#[ they were starved out like us and given sicknesses ]

[aworldofyou]

Before I sleep, don’t forget. Irish are indigenous peoples too by their own right, and deserve the respect warrants the name.

[awritesthings1]

All The Things We Don't Say

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Female Reader

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

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

ao3 link

-

Smash!

“Pick it up!”

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

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

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

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

You hated him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You noticed his two front teeth were missing.

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

At ten years old, you knew better than that.

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

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

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

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

You ran inside said house and slammed the door shut.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tommy laughed. “You won’t marry him.”

“What choice do I have, Tom?”

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

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

You hit his shoulder.

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

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

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

You sighed and followed his gaze.

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

Tommy scoffed.

You frowned at him. “What?”

He shook his head.

“What! Tom—”

“Don’t marry him.”

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

“You know why.”

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

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

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

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

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

You lacked the special ingredient that marriages needed: love.

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

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

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

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

“Is Tommy home?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Silence followed closely after.

“Then why are you here?” Tommy sighed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A knock came on the door: “Tommy?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your heart.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ll catch the next train then.”

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

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

You’ll never forget her dismissive laughter.

“My dear, you won’t.”

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

No. It wasn’t possible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dread made your stomach tender and your breath short.

“I’m enrolling in the Red Cross.”

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s me! Where’s Tommy and John?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I was looking for you, I—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your grip on the cover loosened. “Huh?”

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

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

“And done what?”

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

What have they done to you, Tom?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then how—”

“I had to see you.”

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

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

“About what, Thomas?”

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

You began shivering despite the way your body flushed.

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

“Bloody drunk off his ass.”

“And you?”

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

“You can go join him if you wish.”

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

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

He sighed.

“I wish that were true.”

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What have they done to you, Tom?

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tommy… it’s me.”

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

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

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

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

“Am I dead?”

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

“Can I have a smoke then?”

-

“I don’t know how to love, Tommy!”

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

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

“I shouldn’t have come tonight.”

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

“It was a mista—”

“You fucking did!”

“Tommy!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No!”

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

“You’re not cursed!”

“And I can’t stop it, Tommy!”

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

“Is it supposed to hurt?”

“It’s perfectly normal.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

“Charles! Come here!” Tommy called.

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

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

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

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

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

“No!”

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

“No!” cried your little boy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I do! I do!”

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s quieter.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Someone got shot.”

Your eyes widened. “Are Polly and—”

“They’re fine.”

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

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

“Doesn’t matter.”

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

“Would anyone want to follow us?”

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He nuzzled his nose deeper into your pulse.

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

“Italians.”

“Italians?”

“Italians sent the black hands.”

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

“Speak to me, Thomas.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The tension broke the surface then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“They’re in love, Tommy.”

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

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

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

“Act like what?”

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

“He’s sweet.”

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

“Why?”

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

“Don’t yell at me.”

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

“You’re so certain?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I will.”

-

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

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

[alixmarauders]

Why Try | poly! marauders x fem reader

slight angst, fluff

word count: 1.3k

CW: mention of not eating (previous chapter), swearing, kissing (?)

tag list: tag: @staarflowerr @mooonyxoxo @liviessun @lonely-nerd-sodaholic @hcqwxrtss123

chapter 1, chapter 2, this is chapter 3, chapter 4 will be coming soon

After the fainting accident, you decided to go for a walk together by the Black Lake, given the fact that your secret relationship wasn’t a secret anymore.

Sirius sat by a tree, gesturing for you to lay down and rest your head on his thighs; you did so, James by your side and Remus at your feet, massaging your calves. You sat in comfortable silence for a while, though you knew it was bound to end.

“I hate to interrupt this, but I feel like we have to talk” You turned your head to Remus, who was looking at you sweetly. “First, how are we gonna deal with your brother? You said he was really protective over you”

You took a deep breath, you could just keep up with this lie, or tell the truth. “He is, but he’ll get over it, I’ll deal with him”. You smiled, trying hard to school your expression in order to not seem suspicious.

“Okay doll, still you shouldn’t have to deal with him alone, you know? We are more than happy to help” James looked at you softly, and you felt like a complete asshole, lying to him like that.

The problem was, you were ashamed of your insecurities. Even it still hurt to think about them, it seemed so silly to talk, to acknowledge the fact that you were, in fact, sad over something so insignificant.

“Why did you avoid us?” You startled, looking up at Sirius.

“I didn’t-“

“You did. We were worried sick, but we didn’t want to overstep, because we aren’t official yet. If you were sad you could have come to us, we could have talk it out, you know?” He looked genuinely hurt. “What happened? I just- We just want to know, please? And also, why did you starve yourself?”

Now you were feeling ashamed and guilty. You were not right for them, you didn’t know much about Sirius family situation, but you knew that he didn’t need another thing to worry about. Remus and James had their problems, and they needed to support Sirius, definitely not you.

“Love? Talk to us, will you?”

“This was a mistake” You tried hard not to cry, to seem heartless.

“What? What was a mistake?” Sirius looked devastated, and that hurt even more.

Your voice cracked slightly. “This whole relationship thing, I’m no good for you, I ruined everything like I always do” You sniffed slightly. “I’m sorry” You quickly detangled from them.

“No, wait Y/N, I didn’t mean-“ You started walking away, James was swearing while Sirius voice sounded dangerously close to crack. “Y/N! For God’s sake, come back”

You did it. You ruined everything like you always did, but this time it was for the best. This time you were protecting them, and this made you feel slightly better.

Maybe you spoke too quickly.

Remus had your wrist in an iron grip. “Y/N. You can’t just walk away like that.” You tugged your wrist, but he didn’t let go. “No, now you’ll listen to me. You can’t run away without an explanation. Here’s what’s gonna happen: you will sit down, and you will explain what is going on in that pretty head of yours, and we will listen to you. Then, only then, we will talk this out”

You sniffled, watching Sirius and James catching up to you, the latter hugging you tightly. You broke.

“It’s just that I ruin everything, I always do!” You cried. “I don’t mean to hurt the ones I love, but I just do, look at Sirius! I might not know everything about his situation, but I know he doesn’t need to worry about me, on top of everything.” James was rubbing soothing circles on your back. “I’m not enough for you.”

Sirius forrowed his brows. “Love, don’t think for a moment that you’re a burden. You made these last weeks so full of joy, you made me worry less about everything else.“

“But you were worried about me, I didn’t mean to-“

“Listen, I’m always going to worry about the people I love, understood? I can’t just not be effected by it, so you should get used to it”

Your heart did a somersault. “Love?”

They all smiled at you gently. “Yeah, you’re becoming more important to us every day, it’s definitely starting to feel like love to us” James kissed your forehead. “We had a massive crush on you far before you started talking to us, you know? So don’t think for a moment you’re not good enough for us, because you are, I can assure you baby. Just think about the heartbreak you will put us through if you leave”

“It’s just- Look at me, why are you so interested in me? I have nothing special, I’m not super smart, I don’t look like a model, I fail at all of my hobbies! You are literally perfect, and popular, and smart and funny, I don’t get it. You are just-“ A sob broke through. “I don’t deserve you”

They all hugged you, Remus cradled your head in his hands, he was so gentle, so soft, you had no choice but to melt into his touch. “I won’t tolerate hearing you talk so badly about yourself; all of this negativity will inevitably affect your perception of yourself and our relationship, and we can’t have that, now can we?” You shook your head. “Exactly. So next time you feel like that, you will come to us, we will talk it out and then cuddle, but you just can’t disappear on us! Not even the Gray Lady would do this!”

“Yeah, Moony is right.” You looked up at Sirius. “I know that avoided us seemed like the best option, but avoiding a problem doesn’t make it go away; and just for the record, not eating doesn’t make a problem disappear, don’t neglect yourself like that ever again, for the love of God”

Your crying quieted down during Remus and Sirius’ speech, now you were looking into Moony’s eyes, you felt his breathing getting slightly more laboured.

“Can I kiss you, baby?” You breath hitched, and you nodded slightly.

You felt his lips press on yours, softly, the scar on his upper lip rubbing gently against you. His hands started making their descent, first on your waist, then at the small of your back, the tips of his fingers on the upper part of your ass. You licked at his lower lip, making him moan.

Suddenly, his tongue was in your mouth, and his hands were squeezing your ass, making you whimper. He then started trailing kisses down your neck, making your legs wobble. Sirius came up behind you, his arms around your waist.

“You like what Remus is doing to you, doll?” You nodded, incapable of saying a word. “Yeah? What if I did this?” Starting at the base of your neck, he started kissing and licking the part of your neck unoccupied. You were so lost in the things they were doing to you, you didn’t realise that Remus was actually giving you hickeys.

You felt Remus going away, you were not given the moment to mourn his loss because he was replaced with James, who started kissing you, his hands directly on your ass, squeezing softly and pressing you more into him.

“Okay, I think it’s best to stop this before it gets out of control” You blushed, Sirius smirking down at you.

“I think we should go cuddle in our dorm” James gently massaged your shoulders. “How was our first kiss, love?”

You felt your ears burning. “G-Good. It was good, fantastic actually”

They all laughed, leading you to the Gryffindor tower.

[wlntrsldler]

THE PROPHECY | LUKE CASTELLAN

synopsis: series of events between zeus!reader and luke that started the prophecy. not canon-compliant; inspired by the prophecy by taylor swift.

series masterlist | previous | next

I guess a lesser woman would've lost hope. A greater woman wouldn't beg but I looked to the sky and said "Please."

The first time you burned offerings, you had hope that your father would acknowledge you. It was the day after you got to Camp Half-Blood. You burned your entire plate of food, choosing to starve for the night, in hopes that your father would offer his condolences. Perhaps, he'd empathize with you. You both lost someone, after all, you a sister and he a child.

But nothing happened. You thought you did it wrong, that your father just didn’t hear your prayers– he wasn’t ignoring you, of course not, what parent would ignore their grieving child? You stayed up the entire night reading ancient texts, knocking on the doors of cabins to speak to head counselors for guidance. You were too naive about this life to notice the pity in their eyes then. None of them had the heart to tell you that your father wouldn't show mercy, at least not in the way you wanted him to. They never did.

You tried again the next day, only to be met with the same fate. But Luke, who had heard of your attempts, saved half of the food he was given and knocked on the door of the lonely Zeus cabin to share it with you. He'd gotten in trouble for not burning an offering that day, but he didn't care. He wasn't going to let you go to bed hungry two nights in a row. 

As the days turned into weeks and weeks into months, then years, your offerings began to get smaller and smaller, until finally, prayers became more of a chore, a thing to check off on your to-do list. It stopped meaning something. It was three years of unanswered, half-hearted, prayers. 

Luke stumbled into Camp Half-Blood midday. A large gash was across his face, blood staining his skin. He was clutching his side, shirt nearly ripped to shreds, similar to how his skin was raw and frayed under his clothes. He'd used all his strength to carry himself into camp before falling to his knees when his eyes finally found you in the chaos of it all. 

He said your name once, voice hoarse and scratchy like Ladon clawed his way inside Luke, ripping out his vocal cords, not sparing a part of him from destruction. When he finally collapsed, you ran to him, smearing the red of his blood all over your own clothes, as the Apollo kids pried you away from him.

For the first time in three years, you were going to bed hungry again. The charred remnants of what would've been your dinner created a foul scent in the air. Luke’s blood was still lodged beneath your fingertips, staining your hands even after you’ve rubbed them raw. It made you sick. 

"Dad," You pleaded, watching the smoke fade into the night sky. Your tears were flowing down your face, chest heaving as you ignored the distant sounds of the campers you were meant to be looking after. "I haven't asked you for anything in years, but now I'm asking you this. They can't take him. Please, not Luke." 

For a moment the world seemed to still. The clouds in the sky disappeared, specks of white faded into the midnight blue. You turned around, looking for a sign of life somewhere, anywhere. There was nothing but silence, no sounds of owls hooting in conversation, no whistles of the air, no chatter of the few kids who stayed at camp. 

When the flame in front of you extinguished with a whoosh, the darkness engulfed you, leaving nothing but the thin light illuminated by the moon. Black smoke rose from the pit as you looked up to the sky, "Please." 

A flash of light vanished as quickly as it came. There appeared a ragged line perfectly between the peaks of the mountains, bright white, leaving a haze of silver in your vision. Then a rumble of the earth, shaking the ground your knees were glued to. Lighting and thunder. A sign that Zeus had heard you. 

A high-pitched noise rang across the world, different frequencies like it was caused by more than just one thing. The noise made you cover your ears with your open palms, groaning as you fell over by the sheer power of it. Then the world resumed, like what you just witnessed, what you just experienced, was a glitch in the fabric of time. 

Your offerings were nothing but ashes now and the clouds returned to the sky, this time carrying the weight of water as droplets fell on your bare skin. You stood up, rushing to the infirmary, barely beating the relentless storm that was brewing. 

Lee Fletcher turned around at the sudden intrusion, eyes wide in shock for the second time that night. You stood at the door, trying to catch your breath. He smiled at you, as he took two steps to the left, then disappeared in the other room. Luke was propped on his bed, shoulders hunched over as he touched the bandages on his face. As if he felt your presence, he turned his head, wincing at the pain that shot up his spine when he overextended. Even with one eye taped shut, you saw his gaze soften. 

His voice came out as a whisper, barely audible, but you still heard it. "Hey, you." 

Your body seemed to have a mind of its own. If it wasn't for the sounds of your footsteps pounding against the wooden floors, if it wasn't for your hands reaching over to touch Luke's face, warmth spreading against your skin to anchor you, to show you that he's really there in front of you, you wouldn't have believed that this was real. 

The gods were cruel sometimes. They messed with your head until you were questioning your own sanity. At first, you thought this was one of their games, one of the things they did to toy with mortals for their own entertainment. Perhaps, Luke wasn’t really here; But then you felt it– his heart. Thump. Thump. Thump. Home. This was real.

