for you.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

grottos.

for r. weasley.

Your love was personal, but it wasn't new. You knew love like the back of your hand. You knew it when your lip twitched when your eyes met. You knew it when you smelled sweater lint and something far away yet familiar in Potions class. You knew it when every goofy little movement and wild cowlick became a grain of sand in the rocky shore that is Ron Weasley.

You always knew, but you refused with all your might and wisdom to feel. But in peculiar ways of the universe, you found his flaws comforting, his presence calming--the same way that thunderstorms would lull you to sleep. And in those peculiar ways, your heart swelled with a sensation akin to stepping on glass.

Even with your wisdom, you felt yourself pooling in his grottos and finding life where sunshine gave into a chilled coldness. Even with your might, you felt the weight of your reality seep into the marrow of your bones.

You tricked yourself; you kept busy with other thoughts. You rationalized with no one in particular. You talked to yourself instead of him.

Days sacrificed themselves for long nights, and soon your blood grew heavy. Soon came the wedding, and along with it, the invitation. Soon came Mrs. Granger-Weasley. And soon enough came the kids which you watched on the weekends. You called from time to time from a faraway city in England, and when Christmas settled into the corners of the world you would forget about your loneliness, forget about the sweater lint--about grottos and hidden life and rocky shores. What was once familiar became far away, and what used to be sharp was worn to a dull. Like the ebb and flow of the tide, the sand only gets smaller.

Your love was always personal, only now it grew old with you. And maybe one day, it will outgrow him.

His love, which could never compare.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

the unchosen one.

for r. weasley.

You pulled back for one second to look at his face. His eyes.

One second. It took only that thin shaving of time for that familiar sting to rush to your nose. You felt blood in your cheeks as your vision welled with a glassy kaleidoscope. He looked so magnetic, and for a second, you saw an inexplicable glimpse of his youth in the way his lip twitched.

He didn't ask what was the matter. He didn't say a word.

All he did was hold you. Like a vine to a wall. His chin found its place on top of your head. His strong arms were so conscious of your existence in them.

"Before you, I thought I knew everything," you whispered, your voice slick with saliva and an unspoken word. "But it feels like my life begins over and over again every time I see you. And I wish I could just be a simple girl and give you a simple kiss and make simple love like simple people do. But I'm not simple; I've never been and never will be. But you make me feel like, for once in my life, I'm just that--the simple girl I've always dreamed of being.

"And I wish you knew love when you saw it the first time. Because loving you is like a gift no one else will ever be able to open. When I see your face when we're kissing or making love I can't help but get absorbed into everything that is you. I can't help but want to cry for some alien reason I can never quite explain. You move me to places I never knew I could go. And I love you. And I choose you. Over and over again."

x.

[prettypeppermint]

earth & ocean.

for r. weasley.

You hadn't seen him in what seemed like forever.

Being an auror was a demanding task--a task that often pulled him away from you. However, you always felt the Weasley warmth he left in the house: the sunflowers in the vase on the kitchen table, the smell of the residual coffee grounds left in the machine, his leather-bound books inscribed with peppermint scented ink. You felt safe knowing he was keeping others safe.

Ron: a constant force of nature that enveloped you in all his wholehearted Weasley-ness.

You loved how you could smell him in the earth, see him in the sunshine that melted and liquified to fill up every space and every corner of the house. You loved him in the way you least expected but most direly needed. You respected him and loved his strong, capable hands as they wrapped around his wand--wrapped around your waist. You loved the way his arms looked lifting something heavy as if it were soft and fragile. You loved how gentle his eyes were but what a strong story they told. Oh, his eyes.

His eyes were of earth and ocean, calm yet always brewing. It was as if life could grow from them--as if the unknown and undiscovered could emerge from the way he looked at you.

Ron was a rarity unchosen, but that's why you loved him.

He wasn't exceptionally academically inclined, nor was he bafflingly gifted in the wizardry arts. He was instead everything anyone could ever need, the simple pleasures people too often overlook or take advantage of. He was the wildflowers that sprouted through the cracks on the pavement or over a clean lawn during spring. He was the slight inkling of a humid draft on your face on a hot summer night. He was a peculiarly shaped rock on a greenwood-cloaked trail. He was a fallen eyelash on your finger before it floated to the ground. He was perfect in all the ways a man should be. Strong and responsible and promising and brave.

Ron was a rarity unchosen, but you chose him. And that was more than enough. That was everything.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

actions speak louder than words.

for s. rintarou.

"Fuck."

You scramble around your shared apartment in nothing but your undergarments, last night's sleep still hazing your eyes as you make out your roommate's blurry silhouette trekking into the kitchen.

