#Modern Au Peaky Blinders

[ryuzakemo128]

Incorrect Quotes - Peaky Blinders ( Part Five)

(Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four / Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight / Part Nine / Part Ten )

(Divider by this person here )

Aberama: A pessimist sees a dark tunnel. Thomas: An optimist sees light at the end of the tunnel. Red: A realist sees a freight train. Alfie: The train driver sees three idiots standing on the tracks.

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Aberama: You deserve a reward for putting up with me. Alfie: You are my reward. *meanwhile* Red: You deserve a reward for putting up with me. Thomas: True, you can be really difficult at times.

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Aberama: You guys worried about Alfie? Red: Totally! Thomas: Yeah, they called me in the middle of the night and just yelled, "what do I do, what do I do, what do I do, what do I do?" Aberama: And what'd you say? Thomas: "I dunno, I dunno, I dunno, I dunno." Red:

Aberama: He's lucky to have you as a friend.

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Thomas: Who wants to go out of the country on a road trip? Alfie: Yea, I could drink legally! Red: I could hang out with the boys! Aberama: I could hide from the consequences of my actions.

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*The gang is learning CPR on a test dummy* Thomas: So, assessing the situation. Are they breathing? Red: No, Thomas. They are not breathing. And they have no arms or legs. Thomas: No, that’s not part of it— Red: Where are they? You know what? If we come across somebody with no arms or legs do we bother resuscitating them? I mean, what kind of quality of life do we have there? Aberama: I would want to live with no legs. Red: How about no arms? No arms or legs is basically how you exist right now, Person C. You don’t do anything. Thomas: All right, well, lets get back to it. ‘Cause you’re losing him. *Red pumps frantically* Okay, too fast. Everyone, we need to pump at a pace of a 100 beats per minute. Red: Okay, that’s uh, hard to keep track. How many is that per hour? Alfie: How’s that gonna help you? Red: I will divide and then count to it. Alfie: Right. Thomas: Okay. Well, a good trick is to pump to the tune of ‘Staying Alive’ by the Bee Gees. Do you know that song? Red: Yes, yes I do. I love that song. *clears throat, begins to sing* First I was afraid, I was petrified.

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Thomas: You’re just being paranoid. Again. Red: When have I been paranoid? Thomas: Um, when you first met Aberama you thought he was an undercover cop…? Red: No one has a wart that big, I thought it was a surveillance camera! Thomas: And last year you were sure Alfie was a mermaid! Red: He hated wearing shirts! COINCIDENCE?! *Later, when Red’s theory is proven wrong* Thomas: Do you have anything to say for yourself? Red: I still think Alfie is a mermaid.

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*The squad is playing a team sport* Red: Are you upset you don’t get to be on the same team as Alfie? Aberama: Have you ever played a game with Alfie? Red: No… Alfie: Have you ever been trapped in a cage with a wolverine? *Meanwhile, on the other side of the field* Alfie, chasing Thomas: I SAID FASTER! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE WORD “FASTER” MEANS? IT MEANS MORE FAST!!!!

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Thomas: Everyone synchronize your watches. Red: I don't know how to do that. Alfie: I don't wear a watch. Aberama: Time is a construct.

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Thomas: It’s time to turn this into a real business. Red: What do you mean? Like, carry a briefcase, and wear a tie, and pay taxes? Aberama: Wait, have you not been paying your taxes? Alfie: I handle our accounting.

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Alfie: ARE YOU- Aberama: Fucking. Alfie: KIDDING ME?! YOU- Aberama: Fucking. Alfie: IDIOT! Red: …What was that? Aberama: Thomas banned Alfie from swearing, so I’m helping him out.

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Red: Could you guys at least try to see this from my perspective? Aberama: *crouches down* Thomas: *kneels down* Alfie: *sits on the floor* Red:

Red: I hate all of you.

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Aberama: My stomach growled super loud in French. Aberama: I would like to clarify, my stomach did not speak in French. It growled during French class. Alfie: Bonjour. Thomas: Le growl. Red: Hon hon hon, feed me a baguette.

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Red: What does “take out” mean? Thomas: Food. Aberama: Dating. Alfie: Murder. Arthur: It can be all three if you’re brave enough.

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Aberama: Who the fuck broke the toaster? Red: It was Alfie. Arthur: It was Alfie. Thomas: Alfie broke it. Alfie:

Alfie: …YOU PROMISED-

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Arthur: What did you guys get in your yearbook? Alfie: 'Prettiest Smile' Aberama: 'Nicest Personality' Thomas: 'Most likely to start a bar fight' Red: 'Least likely to start a bar fight, but most likely to win one'

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Arthur: Why isn’t the statue smirking at me? Alfie: It isn’t smirking at anyone, they’re all just imagining it. Thomas: Three of us saw it, Alfie. How do you explain that? Alfie: *points at Red* Sleep deprivation. *points at Thomas* Paranoia. *points at Aberama* Delusional personality disorder.

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Red: What’s something you guys are better than Thomas at? Arthur: Mario Kart. Aberama: Yeah, video games. Alfie: Emotional vulnerability.

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Aberama: Arthur's first detention, I'm so proud. Red: Whoa, back up. Why did he get detention? Alfie: Because he's an idiot. Thomas, terrified: They can do that??

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*the squad is at a dinner party but someone has been murdered* Thomas: You’re acting pretty carefree for someone who’s life’s at stake. Who’s to say you aren’t the killer? Alfie: It’s a murder, not a tax audit. I’ll be fine. Red: What about Arthur? Nobody ever suspects Arthur! Arthur: Well what about Aberama? They have a gun! Aberama: Thomas has a knife. Thomas: Yeah, for fun, not for murder! *stabs Red in the arm*

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Alfie: If you took a shot for every time you made a bad decision, how drunk would you be? Red: Maybe a bit tipsy? Thomas: Drunk. Arthur: Wasted. Aberama: Dead.

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Arthur: What's the worst thing you guys have done? Alfie: Rickrolled my teacher in 4th grade. Thomas: I kicked Aberama in the shin- Aberama: -So I kicked Thomas between the legs. Red: I burned a town down. Arthur: What?! Aberama: What the hell is wrong with you?!? Red: A lot of things. Thomas: No shit.

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Red: So oxygen went on a date with potassium, it went... OK. Thomas: I thought oxygen was dating magnesium, OMG. Red: Actually oxygen first asked nitrogen out, but nitrogen was all like NO. Arthur: I thought oxygen had that double bond with the hydrogen twins. Alfie: Looks like someone's a HO. Thomas: NaBrO. Aberama: I'm done with all of you!