"You're okay," You cried, hands grazing over every part of his body. You tried to ignore the raised flesh under the bandages, running across large expanses of his skin. The scars were still fresh, blotches of red marking the white cloth. "You're okay." 

"I'm okay," He repeated, a side smile appearing on his face. His hands gripped your waist, needing to feel you just as much as you needed to feel him. Luke wanted to tell you that all he thought of was you the whole time. Even when the sides of his vision darkened, and all he could do was drag himself through the familiar neck of the Montauk woods, it was the image of you that he kept chasing. 

You, waiting for him under the shade of Thalia’s tree. You, shaking him awake in the Hermes cabin to start your rounds around camp. You, smiling at him like there was something worth living for in this life. You. 

Luke wanted to tell you that it was the promise of spending life with you, even if he was nothing more than your best friend to you, that kept him hanging onto the thread of life. If he survived this, he swore to himself that he'd tell you how he truly felt about you. He couldn't die without you knowing.

"I shouldn't have lied to you," You said, "I should've told you to stay like I wanted to." 

Luke shook his head, "This isn't on you. I wasn't fit to go on this quest. I failed." 

"You're the strongest person I know, Luke." 

"This wasn't a test of strength," He snarled. Luke always got like this when he talked about things related to his father and the gods. Resentment dripped from his voice like honey. It wasn't a tone you were too familiar with because he never spoke to you like this. "I was right. This was a test of something else. He sent me on this quest to fail... and I fell for it." 

Luke did things with conviction. He was born to be a leader and it showed. He never cowered from a challenge. He held his head high, even when things didn't go his way. He learned from his mistakes and he made sure it would never happen again. 

But sometimes, in the rare moments where the pain of failure pierces his heart, he turns into the little boy you once met. The same one who did things for the approval of his father. The same one who defied the odds and fell into the traps of the insincerity of the gods. The same one who blamed himself for not being good enough– not good enough to save his mother from the Oracle, not good enough to save his friend, not good enough to warrant more than two sentences from his father. 

You always said that you and Luke were two sides of the same coin, both burdened by the feeling of knowing you should’ve done more, but differed in the way you went about life. Luke welcomed his responsibilities, fueled by his search for glory, while you shied away from this life as much as you could. 

Your mouth felt dry as the heavy raindrops trickled against the window pane, "I'm glad you're still here." 

"I couldn't leave you here on your own," He replied, voice dropping to a whisper. His hands tugged you closer to him. You let him wrap his arms around you, feeling his heart against your chest. "Can I tell you something?" 

"Always." 

"I–" This was it. He couldn't wait anymore, not when he faced death and all he could think of was how his heart would ache, longing for you, until your time came to join him in the afterlife. Even on the brink of his demise, all he could think of was you. He wasn’t afraid of dying, he was afraid of being in Elysium without you. Would it even be a paradise if you weren’t there?

Luke's words got caught in his throat. His confidence was at an all-time low. If you rejected him now, he doesn't think he'd be able to bear it. He didn't think he could handle the thought of facing the repercussions of this failed quest without you by his side. He cleared his throat, "I-I'm tired. Will you stay here tonight?" 

You nodded, running your hands through his hair as you gently laid him down on the bed, careful not to put pressure on his wounds. You kept your distance, afraid to cause more harm than good, but Luke was not having any of it. He wrapped his arms around your waist, pulling you flush against his weak body. He couldn’t move much in fear that he’d tear his skin even more with any slight movement, but that was the least of his worries. In fact, he had no worries now.

He made it to Camp Half-Blood, alive, albeit a failure, but he was with you. There were no worries in the world anymore. 

“Luke?” You whispered. You turned to face him, recognizing the face you’ve grown to love even in the darkness of the cabin. The flashes of lightning illuminated his face every so often. Despite all of this, he still looked beautiful. Your Luke always did. 

“Hm?” He hummed, eye fluttering open at the sound of your voice. The noise of the storm was drowned out by your soft breaths against his cheek, warm and comforting. “What is it?” 

“You know I love you, right?” You professed, reaching up to touch the uncovered side of his face. He melted into your touch, feeling safe and seen in such a small action. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you didn’t make it.” 

“You should know by now that I’ll never leave you,” He chuckled, nudging your nose with his. “I’ll be kicking and screaming if they ever try to keep me away from you. They’ll have to send more than one dragon to keep me from you.” 

You laughed, “You’re insane, you know that?.” 

“I know,” He looked down at your lips. You’d both been in situations like this before, caught in the magnetic pull of each other, but had enough strength to pull away before either of you could do anything that would lead to regret. “For the record, I love you, too.” 

“Do you?” You breathed out, wondering if he understood your question. You said it to each other often. You both let it linger in the air, subtext and unsaid words on the tips of your tongues. “Do you love me?” 

The way you were looking at him made his heart race. Is it the right time to tell you everything? Is it too soon? Will you think that he was just saying these things because of what happened? Would you trust him if he told you that he loved you in every way that a person could ever love another? 

If he asked you if you trusted him with your life, you’d say yes with no hesitation. You’d trusted him with your life since you first met him. All his life, Luke had been taught to be wary of the people he met, but not when he met you. It was like you saw right through him. You understood him like nobody he’d ever met. 

“I love you,” He said, hoping that it was enough to show you. If he had his way, he would let you peek into his mind, his soul, and his heart, just so you’d see that all of him yearned for you. 

“Do you–” You paused, tilting your head to brush your lips against his. The storm began to calm outside. “Do you love me like this?” 

Luke’s grip on your waist tightened, hands burning against the exposed flesh on your lower back, “Yes. Always.” 

You sighed, placing your lips on his. You felt Luke shiver at the feeling. His lips moved against your own in a gentle kiss, innocent and kind. The rain ceased. You pulled away from him, continuing to trace patterns on his skin. Luke’s face relaxed as he held you in his arms, letting the tiredness in his bones win. 

When the both of you woke the next morning, the sun was shining brightly through the curtains, with no traces of last night’s storm to be seen.

[five-and-dimes]

Sunbeam

Part 1 of 4

Using the Dreaming Bingo Adoptable prompt: Cat Ears

Rating: M

Ship: Dreamling

Warnings: Past abuse (not explicit, just implied past warprize things)

Additional Tags: Cat!Dream, Cow!Hob, King/warprize, hurt/comfort

Summary: King of the cow Kingdom, Hob is given a cat person as a warprize, and he'd give him the very sun if he could. But perhaps some sunbeams will be good enough.