Suna stands with his hands buried in the home that is his sweatpants pockets, observing impassively as you ride your pencil skirt up your hips and simultaneously work the French press with an efficiency that is almost offputting--it's an intricately disorderly routine for both of you.

You wake up late every day. Still, you somehow manage to get to work on time without fail, always with a cup of coffee in your hand and a lax smile on your face. He doesn't know how you do it. He doesn't know how you do a lot of things in your hectic superstorm of a life.

Suna scratches the back of his head.

"Toss me my shirt--on the counter," you say, the thickness of the morning still coating your throat. You snag your hair tie off your wrist with your teeth while your hands work your hair up into a ponytail.

"Good morning to you, too," he croaks sarcastically, obeying your request anyway. He could never refuse you. You always win, whether it's the debate over who gets the last cookie or whether it's spelled "Berenstein Bears" or "Berenstain Bears".

In a flurry, you skate past your disheveled roommate to the shoe rack by the door, where 75% of it is occupied with your footwear and the other 25% carries his. Before he can turn to see what the next step in your tornado of a morning is, you've already picked out a trusty pair of Louboutin stilettos.

"How do I look? Actually, shut up. I look great," you laugh. It tingles his brain.

"You look pretty," he states softly, matter-of-factly. It's in place of his usual snide comeback.

That certainly isn't a part of the routine.

He tilts his head as his gaze lands on the space between your eyes, and you let it rest there for a second longer than you normally would. Your roommate seems to have lost the usual snarkiness in his step this morning--he normally would have said something along the lines of 'You look like shit. Go take a shower.'

"And you look like shit. Go take a shower," you say playfully, reaching past his tall, lean frame for your keys hanging from the hook on the door behind him. As your cheek accidentally brushes against his in the close proximity that ensues, he takes your face in his palm and smoothly guides it to his lips in one fluid motion. It's a soft kiss, the kind that feels like an armful of spring blossoms.

As you both gently pull away, you allow only a brief moment to look up at his foxy eyes and whisper a breathy 'shit' before going back for more. This time, it burns. It's fervent, demoralized.

You keep a slow, passionate rhythm with his mouth as you both stumble back into the kitchen. He hoists you onto the countertop in a swift gesture. You thumb at the seamed hem of his gray sweater, teasing the fabric up just enough to trace at a sliver of his bare skin; you want to make him the one yearning to touch you--to be touched.

But your lips feel cold as he draws away from them. "I need to hear you say it," he breathes against your lip.

"Say what, Rin," you tease airily.

He hesitates before giving you another soft peck, the kind that's just long enough to leave anyone pleading for more. "Say you want me inside of you," he exhales, immediately trailing kisses and gentle nibbles down your neck.

"Okay. I want you inside of me," you deadpan with a smile. He hears the smirk in your voice and bites down just that much harder on the side of your neck. "Careful," he mutters against your collarbone. You fight back a sigh but a stifled moan squeezes past your lips instead. You know all Suna wants is to get a feverish rise out of you, but unlike your dear friend who can never refuse you, you're the exact opposite--all you ever do is refuse him.

You pull his sweater off from over his head. In due time, he unbuttons your blouse dexterously with one large hand, exposing your lacy little bra. He continues his kisses, working his way achingly slow down your body. "Tell me exactly what you want me to do to you," he mumbles between soft pecks to your exposed flesh.

"I want you to make me feel good, Rin," you respond in a low voice, raking your fingers through his ebony hair. At that, he slips one digit into your bra and teases your nipple as he laps at the exposed part of your breast. You look up at the fluorescent kitchen light and let out a euphoric breath. "Do whatever you think will make me look good under you."

"Who said anything about being under me?" he drawls before unzipping the skirt you just shimmied on, then sliding it off your legs. He plants a kiss on your clothed clit and starts tracing your slit through your underwear, taunting the idea of entry. He watches as the cotton soaks up your heat and wets the tip of his slender finger.

"I never pegged you for an edging kinda guy. You're full of surprises today," you pant as you begin discreetly rutting against his single digit, feigning desperation. Without a word, he loops his index finger through the bridge of fabric and pushes it to the side. "Come on, Rin. you can do better than th-ah!" A blissful shiver shoots through your core straight into your stomach, interrupting your final thought as he thrusts the first finger deep into your cunt. You trap another moan in your throat and mewl through a closed mouth.

"Shh," Suna coos gently as he sticks his ring finger in next. At this, you let out another breath to the ceiling. He initiates a slow pumping rhythm until a third finger catches you by surprise, and this time, you're loud. Your friend presses his mouth to yours and swallows all the sweet noises you're making for him, fingers curling against your walls in perfect syncopation with the probing of his tongue in your mouth. His other arm snakes around your arched waist pressing into him.