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Arthur: How do you connect with a fictional character? Aberama: What? Alfie: What? Thomas: What? Red: *pulls up a 500 slide presentation* I'm so glad you asked.

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Aberama: You're a lying piece of shit! Red: Oh yeah? You're the idiot that thinks you can get away with everything you do, WELCOME TO THE REAL WORLD! Thomas: I'm leaving and I'm taking Alfie with me! Arthur, gathering cards: Aaaaand that's enough Monopoly for today.

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Alfie: Poison is a magic transmutation potion that turns people into corpses. Red: This knife is actually a magic wand. Aberama: Meet me in the Denny’s parking lot for a wizard duel. Thomas: *cocks gun* Magic missile. Arthur: What the fuck is wrong with you people.

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Alfie: *visiting the squad* Hello, I just came to- Alfie: *sees Red shoving Arthur into the washing machine while Aberama records and Thomas watches* Alfie: *retreating* Something suddenly came up.

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Red: Okay! Let’s play Kiss Marry Kill! Red: First who would you kill? *Aberama points at Alfie* *Thomas points at Alfie* *Arthur points at Alfie* Alfie: *shrugs* I would kill me too.

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The Squad: *walking at the mall* Aberama: Hey, have any of you guys seen Arthur? He's been gone for a while.. Red: Eh, nope. Alfie: No, I haven’t... Thomas: Probably ran off to McDonald’s or something. Arthur: Hey. Aberama: Ooh, there you are- Red: What the fu- Thomas: I- where were you?! Arthur: Walking right behind you guys.

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Alfie: Are we really going to let Thomas keep Aberama? Arthur: We kept Red.

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Alfie: Guys… the principal just called— Thomas: It was Aberama! Aberama: It was Arthur! Arthur: It was Red! Red: It was me!

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Red: We need more help. Maybe I should call my friends. Alfie: ... Your what? Red: My friends. Arthur: Are they saying “friends”? Thomas: I think they're being sarcastic. Aberama: No, no, no, this is delirium, they've cracked from being awake all night. Hey, Red! All of your friends are in this room.

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Thomas: Anyone d- Arthur: Depressed? Aberama: Drained? Red: Dumb? Alfie: Disliked? Thomas: -done with their work... what is wrong with you people...

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Arthur: Are oranges named orange because oranges are orange or is orange called orange because oranges are orange? Red: Which came first, the orange or the orange? Alfie: Orange was first used to refer the fruit 1280 years ago but was not used as a color until 1000 years ago. Aberama: What was the color called before then? Thomas: There was no color, duh! Everything was black and white!

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Aberama: You're just jealous. All my friends tell me I remind them of Arthur. The Squad: *screaming* Alfie: She looks like Arthur? Are you out of your fucking MIND? Thomas: Arthur, sweetie, I am SO sorry. I am SO SORRY that an ugly-ass bitch like this would even say that. Oh my god. Alfie: Arthur? Arthur? Arthur? You know who you fucking look like? You fucking look like Red!

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Arthur: You know what I learned from my friendship with Thomas? Alfie: There’s no such thing as too mean? Aberama: Never let your friends know for sure if you like them? Red: Always hold a grudge?

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Red: Plants have feelings too?! What is this? Now I can't have food! Arthur: You can eat a rock. Aberama: Air. Alfie: The fabric of time and space. Thomas: Chugging a bottle of bleach can solve all your problems. Red: You guys are not helpful.

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Thomas: Where’s Arthur? Alfie: Doing stuff. Thomas: I don’t like the sound of that. Where’s Aberama? Alfie: Trying to stop Arthur from doing the stuff. Thomas: And Red? Alfie: Trying to stop Aberama from stopping Arthur from doing the stuff. Thomas: I see. And what are you doing here, Alfie? Alfie: I’m supposed to stop you from stopping Red from stopping Aberama from stopping Arthur from doing the stuff.

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Aberama: Thomas's refusing to wear their glasses! Thomas: Aberama, look, I wore the glasses for a day. My eyes are much better now. Watch. Thomas: *points to Red* Red. Thomas: *points to Arthur* Arthur. Thomas: *points to Alfie* Sasquatch.

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Thomas: I’ve done a lot of dumb stuff. Aberama: I witnessed the dumb stuff. Arthur: I recorded the dumb stuff. Red: I joined you in the dumb stuff. Alfie: I TRIED TO STOP YOU FROM DOING THE DUMB STUFF!

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Aberama: You three, explain right now! Red: It was Thomas. Alfie: It was Thomas. Arthur: It was Thomas. Thomas:Thomas: …fuck.

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Arthur: Did you bring Red? Aberama, gesturing to Alfie: No, but I brought the next best thing. Arthur: Alfie? The next best thing would be Thomas. Alfie: I would be offended, but Thomas is freakishly strong.

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*The gang's thoughts on stabbing* Alfie: Would never stab anyone. Thomas: Would stab someone in retaliation. Red: Yells "I won't hesitate, bitch!" first. Aberama: Would stab without warning. Arthur: Would stab as a warning.

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Aberama: Thomas is a strings kid. We must sacrifice them to the band gods. Alfie: Yes. Red: You're right. It'd be a good initiation for me. Thomas: Wait, guys, what about the truce we signed- Alfie: What truce? Aberama: *sigh* The truce that we must destroy all the choir kids and leave the strings alone. Arthur: Wait, I'm a choir kid! Everyone else: *prepares for sacrifice*

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Red: If you put a milkshake in one yard and crack open a cold one in another yard, which yard would the boys go to? Thomas: Schrödinger's boys. Arthur: FUCK! Aberama: What about cracking open a cold milkshake? Alfie: As we all know, the milkshake brings the boys to the yard. The presence of the boys is a prerequisite for the cracking open of a cold one, but cold ones do not have any inherent boy-attracting abilities. Milkshakes, however, do. Alfie: All else being equal, the boys would proceed to the milkshake yard. While it is possible to announce the presence of cold ones in the hope of attracting some boys, the pull of the milkshake is much more powerful by comparison. Red: ... Thomas: ... Arthur: ... Aberama: ... Alfie: Mind you, all of this nonsense hinges on whether or not the boys are back in town.