Read on AO3

It takes a village to make an au like this- It all started on our fav @gabessquishytum 's blog (specifically these posts), plus a lot of inspo from discord, and Hob's design based on the amazing art of @amielot. Thanks for feeding my obsession with this au, friends! 🤘

~~~

By the time Hob makes it back to his room, finally released from a dull morning council meeting, it is nearly afternoon. And Dream is kneeling on the floor.

It’s been a little over a week since King Hob was gifted the cat person now staying in his private chambers. When Dream had been presented to him, Hob remembers feeling a mix of emotions- rage and sorrow and confusion and offense. The bovine kingdom did not trade in people. 

(Not anymore.)

He had wanted to refuse the ‘gift’ out of principle. But he had looked down at the wounded, far too thin creature in front of him and knew immediately that he could not let him go back with his captors. So he had accepted the offering with the minimal amount of politeness to not start a war. He had beckoned the cat to him, and learned that his name was Dream, and that he was too weak to make it up the stairs to Hob’s room. His body was withered and wasted, starved and neglected, even a short walk leaving him panting and shaking. Hob had waved the guards away and lifted him up into his own arms to carry him the rest of the way.

Dream had trembled against him, no matter how Hob tried to reassure him. Part of him still wonders if it was a mistake to bring the poor man into Hob’s own chambers, to lay him on his own soft bed when his fears were so obvious. But Hob could not bear the thought of leaving him alone and scared in some strange room in the palace. In truth, he wanted desperately to care for him himself. Some part of his heart had been given to the cat the moment Hob saw him, and he was determined to see him healed. 

The first night was hard, and Dream continued shivering even as he drank from Hob’s chest, falling into a fitful sleep in Hob’s bed after being tugged away guiltily to ensure he didn’t make himself sick drinking too much too fast. In the days since, Hob has left him in his room as he went about his business throughout the day, returning to check on him and feed him, and always finding him in the exact spot on the bed where he left him. Until today.

It had been raining for much of the week, but today the sun was streaming through the open windows, the light falling vibrantly across the floor in the center of the bedroom. Dream was crouched at the edge of the thick rug placed beneath the bed, reaching one long arm out to dip just the very tips of his fingers into the light, his face full of equal parts longing and trepidation. 

It is a look Hob remembers on his own face when he was a young calf, sneaking into his mother’s study and standing on the tips of his hooves to admire her golden collar and bell. He would tap it, giggling at the heavy chime, feeling mischievous as he imagined a day in the future when the beautiful adornment would be passed on to him. He also recalls getting caught, his mother admonishing him sternly yet fondly, and the way he never once felt fear of her.

He put his grimly little child’s hands all over literal gold, and he never felt anywhere near the blatant terror he sees now on Dream’s face at being caught reaching for a sunbeam.

“I apologize, my lord,” Dream scrambled frantically back onto the bed, folding his limbs to kneel and forcing his hands to release his robe, laying them in his lap meekly. It broke Hob’s heart every time, the way he so clearly wanted to hold the robe closed around his body and just as clearly expected it to be torn away from him.

He had been given to Hob naked.

The robe he wore now was meant for a calf, too short and too wide and still the best fit they could find for the cat until the tailors finished the custom robe they were working on. Dream had been near tears when he was presented with something to cover himself, bowing his head and offering anything and everything of himself in thanks. So grateful. All for a robe that didn’t even fit.

Hob approached the bed slowly, smiling gently even when he wanted to cry for the poor creature, “You’ve done nothing wrong, sweetheart.”

Dream shivered, keeping his gaze downcast, “I should not have moved without your permission, master.” 

Hob flinched at the title. As king he was accustomed to being referred to as lord and sire and majesty- it was only appropriate, and he did expect to be given the respect due his station. But he was no one’s master.

Right now though, he had to choose his battles. “You are free to move about the room, Dream,” it was true that Dream clearly needed rest, but his heart ached to think of Dream sitting stiffly wherever Hob ‘put him’. He turned and gestured at the sunlit spot, “You may even move some of the pillows or blankets from the bed, should you wish to lay in the sun.”

Dream looks horrified at the very idea, ears pinned back in fear, “I would never, sire,” his voice nearly pleading for Hob to believe him, as though he is being tested.

Hob feels his own ears droop, before straightening with resolve. He keeps his motions clear, walking to the bed to gather an armful of pillows. Dream keeps his head down, but his eyes follow Hob’s movements as he begins arranging the pillows on the floor where the sunlight is hitting. He adds a few blankets to the pile too, until he has a little nest in the middle of the room, soft and sunlit. 

Dream still hasn’t moved.

“Come here, Love,” Hob keeps his voice soft and soothing, but Dream still tenses when Hob scoops him up into his arms easily, so frighteningly light, “You must be hungry. Breakfast feels like ages ago.”

As much as Hob wishes he could sustain Dream with his milk alone, they had begun introducing some light foods- small morsels of fish, and select vegetables that the royal librarian deemed safe for cat people- into his breakfast and dinner. In between though, Hob fed him himself. Hob was used to being responsible for an entire kingdom, to making decisions that were far and long lasting and praying that he might make his country even a little bit better each day. And he was proud of his position, he would not trade it for anything. But there was something so special about being able to hold this one person in his arms and see the good he was doing. 

It still took some encouragement. As he settles into the nest, leaning back against the pillows and facing the window so that Dream can sit in his lap in the direct sunlight, Dream is still tense and trembling. Hob shushes him gently, slipping his shirt over his head before placing one hand at the back of Dream’s head to guide him to his chest. He remembers how confused Dream had been the first night when Hob had fed him, opening his mouth wide like he might for a different part of Hob’s body, unsure of what was expected of him. He had allowed himself to be maneuvered without any resistance until Hob was finally able to get a few drops of milk onto his tongue. He had watched as Dream’s eyes had widened, pupils dilating as he licked his lips in something like disbelief. 

After that it was a little easier. He is still nervous and hesitant, but Hob is able to press his mouth to his nipple and say, “Drink,” softly, more of a request than an order even if Dream does not yet recognize it as such. Hob shivers at the sensation as Dream begins to suckle, biting his lip to hold back a groan. He turns his gaze up to the ceiling, trying to distract himself from the sensation. Dream shifts in his lap and Hob has to mentally recite every trade detail he’d been given at his morning meeting in order to restrain himself from moving his hips.

The first night, Dream had looked so resigned when he finally noticed the hard prick in the lap he was sitting on. Hob had just pushed him back, not wanting him to throw up what was most likely the first substantial meal he’d had in who knows how long. He had looked so sorrowful, gazing longingly at Hob’s chest, and then he leaned back and gasped, Hob’s cock hard and hot against his hip. 

He had seemed to wilt, any relaxation Hob had coaxed from feeding him vanished, and he spoke like he was reciting a script, “How shall I repay you, master?”

Hob had felt his blood run cold at the title, “There is nothing to repay, sweet one,” he promised, his smile more of a grimace. Dream had stared at him in blatant disbelief, and as much as Hob wanted to keep holding him, he knew his body’s response was not helping the situation. So he had moved Dream off his lap, tucked him under the bed covers to sleep off his meal, and then gone and taken a long bath to take care of the problem.

It is a routine he has kept ever since. Dream no longer asks what Hob wants in return, though he still looks at him expectantly, and Hob smiles and pets him and then excuses himself to the bath to spend as much time as he needs pleasuring himself. And if he spends that time imagining the soft pads of Dream’s hands, or his sandpaper tongue, or the few glimpses he’s gotten of Dream’s enticingly barbed cock, well, no one needs to know.

Glancing back down at the cat in his arms, Hob is drawn now to Dream’s ears. His own are soft, yes, but they are also thick and sturdy. Dream’s are so thin. Even with the blackness of his fur, the sun seems to shine through at the very tips, a soft glowing pink with little veins just barely visible. Almost without thinking, Hob moves the hand on the back of Dream’s head to lightly grip one ear between his fingers.

Unsurprisingly, Dream startles, a frightened chirp escaping him as he releases Hob’s teat. 

“Shhh,” Hob soothes, nudging Dream back towards his nipple, “It’s alright, you can have some more.” He has to be careful not to let Dream make himself sick, he had been warned by the palace physician what to look out for, but they were nowhere near that point yet. Dream shyly begins suckling again, eyes glancing up at Hob through his eyelashes for approval. “Good boy,” Hob praises, and Dream’s eyes flutter shut, relaxing minutely.

In his hand, he runs his thumb across Dream’s ear. So soft, so delicate and paper thin. He feels a strange compulsion to put it in his mouth. Not to bite, like he did with his playmates growing up- Dream feels too frail for that sort of roughhousing, and Hob does not ever want to hurt him. 

No, he wants to hold his silky ear in his mouth like a delicacy, wants to lick and suck at it as gently as Dream does to his teat until the gossamer fur is wet and warm from his tongue.

For now, he settles for simply rubbing the skin between his fingers, stroking the velvet softness in a feeble attempt to distract himself from his own lust. Eventually, too soon for his or Dream’s liking but in accordance with the doctor, Hob must gently push Dream away, his chest feeling emptier and yet still too full. All he wants is to feed Dream until he is fully sated. It hurts that, for now, he cannot.

Dream has become more accustomed to the routine, and so his whimper is nearly inaudible when leans back in Hob’s lap. Hob can feel the way his ears go from lax contentment to physically pressed down, tense and flat against his head. Or trying to be, at least, in the case of the ear still in Hob’s hand. 

“I’m sorry,” Hob coos, “I know you want more, just have to wait a couple hours, Love.”

“You have been more than generous, master,” Dream replied shakily, and Hob suddenly realizes that he does not want to run away to sequester himself in the baths. 

At the moment, his body is not betraying him, at least not so much that his robes do not hide it. And so he shushes Dream again and turns him in his lap, easy as a doll, until they are both facing the window. He nestles Dream between his thighs, bracketing him between thick, warm fur and tugging him to lean back against the softness of his belly. He feels Dream’s breath hitch as he brings his free hand around to rest softly on the subtle swell of his stomach. 

“Relax,” Hob whispered, one hand on his ear while the other rubbed his stomach soothingly, helping encourage his starved body to digest the meal it’s been given, “Just relax.”

As he strokes Dream’s trembling belly and pets his ear, Hob cannot help but tilt his face into the sun. He thinks perhaps he has taken this warmth and light for granted. How many times has he awoken and scowled at the light streaming across his bed? How often has he walked past these sunbeams, stepped across the warm fibers of his extravagant rug, and not even spared them a glance? Now, feeling his body warm- feeling Dream’s body warm- in the glowing light, he feels a pang of regret that he has not appreciated this simple pleasure before.

Well, he is appreciating it now. He smiles to himself as he feels Dream slowly relax under his ministrations, body melting back against him and sinking into Hob’s abundant, pillowy flesh. Hob thinks that if he could, he would keep Dream here, surrounded by his body, soft and warm, forever. 

Maybe he can’t hold him forever, but he can hold him now. And maybe it is too soon to mouth at Dream’s silky ears and press his tongue to them like a salt lick, but he allows himself to press a fleeting kiss to the one in his hand. 

Dream doesn’t flinch. And that is more than enough for now.

[mystiffox]

— the apple's falling from the tree

from Cross: The Star Sans by @overflowofcrows

star!cross makes me incredibly ill with the tragic found family vibes ... (lays on the floor)

also have some doodles too (slight spoilers on the fic's lore below! to explain some of my thoughts on clothes n stuff)

does Cross have a star necklace in the fic? no, probably not. did i show off about my thoughts on a star necklace to Simple anyway? yes, yes i did. anyway idc where u think the necklace is from (whether its a gift from dream or a remold of his broken heart necklace, who knows atp) now ONTO THE GANG (+ Error and Fresh)

to preface this: im mostly assuming for most of the lore beyond the crumbs given to me. so, i'd imagine that when the fight ended with the gang losing, Dream and Ink immediately jailed them up. they both seem keen on keeping the gang alive, so they probably would've tried to help them with anything to make sure of it- that is, if any of the gang would even accept it in the first place.

i'm making a small guess that if there were any wounds, they used what they had to take care of it, aka ripping out parts of their own clothing to use as makeshift bandages. dream might've gave them some supplies (out of pity.. or something) but whether that was not enough or not used, i won't know

even if it was enough, there's still the factor of inevitable outburst/breakdowns from any of the prisoners. i'd imagine it'd be so hard to calm any of them down because the gang were too used to being close together that using touch became the usual grounding method— so putting a barrier between them makes it infintely harder for everyone.

i think Nightmare doesn't use his jacket anymore. it probably feels like shit/too itchy and ragged to wear and reminds him of a past he wishes he could forget. (he must feel so helpless seeing all his boys suffer after taking care of them for so long... like a lost father trying his best and seeing how much he's failing at the same time.. man.)

Dust is almost always wrapped in a blanket, the hoodie completely zipped up as if he was trying to hide in it, keeping himself as small as possible (knowing his own breakdowns are the biggest And loudest)

Horror is probably yanked back to the memories of when he was back in his home au, quietly starving and losing all the progress he had with the gang.. trying to press himself against the barriers in hopes that maybe he can feel the others on the other side of it.. (one of his outbursts would be why he ripped off the sleeves of his jacket id assume)

Killer too.. unable to get to anyone and just. with his soul going haywire sometimes, having no available output that he's forced to ride it out on his own And in front of everyone.. yeah, you get the gist for those three

Error's a mess of threads- picks at his clothes and sews em back up, just to have a reason to move his hands. he's not too worried i'd say- it's a little reminiscent of the antivoid, and he's experienced insanity already (not to say it doesn't tug at his own soul-strings to see it happen to everyone else)

Fresh might be the "cleanest" out of everyone, with barely any visible tears, but i have a good feeling his body language is different. maybe the cap is now worn correctly. maybe he took off his jacket. he's tense. his guard is up. because a parasite would never want to be locked up in one place, right?

god.

God.

they make me so sick (message is mine btw)

[x-hotoke]

HEADCANNONS on how they treat you as their brother !

writer's note: this is a MALE reader insert. Idfk why gojo's part is so long like what

warnings: yandere themes, unhinged characters, obsessive themes, use of you/your pronouns.

characters: gojo satoru, nobara kugisaki, megumi fushiguro.

GOJO SATORU as your little brother

Satoru is a cocky and playful little brother any one can get, ever since he was 5 — he would latch onto you at every chance he gets.

Being Satoru's older brother had its pros and cons; one of the advantages was that you get to be spoiled by him rottenly daily even if you didn't want to. You worked as a teacher at the Tokyo Jujutsu High before getting driven out by your little brother during his second year there.

You couldn't stay mad at him for long because he was your baby brother, you can forgive but never forget. He would force you to comb his hair while he sits on the ground and you are on the bed. He would rant about ridiculous things as well as his students which you would scowl at him every time he would mention.

He would often bring you food that he thought that you would like but in the end you would politely decline it because it doesn't suit your taste in which he gets all pissy about, yelling how ungrateful you are then leaves the room after. He would come back the day after with a load of shopping bags with him as a sign of apology.