Just as you're beginning to lose yourself in his kiss, he speeds up the pace, thrusting his digits in and out, in and out. He doesn't let your lips break away, leaning further into you every time you try, trapping you as you're forced to moan down his throat.

His thumb sneaks onto your clit and taunts it. He pushes into you even more, causing your hips to grind and roll into his rhythm. Your hand leaves his hair to find leverage against the cold, tiled counter, and the other desperately grasps onto a squeaky cupboard door. He goes faster, deeper--like he's burning to feel every inch of you clenching around him.

A series of short, spastic whimpers and moans makes its way into your kiss as a million fires flutter through your entire body. You feel like stardust in his grip.

Suna doesn't stop even as you're convulsing and unraveling against him, but he finally lets you free from his thousand-year kiss, fully pulling back to admire his work. He exhales, and it comes out in a small, rugged shudder as he takes in your glistening, heaving form. He slows to an aching stop and plants a comforting smooch on your cheek--the same cheek that brushed against his and started this whole rendezvous.

After giving you a moment to fully calm down from your high, Suna brushes wet strands of hair from the corners of your mouth and hands you the cup of coffee you made earlier, now lukewarm.

"Thanks," you croak, accepting it. You're even more exhausted than when you first woke up.

Your roommate awkwardly leans against the sink and gazes at you for a solid minute before finally saying, "You look like shit. Go take a shower."

You laugh into your coffee cup, Suna's new favorite sound next to your pretty moans.

"Fuck," he marvels under his breath.

"What is it?"

"Well, you're late for work... And I think I'm in love with you."

x.

[prettypeppermint]

kissing your way out of arguments.

for m. atsumu.

"Have I ever told ya how much I can't stand ya sometimes?"

"Well at least one of us is doing something right."

"Unbelievable."

"Finally learned how to use your words?"

"God, you're so hot when you're pissed."

"I think we should kiss."

"Finally, something we both agree on."

The last few words barely make it out above a breathy whisper before his fingers grip your waist, finding their spot in that familiar curve. He pulls you in and all his anger clashes with yours in the form of heat melting into your mouth. You run your fingers through his hair, exploring the planes of his head and ruffling his thoughts.

for m. osamu.

"I hate ya."

"That makes two of us."

"Careful."

"So scary."

"I'd watch my big mouth right about now if I were ya."

"Why don't you come here and shut it for me?"

He does just that. It's almost jarring--the most fervent thing you've felt on your body from him. He's been bottling something up, and this is the best way he could let it out--on your lips. Rage has never felt so good.

for s. rintarou.

"Rin."

"..."

"Rin."

"..."

"You don’t wanna play with me?"

He stays silent as you tease him--leaning your chest over his reclusive body, bending over and rocking on your knees to breathe up and down his neck--he finally caves and lets you take the lead, kindling the fire out of him. He loves it in secret, but you know that already.

for s. koushi.

You two don't argue. But he kisses you anyway.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

fools.

for f. megumi.

"Did you feel something… when you kissed them?"

"Of course. I wouldn't be such a great actress if I hadn't." Your voice was steady and composed as always.

Megumi frowned despite being aware you were just prodding him with your usual teases.

"But, did you like it?" he questioned again, this time with an ounce more conviction.

"Yes, I did like it. I have to be fully immersed when playing a role, you know, so much so that I must shed my identity as y/n and become that very character. Acting is the art of masking and unmasking, a beautiful deception."

The two of you were walking out of the theater premiere of the new movie you starred in, packed with steamy drama and bedroom eyes.

Megumi loathed your answer, and you found amusement in that.

"I think you would be ten times better at kissing than my co-star, Megumi," you stated calmly. Your friend kept silent as a soft and genuine smile pampered his face, and you observed him from the corner of your eye. "You're not very good at hiding your emotions, Fushigurou."

Megumi is always surprised by your keen eye for detail, no matter how many times he witnesses you put it to use. "I know you're not the jealous type. Tell me what it is that's on your mind," you continued.

So, you had figured him out.

Megumi figured you figured.

Fushigurou Megumi, always so gentle and understanding, forever firm and righteous, looked at you for the first time since you left the theater.

"I'm proud of you."

You were least expecting that.

And you didn't realize how much you needed to hear it until after you returned to the academy. The walk back to your dorm with him by your side was filled with silent knowing and auspicious clairvoyance.

"Megumi, if you like me, why haven't you asked me out?" you inquired, and it sounded so genuine it threw him off guard. His eyes locked with the stars in the sky, the flaming freckles that smelled of pinewood and pollution.