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Red: I'm going to be an adult in 4 years and I only have a vague idea of what I'm going to do. Alfie: I’m gonna be an adult in less than a year and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. Thomas: I'm with you there... Aberama: I'm an adult and I don't know what I'm doing with my life. Arthur: Three types of people.

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Alfie: Uh, Red? Arthur is in the pool and I don't think they're waterproof. Red: What? Thomas: I think they meant, Arthur is drowning. Red: WHAT?! *Meanwhile* Arthur: *is drowning* Aberama: OH MY GOD, ARTHUR! KEEP SWIMMING! Arthur: I can't swim, dumbass— *sinks* Aberama: ARTHUR!

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Aberama: We’ve been conducting an ongoing study to see what Thomas will and will not eat. Alfie: Grass? Yes! Aberama: Moss? Yes!! Alfie: Leaves? Ohh, yes! Aberama: Shoelaces? Strange but true! Alfie: Worms? Sometimes! Aberama: Rocks? Usually nah. Alfie: Twigs? Usually! Aberama: Arthur's cooking? Inconclusive! Red: How did you… test this? Aberama: You just hand them stuff and say ‘eat this’ and if they eat it, they eat it. Red: ... I don’t know how to feel about this. Arthur: IS THAT WHERE ALL MY SPARE SHOELACES WENT?

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*Everyone is giving advice to Aberama* Thomas: It's okay to ask for help. Red: You're not a burden. Arthur: Murder is okay. Alfie: Your feelings matter.

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Red: What do you do when someone offers you drugs? Aberama: Take them! Arthur: Punch them in the neck! Thomas: Say thank you! Alfie: Offer them more drugs to assert dominance! Red: … Red: No.

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Arthur: Red is late again. Aberama: How did this happen? I called them at 8 o’clock this morning and pretended it was 11. Alfie: I printed up a fake schedule for them saying we were starting at 9 instead of noon. Thomas: I set their clock to say PM when it’s really AM. Arthur: Oh boy. We may have overdone it. *Red bursts through the door* Red: WHAT TIME IS IT?

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Arthur: Good morning. Alfie: Good morning. Aberama: Good morning. Thomas: You all sound like robots, try spicing it up a bit. Red: MORNING MOTHERFUCKERS!

[soleilceirinen]

Scaredy Cat | modern!Tommy Shelby x fem!Reader

Summary: your boyfriend and your cat don't get along, they hate each other. When you have to travel for work and there is no one else to take care of your cat except for Tommy, you can't help but worry. What will you find when you return?

Warning: mentions of past animal abuse (not anymore), the cat gets sick, Tommy swears as usual, etc. If some of this might trigger you, don't read. There are mentions of smut but no real smut.

A/N: English isn't my first language, sorry if there are mistakes!

Peaky Blinders Masterlist - Cillian Murphy Masterlist

Tommy was very good with horses. Sometimes, just to tease him, you liked to call him 'Horse Whisperer Tommy'. He didn't find it funny at all. The truth is that he didn't get along so well with cats. 

At least, this man was incapable of getting along with yours. And it was funny because most of the time he reminded you of an angry cat himself, the rest of the time too, being honest. Sometimes, when you were on the couch watching a movie with Tommy lying on your chest and you scratched the back of his head right where his hair was shorter, you would swear you could hear him purring, melting under your touch. 

Your cat liked to make things difficult. The first time Tommy stayed over at your house, the cat took the space on the bed between the two of you, making it clear which was her territory and that you were hers. Every time he tried to get closer to you he was met with an outstretched paw that pushed him to the opposite side of the bed. You thought it was funny, he not so much. When you woke up you found Tommy's suit jacket full of orange hairs, crumpled on the floor. To this day the jacket still had traces of cat hair.

Moreover, how could you forget the day when Tommy was working on his laptop from your house and the cat bit the corner of the screen? Needless to say, Tommy couldn't continue working on whatever he was doing, which pissed him off so much, because the device stopped working. Your cat spent the rest of the day with a satisfied expression on her round face.

The rest of the time, the poor creature just hissed at Tommy every time she saw him. Eventually, she ended up accepting that neither of them were going to disappear from your life. At least you hoped it wouldn't happen in a long time. 

From the bedroom you heard your boyfriend talking, his deep voice too low to understand his words. You assumed that he would be talking on the phone, always busy with work, even in his sleep he kept mumbling meaningless phrases. 

You headed to the kitchen, after a long day at work you couldn't wait any longer to have dinner. Your cat appeared out of nowhere and began to walk between your legs, creating infinity shapes and wrapping her long tail around your calf. You bent down to scratch her belly when she leaned on the floor in the middle of the kitchen.

"You're so cute," you said in a childish voice, earning a sideways glance from Thomas, full of resentment.

"Cute my balls," he spat.

The cat looked at you with her eyes wide open, as if she were asking you ‘did you hear what he said?’ You jumped to your feet and put your hands on your hips, looking at Tommy with a raised eyebrow. "May I know what's the matter with you?" 

“Your cat, Y/N,” he muttered, turning to you with his hand in front of his face. On the back of it was a deep cut, no, it was a scratch. "Look what the evil’s spawn has done to me."

You glanced at the cat one last time, she looked back at you and licked her paw innocently. Letting out a sigh, you took Tommy's hand in yours to inspect the wound.

"What have you done to make her do this?" you asked cautiously.

He responded with a huff. "Nothing. She came out of nowhere and jumped at me with her claws out."

You nodded in silence and began to disinfect his hand. Your cat was like that, she didn't like men. Actually, she only liked you. Sometimes you wondered if her bad attitude was due to her previous owners, who didn't treat her very well. The thought of someone mistreating your cat filled you with sadness as well as anger. Fucking bastards.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, to him and to her, a tinge of sadness in your voice which didn't go unnoticed to Tommy.

When you finished covering his scratch with a bandaid, Tommy grabbed you hand in his and gave it a loving squeeze before continuing placing the food on the dinner table. 

-

You had always liked animals, when you were little you weren’t allowed to have pets because your brother was allergic to them. So, the moment you got a job in the city and moved out on your own, the first thing you did was go to the nearest shelter to adopt a kitten.

That was the initial idea, to bring a small cat home and raise it. However, when you saw the sad eyes of the orange cat watching you from inside her cubicle, you had the feeling that you were predestined to end up together. She was already an adult cat at that time but that didn't matter to you.