Satoru is the type of brother who would whine for your attention and annoy the heck out of you. But don't be fooled by his childish behaviours, he is the strongest sorcerer in the modern era. Any wrong move you make will result in bad outcomes.

Let's move onto the punishments, he doesn't do it often and lets you get away with some things because he knows you wouldn't cross the line, you learned your lesson last time. His punishments are harsh and brutal, considering you're a former teacher in Jujutsu High, he knows that you can see the curses. He would leave you in a place with curses scrawling around until you learned your lesson or; he would physically and mentally harm you.

The first time you went out of the estate, he went crazy when he got home, searching every nook and cranny for you before finding you outside a shop, looking at something inside the window. He dragged you back to your room, scolding you like crazy.

If he's generous enough, he would chain your leg or wrist to the bed if you escape or would starve your for days then lecturing you as if you're the younger brother between the two of you.

Asking help from the servants? He'll isolate you in your room for days with only one meal being given to you per day. It made you frail and easily sick which satoru loved.

No one would help you — if it means satisfying Gojo Satoru, they'll do anything.

Whenever you would assert your role to him as his older brother, he waves you off — not bothering to even give you a glance as he hums sitting on the chair next to your bed.

But he does try his best to make you feel better afterwards by showering you with expensive and lavish gifts and also food that you love and maybe you can visit the school again — and ask for help.

KUGISAKI NOBARA as your big sister

She was there when you were brought out to earth, standing next to your mother who held you in her arms in awe. You were so little and handsome, she was quick to learn on how to take care of you so you wouldn't bother both of your mother's sleep.

Nobara would keep an eye out for you, taking things from your hands that would pose a threat to you but in reality it doesn't.

By the time you got to the age of 12, she was 16. The two of you left the village after she felt conflicted — disgusted by the villagers who drove Saori and her family out of the village. She doesn't know why but all she can think for now is how she'll take care of her younger brother.

It was a miracle that Gojo let nobara keep you in her dorm in fear of losing you if you were to live outside Jujutsu High. She couldn't bear the thought of it. Every time she has to go on a mission or hang out with her friends, she would come back with gifts, she knew you would like.

You weren't really allowed outside her dorm, locked in a small place made you lonely and desperate for attention — as a child, you thought of her as the best sister in the whole world could ever offer. Every time she comes back, she would play knight and the dragon with you.

But on some stressful days, she would straight up ignore you for the whole day and by tomorrow she would act as if nothing ever happened.

The first time you went out on your own was when Gojo came inside her dorm, seeing you sitting on the ground playing with your toys. He dragged you with him, showing you around the technical college. After she found out about it, she was calm unlike Gojo since you were only a child. But she can't lie — the moment she opens the door to her dorm, she expects to be greeted but you are nowhere to be found.

Gojo apologized after that, giggling seeing how furious she was with him.

For the punishments, I don't think she would punish you in any way that can physically harm you. Taking your toys would be her number 1 punishment if you do something that irritates her. But overall, she finds no reason to punish you.

FUSHIGURO M. as your big brother

Megumi ever since both of your dad left, tsumiki and him were the ones who took care of you. They would pack your lunch — megumi going as far as to pick pocket for a couple of yen as long as you get something to eat during break time.

When a tall white haired man came to pick megumi up, he was shocked at you — he didn't expect another child. Toji didn't tell him about you, only megumi. You whined to megumi about how you wanted to see tsumiki again.

By the time both of you were at the school, he was suspicious and would make you stand behind him every time someone would be introduced to the both of you.

As time goes on — you are now 10 and he was 15. He trusted you enough to be a second year like him as long as you can protect yourself.

But one time you got injured very bad, he freaked out — not knowing what to do. He called Gojo in hopes he could do something. After that incident, you weren't allowed to go outside your dorm nor even join the three along with missions.

Worry and fear clouded megumi's mind, he feared for the worst where you'll get heavily injured during a mission and he won't be there to rescue you.

He went as far as asking Gojo to make locks from the outside of your door. The white headed male agreed nonetheless.

The first time you escaped — it wasn't pretty. You could hear howling from afar. The dogs pounced on you, biting your leg which made you scream out in pain. As I said; it wasn't pretty. You heard a whistle before passing out from blood loss.

By the time you wake up, chains wrapped around your wrist and leg. He wouldn't isolate you like everyone else — He would bring his friends in, who you couldn't ask for help. He knew you were scared of Yuji and he would purposely make him go closer to you.

The Punishments are harsh from him — it doesn't matter if what you did was small. He would make his dogs back you up in a corner before letting them do whatever they want. You were afraid of dogs when you were a kid and up until now you still are.

After that — he would treat your wounds, he won't comfort you—no no no—he would berate you. Once he was satisfied, he would sit at the edge of the bed unresponsive while looking at the ground.

Overall he wouldn't hurt you himself, he can't imagine him doing that to you. He loves you too much to do so. That's why he makes his divine dogs do it for him.

[niki-phoria]

Hii!! It’s been a while since I requested something here, but I had an idea yesterday soo 🎉

Okay, first I saw that in TXT’s comeback showcase Soobin was coughing a lot, so my idea was gn reader Taking care of Soobin because he’s upset because he got sick right on comeback day. He gets annoyed at first but ends up crying in your arms because his throat is sore and his nose is congested so he can’t sing well and feels like he’ll mess everything up.

I imagined it with soobin first but this would be really cute with Beomgyu too. Please do whatever you feel comfortable with. Thank you!!! 💕💕

BE MY ETERNITY, SAY MY NAME

pairing: beomgyu x gn!reader (no pronouns used) genre: fluff/comfort word count 623

notes: thank you for requesting !! i just posted a soobin fic so i chose beomgyu for this one, i hope you like it <33 implied 06th member kinda, beomgyu cries a little bit, starting a 2k event pls consider checking it out !! title from txt - deja vu

“are you alright?” beomgyu’s tired eyes only meet your own for a second before he nods, brushing your concerns off with a simple “i’m fine” mumbled beneath his breath. you weren’t the first person who had asked him that dreaded question that afternoon, but you were the first person who called him out on the lie. 

beomgyu pauses when you reach over, gently resting your hand against his shoulder. he can feel the way your eyes study his features: red-rimmed eyes; sluggish movements; quiet, raspy words. all the tell-tale signs of the flu. 

“are you sure?” you’re closer now, reaching up to rest the back of your free hand against his forehead. beomgyu’s skin is slightly clammy and overly warm to the touch. “you feel really warm. did you catch a cold?”

“...i feel fine.” the words are hollow. beomgyu poorly stifles a cough beneath his breath - like his scratchy throat is karma for trying to lie to you. “my throat just hurts a little.”

you don’t believe him. he can tell by the way your eyebrows furrow just a little bit and how your hand has now fallen to his side, your arm wrapping around beomgyu’s waist to support him - even indirectly. “let’s take a break. you can lie down for a little while.”

you’re coaxing him to rest. to go to sleep - hopefully long enough to starve off the worst of the sickness before it comes. you won’t say the words outright because you know he’ll deny you in the hopes of making it through the rest of the week without having to mention how he feels like he’ll fall over if he stands upright for too long or how his nose is so stuffy that he can’t breathe properly. he knows exactly what you’re doing. 

but unfortunately for beomgyu, he can’t say no to you. and laying down for a while doesn’t sound like the worst thing right now.

“okay,” he nods, silently following after you. you smile softly when he agrees, slowly leading him towards your bedroom. beomgyu bites his tongue as you guide him towards your bed before you pull the blankets over him. he almost feels a little helpless - forcibly wrapped up in your covers and being unable to stand for more than a few minutes without becoming dizzy. 

he doesn’t protest when you slide into the empty space beside him. instead, beomgyu wraps his arms around you, leaning his face against your chest. you pull him a little closer in return, gently rubbing a hand against his back. “you don’t have to push yourself this hard, you know. it’s okay to ask for a break.”

he remains silent for a few minutes. you don’t ask for a response; your hand rubs soothing circles against his skin. your reassurance is given without any expectation for a response.

“i just… don’t want to let anybody down,” beomgyu whispers. he sniffles before nuzzling himself even closer to you, pressing his face against the crook of your neck. “we worked so hard on the comeback and now i can’t even perform it.”

“you could never let us down. i know how hard you worked for this, and so does everybody else,” beomgyu clings to you a little tighter when you move your hand upwards to run your hand through his hair. the strands are soft as you tangle them between your fingers. your nails gently massage against his scalp. “all that matters is that you try your best. and i know that you do.”

beomgyu doesn’t answer. at least, not verbally. he simply closes his eyes, letting your whispered reassurances fill the room and hoping you don’t mind the stray tears that occasionally land against the skin of your neck.

taglist (open! send an ask/dm to be added): @sunoooism @besciitos @nxzz-skz

if you liked this fic, please consider leaving a like, comment, feedback, or rebloging !! and if you want to support me, check out my txt materlist <33

[selfishdoll]

NOW PLAYING…. HEARTBEAT

I wish we never fucked, and I mean that

HIS BLOODBAG ! vamp! kashimo hajime

cw: angst if you squint, reader is seen as a bloodbag & nothing more (at first), lowkey groveling kashimo, rough sex, frustrated kashimo, degradation & praise, mutual pining, kashimo is dumb when it comes to love, reader is sick of his shit fr, chubby reader, big dick kashimo, multiple orgasms, usage of pet names (pretty, good girl, sweetheart, etc), etc.

i saw fanart of him with fangs & i just had to. also this was going to go in a completely different direction but i started listening to jasmine sullivan & produced this. @kvsh1moz kept interrupting so i forgot to add biting i’m sorry y’all 😞

You were food and a release; nothing more and nothing less.

A savory taste attached to a warm plush body that Kamshiro Hajime sought to use however he wished. Your meeting was pure chance, the vampire coming across you while on a starving night. He still remembers what you wore: black heels, a long sleeve dress that rested at your ankles; hugging your curves so nicely so that he saw every dip, roll, and the nice shape of your ass. That was his only focus that night; your body and blood within your veins.

He doesn’t remember how he got his fill, how he got to feel you— and he doesn’t care. With your permission, with your obedience, he came again and again; seeking you out when he needed to feed or get his dick wet.

Like explained before, you were a bloodbag. You knew this all to well given Kamshiro told you little about himself and would stop you whenever you attempted to show affection. Pushing you away when you attempted to pleasure him, getting off the bed when you tried to cuddle; by the third time you got the message quickly. He was a vampire and you a lowly human, the dynamics wouldn’t work in an actual relationship.

It pained you at first. Your little heart yearning for this beast. Maybe you deluded yourself in thinking he was in love with you, given the way he treated you as if you were a goddess. Calloused hands tracing your skin, appreciating each mark, pudge, and scar that tainted it.

Perfect.. My perfect, girl.


Was what Hajime would mutter right into your ear, spearing you on his cock— bullying you open with his length.

Maybe you couldn’t blame yourself. Any hopeless romantic would fall for that. And any hopeless romantic would hope he did as well.

But, of course, he didn’t. You were a bloodbag.

Nothing more and nothing less.

Your title slowly set in as months of your little escapades passed, the spark diminishing as they went by. You would be so into it at the moment, relishing under the pleasure he was giving you, happy to feed him with your blood. Until it all came crashing down the moment his body left your own.

One night, you had enough. Kashimo had came for the third time that week, hands caressing your body, ready to sink his fangs into you. The moment you shied away from his touch, however— he released you, eyes casing your body.

Your face, features, the way your chest was pumping with heavy breaths.

“You’re upset.”

“Yeah, I am.” You mumbled, adjusting your clothing back to the way it was. You turned to fully face him, yet refusing to meet his eyes. “I’m sick of this, Kashimo. This, this game— You come and go as you please..” Your head tilted to the side, “Using me.”

The room was silent for a moment before a sigh escaped the cyan-haired man infront of you. “I told you, not to fall in love with me.”

Hot tears threatened to spill from your eyes, head snapping to glare at him. “Yeah, well— sorry us humans aren’t as easy like you vampires are!“ You hissed, stepping forward. Kashimo glanced down at you, surprise twinkling in his eyes. You were never so forward or rather, direct with him. You played and skipped around your words a lot around him. A trait he found cute at the time.

But now, he knew you were serious. From the way your hands clenched to how you stared at him dead on.

“[Name]—“

“Don’t, [Name] me! Just— just get the fuck out!” You shouted loudly, raising to push at his form. He didn’t budge an inch and yet you still tried, smashing your hands into his chest. “Out of my house, out of my life! I never want to see you again, Kashimo!” You were in sobs at this point, hot tears trailing down your cheeks.

The man left without a single word. Left you there, in your kitchen— on your knees cradling yourself as you cried.

Two weeks passed since that episode, regretting your words each night you were left without warmth. You fucked up really, falling for a man like him. For a vampire. You truly forgot your place.

He would live for years, while tomorrow wasn’t promised for you at all. You were only a temporary spot in his life, a fact you ignored like an idiot. If you could go back in time you would ignore the invitation of Kashimo, realizing he was much more trouble then you could afford.

Tonight was no different than the previous, coming home from a long shift to your empty house. It was bittersweet. You missed his smell staining the air, missed his eyes watching your every move whenever he happened to enter your house before you. How Kashimo got in without a key was beyond you.

After a hot shower you exited the bathroom into your bedroom, settling down onto your bed and slowly peeling your fluffy towel off your damp body. Reaching over, you grabbed the vaseline from your dresser; scooping some into your hand and sliding it across your body. Once perfectly lathered and moisturized you pulled a silky black nightgown on, deciding to forgo panties given you were about to go to sleep.

And that’s when you heard it, a thud. Soft enough to cast off as the wind or maybe even a branch. But familiar enough a shiver went down your spine.

You rose from your bed, creeping out of your bedroom spotting a tall shadow at the end of the hallway. You gulped a bit, searching for something, anything to use. Once your gaze rested on your broom you snatched it away from the wall, holding it infront of you as if to use as a weapon. You held the pole tightly, attempting to ignore your nerves with each step you took.

As you grew closer and closer to the end of the hallway, you felt your heartbeat quicken. Until finally, you jumped out from behind the wall, eyes landing on the intruder.

Kashimo fucking Hajime.

Your previous scared expression turned drastically, jaw locking as you tossed the broom to the ground. “You don’t, fucking listen.”

“[Name].”

“I gave you such clear instructions, too!” You huffed loudly, walking over to your dining room table. You needed to busy yourself, you couldn’t face him. Looking at him again would only cause previously ditched emotions to arise, and you couldn’t let your resolve melt away like that. “Or are vampires suddenly deaf or something?” You would huff, aimlessly moving the mail around on the chocolate brown table.

“[Name].” Kashimo called once again, except, much closer. You turned around, back pressing against the table as the man towered over you— a breath’s away. Your eyes quickly fell to the ground, watching as he leaned; placing his hands onto the table behind you. “Look at me.”