"We're young, y/n. We have time to wait. And when we're done waiting, I will have become a better person for you. I'll be more mature, more grown, more knowledgeable. I'll be someone you truly deserve," he responded. Each word tasted sweet in his mouth as if a flower had blossomed in his throat.

"Is that so," you said, a glint igniting in your irises as you focused on your friend, cloaked in the night and embraced by the moonlight, "In that case, I'll wait for you, Megumi."

...

As time completed its trials and months grew longer than past decades, the fateful promise exchanged between two souls on that starry night was never fulfilled, forever waltzing in a state of limbo in the sky.

Perhaps, waiting was foolish.

Before your eyelids slid shut for the final time, you smiled and left the world still waiting, with Megumi still as your friend. To Fushigurou, you had always been more than that.

Perhaps,

the universe had made fools out of both of you.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

just one.

for s. koushi.

autumn. 🥮 "Good morning, y/n. Did you sleep well?"

"Good morning, Sugawara. Yes, I did."

"Any dreams?"

"None of which I can remember."

The two of you exchange these exact words every Wednesday morning by the school gate. The phrases have assimilated themselves into your daily routines. Each time, he asks you about your dreams. Each time, you respond as you always do. It isn't the reply he wants, but one he'll accept.

winter.

🧣

"Good morning, y/n. Did you sleep well?"

"Good morning, Sugawara. Yes, I did…"

Today, your hands are wrapped in white mittens, and you've added a new charm to your bookbag, he notes.

spring.

🌷

"Good morning, y/n. Did you sleep well?"

He wonders why you're always so formal, and why he goes along with it. You draw so many lines to your boundaries with people that you've become cocooned in the heart of a geometric web. That much he knows. That much he respects.

"Good morning, Sugawara. Yes, I did."

Today, your hair smells like pears, and there's a slight, warm tint to your lip balm that wasn't present before.

"Any dreams?"

Sometimes, he secretly wishes you would give him more openings, because, to be frank, he has geometric webs of his own.

"Just one."

summer.

🍉

He lies on top of his sheets with his window open, inviting the sticky breeze into his room. He thinks about the last thing you said to him before the break.

A smile blossoms across his lips as he begins to drift off with the breath of summer.

You had smelled like hope that day, the same smell that's currently permeating through his bedroom, carried by the draft. It gives him the courage to picture you for a second longer, in your wooly white mittens and tinkling book bag.

You, with your warm lips, with hair that made him buy pears every trip he took to the grocery store.

You, with your webs and boundaries and formalities.

You, who exchanged simple pleasantries with him every Wednesday morning.

You, who seemed to match the various, distinct beauties of each season.

You, who grew more beautiful with each small smile, each frosty exhale, each pink petal that fluttered into your hair, each bead of glistening perspiration rolling down your temple.

You, whom Sugawara dreams every night will have a dream of him.

Just one.

x.

[prettypeppermint]

sometimes.

for f. megumi.

Sometimes, you would play with Megumi's spiky hair, flattening his ebony spokes to his forehead just to watch them spring back up.

Sometimes, Megumi will sit next to you, arm-to-arm in symphonic silence. You both would do nothing yet so much all at once as the well-oiled gears in your fascinating minds begin to churn.

Sometimes, you will spend some serene time by yourself without Megumi. He won't mind.

Sometimes, Megumi will get dragged into a drunken karaoke night with his friends. A small smile would subconsciously blossom on your lips as you finish up your work in the comfort of your room.

Sometimes, you will stay out late at fancy restaurants with your peers, and Megumi would sleep peacefully knowing how much you will enjoy the caviar.

Sometimes, Megumi will ask you a question to which you won't respond, but the unspoken answer will waltz in the air between you two. You will both smile.

Sometimes, people will ask if you would fancy watching a movie with them, or if you would be free for dinner at 7. You would politely decline as Megumi patiently waits for you from a distance.

Sometimes, Megumi will cry. Sometimes, you will sit next to him, arm-to-arm once more, in symphonic silence once more. Sometimes, you would give him space and time.

Sometimes, you will feel overwhelmed. Megumi will know it's only natural, and that you can handle it. Sometimes, everything will become unbearable, and Megumi will stretch out a helping hand.

Sometimes, Megumi will tell you a bounty of fascinating stories. Always, you would listen to them.

Sometimes, you both will engage in book discussions on his dorm room's hardwood floor.

Often, there will be comfortable silence.

One spring evening, he asked if you wanted to be more than friends. That evening, you said yes.

Sometimes, he will cook. Sometimes, you will cook.

Sometimes, he will ask if he can kiss you.

Sometimes, you will say yes.

Always, there will be trust between you.

x.