At the shelter they briefly told you that her former owners, whoever they were, had mistreated her and left her abandoned, half dead in a garbage can. A homeless man searching through the trash found her and took her there, where she was taken care of until she luckily recovered. You couldn't be more grateful to that stranger who cared enough to rescue her. Unfortunately, two years had passed since then and no one had wanted to adopt her. 

She instantly won your heart. You took her home and named her Cat, like Holly Golightly's cat in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Plus, both of them looked alike. Of course, Tommy complained that it was a ridiculous name for a cat, similar as if he called one of his horses Horse.

-

A couple of weeks after the scratching incident with Tommy, you were notified that you had to travel to another city for a week on behalf of the company you worked for, which was great because it gave you the opportunity to explore new places. The disadvantage was that your cat was old and had to take a pill every day, for life. You didn't trust anyone to leave them in charge of such a task, but not going on the company trip would mean losing the opportunity to receive a promotion in the coming months. You didn't know what to do but you had an idea.

That night Tommy was going to visit you, so you would make him a suggestion.

After having dinner, Tommy and you started kissing passionately. Everything with him was very intense. His warm, calloused hands ran along your sides under your shirt, leaving a trail of goosebumps over your soft skin. Your fingertips scratched the shaved sides of his hair and he let out a moan, pressing his lips harder against yours, never breaking the contact. 

You were starting to feel his bulge growing against your crotch, so you moved your hips against him, enjoying the friction. Now you were the one who let out a moan of pleasure.

“Fuck,” he murmured, burying his face in your neck as he panted. "Can't you make her leave, or at least make her stop staring at me like that?"

You looked at him slightly confused, following his gaze to the cardboard box where Cat was lying with her head resting on the edge of it, watching you without blinking. It didn't matter how many beds you bought her, none could beat the cardboard box. Rolling your eyes, you placed a hand on your boyfriend's face and caressed his sharp cheekbone, trying to get him to focus on you again.

"Just ignore her. Look at me," you said softly, kissing his jaw.

Tommy pulled away from you and sat on the sofa, running a hand over his face. "I can't, love. She's looking at me, killing my mood." He shrugged, looking sick.

You sighed, mentally saying goodbye to any possibility of Tommy fucking the hell out of you. "How bold she is, daring to look down on the great Thomas Michael Shelby."

He gave you a wide eyed look before frowning. "Are you making fun of me? Hey, where do you think you're going? Taking the beast to another room?"

"I'm going to get some water."

Once in the kitchen you took a couple of deep breaths, gathering the courage to talk to him. It was your opportunity to convince him to stay with Cat. You returned to the living room and sat next to him, crossing your legs on the sofa.

"Tommy, do you remember my work trip?"

He looked at you with a blank face for a few seconds until a spark of knowledge shone at the back of his eyes. "Yes, you're going away for a week. Is that right?"

You nodded, biting your lip. "Can I ask you a favor?"

His expression changed to one of suspicion. Usually you didn't ask for things, you didn't hesitate, so he knew you were about to ask him to do something he wouldn't like.

"It depends".

"You have to come in the morning to feed Cat, but not too much because she eats it all and gets sick," Tommy opened his mouth to complain but you were faster, placing the palm of your hand over his lips before continuing. "At night you come back and give her the pill with a bit of soft food, you have to pay attention and make sure she has swallowed it, okay? Also,  change her water, because when she has it for more than a day she won’t drink it."

He gave you a small kiss on the palm of your hand. You removed it and looked at him through your lashes, expectantly.

"Anything else?" he asked, feigning boredom. You smiled. It had been very easy, you hadn't even had to convince him.

"Yes! You have to clean up her cat litter."

-

The day of your trip, you left everything ready so that when he arrived at night, Tommy would find things easily. 

He opened your apartment door and stuck his head in doubtfully, there was no sign of the furry little beast. He was having flashbacks to the last time he stayed over, when Cat started running around the house making weird noises as if she was possessed by Satan himself. Tommy still felt chills remembering how the cat jumped into the bedroom moving sideways with her tail twisted while she howled. You couldn’t stop laughing, used to see your cat doing that almost every day, but Tommy kept saying that he witnessed a demonic possession that night.

But at that moment there were no howls or strange noises. In fact, everything was quiet. One of those silences that he had experienced so many times in his life before. The kind of silence that does not bode well. Tommy squared his shoulders, he wasn't going to get carried away by his superstitious ideas. It was just a cat. He would come in, give her the pill and some water, and then he would leave. Fast and clean. 

As he approached the corner where the hallway turned to the left at a ninety-degree angle he stopped. Your cat liked to hide there before jumping like a lion hunting for its prey on Tommy's legs. He still had the scar from the last bite, he didn't want to take another one.

This time he was prepared. With a quick movement he stood on the next section of the hallway. But there was nothing. Frowning and feeling a bit ridiculous, Tommy walked through the house looking for the little beast until he found her lying on the sofa.

The cat was curled up in a ball, her head resting on the armrest. Only her green eyes moved following Tommy's movements as he approached her. She seemed kind of off and Tommy couldn't help but feel a tinge of empathy.

“Do you miss Y/N too?” he asked out loud. The cat blinked weakly. "This place feels weird without her around, huh?" 

Tommy didn't know what to expect, some kind of reaction or something. The cat remained still, staring at the wall. He gave her one last glance, shrugging and heading to the kitchen. You had placed a note on the refrigerator door with more instructions, attached with a magnet in a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower that Tommy brought you from Paris. 

He ran his fingertips over your handwriting, thinking. He was going to take you to France the next time you had holidays. The rest of the refrigerator was covered with polaroids of you smiling at the camera, the two of you together, you with your friends and family... and the cat.

'Ah yes, the cat.' Tommy remembered, turning around.

The food and water bowls were full, as if she hadn't touched them all day. That was strange, the feeling of something not going right increased. Grabbing a clean bowl, Tommy put some soft food in it and inserted the pill, completely camouflaged, before placing it on the floor in front of the sofa. 

"Eat," he indicated authoritatively. 

He was a man used to being obeyed in everything, everyone did except you. You were the only one who could handle him like a rag doll and he wouldn’t complain. There was no doubt that this cat was yours, she didn't even look at the food.

Tommy grunted, losing his patience. He grabbed the bowl with one hand and the cat with the other, pushing them together as much as he could. The animal did not resist, after a few minutes a third of the food was gone, including the pill, but she refused to swallow more. "As you wish," he murmured, leaving the remains of food next to the other bowls.