You went silent, trying to ignore him. Something, he couldn’t bare.

For the last two weeks, Kashimo Hajime had an epiphany. For the first time in his bloodsucking life, he realized he was missing something. You.

He was too foolish to realize how much he wanted you, how his mind told himself you were simply a bloodbag.. while his body? Treated you how he wanted, like his. His to love, to care for, to be with. It was, frustrating. Kashimo had never fell in love before. It was pointless anyway, being tied to a single person — vampire or not — for his entire life.

And yet you creeped into his heart, plaguing it.

Torturing him when you declared you never wanted to see him again.

And now when you couldn’t even look him in the eye.

“[Name]…”

Your eyebrows furrowed, annoyed by his third call of your name. “What, Kashimo? What—“ Your next words were swallowed by his lips, pulling the air out of you with how deep the kiss was. Your body reacted as if muscle memory, finding his broad shoulders, pressing yourself into his form. She missed him, more than you wanted to admit.

His hands moved away from the table over to your thighs, lifting you and placing you on top of the table. The man then pulled away, staring down at you with such fire in his eyes. “I missed you. I.. I need you. I was stupid to ignore your feelings, and mine too.”

Your hands slowly fell from his shoulders, shock forming your expression. “Haji..” You whispered, feeling the way his fingers clenched against your skin.

His face fell to your neck, hand rising to cradle the back of your head. “Forgiveness is not what I ask for. I simply want you at my side.” Kashimo’s face turned, lips pressed against your ear. “As mine.. not as a meal.”

Your heart swelled at his words, hands raising to grab his face. Pulling him back, you planted your lips against him, two words entering his mouth;

I’m yours.

That was enough for Kashimo, hands latching onto your hips as he deepened the kiss. Lips locking, tongues playing against each other; desperation emitting from the makeout. Your tongue glided across his fangs, the two of you groaning as the metallic taste of your blood tainted your mouths. Just from that his hands got busy, falling to your thighs and pushing them open.

The realization you had no panties on plagued your mind the moment you left him graze your mound, eyes widening and pulling away.

Kashimo was first to speak, “Did you know I was coming tonight?” He breathed heavily, a dirty smile on his face. There he was, Kashimo Hajime, spark back and confidence intact; ready to toy with you how he always did. His fingers spread you open, thumb pushing against your little bud.

Your thighs squeezed his forearm, leaning back on your arms. “N—no..” You gasped as you felt his fingers work into your, pushing against your gummy walls. You grabbed him, eyes lifting to his face, “A—are we seriously gonna.. here?” You motioned to the table you were currently sitting on, watching as his lips curled more.

Instead of a verbal response however, he plunged the thick digits deeper inside of you, watching as your pretty, bruised lips fell open to release even prettier moans. Kashimo leaned close, keeping a steady pace inside of you as his thumb pressed against your clit. So rough yet so gentle, so fast yet so slow— working you open for something much bigger.

“Couldn’t possibly wait with you looking like this.. wearing this.” The vampire breathed, eyes casing down your body clad in the lacey nightgown. Just as your end got closer and closer, you felt his fingers slow down; words drowning out your whines.

“Besides.. this is the perfect place.”

Your eyes opened with confusion, attempting to speak once again, only to be flipped around in one swift motion. Kashimo’s fingers withdrew from you, placing a hand against your lower back and arching you over the table. With the end of your dress rolled up, your were exposed to him; pretty slit wet with slick, essence collecting at your thighs.

A grunt escaped him as he grabbed your ass, spreading your cheeks to take in the way you were exposed even more. This position was so embarrassing for you, thighs trembling under his careful eye, face buried into your hands.

The embarrassment melted away the moment you felt his hot breath fan against your messy cunt, however.

Your body turned, catching his little cyan colored buns behind your ass. Your eyes widened as you felt his lips press against your folds, a gentle kiss for a moment before his tongue slowly spread you open. The feeling quickly consumed your body, nails grating against the table as you moaned.

His hand rose, slapping against your ass as a muffled face forward, escaped him. You whined at the sting, yet still obeying; face turning to stare ahead.

Within minutes he was ravishing you, pressing his tongue against you so expertly you saw stars. Gliding across your clit, sucking, nipping, making you jump each time a fang became dangerously close. The groans that escaped Kashimo’s throat vibrated your entire body, a man starved with your pretty pussy the thing to satiate the hunger.

“Oh, oh my god…” Your back arched as his thick tongue worked its way into you, walls clenching around it. Hajime gave your ass another slap, this time sink his fingers into your flesh to spread you open even more. You pushed back into his face, whining as fucked you with his tongue.

You were lost; lips open as his name came out in a broken prayer, tears ready to dribble down your features. He snuck a hand around you as the thrusts of his tongue quickened, using two fingers to roll sloppy circles onto your sloppier clit, grinning into your pussy.

So close you were, bent over that table with nothing to do but take it. Feel it and enjoy it. Your moans became desperate, tears now released as you got closer and closer— until it snapped. Gushing onto his tongue and face, feeling your essence trickle down your thigh.

“Hajime…” You cried softly, feeling him slowly rise away from you. You hiccuped as his hand found your throat, pulling you back into his chest. Hajime’s thumb pulled at your bottom lip, pressing his clothed length against your ass.

Your eyes closed as he kissed your wet face, relishing under the affection he was giving you. As if he hadn’t ruined you just a moment ago.

“Missed you so fucking much.. missed seeing you cry like this.” Hajime grunted into your skin, pushing his hips to grind into you. The vampire grinned at the pathetic moan that escaped you, rubbing his thumb across your throat. “She missed me too..” He spoke, other hand dipping down to glide his fingers across your slick folds, watching you tremble with sensitivity.

“Kashimo.. Please..”

“Please, what? I didn’t fuck you dumb enough you can’t use your words.”

You whined at his tone, pussy clenching around nothing as they muddled your brain even further. Your bruised lips pushed together into a pout, reaching to grab his wrist. “Please.. I need you so bad, Haji. Can’t even think..”

A dark chuckle escaped him, slowly releasing your neck, allowing your hot body to rest against the cool table. You felt him slowly push his pants down, feeling his hard cock brush up against your slit. “You don’t need to think about anything,” Kashimo hissed, grabbing your ass and spread you once more.

“— except for how good I’m fucking you right now.”

The words echoed in your mind, mouth hung open in a gasp as he plunged into you in one single flick of his hips. Your hands clenched, digging marks into your palms as his hands tightly gripped your hips.

Kashimo never waited with you, it just wasn’t who he was. The moment he was inside, he was pulling his hips back again; plunging himself even deeper than the first time. You laid there, back arched as sobs and moans escaped you. He was wrecking you, fucking you as if he would die if he didn’t.

Swears leapt from your throat, whining as you felt a tight grip come upon your braids, tugging your body up off the table. You pressed on your hands, legs shaking as Kashimo slammed into you with such force the table was shaking.

“Just like that.. stay nice and arched for me, baby. Fuck..” His words dragged, eyes nearly rolling back as he watched the way his cock disappeared inside you. The man wasn’t lying when he mentioned she missed him, your pretty, pink walls clenching him as if refusing to let him go. The sight itself nearly made him come.

“Slutty pussy.. taking me so well. Mm..” The man’s hips never faltered, grip remaining in your hair as his tip slammed into your g-spot. You lurched forward, the man instantly pulling you back by your hip. “Mmh, no running; stay right here and let me fuck you.”

Your moans and sobs filled the room, squelches of your messy pussy acting as background noise he relished in. Your throat was becoming raw, vision blurry, as your mine could only focus on each thrust into you. A steady rhythm that rendered you a shaking mess.

“Haji—! Fu—fuck, ‘m so close!” The cry leapt from your throat easily, sure your neighbors easily heard it. The band was tightening and tightening, stomach clenching as you felt your end nearing.

Fuck, fuck, fuck..! You were there, right there and then— he stopped.

An exasperated cry escaped you, attempting to speak, only for the man to roughly grab you; switching you onto your back. Pushing you up on the table — caring less for it —, he was plunging back into your deeply, pushing your thighs up to your chest.

The new position ruined you, eyes rolled to the back of your head as desperate, strangled noises escaped you. You were sensitive all over, mind lost as a fog covered it. You could only feel him.

Could only think of him. Only, Kashimo Hajime.

The vampire grinned down at your body, taking in your sight with pride. Only he could do such a thing to you. Only he was allowed to see you in such a state.. His perfect girl. Only his.

“Mm.. good girl. Focus only on me.” Hajime’s words were so gentle compared to his bruising pace inside you. Your wrist was grabbed, coming to place against your plush stomach. “I’m right here pretty girl.. You feel me?” He hissed, plunging deep inside, tip ramming against your cervix.

He knew the answer even if you didn’t couldn’t reply.

Your moans became even louder, legs shaking around him as your walls began to clench again. You reached to grip his arm for stability, tightening up, “Ha—Hajime..!”

“Mm.. Relax, sweet girl.” Hajime cooed, leaning down to hover over you, your legs now rested upon his shoulders. “Relax.. I got you. Cum all over me, make me a fucking mess.” His words were enough to send you over the edge, spraying all over yourself and him, back arching off the ruined table.

“Good girl, fuck.. good fucking girl.” Hajime breathed heavily, feeling the way your pretty pussy spasmed around him. His hips didn’t falter however, fucking you through your orgasm while chasing his own. The vampire smiled at the tired whine that escaped you, pressing his lips against your own.

“I know baby, I know.” He breathed, gripping you so tightly it was sure to leave marks. His thrusts became desperate, strong yet uncoordinated, slamming his cock into you so deeply before stilling completely; spilling inside of you.

The warmth caused your eyes to roll back, legs shaking as you felt his hot body rattle above you. Your conjoined pants filled the room, along with the soft creak of the poor table.

You sniffled as his hand rose to your face, wiping away your tears. You leaned into his touch, slowly coming down from your high, staring up at the man. Hajime smiled down at you.. except, this smile had a certain amount of malice behind it.

“Hajime..”

“I was away from you for two weeks.” He started, grinning at the whine that escaped you the moment he started to circle his hips.

“Not letting you go until we break this fucking table.”

[murdrdocs]

all i could think about today was stepbro!ethan so have a few of my vivid thoughts :)

(tw dubcon) stepbro!ethan who eventually gets sick and tired of your teasing. he’s put up with enough deliberate flashes of your panties beneath your skirt, enough bedroom eyes, enough flirty remarks that are passed off as jokes. so he does something about it. wayne and your mom are working, quinn is out of the house, and ethan has the chance to do what he wants to you. he has you pushed into the counter, the most public and degrading place, the place where fucking food is prepared, and he’s teasing you, thick fingers sliding through your slick. “this is what you wanted, right?” you’re shaking your head, hiding your face in your hands, mumbling small little ‘no’s. “no, you didn’t want this?” your head shakes again, but your hips push into his hand, encouraging him, and your feet separate even more. “want me to stop?” your hands fall from your face and he's able to see your wide, watery eyes. “no, please don’t stop.” 

stepbro!ethan who’s a little paranoid about how richie feels about you. you're officially welcomed into the family when your mom flashes the unique ring on her left hand, and richie is a little too interested in you. he's asking if you need help decorating your room, trying to get you interested in the same slasher films as him, asking if you'd like to star in one of his own films as a 'scream queen'. you're oblivious, thinking he's just being a good older brother. but ethan sees through richie. ethan sees exactly what he's trying to do. so ethan's getting to you before richie can. he's sneaking into your room late at night and leaving early into the morning. he's getting you interested in his hobbies, making sure you don't even look richies way. he's following you around, opening the bathroom door when you're in there (he broke the lock too, just for assurance), pining you down and eating you out like a man starved, making you cum over and over again so you're addicted. eventually, it's clear which brother is your favorite.

stepbro!ethan who sucks at hiding what he’s doing to you. you and quinn are closer than you've ever been, like "two peas in a pod" as wayne had called you. and, in the interest of sibling bonding, wayne had given you, quinn, and ethan his credit card and told you to go get lunch. it's there that quinn interrogates you about the "mysterious guy" you've been seeing. she says it casually, her lips around the plastic straw, and her green eyes staring at you expectantly. "there's no guy." you're trying to play it off, but your leg is starting to shake under the table and you're deliberately avoiding ethan's eye. "there's not?" the way she says it lets you know that she's not buying it one bit, but you still shake your head as if you're telling the truth. "if there was a guy, i would've told you about him, quinn." but you didn't have to tell her. she saw the way you were happier, she's seen the little bites that weren't quite low enough to be covered by your shirt. she's noticed your sly smiles at your phone and the way you would stare off into the distance with the look she knows far too well in your eyes. she decides to drop it for now, but her watchful eyes notices the way ethan's gone all pouty and the way he's trying so hard to catch your attention, but you're focused on the menu you literally know by heart at this point.

stepbro!ethan who's sent by his older sister to follow you to the restaurant bathroom after quinn claims she "probably probed too hard" about your sex life. he does as he's told, sibling authority and all that, and he has you pushed against the wall of the family bathroom, on his knees with one of your legs propped on his shoulder, his phone thrusted in your hands and a command just fizzing from his lips.

"tell her you're really upset and it'll be a while. make sure she doesn't come looking for us"

and both of you are so focused on the moment that you don't hear quinn's obnoxious text tone she set for ethan's contact go off outside of the bathroom, where she's standing with her ear against the door, listening to what he's doing to you.

[forestshadow-wolf]

Cw: mention of suicide (not graphic), (vague) mentions of torture

Vamp!ghost in a pure silver muzzle so he can't prey on anyone.

He got turned and muzzled by human!Roba because the torture got so bad that he killed himself, and Roba couldn't have that, so he had him bit. By vernon.

The sadistic bastard was stoked to be able to keep Ghost around a little longer as his "play thing"

The muzzle, little more than a cage for his face, was five horizontal bars with one bisecting the center vertically. At the base of the mask where it sat on his mandable was a hinge, so it could expand and contract because Roba still wanted him able to talk and scream, like the sick fuck he is.

It burned and bubbled and hissed as it seared onto his face, melting the skin so it would cling to the metal when it "healed"

With Ghost's newfound immortality Roba was able to have so much more "fun" with him. He kept him for years, cutting him open whenever he felt like it, just "to see what's going on in there". Branding him with silver to "see what it does" (like he didn't already fucking know). Starving him for months on end. And the muzzle never once came off. When he did get it was through a straw that he was graciously given a single pint of blood.

Then he got bored. And he threw him away. And still the muzzle wasn't removed.

No not thrown away. Buried. In a load of shit. In the desert. One last experiment. To see what Ghost could withstand. He was doomed to burn to death, and even then it was to starve for eternity, or drink through a straw for the rest of his life. He sure as hell wouldn't be getting the muzzle off himself.

One good thing he learned through all this. How far he could break before he truely broke.

Roba locked him in Vernon's reinforced casket, and threw away the key. It took two days of nonstop beating at the wood before he got out, even with the help of the deceased vampire's jaw.

It took 3 days of hiding, and 4 nights of running at inhuman speeds to find the nearest army base.