When he looked into the small laundry room where you had the cat's litter box, his heart skipped a beat. Everything was a mess, the floor was full of poop and vomit.

"Fucking hell," he muttered under his breath. Then he returned to the living room, ready to give the cat the reprimand of her life but stopped short. He hadn't noticed before but there were also traces of vomit on the living room floor. "Shit."

Just then his phone started ringing. Your name appeared on the screen. He cleared his throat and answered.

"Hello Tommy" your voice sounded happy although somewhat tired. "How are you doing, honey?"

"Good. I gave the pill to the beast, don't worry. Are you okay?" He spoke as fast as he could, trying to move the conversation away from the cat. 

"Yeah, it's a little boring you know, all day in meetings and now they want to go to have dinner but I don't feel like going. I haven't been able to call you all day, as you can see  I haven't stopped.” You let out a small laugh. ”Hey Tommy, thanks for taking care of Cat. It means a lot to me. I have to go, they came to pick me up. I love you!"

You hung up the call before he could say anything back. Leaving the phone on the coffee table, he walked into the balcony, feeling the cold wind against his skin.

Tommy leaned on the balustrade as he lit a cigarette, smoking slowly. You didn’t like him smoking inside the house, or smoking in general, but that was his problem and you couldn’t change it. This way the balcony became his territory. Once he finished, he went back inside, closing the door behind him. The last thing he needed was the cat jumping out the window. 

He started cleaning everything the best he could while debating whether to call you again and tell you everything, that something was wrong with your cat, or try to fix it on his own. Yes, he would do that better. Tommy was a man of resources, he wasn't going to ruin your trip and worry you if he could take care of it.

After making sure everything was clean and the cat had food and water, he left your house, relieved that he wouldn't have to spend another second alone with that animal. 

-

When he returned the next day and found both the food and water intact, he headed to the living room, where Cat was still lying in the same position as the day before. He felt his soul leaving his body. 

Tommy swallowed and sat on the couch next to the cat. He approached his hand slowly to touch her soft fur, expecting the cat to hiss like she always did when he got too close to her. That would mean everything was fine. But that didn’t happen, the feline's only reaction was shuddering and letting out a pitiful whimper so soft that if he hadn't been sitting next to her, Tommy wouldn't have heard it.

Shit, shit, shit. He covered his mouth with his hand, his brain working at maximum power. He had to do something. Being aware of how important that cat was to you, if something bad happened to her... he didn't even want to imagine your reaction. 

Without wasting another second, he dialed May Carleton’s number, the veterinarian who sometimes treated his horses. After explaining the situation, she told him to bring Cat into the clinic to take a look at her. Tommy picked up the cat in his arms, wrapped in a blanket, and held her to his chest like one does when cradling a baby. The poor thing let him do it, too weak to complain.

The drive from your house to the clinic was frantic, Tommy drove like a madman and once there he skipped the line in the waiting room, entering directly and leaving the bundle on the metal table. "Thomas, you can't sneak in like this," said May while putting on a pair of clean latex gloves.

"It's an emergency," he said, pointing to the metal table.

The vet's expression changed from annoyance to concern the moment she laid her eyes on the poor creature. "Okay, Thomas. I'll take over from here, why don't you wait outside?"

It turned out that she had eaten some plant that's poisonous to cats. This had caused her intestine and some other organs to inflame, or something like that. At least they had discovered it in time to help her.

The first thing Tommy did when he got back to your apartment was throwing away all the plants. The second thing was not taking his blue eyes off from Cat for a minute during the next three days.

-

At the end of the week you couldn’t wait any longer to go back home. You called Tommy several times but he didn't pick up the phone. Every time you had talked to him in the past few days he always told you that everything was going great. You had a hard time believing it. In about twenty minutes you’ll be home and you could finally hug your baby Cat and take a shower, in that order.

You stopped at the entrance of your home, leaving the suitcase and your shoes next to Tommy’s. He's here after all, you thought. The lights were off, all of them except for the one in the living room. You walked towards there and what you saw made your heart fill with love. 

Tommy was on the sofa, fast asleep. Curled against his side was Cat, sleeping too. She was holding Tommy’s hand between her paws. You covered your mouth with your hand, hiding your smile. They were too adorable. Never had you thought the day in which the two of them could get along would come. Seeing them sleeping together seemed like a dream. 

You took your phone and started taking pictures of them. The next week you would print one to put it on your fridge door, a new moment to remember.

[whentommymetalfie]

Update: Chapter 11 is up

Tommy is not sure how he’s ended up here. On the surface it appears like a dream, the penthouse in Soho, the successful husband who never misses an opportunity to spoil him, a life full of expensive dinners and parties. But beneath the glimmering surface lies a darkness unlike anything else.

One late night in an overcrowded ER, he meets someone who finally sees him. And from that moment on, something changes.

Sequel to 'All for Nothing'

Pairings: Established Tommy/Luca, eventual Tommy/Alfie

Warnings: Domestic violence, emotional/psychological abuse, gaslighting, manipulation, eating disorders

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Not One of Many Masterlist

Series’ cast of characters (Face claims)

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty One

Chapter Twenty Two

Chapter Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Four

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Seven

Chapter Twenty Eight & Epilogue

[justrainandcoffee]

Hi Flor! I hope you’re doing well 🥰

I saw your reblog on the 100 different AU’s post and I’d like to request the roommate au with John. Can’t wait to see what kind of stunning moodboard you’ll come up with!

Thanks for sending your request, Daisy!! 🥺❤️. A modern!John for you ❤️.

You knew John since you were teens. But only the last year you started to live together mostly because sharing a place was cheaper. Both of you worked and you were studying as well, so splitting the expenses, really helped. But despite living under the same roof, you thought you were just friends.

But gradually that started to change. John started to prepare the breakfast for you every morning, even if he didn't understand at all what you were studying, he used to ask if you needed help. Not to mention the day he found that puppy in the streets and gave it to you, exactly on your birthday.

It was a rainy sunday that found both of you together again. Netflix, the sofa, the puppy and you two sounded good. But later you noticed that he wasn't watching the movie. His fingers were brushing your arm and you could feel his blue eyes on you. And, when you turned your head you found him staring at you. You looked at himas well. When John leaned over you, you close your eyes and when you feel his lips over yours you couldn't help but smile. Maybe that sunday afternoon, you found other way to spend your time.

Masterlist

[moral-terpitude]

Manic Monday

Did I need to start something new? No. Did I? Yes. Will there be more? Surely. At some point. (I get super annoyed by the manic Monday song when it comes on the radio, but it was the only good follow up I could think of to Quiet Sunday.) (Cause I liked this modern Shelby family bunches, but I feel like their life wouldn’t be without chaos after such a good day.)

[Masterlist]

Word Count: 1282

“Tom.” Your whisper was the only noise in the darkness, but a few minutes ago you’d been pulled from sleep by a commotion down stairs.

How Tommy hadn’t been woken up by the noise coming from somewhere off in the house was a mystery. You were usually the heavy sleeper, but Charlie was still off galavanting with Finn.

Hadn’t answered the phone. Hadn’t messaged.

Which meant you had spent most of the night staring at the ceiling before sleep finally took over.

You sighed, shaking him again, words coming out in a quick hiss, “Tommy, wake up.”

He took a deep breath as he turned to face you, blue eyes reading the worried expression on your face quickly, even in the lack of light.

“What’s going on, love?”

“Just something loud downstairs.”

He was out of bed in an instant, gun drawn from the bedside table and out the door before you could say much else.

You lay there for a few minutes before you heard a scuffle. Peeking out the bedroom door you saw quite the sight.

Charlie and Finn seemed equally pissed, wobbling as Tommy tried to support Charlie with help (or lack of) from his brother.

“Are you fucking kidding me, Finn!”

You pulled the robe around you tighter, a light jog over to take his place, bare feet padding across the wooden floor, to actually assist your husband.

Finn looked away, leaning against the bannister as the three of you made your way down the hall to Charlie’s room.

His blonde hair fell in his face as he tried to avoid Tommy’s gaze, sitting on the bed with his head in his hands.

“Feel like shit already, eh?”

“Dad,” Charlie groaned, that being the last you heard out of him before you made your way back to the landing.

“Downstairs.” You passed by him, not bothering to wait to make sure he listened, he knew better than to not follow, “Now.”

He grumbled, but followed behind you, knowing he was in for a good reaming.

“I can’t believe you,” he took the stairs two at a time to keep up with you as you stood in the entryway, fishing the pack of Marlboro lights out of your coat pocket, “it would be different if it was the first time, Finn—“

“C’mon, Y/N, he’s not a kid anymore—“

“Yes, Finn, he is!” You lit the cigarette, glancing up at the full moon and taking a long drag before toeing open the front door, “I know that your life, and the things you’ve all seen, was a lot different growing up, but he is fifteen!”

He looked away, slumping against the wall with a huff, arms crossed.

“Charlie is a good kid!”

“Finn!” Tommy’s voice bellowed down the stairs, preceding his presence (now dressed in more than just his underwear), and interrupted your tirade before you could continue.

You stayed in the door frame, blowing the smoke outside as Tommy rounded the corner. Anger taking the form of heat rising in your neck as you tried to take a deep breath and calm yourself.

“Was he into the fucking coke?”

Finn started to shake his head, glancing sideways at you before looking back at Tommy. “I don’t know,” he shrugged, words still a bit slurred, “I went off for a little bit. I think he’s just tanked.”

Tommy locked eyes with you, and unfortunately you mimicked Finn’s shrug as he huffed his way back up the stairs.

“He is a good kid,” you continued, discarding the cigarette but out into the gravel drive and lighting another before glancing up at the clock, hands pointed at 3:45, and running a hand through your hair, “and he has set himself up on a good path in school, his extracurriculars are all in order, and not that we need it but he is looking at one hell of a scholarship if he can keep his grades where they are. I know it’s summer,” you sighed, “but I can’t keep having you bring my boy—“

He scoffed, “That’s part of the fucking problem, Y/N! He’s a Shelby! He’s not your boy!”

His voice came out in a roar that immediately had you taken aback, heart trembling and sinking into your stomach before you caught his gaze.

Blinking twice, you took a deep, shuddering, breath, “Go the fuck upstairs and go to bed, Finn.”

“Y/N—“

“No. Don’t you dare try to fucking apologize to me now.”

Tears stung in the corner of your eyes as you brushed past him, smoke rolling along with you as you made your way through the hall and down into the kitchen.

The coffee maker hissed to life as you leaned on your elbows in front of it, swiping tears from under your eyes every 30 seconds or so.

He’s not your boy.

The words rang in your ears painfully as you heard approaching footsteps.

“Staying up?”

You sighed, turning and leaning against the counter, eyes roaming the white tiles all up the walls as you continued viscously chewing the inside of your lip and Tommy assed your state.

You had thought about finding the bag of crisps when you went down there, but by the time the words actually sank in, you realized nothing sounded good anymore.

“Yeah, I figured,” you sniffled, turning away to pull two cups out of the cupboards, “I have a lot to catch up on, I need to find vendors and source donations for that benefit, the women’s shelter—“

“Love, what happened?”

Your shoulders relaxed as he wrapped his arms around your waist, featherlight kisses pressed into the crook of your neck.

Sometimes you hated that he knew what made you tick.

A long sigh passed between your lips, weighing your words before you spoke.

“Hm?” He prodded, rocking you both back and forth as you shrugged.

“Just another reminder of—“ that I’m not able to hold a candle to your dead wife? No, there was no good that was going to come from the rest of that sentence. Instead, you shook your head, stopping the sentence, pouring coffee in both of the cups, “I know I’m not Charlie’s mother—“

“Who said?”

“Tommy,” you shrugged him off of you, turning to face him, safe and close in the space between him and the counter, “I just, for once, wish what goes on in our household could stay in our little bubble.”

He tried to search your face for the answer to his question as you relinquished one of the mugs to him. You knew you probably weren’t making sense.

“Finn, reminded me, when I was giving him hell, that Charlie isn’t my boy.” You nodded.

“He’s just pissed out of his mind, hurling his guts into the bowl in the hall bathroom right now.”

“Like that’s an excuse.” You shot back, heading to leave the kitchen as he reached for you again.

“No,” you shook your head, picking the still burning cigarette off the tea saucer you’d grabbed from the sink, “you’re not going to manage to fuck your way out of that one. I know I’m not a Shelby by blood, but god damn Tommy, you always manage to explain away their shit and I’m getting sick of it.”

You shook your head, letting the cigarette hang from your mouth like he would usually do while he worked.

“We even had a good day today, too.”

You heard the whispered “fuck” as you meandered your way through the house, slamming the heavy wooden door to your office behind you.