He also found out that to say he was "starved" wasn't exactly accurate, but there was no other way to describe it. How else you do describe a lack of a need to eat, and yet feeling your body weaken just the same. How else do you explain the feeling of his body using up the blood in him. The way his heart never beats so he needs new blood to replace what has been absorbed or turned into waste, later to be released as venom. What word do you use to describe that othern than "starved", but it's an inhuman kind of starvation, so completely NOT human.

When price found him he was sucking his fifth stolen blood bag dry. He truely was "starved" after so long of not feeding.

The man said he was putting together a task force with the help and authority of a CIA agent. The man, Captain Price introduced him to a dryad, a nature spirit.

It's unusual for a spirits and sprites, especially ones so close to nature, to be in such a violent line of work. But here he was, nonetheless.

Price himself was a normal human, it's the only way the force was allowed to come into fruition.

Ghost was taken to a medic, to see if they could remove the constant burning silver from his face. But it was no use, the doctors said their tools were too soft to ceable to cut into his skin to remove the muzzle. And so there was nothing they could do, short of ripping the thing off, which would only cause more damage, and they didn't have the manpower to do so anyway.

So he stayed in the muzzle, donned a mask to avoid sun exposure, and price made sure to keep a constant stock of blood packs for him, even if sometimes he was reduced to dumping dehydrated pigs' blood into a glass of water, price made sure he was never "hungry" again.

Then price found soap. A natural born werewolf, he said. And he was all rambunctious and happy-go-lucky energy, or that's what it seemed like on the outside. Then Ghost learned that he was a sniper and demolitions specialist, with a wicked memory, and a background intense anti-interrogation training, and he has to wonder how much is for show.

It's only after they defeat hassan that soap asks about it. The muzzle. He knows he saw it when he removed him mask in Las Almas, but he said nothing about it, not did Ghost offer anything.

Soap says he thinks he can get the muzzle off, but they'll need to take leave, head back to his home. Ghost isn't sure how he likes the sound of that. He does want the burning silver off, but he's pretty sure he's heard that wolves and blood suckers weren't exactly friends. And while he's already dead, he can still be killed, and he definitely can't survive an entire pack of wolves (sans one)

Soap says it'll be fine, he'll vouch and/or protect(?) Him. Price encourages him to go, says he can finally get the stupid cage off. And gaz is laughing his ass off at his predicament, and just generally being unhelpful.

A phone call home to Mama Mactavish, explaining the situation had Ghost reluctantly agreeing to go, if only to appeasethe frantic woman. Soap requested 3 months medical leave for both of them, and price easily signed off on it, practically pushing them out the door.

Soap's home was nice, a fair bit or farmland with a large home that just seemed to radiate comfort.

Mama Mactavish was first to meet them at the door with a fresh batch of homemade danishes, she pulled them both into a bone crushing hug and ushered them inside. She didn't even flinch at the sight of the muzzle or the horribly "scarred" skin underneath or his fangs.

Simon wasn't so sure what to think about that, he'd never had this kind of kindness before. He didn't hate it. Everyone else was almost as friendly, and he couldn't tell if it was a pack of anomalies, or if the rumors were false. They even had fresh lambs' blood for him, warmed to perfection.

He and Johnny were given a day to rest and settle in, then they were being woken at the crack of dawn, to start collecting herbs and begin preparations. Mama explained that it was a family secret, so she swore him to secrecy.

He supposed it only made sense for a family of werewolves to know how to treat silver burns.

She put Johnny to work making so sort of... salve (us that what you call it? He wasn't sure), then mama had donned a pair of gloves and had him lay down with his head in her lap, she started massaging the salve into his skin around the muzzle.

It was slow work, and took hours to make even a small bit of progress, but progress it was. As more and more of the silver lifted, Johnny helped slide gauze underneath to prevent it from burning back on.

It took all day and most of the night to finally be able to lift the muzzle off, but Mama never once complained.

Simon thanked her profusely, and would be forever indebted to her, but she just waived him off.

A week later the wounds were still trying to heal over, and he knew by the end of their leave there would be little more than a faint scar over near-perfect skin.

There was one night that Johnny had joined him sitting out on the porch. One unable to sleep, and one who would never sleep again.

"Why did you help me?" It'd been running through his head since they arrived. "You hardly knew me."

"I know you enough." Johnny chuckled, knocking their shoulders together.

"But why?" He still didn't understand.

"You know what it's like to have the words 'echoic memory' on your file? I do. It's why I took all that extra training, put it to use a few times too. But nothing could have prepared me for being force-fed silver." Johnny shivered with a faraway look in his eyes. "The pain lasted months. I couldn't be active for nine months. I can only imagine what it must've been like to live with that on your face for years."

"Thank you."

Johnny nodded.

They spent the rest of the night there on the porch, at some point Johnny fell asleep on Simon, and Mama found them early in the morning.

[pooks]

part 7 of straw hat!ichiji and without further ado, we'll dive into the next one; Drum Island arc

Nami is sick

as Nami falls sick in a seemingly serious illness, Sanji is taking it harder because of trauma; he has seen Ichiji become seriously ill when they starved on the rock island with Zeff and he had thought he was gonna die.

Sanji has unresolved trauma when it comes to serious illnesses and Ichiji doesn't know how to fix the problem since he cares very little about his own wellbeing.

with Nami out of commission, Ichiji takes over the nagivating role temporarily. he proves to be very decent on it and uses Zeff's old logbook as his guide through the Grand Line. he notices that since the weather is becoming steadingly colder, they must be nearing a winter island.

everyone has different responses to Nami's illness; Luffy, Usopp and Sanji nearly panics while Vivi becomes worried and anxious. Zoro and Ichiji mostly takes the role as the rational ones.

Ichiji is starting to feel under the weather as well and he wonders if his physical body had a delayed reaction due to his modified genetics. he doesn't fall instantly ill like Nami did, but he becomes more fatigued, irritated and loses his appetite (although he forces himself to eat something).

to distract himself from Nami's sickness and his brother's bad moods, Sanji dotes on Nyansha, their new ship cat who can shift size at will. he likes how friendly and cuddly Nyansha is and thinks back at the Baratie. he remembers how he and Ichiji used to nag at Zeff to have a pet and were always refused because the Baratie was a sea-faring restaurant and he didn't want any animals fall into the water and drown.

Zoro notices that Ichiji isn't doing well and keep scratching his neck, so he asks if he's really fine. Ichiji waves off his concerns and just says "don't worry about it".

meeting Wapol and entering Drum Island

Vivi decides to set course for any island nearby in hopes to find a doctor for the sick Nami, instead of heading towards Alabasta. Ichiji has a brief conversation with her and informs her that while she's already burdened with the serious state of her land, she chose to save another's life and it's not something to scoff at. Vivi remarks that Ichiji seems to understand her better than anyone and wonders if he knows a lot about monarchy and diplomacy (given his prior knowledge of Alabasta and displaying dormant skills of leadership).

Ichiji goes still after that and answers "well, we all have skeletons in the closet, don't we? and no, i don't want to talk about it."

as he tends to do sometimes, Ichiji looks over the ocean and thinks about the brothers he left behind in Germa in favor for Sanji. he always regrets leaving them behind and being unable to bring all his little brothers with himself and he hopes that they're faring well, despite Germa being...Germa.

the peace isn't for long, as an unfamiliar pirate ship approaches the Merry and attacks them. through irritated, Ichiji fights along with Zoro, Luffy and Sanji, using the gun Zeff had given him and Sanji (the very one Sanji aimed at Miss All Sunday). they encounter Wapol, a Devil Fruit user and has eaten the Munch Munch fruit and eats exactly anything.

after attempting to eat the ship, Luffy fights him and sends him flying across the ocean. the pirates retreats, however.

Luffy attempts to cheer up Nami, but fails. it's a very hard day on the crew since no one has apparently been sick before (Sanji denies this, but Ichiji mutters a "lies" but disguises it into a cough). the next day, they're reaching a winter island, Drum Island, and drops their anchor there. but they're suddenly ambushed by its' hostile inhabitants.

Ichiji decides to try to reason with them along with Vivi, telling them that they have a sick person onboard and she needs aid. a villager, however, shoots at Vivi when Sanji was about to defend himself from the same shooting villager.

Luffy resolves the situation, after being briefly angered by the violence against his nakama (and being urged by Vivi to not chose violence as counter measure) and Dalton, the leader, and the villagers decides to help them.

Luffy, Sanji, Vivi, Usopp heads down to the village with Nami and leaves Zoro, Ichiji and Karoo onboard the Merry. before they leave, Sanji notices that his older brother has flushed cheeks, but Ichiji says it's because of the cold.

Sanji trails after Luffy, Usopp, Vivi and Nami, but not before looking behind himself at Ichiji.

Zoro is lost and Ichiji falls

after staying in the village for a while and finding out the nearest doctor, one Dr. Kureha, also known as "the witch", resides on a castle on top of a tall rock-like mountain, Luffy and Sanji heads there with Nami to cure her while Vivi & Usopp remains in the village with Dalton. Ichiji and Zoro standing guard on the ship, in case more enemies turned up.

Ichiji kept himself inside the galley when Zoro decided to train in the cold, since he felt less tolerant to the cold than usual and he wasn't in mood to deal with Zoro "unreasonable training montage". but he got suspicious when he heard a lack of "swordman noises" and when he went to check, he found both Zoro and Karoo missing.

Ichiji braves the cold surroundings of Drum Island, dressed warmly and yet, still freezing as if he had no outerwear. trying to locate the missing Zoro is like searching for a needle in a pile of hay, but Ichiji keeps trying.

his illness starts to process more aggressively, putting Ichiji's wellbeing at risk; his fever sky-rockets, he becomes weak and delirious, and soon, he's gotten himself lost as well. fortunately for him, a sled nears him and nearly runs him over; it's Dr. Kureha along with Chopper (in walk point).

Ichiji doesn't call her anything, but he asks her if she's seen "a green-haired, half-naked fool" somewhere. Kureha doesn't answer the question and instead, inquires about his own health since he looks like he's about to keel over. Ichiji decides to be honest and says that he isn't well, but it's the least of his problems since he needs to find his friend.

Ichiji doesn't get to say more before his strength is drained and he collapses in the snow, completely overtaken by his fever.

(Kureha and Chopper decides to bring him with them, as Ichiji will surely die from his fever or the cold if he stays outside)

reunited at the castle, an unbreakable bond of brothers

by the time Luffy, Sanji and Nami are safely inside the castle, they're in a horrible state; Luffy, exhausted from climbing the drum rock with his bare hands and carrying on his two crew mates, is suffering hypothermia. Nami is seriously ill, hovering between life and death and Sanji is critically injured with a broken spine and internal bleeding from the avalanche.

Chopper and Kureha treats them as the group is in a critical condition. Nami is the first one who comes around and the cause of her illness is revealed; Kestia, a poisonous tick from Little Garden causes a "five day sickness" that ends in death.

she also finds out that she isn't alone in the room she's staying in, she sees Ichiji in another bed and panics. it turns out that Ichiji was also bitten by a Kestia tick (flashback to the post-battle in Little Garden, when he slapped his neck from a "mosquito bite"). Kureha has discovered that Ichiji has a different metabolism than an ordinary human which is why his illness progressed slower than Nami. however, his intolerance to the cold and stress made his body enough weak for the Kestia bacteria to advance faster and more aggressively.

Chopper then runs into the room, being chased by Luffy and Sanji who mistook him for food source. however, Sanji stops when he sees his older brother seriously ill and becomes shocked, getting vivid flashback to his past.

we get a narrated flashback from Sanji's POV. he remembers the rock island they were stuck on, starving for 80+ days. during the five last days on the rock, Ichiji fell seriously ill due to eating lesser than Sanji, exhausting himself by collecting morning dew for his brother, enduring night watches and exposure from the sun. after they got saved by a passing ship, Ichiji was put under quarantine due to his illness being so serious along with starvation. he was ill for two months while Sanji and Zeff recovered. Sanji remembers watching his brother suffer from fever, chills, nausea, etc. he had never seen Ichiji weak ever in his life and the thought of Ichiji dying for his sake gave him nightmares and Sanji cried for every day, believing that his brother would surely die.

Sanji tears away from his narrated flashback, seeing Ichiji suffering in the same state and gets a trauma-induced panic attack. he breaks down crying, terrified that his brother is dying once again, blames himself for not seeing the signs and begs the unconscious Ichiji to not leave him alone.

before Kureha is about to hit Sanji's head for whining so much, Ichiji speaks up, revealing he's been awake the whole time

"Geez, you're still such a crybaby, Sanji..."

Sanji screams of grief and anger, hugging Ichiji and saying...something, but no one is able to understand what he's saying since he's crying and sobbing at the same time.

(foreshadowing to Sanji's "△✕~◑※◇���*~✖✹" in water 7)

Ichiji is still running a fever and seemigly drifts off, but not before he managed to reassure his little brother and his captain (because let's face it, Luffy is freaking out at the thought of his nakama dying) that he'll be fine soon.

everyone thinks he's asleep because of his closed eyes, but he's conscious enough to hear Chopper's story when Kureha tells Sanji and Nami (while Luffy is off chasing the poor reindeer again to make him join his crew).

Wapol returns and the siege of Drum Castle

their luck runs short when Wapol makes a return to the castle, intending to "rule" Drum Island again (which would lead to more of the people's suffering). once again, Luffy fights Wapol but this time, it becomes personal when Wapol shoots at the jolly roger of the long passed Dr. Hiriluk, Chopper's mentor and adoptive father.

Luffy engages in full battle, enraged over how "fake pirates" like Wapol just shoots a jolly roger without a single respect.

inspired by Luffy, Chopper shows that he doesn't have just medical skills, but battle skills as well and joins the battle. Sanji attempted to join as well, but his back injury flares up, rendering him out of commission with Kureha guarding him.

while his two henchmen, fused into one, fights Chopper and Luffy gets distracted, Wapol sneaks into the castle. he stumbles onto Nami, who's already well enough to walk around thanks to Chopper and Kureha's wonder medicine.

the only difference here from canon is that Ichiji arrives in time, still feverish, and jumps at Wapol, pulling at his hair as the ex-king attacks her (which also gives Nami the perfect moment to steal the key from Wapol).

Nami manages to escape, but Wapol is now chasing Ichiji. the antibiotic remedy against his illness is progressing, but Ichiji is already exhausted and Wapol corners him, intending to kill him. Luffy finds them just in time and engages in one final battle before he emerges victorious, having punched Wapol across the next island with a Gum Gum Bazooka.

Dr. Hiriluks cherry blossom snow, Chopper joins the straw hats

with the antibiotic treatment finally taking effect for Ichiji (due to his fast metabolism) and Sanji is getting his back (painfully) fixed again, Luffy tries again and again to recruit Chopper to his crew

Nami attempts to negotiate with Kureha; she hands over the key if Kureha discharges her, Sanji and Ichiji. Ichiji, however, doesn't want Nami to do that since he wants she and Sanji to recover first (once again, he neglects to include himself) before heading to Alabasta. Kureha takes the key, but says they must stay in the castle...but also that there's a coat in the room and the guards aren't present. Nami takes it as a sign that they're free to go.

when Sanji's treatment is complete, Nami and Ichiji brings him as they go outside. Ichiji is nearly fully recovered at this point and is carrying Sanji on his back, who's still out of it from his treatment. Ichiji takes a moment to reflect on old memories and muses that he hasn't done this since they were kids.