The only person you felt bad that it might have woken woken up was Frances. Bless her.

She needed a raise for putting up with all of you.

[pacifymebby]

t r o u b l e / chapter thirty two

"What do you wanna see Michael for?" Asked Isaiah later that evening as we sat together in Alfie's kitchen. We'd been served dinner and though I was hungry I'd already decided I couldn't eat the food which had been placed in front of me.

He was giving me such a cynical look, face screwed up, disbelief worn shamelessly on his smirking lips.

"He's family." I shrugged but he just chuckled and shook his head. "What?" I asked when he didn't reply, when he simply kept up that smirking raised brow stare.

"Feelin home sick all of a sudden love?" He was laughing at me, I could see the amusement dancing in his eyes. I rolled mine.

"Michaels the only one who came to our recital when we finished left lower school and moved to 16+" I said cutting up my food carefully, studying it as I did. "It'll be the same this year no doubt... If we even manage to graduate after Tommy's little shit show..."

"You're so fuckin dramatic..." He said with a smirk, "obviously you're gonna graduate," he said shoving another meatball into his mouth, pausing only to chew and swallow, cutting me off just as I opened my mouth to argue. "And, when you do... I'll come."

"What?"

"When you graduate," he said mopping up the last of his stew with a slice of bread, "I'll come to your recital or your ceremony or whatever..."

And when he closed his mouth and held my gaze I realised I couldn't bide myself anymore time by asking "what?" One more time. Realised that if I didn't have anything to say in that moment then all I could do was remain quiet or shrug him off. And I couldn't think of anything to say because I wasn't sure what to make of his statement. Wasn't sure whether I should be pleased or touched or suspicious.

So I didn't say a word about it and instead turned my attention back to the plate.

"You want this? I'm full." I said standing up before he could answer, my chair scraping across the floor as my feet hit the stone and I pushed away from the counter we'd been eating at.

"Aye go on then.." he sighed reaching for my plate, taking another piece of bread and tearing it.

I couldn't watch him eat and so instead I turned away, arms folded across my chest as I gazed out of the kitchen window.

The view wasn't particularly impressive, it was simply a stretch of roof, clean slope of grey slate cutting down from one wall to meet another clean slope of grey slate which climbed to meet another. There was a kind of hollow in the middle where the house gave way to a walled garden in the middle of the structure, a tree confined along with a goldfish pond and a bench, a bowl of water left for Cyril.

The sunset broke behind the rooftops and gold light leaked between the cracks and the nooks. Spilled over the moss which grew on the slate slopes and painted them amber shades of soft green.

Outside the evening was still and peaceful and soon to be swallowed once again by London's muted grey night.

"You don't wanna see Michael Sylvie..." said Isaiah from where he sat perched by the counter.

"I do Isaiah."

"They fucked him up pretty badly..."

"I know, that's why I want to see him..."

"What do you wanna upset yourself for girl, what's the point in that?"

"Who says it'll upset me..."

"I do alright, I say it'll fuckin upset you because it will fuckin upset you alright?" He snapped, his cutlery clattering against the table when he smacked his hand down. The sound was shrill and sharp but I didn't flinch. Just remained still, watching two magpies on the roof.

"Oh well if it's your expert opinion..." I smirked aware that I was pushing his buttons again, aware that I was about to drive him to despair once more. But I couldn't help myself, couldn't help the urge to push him until he snapped, just to prove that I could. I told myself it was to remind him that I wasn't just some girl, that I wasn't fragile, that I was just as dangerous as him. But I wonder now if it was perhaps just that I liked the tension in his jaw when he was gripped by the frustration I caused him.

"Why do you really want to see him?" He asked after another moments quiet. A moment in which I'd been able to hear him deliberately draw a slower breath, trying to calm himself down.

"I told you, he's family... And I know it's worse than John told us so I want to see him for myself."

"You want to risk your life just to prove your brothers lie to you?"

"You make it sound unreasonable but it's not."

I heard his chair scrape against the floor then too. Heard him get up. His cutlery scraping on his plate as he stacked it atop mine. I felt the shift in the atmosphere as he crossed the kitchen floor and stopped just beside me. His elbow knocked mine as he placed our dirty dishes down in the deep basin and reached for the tap.

"It won't upset me," I said again, "and I want to know who hit him... I've visited my brothers in hospital before Saiah..."

"This is worse," he said quietly, "Michael should be dead love, he ain't in any state to tell you anything..."

"I still want to see him..." I said stubbornly plunging my hands into the hot water until I found a plate I could concentrate on washing instead of concentrating too much on Isaiah, how close he was standing to me, how quietly he was talking to me.

"I'm not gonna take you Sylvie," he said with a small smirk, "y'can phone him if you're worried..."

"You said he isn't in any state to talk..." I said, eyes focussed with a dead glow on the plate I'd long since scrubbed clean. "It won't upset me." I said again knowing the words were falling on deaf ears, not expecting him to reach out to me the way he did when I said it again.

He took my chin in his hand and turned my gaze away from the plate, forced me to look at him.

Scrutinised my dead dark eyes for a moment. And though I held his gaze with a stubborn determination he saw something there I hadn't been able to hide.

"You already are." He said letting me go, taking the plate from my wet hands and resting it carefully on the dish rack.

"Fine." I said quietly, my voice so certain, so unwavering, all the sharp smoothed carefully down by my tongue, that the word fell light but lay heavy in the silence between us which followed.

He didn't say anything, just took the sponge from my hands and nodded for me to leave him to it. But I didn't want to because doing the dishes had felt like biding my time. Had given me something to think about whilst I was busy thinking about other things. It had been something for my hands to busy themselves with whilst my mind raced through calculations and weighed up suspicions.

So I remained by his side feeling blindly in the soapy water for something else I could pick up and wash. A ghost of an apology skimming both our lips when my fingers brushed over the back of Isaiah's hand beneath the water. The relief moments later when I found a knife, felt the blade dig a warning into my palm as I closed my fingers around the wrong end.

And as we stood together washing the dishes in silence I tried to think through too many things at the same time.

First their was the trouble with Sunny.

Something about Freddie Sabini's note had been troubling me since I'd held it pinched between my hands. The risk he'd taken to deliver it to our door.

Because if he'd known he'd been found out, if he'd known there was a chance he was being followed, then why had he crossed the city to our front door and left a sign.

Second there was the trouble with Michael.