barely some moments later, Chopper is joining them but Kureha is chasing after him with weapons, so the Straw Hats panics and decides to pack it to leave. Ichiji wastes no time getting into a sled, still carrying Sanji on his back. however, they get to witness something wonderous.

using Hiriluk's "cure for the country's cold heart", the straw hats and everyone else witnesses cherry blossoms falling onto the snowy island. Ichiji, with a now conscious Sanji leaning on his shoulder, remarks that he has never seen something so beautiful in his life and it's enough to almost bring tears.

with the perfect send-off to Chopper and having a ship doctor onboard, the straw hats sets sail for Alabasta

[dreaisgrayte]

Under the Goddess' Veil [TEASER]

A/n: This fic was a tad bit spur of the moment to take a break from rewriting some of Lady of Amberguard. Turns out I really like the idea and haven't been able to stop writing on it for 2 days. I will say this will be a bit of plot in the first 4 or 5 thousand words but from then on...dear Lord forgive me for the absolute FILTH I have planned.

Description: I'll give a silly one for right now, basically a maiden gets sacrificed to 5 dragons and a lot of fucking happens. The end.

Pairings: Obanai Iguro, Sanemi Shinazugawa, Giyuu Tomioka, Uzui Tengen, and Kyojuro Rengoku x reader

ENJOY!

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

“I was supposed to be sacrificed to you for the honor of my village…” You trail off, trying to connect the dots. You glance in the direction of Sanemi, his usually stern eyes softening when they connect with yours. “Are you going to eat me?” Your words sound pitiful, like you had accepted that fact already – and you had. You’d be raised on the single constant that you would be fed to the Gods atop the neverending tips.

Uzui appears in front of you, a lazy smirk playing with his lips as he leans down to be eye level with you. “Not in the way you’re thinking.” He purrs, rolling his smirk into his mouth.

Kyojuro pushes forward, his long hair whipping in the wind Obanai was still creating. “Your humans assume when we request a maiden to be given to us that we would feast upon her supple flesh,” He sighs, looking at Obanai as he speaks. “Every century our loneliness becomes unbearable. There was the occasional soul that attempted to harm us, wanting to take the hoard for themself, but that didn’t last long. Other draconics would visit us, but some of them would fight for our territory.” Your eyes are drawn to Sanemi again and his plethora of scars. He avoids your gaze at all costs, he finds the outer wall of the cave particularly interesting.

Kyojuro continues with a solemn smile. “Then one day a beautiful woman found her way into the lower tunnels. She came begging us to help her village, people were sick – dying. She was ready to give anything to us for the sake of the people.”

Uzui, who is leaning against the wall, pipes up again. “So she gave us her body.” Your brows knit together. Her body? What exactly did that mean? Kyojuro shoots him a glare before setting himself in front of your gaze, staring into your eyes.

“The women before you were scared, frightened of the big bad monsters within the Ponorich peaks. Most of them tried to escape with no avail…they would get lost and starve or stay within our sight and do the same thing. There were others that would find our hoard and selfishly conspire to harm us to take it.” Kyojuro’s eyes are bright swirls. “We want a mate, a bride.” Bride…you had dreamed about a day adorned with joy once. It had been a quick thought, squashed by the reality that you understood from a very young age. Though, now perhaps you could live the life that had been taken away from you.

The wind dies down and you quickly look behind to find Obanai stepping onto the edge in a graceful manner. He nods his head at you, an ethereal glow still present in his eyes. It made your stomach dip in the strangest way. "You can have one of us,” He waves his arm to the group of men, their eyes trained on you. Obanai steps forward, picking up your hands softly. You peer at him through your lashes. “Or all of us." He finishes. A distinguishing feeling glides through your very being. Something that tells you if you were going to die for the village the least you could do was live for them.

"I-I'd like to have all of you..." You stammer, your confidence dropping with every second. When did you decide to become so brazen? Here you were, a maiden surrounded by five men that surely looked upon you with heat and desire.

"Are you sure you can handle that little doe? Becoming the wife of five hungry dragons isn't going to be easy. You will ache when you are without us and you will ache when you are with us." Giyuu coos, placing a hand on your back. It sends licks of warmth that jolt to where you had never been touched.

“You will become ours in every way possible.” Uzui is now to your other side, hand upon your waist. “We will take you whenever we want,” A piece of hair falls to the side of his ear, distracting you for a moment until he brings your gaze back to him with fingers under your chin. “And you can take us whenever you want.”

Kyojuro hangs his arms around your shoulders, placing himself square behind you. The thin material of your slip does nothing to hide the warmth radiating off the man. “When our heat occurs you will have to be careful. One of us may ravish you and then two more join in.” He nudges your head with affection and your stomach stirs.

“Are you willing to make sacrifices?” Sanemi asks, still standing a few feet away from the huddle the rest of them had now created around you.

“I was raised to do so.” You reply, a confident nod moving your head.

[idlerin]

nonsense — 29. helpless, breathless

“you’re sick,” you scolded as discreetly as you could as you passed by oikawa on your way to the tent. it was a barely noticeable phrase but you knew he heard. he’s not supposed to be wandering this area without someone assisting him, he caught your eye whilst marching on under the scorching heat as another feat of wonders of working in general— today was a bit different, the cast and crew had to go travel to a secluded beach two hours away from the city to film. oikawa’s worsening condition was even more evident in broad daylight and not in the confines of a studio, well, to you, since no one else has suspected a thing with how he looked perfectly fine objectively and how he acted completely normal, only people who truly knew him and his little ticks would notice.

you could feel his gaze on the back of your head and sense he started following after you, in case his shadow you spot in your peripheral vision wasn’t enough. you glance to the side to see everyone busy with setting up the set, but surely, there was someone who was going to be looking for oikawa. he most probably sneaked out of his van because his head ached too unbearably, and whenever he had a headache you remember he thought walking would help in easing the pain.

you let out a heaving breath as you balance the folders tucked in your arms, turning to the right the moment you were supposed to enter the tent, continuing on your trek through the white sand, far enough to be hidden behind a large rock. right then, you turn abruptly and huff at oikawa.

he was tucked in one of his hoodies, eyes wide with bleariness, the first thing he says is a lie, "i'm not sick."

it was so unconvincing you were offended that he would think that would work on you. he sees the look on your face and backtracks, looking to the side, at the ocean and juts his lower lip out like a child who didn’t want to give in but knows he's already caught so he didn’t really have any other choice, "okay… i'm not very sick."

you leered at him, and with firm determination, removed a hand on the folder you're clutching to place a hand on his forehead, “you’re burning!” you say with alarm.

oikawa finally looks at you, raises a brow, the corner of his lips turning up subtly, he had the gall to be amused by this and for what? “in your words, that’s excessi–”

you use the same hand that was previously on his forehead to slap his chest, half to scold him, half to shut him up, “have you had a check up with your doctor?"

“well, i.. uhm i didn’t have.. time," oikawa tucks his hood to cover himself more, wincing at the heat. his headaches are acting up again, you deduce.

"have you been eating?" you size him up, the entirety of his 6 foot 1 form slouching, like he was trying to make himself look more meek so you would go easier on him.

"uh ye-" oikawa and you lock eyes, you glare at him, he sighs, "i've been eating enough to not starve," he offers.

"so you haven't been eating enough," you seeth. before you could start scolding him again you hear voices starting to get near, your eyes widen a fraction before you hiss at him to go along first, begrudgingly.

oikawa looks back at you with hesitance before you nudge his shoulder for him to go before the both of you would get caught– but no, those aren’t the right words, it made it sound as if you two were doing something suspicious that you currently would not like to expand on, you were merely looking out for him as a.. as a concerned citizen.

after urging him away, you hear him talking to a few people, explaining how he wanted to see the view and wandered around, so these were the people looking for him. he managed to divert their attention to go back to the site, all while you thought you looked stupid hiding behind a big stupid rock. after a few minutes you came running back to the tent to deliver the files, apologizing about being late. you think they said that it was fine, you weren’t sure, since the response you were given was in the form of "hm" and pointing to where you should leave it.

you went to seek out akane, who was helping people out with the set because she finished her menial tasks earlier— at least until someone were to order her to do something. you offered to lend a hand and it wasn't your fault your gaze tended to wander to a certain brown haired stubborn ill person who was conversing with the director over you wouldn’t know what instead of getting as much rest as he can with the shooting not officially beginning.

you swear he wants to make you worry.

wait.

you didn't have to worry about him this much.

you groan internally.

but you do, and you really can't stop.

alright, you admitted to not hating him, a sad fact, and you did embarrassingly admit to missing him as well, let us point out that he said it first, so you could hardly blame yourself for responding. you were still unsure on what you wanted to do with your lingering feelings. what did you want? did you want him? did you still want to be with him?

ah.

you freeze in the middle of your shocking realization with thy self, eye twitching but eventually making yourself snap out of it at the expense of making everyone else think you were being weird, by everyone else you really meant akane, who was beside you and had a front row seat to your complicated emotions that really weren’t all that complicated but it feels as if it is.

having this little moment in the middle of bustling people really wasn’t convenient, oh god, you and your horrible timing. you can't help yourself and just stop looking at his direction, you should stop, so what if—

"oikawa-san!" a shrill startled voice snapped you out of your argument with yourself as you glance at the direction of the commotion, as with everyone who was within range. your eyes glance worriedly over to where oikawa was being helped up by his manager and a person who was near and within reach. you watch as oikawa tries to shake it off with laughter, telling everyone to continue with what they were doing. your hands flex on the box you were carrying, resisting the urge to go assist him. you can't do that, everybody would think it’s weird.

"are you alright, oikawa-san?" you heard someone ask. you go on with your work as with everybody else and let the few people there handle the situation.

you keep your ears open on their end though.

you hear oikawa's laughter, "i'm alright, just got a bit dizzy, perhaps it's too hot here?" he excuses, you walk away and didn't get to hear what the director, who was still there, and oikawa’s manager, said. you hope they're telling him to go and rest, they probably were, but oikawa was probably insisting that he was fine and more than ready to work.

"psst, why are you so distracted?" akane bumps your shoulder with hers. you blink a few times, a stuttered out 'what?' your only response.

"exactly! what's the matter with you today? you should be enjoying, it's fun to be out here for a change! it's so peaceful!" akane grins, emphasizing the 'out here' with her arms spread and pointing out the view, despite the many equipment placed in the secluded area. the peacefulness was the onslaught of people busily and methodically working. 

"it's nothing, maybe i just lack a bit of sleep," you smile at her to keep her at bay.

akane just nods and crosses her arms, free from holding stuff, which reminds you to put what you were holding down, "hey, do you think oikawa-san is okay? the way he lost balance out there is kinda worrying you know?"

tell me about it. little did she know that's exactly what you were stressing about.

you watched behind one of your superiors as oikawa and another actor— kawashima moyashi, a rising actor on his own right— was acting out their scene. everyone was dead silent watching everything play out. it was already around four in the afternoon and the filming for the day was almost complete, according to your supervisor who was also very tired and couldn’t wait to go home early for once. the scene playing out had been repeated two times now because oikawa was dissatisfied with how he performed.

once the director yelled cut, oikawa immediately went out of character, “was that alright?”

the director agreed cheerily, enthusiastically saying, “perfect! i loved it, truly!” —wow you were watching the political hierarchy of filming in person— while the others were clearing the props.

oikawa finally smiled, relieved, and started walking over, his manager trailing behind him with oikawa’s water bottle and jacket.

you keep your eye on oikawa for a little while, only snapping out of it when akane tugs on your arm, saying you guys should head to where akane parked her car— she gave you a ride here. akane pulls on your wrist, eventually when you get a hold of yourself you say, "yeah, yes, okay let's go."

meanwhile, the director talked about oikawa’s further projects and if it was going to interfere with the filming schedule, oikawa reassured him it would be fine, but then the director said no, he was asking so to make the filming schedules suitable for him. oikawa’s manager cut in, saying that oikawa needed to get ready for another shoot this evening and that they had to hurry.

"have you been taking your migraine pills?" his manager asked when they were a bit far away from everyone, on the way to his van. oikawa had a hand clutching his head again which was why he asked if he was taking his pills, the migraines weren’t a new thing after all.

"yes," oikawa replies, keeping it to himself that it wasn’t just a migraine. he can't rest now, he still has a lot to do.

"let's take a break before we go to the shoot. where would you like to go, oikawa?" his manager asked once they were nearing the vehicle. 

"i…" oikawa had to stop walking for a second. his face scrunched in pain, he had to press his other hand to his forehead to help in easing the pain. he only needed to get in the van, why won't his body just cooperate?

"oikawa?" he hears the voice of sato, who seemed more distant than before.

"i'm fi— shit," oikawa leans back on the sleek cover of his van, breathing heavily. "i just need—" swallowing a deep breath, "—a break."

"oikawa perhaps we should…"

his manager was talking but oikawa couldn't understand most of what sato was saying. it was too hot. was he the only one feeling as if it's too hot? but at the same time, it was cold. he was sweating. his hair was rising because of the cold—heat. his chest felt restricted, finding it a bit difficult to breathe. but it's fine, it was going to be fine. sato said they can take a break, oikawa thinks that would be nice. he just needed to close his eyes for a moment and they could get going. he pushes himself off the van and starts, "let's go—"

oikawa falls to his knees. fuck.

"tooru!"

that wasn't sato.

hands were on his shoulders, firm but gentle, "you're so stupid."

[name].

were you being impulsive? yes, absolutely. were you going to regret this later on? also a yes, most probably.

you were talking to akane, fiddling with your phone to pass time because riseki was going to be tagging along but he was finishing some things up back in the site and you both opted waiting for him, but not without being a little mean and chatting in the group chat that you guys were going to leave him behind. that was when your eyes wandered to where oikawa was walking with his manager. you jerked away from your idle position when he leant on his car quite abruptly. you completely leave your post when you watch as his legs go numb.

it was foolish. definitely, his manager was right there, he was going to be fine without you to rush to his side. it was foolish, but now you were kneeling beside him, your hands were clutching his shoulders and you were very frantic.

"don't you dare pass out!" you were angry, biting your lower lip furiously. one of your hands reached up to brush his hair away from his face because you noticed that he was sweating a lot.

"[n/n]," he calls out weakly, and yet the way he said his nickname for you made your mind swirl, "you were right," he breathes heavily, "i am sick."

"are you trying to be funny right no—" you were huffing out, exasperated.

"let's get him home, i'll call his physician," you forgot his manager was here. you looked up at the guy, it wasn't the first time you've seen him, it wasn't the first time he's seen you. though you do have a hard time recalling people's names, was his… sa.. sa something.

"okay.." you say, rising from your position on the ground and lifting oikawa up with the help of mr. sa-something. oikawa's manager opens the door to the van and you urge oikawa inside while he could still move.

once you were satisfied that oikawa was sitting and assured yourself he was going to be fine, you attempted to move your hands away, and you had to go back to akane of course. akane who's seeing everything unfolding right now. you dread the latter that comes and you were going to have a lot of explaining to do.

oikawa grabs a hold of your wrists, eyes fluttering open, "where are you going?" he was blinking furiously, still battling with his head, and he was obviously frowning.

"i have to.. " you begin and the disappointment was evident on his face, cursing you and your tendency to go weak for him, "well maybe i.."

"you should come with him," his manager makes the decision for you. you lock eyes with him and he looks away, "he's going to need someone other than me to help."

to you, he sounded the most sensible, clearly, that was why you were going in the van.

you make one look back to where akane was, and your eyes lock on hers and riseki's, great, more people. you blinked twice, they blinked back, before your view was blocked with oikawa's manager slamming the door shut.

oikawa didn't let go of your hand even for one moment.

even when you dragged him to his bedroom, across the lavish floors of his penthouse, which made it quite a difficult task since his bedroom was upstairs. even when his physician came in, looking haggard since you assume they had rushed to go here when oikawa's manager called, they didn't forget to give you a quick nod of acknowledgement, before going to oikawa's side and asking him questions. even when he eventually drifted off to sleep.

he was acting like a kid, the last time he got sick, you could vaguely remember him being childish too. it was kind of… nice to know that he didn't change that much.

"[name]-san, can you watch oikawa for a bit, at least before i come back? i have to talk to the coordinators of the shoot oikawa was supposed to do this evening and ask them to reschedule," his manager said, already gathering his things.

oikawa’s physician was in the corner, finishing writing stuff down, "sato, get him these medications while you're at it," his physician handed him the prescriptions, "make sure he takes them for a week, his fever is high, you should've called me sooner."

sato— you've finally gotten his name! you knew it started with sa— nodded, and turned back to face you, "sorry for making you do this favor, i know it might be a bit.. awkward."

"it's alright," you say, and look down at your hand that oikawa had a fierce grip on, "i don't think i could go even if i wanted to," you attempted to joke to lighten the mood.

oikawa's manager let out a small smile before nodding to you and leaving, the physician also waved to you before following out. it didn't take long before you were alone with tooru. with him like this, it was easy to feel… well, easy. you were thinking of what to make him for dinner, he needed to eat something as much as he needed to rest. even just some soup would be good— but a meal would probably be best. but first, you have to make him let go of you.

you first attempt the most rational thing, which is pulling your hand away, but that makes his lids open, and now he was staring at you, "are you leaving?" he says after a few seconds of merely looking at each other. 

"i'm not," you say, though not very convincingly, which is probably why he won’t let you go.

"you were pulling away," he says, and it sounded like a complaint. 

"i was just planning to go and—"

"so you were planning to leave," to show just how displeased he was, he made a move to interlock your hands. was he losing his reasoning because he was sick? at this, you roll your eyes.

"i was just going to make you some food to eat, i’ll be right back,” you were trying to subtly shake your hand away, “go back to sleep," you say.

he tightens his hold, scrutinizing you, "you promise?"

you blink, did he really want to do this right now? he wasn't faltering, even if you knew he wanted to shut his eyes closed. he was really selling the act of a child, even more because of the cloth on his forehead.

"i promise," you say with finality, when he deemed you sincere enough, he reluctantly let go of your hand. it made you smile damn it. because he was being good, you hold his hand and draw little circles on his palm to make him sleepy, "go back to sleep," like your voice had incredible powers, he drifted off to sleep again.

you let go of him and went down to check his fridge to see what you were going to have to be working with. he thankfully had a storage of a healthy variety of food— though he kind of has to because of his profession— so it was easy to prepare his meal. you did have to go down to the grocery store beside his building once to buy some vegetables oikawa was running out of.  

an hour passed by and you were heading back to oikawa's room, tray in hand with a bowl of the food you prepared and some water. you open the door as silent as you could, the door creaked anyways. you glimpse at oikawa to see that he was still asleep, you place the tray down on his bedside table and instead grab the cloth placed on his head to replace it with a new one.

you were in the middle of fixing it on his forehead when he grasps your wrist, it was like he sensed whenever you were attempting to do anything to him and automatically had to wake up just to see you.

"you stayed," oikawa says, voice groggy.

"i told you i was just going to prepare you food," you say, leaning back to have a proper conversation with him, "i was planning to make you sleep some more before waking you to eat, but since you're already awake you might as well eat now. your manager still hasn't come back with your medicine so you better replenish your energy. why do you overwork so much? don't you have a say with how much work you take on? you do, don't you? but you probably think 'a few wouldn't be overkill, and it establishes my fame' without any regards about your health. what i'm saying is, take care of yourself and stuff," you huff.

oikawa reaches for your hand and gently makes it so that you cup his face, he closes his eyes for a moment, relishing in the heat that radiates off of you, "mhm, care for me more."

"you're enjoying this?" your brows furrow.

"you're giving me a lot of attention, so yeah," oikawa murmurs, his eyes still closed.

you felt your cheeks turn warm, "you have to eat."

"later," oikawa sighs when you brush your thumb over his eyelids.

"no," you take your touch away, much to oikawa's dismay. you make your way to grab a chair and place it on the other side of his bed, you take the tray and place it on your lap while oikawa watches you the whole time.

he then says the oddest thing.

"feed me?" it wasn't a question, it was more of a request.

"you look like you're well enough, you're even making demands," you snark, because of course you had to.

"no.. i'm still feeling very awful.. my head still hurts and my throat is starting to get sore, and my hand kind of hurts so you have to feed me," oikawa was being dramatic by the end, he knew it, you knew it, and yet you couldn't resist a small smile to adorn your face. you couldn't help but be overcome with relief too, since if he could be ridiculous then he was better now because he got some rest.

"you're acting like a kid," you say but you were already gathering a spoonful of food and taking it to his lips. oikawa was a very willing recipient.

"do you hate it?" oikawa asks, trying to catch your gaze but you were actively avoiding meeting eyes with him and much preferred to just look at the food, and to his lips, oh but looking at his lips was a bad idea, so you focus on looking at the spoon instead.

"yes," you say without much bite, continuing your notions of feeding him.

"you hate me?" oikawa asks again, as if he needed a lot more reassurance.

"i do," you answer, because you were a menace.

"you said you didn't."

"i'm taking it back."

a comfortable silence goes over you two, with you continuing with your ministrations, peacefully feeding him the food. while oikawa was admiring you, in disbelief again that you were really here in front of him. that you stayed with him. that he couldn't help but say words that made you freeze on the spot.

"can you take me back too?"

your eyes widen and you finally look at him, "what?"

"if you still want me, can you give me another chance?" oikawa waited with a baited breath for your response, his heart was pounding and he felt breathless, and it wasn't because he had a fever. it was because you were breathtaking, your presence was breathtaking, and he didn't know if he could last without the comfort of knowing he had the right to look at you and feel like this.

“[name],”  he says your name in that way again. the one that makes your insides feel wonky and you can’t believe it, he’s so.. he is so.. he makes you want to scream. your eyes were feeling warm, you didn’t mean to, but perhaps with this morning and what was happening now and just—

"are you not just saying nonsense because you're sick," you blink furiously, trying to hold back the frustrated tears. your hands were shaky as you placed the utensils in the bowl and you were placing the tray back to the side.

oikawa lifts himself up more from the bed and reaches over to your hands, to stop the shaking or just because you don’t know. he was looking at you, asking to hold you, you let him. he could see your watery eyes and he was holding your hands so gently it made you want to stand up, turn around and run away, but you don’t.

"no..” oikawa made sure he was clear, “i want to be with you again, [name], if you'd take me back. by taking me back, i don’t mean i’d immediately be your boyfriend again, i want to prove to you that i deserve you. besides, with or without a label, i’m yours."

he was waiting for your response. you swallow back your tears, emotional, you’ve always been. oikawa made soothing circles on the back of your hand, mirror to the one you were doing to his earlier. while you sat there and tried to process everything, everything that happened, about how he made you feel— how he makes you feel, the good, the bad, and everything in between. you were thinking about everything you went through with him, everything you went through because of him.

oikawa was never going to just be someone you knew.

he was always going to be something more.

he was everything.

do you want to let him be everything to you again?

“i won’t make it easy for you.”

masterlist — previous | next

✦ fun facts !

ever since [name] was caught viewing and liking oikawa’s tweets she’s been using her priv account to view oikawa related tweets lmao

oikawa has tried to crochet once and he tried to make a frog, keyword, tried, and it ended up looking like a dead squashed cockroach.

nonsense ! an oikawa tooru social media au

synopsis. you were oikawa tooru’s #1 fan, until you became his #1 hater. you hated him so much you went viral on twitter (accidentally) and literally became known as “the oikawa tooru hater”, doesn’t help that he keeps fueling the fire by subtweeting you. everyone is all in for this new drama. what isn’t known to the public, is that this particular drama’s been on hold for three years (him being your ex and all).

a/n — GUYS HI hehehe (acts like i didnt ud for a month) anw i swear theres no like angsty angst ANYWAYS GROVELING ERA

taglist is closed ! + (1/2) @kawaii-angelanne @ceneridiankaa @kittycasie @rukia-uchiha-98 @polish-cereal @kellesvt @rockleeisbaeeee @kashxyou @imsoluvly @jjulliette @tooruchiiscribs @littlefreakjulia @gomjohs @qualitygiantshoepsychic @mellowknightcolorfarm @konzumeken @migosple @kuroogguk @sangwooooo @katsu-shi @wolffmaiden @rijhi @2baddies-1porsche @yeehawcity @aishkaaa @crueldinasty @renardiererin @yyuiz @llamakenma @penguinlovestowrite @princelingperfect @hearts4faey @yoonabeo @pantherhappy @julia-1901 @godsbiggestmenace @angel-luv-04 @noideawhothatis @bethbat @natsvmie @luna-mothii @lylovw @apinu @leave-rae-alone @kamikokii @bananasquash @eitaababe @minimari415 @hanabihwa @nilopillo

[steam-beasts]

How is the Tllylyn not getting investigated for starving it's engines? That can not be leagal. It should at least be grounds for a safety inspector to come.

An answer from Edward Thomas and Sir Hayden;

(Btw, those pink patches are bald spots)

S...Starving us?" Asked Edward Thomas incredulously. Sir Hayden scoffed "We're being fed well, what are you talking about? We get fruit and veg every day". Both engines found your question hard to believe.

"The volunteers love us! They certainly wouldn't abuse us. It's this infection" the Kerr Stuart quickly insisted.

"Ever since our sorry excuse for siblings attacked us, we've been sick ever since. We were alright for a while after getting legs, but we got ill again when we got back here. Our fur keeps falling out, I feel cold, we keep getting "the munchies" as people call it and we're always tired!" Sir Hayden complained with a frustrated snarl.

Edward Thomas sighed "It's really hard, but I promise we aren't being starved! Our drivers say fruit and vegetables are good for us, to keep us healthy"

"Yeah, healthy is a strong word, Ed"

"Quiet, Hayden! But...you have a point. We get given medicines everyday. Pulling passengers is getting hard, but I promise...we are certainly not being starved! It's this infection! No safety inspector needed, but thank you for concern!"

Sir Hayden chuckled "Be thankful we're not a bunch of fat lumps of iron and meat like our attention-seeking siblings"

[starlightshadowsworld]

Bsd except Atsushi was taken into the Port Mafia by the Old Boss.

After being given the cue to begin from Mori, Hirotsu starts his tale.

"About a decade or so ago, a couple who were quite high up in the Port Mafia ended up betraying us. The details I don't know of, but for whatever reason the Ex Boss took it personally."

It wasn't unusual. The Old Boss tended to deal with traitors first hand rather than leave it to his underlings. It definitely made the man terrifying. But taking it so personally was odd.

"They bargained with him. You see they had a son who possessed powerful ability. It worked, the Ex Boss was impressed with it and sparred them with the trade being he kept their kid."

Hirotsu took out his lighter and lit his cigarette.

"The Ex Boss grew to adore him, the kid was basically his son. Atsushi Nakajima was the crown jewel of the Port Mafia.

He was a good kid you would think he was bathed in light. And yet there was a darkness to him. He was as vicious and cold as he was kind and warm."

Mori raised an eyebrow.

"If he was so special, how is it I haven't heard of him?"

Hirotsu sighed "well, like I said the kids ability was powerful. But he couldn't quite control it, we had our measures and things in place of course. But as the Ex Boss started to sick, he became afraid of Atsushi."

He shook his head frowning.

"The kid he loved like his own was now a monster in his eyes. He locked Atsushi down underground, under more security that we have for Q. Forbade anyone for even mentioning his name, it was like the kid never existed."

Mori was intrigued by that "and was this extra security warranted or was it simply paranoia."

"It wasn't at first, Atsushi wouldn't have hurt any ally and especially not the Ex Boss."

Hirotsu knew, because even when Atsushi was fully transformed he remembered the scent and smell of his allies. He'd never attacked them, not unless they stepped out of line.

"But the longer he stayed down there... Any love Atsushi had for the Ex Boss turned into hate. The Ex Boss come taunt him, torture him and betrate him. Eventually the he got too sick to go down there."

Dazai hummed, sitting up in his chair. "And I'm guessing he's still down there?" Hirotsu nodded "I think the plan was to slowly starve him. But his caretakers continued their jobs, I've been down and he's still there."

Mori nodded "so you think he'd be a useful addition to the Port Mafia?" Mori already knew the answer of course but he wanted to hear it.

"Definitely. Atsushi never quite had a home before us, he values this city as his. His to protect, his to take care off. It's what convinced him to start taking training seriously.

It didn't fit the Ex Boss's vision, but I know he'll fit yours sir."

And that, that was all Mori needed but they chatted a bit longer. On exactly what this ability was, and it definitely was quite impressive.

Who knew he'd find a diamond below his feet?

"So my old man is dead? Did he suffer?" Asked Atsushi, watching as Mori approached his cell. He was standing, the chain around his neck taunt but he didn't seem bothered by it.

"He did, right go the end. I would know, I killed him myself."

Atsushi's look of shock turned into a chuckle. "So you did. So what do I get for choosing you hmm?" He sounded relaxed but there was hidden malice in his voice.

"Time out your cage, and the ability to protect this city as you wish." Said Mori. Atsushi looked at him in suprise, than smiled at that last part.

Hmm someone who cared more for this city than their own wellbeing, oh Atsushi definitely would be useful to the Port Mafia.

"I can do that, could also share some tales of dear old dad. He's got secrets buried in these walls." Said Atsushi nonchalantly and it was Mori's turn to chuckle.

"I can do that, so Atsushi Nakajima what do you say?"

Atsushi lowered himself onto one knee. "I swear my life, my blood and my loyalty to this organisation. I will be it's eyes, it's ears and it's executioner as you see fit all in the name of protecting Yokohama."

"Welcome to the Port Mafia, Atsushi Nakajima."