I hadn't been lying to Isaiah when I'd given him those reasons for wanting to see my cousin. Michael had been the only member of our family to attend that recital. One which had felt pivotal at the time when we were only 16 and didn't realise yet that every recital, every show we danced in was going to feel pivotal. Was going to feel make or break.

At the time the flowers he'd left us had been the only good luck and the only congratulations, I'm proud of you, that we'd had. He was the last member of the family to show up to any of our performances and the week Sunny had been announced as Odette he had sent her flowers to the flat.

Perhaps his reputation with the outside world was one of a sleazy playboy always getting arrested for petty possession charges, kicked out of clubs with bulging pupils and red eyes, but he'd always found time amid his careless antics for me and Sonya.

And I hadn't forgotten that. If not especially because of the reputation he had. The bad seed. There wouldn't be a single member of the public not secretly thinking he'd deserve it if he died. And if he deserved it then so would my brother's, so would my Aunt Pol, so would Uncle Charlie, so would Ada and Esme... So would Isaiah. So would Sunny and I.

I couldn't leave him on his own in that private ward. Couldn't leave him to the company of the armed police who would be being paid to guard him but who could probably be swayed with a little nudge from a Changretta or Sabini.

Not when I knew the devastation that Polly would be gripped with having been forced by Tommy to keep her distance. He was holding her hostage in that big house too and I knew she would be desperate to know her boy wasn't alone. Knowing Polly she'd probably be able to sense the second I stepped inside his hospital room. And I hoped she would know it was me, that he was in tender company.

"Whatve you got to do before bed?" Asked Isaiah, his voice a little lower, heavier than it had been before. The warm water lapping at our wrists had clearly subdued him, lulled him and left him suddenly aware of his own exhaustion.

For that I was grateful. It was going to make my evening much easier.

"I haven't practiced today so..." I shrugged knowing he would force himself to stay up with me, knowing he would sit there in a chair in the corner of the room, watching me, longing for me to give in for the night so that he could get some rest.

And if I could wear him out just enough then perhaps he wouldn't wake when I left in the middle of the night.

"Don't you reckon you should just try an get a decent night's sleep in you?" He asked but I could tell from the way he looked at me that he new it was a futile question.

"I napped."

"Mmm sure that half an hour's done you the world of bloody good..." he said only really grumbling to himself as he pulled the plug in the sink and reached behind me for the tea towel.

I ignored his comment and took up the other half of the towel scrunching it in my own hands to dry myself off.

He kept holding it even after he'd finished, waiting patiently for me to be done.

"Well I'll wait up with you," he said letting me get away with ignoring him again as I dropped the towel and turned away. Listening carefully to his footsteps as he followed me. He flicked the kitchen light off behind him and followed me to the gym Alfie had shown me earlier that afternoon on the "guided tour." The guided tour which had been his way of showing us all the rooms we could use and all the rooms which were barred to us upon "pain of death."

He'd been fairly generous with his permissions and really his little tour had felt like simply another method of talking too much to teach us who was in charge. To have us walking on eggshells aware that every second spent in his home was thanks to his generosity. Something he'd reminded me more than once, wasn't a trait he was famed for. Impatience, contrarianism, a short fuse... Those were the traits he was remembered for and wouldn't we do well to remember that.

Among the rooms he'd barred us from were his office, his bedroom, two doors which stood beside one another at the top of the stairs on the third floor, and a bathroom. He was very particular apparently about his bathroom. I'd struggled not to smirk when he'd frowned and shaken his head. Struggled not to laugh because an infamous gangster was apparently a nitpicking germaphobe...

Among the rooms he'd been so gracious as to let us use however was a gym. It wouldn't be perfect for training because it had been designed as a boxing gym with the usual soft mat floors, punch bags and lifting equipment taking up the space I would need. But it was better than nothing and, as I was beginning to realise, more than generous coming from a man who valued his privacy and personal space more than anyone else I'd ever met.

I was expecting Isaiah to shake his head at me when I placed myself down in the center of the room and began stretching, I was expecting to be chastised, told off for trying too hard, for wearing myself out. But once we were in the room Isaiah didn't say another word to me. Instead he watched me as I crossed the room, watched me drop to the floor and begin pointing my toes, going through my gentle stretches to ease myself up. He watched me with a growing intensity, with shadowy eyes and a glowering kind of pout.

And then he stopped.

He crossed the floor, brushing past me without a second glance, left me watching him as he stopped in front of the equipment wall and began examining the sets of gloves and guards hanging from the wall.

I watched as he took a pair down, slipped them over his hands and flexed his fingers. Watched as he pulled his t-shirt over his head and left it abandoned on the floor. Tried not to watch when he moved silently and took up a fighters stance before a punching bag, his eyes steely and glazed as he flared the inanimate object down.

Forced myself to watch as he channelled his anger into every rapid punch, the bag taking it all, muting every hit. He growled, the muscles in his stomach tightening as he threw another burst of short sharp stabbing punches that left a little lump in my throat. Left a tight kind of knot in my own stomach as I swallowed down and tore my gaze away from him. Tried to focus on my stretches and then, later on my steps.

I'd thought he might tire quickly with all the sleep he hadn't had. Instead he remained determined, stubborn and cut off from the rest of the world. The sound of his rhythmic jabs punctuating my delicate turns and steps. Every teetering pirouette I managed accompanied by the consistency of his anguish landed into that punching bag.

The sound left a strange sensation settled over me. As if I was being haunted by him. Every time I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on my steps, every time I tried to slip into my sister's shoes Isaiah would grunt or growl with the effort of his exertion, and the image of his shirtless torso rippling with tension would come back to bite me.

It was knowing I was at the heart of that tension which left the lump in my throat. The knot in my stomach. And though I told myself that that really was all it was, guilt, I knew it wasn't.

And every time I opened my eyes or stole a glance back at him I found myself hoping he'd snap out of his apparent trance and cut a glance at me. Hold my gaze as he landed one of those cutting jabs into the punch bag. Perhaps he'd feel better if he was looking at me when he landed the punch.

But Isaiah's temper didn't fade until much later, when I was at the trembling crescendo of my routine. When I was en pointe and shivering, pushing myself that one step beyond my limit. Dangerously teetering, the burn in my thigh, in my calf and in my hip, everything pulled taut and trembling. Knee brushing my ear as I held the position my sister had perfected a long time ago.

With my eyes closed I couldn't see him staring, couldn't see the way his eyes drifted over my silhouette, the way his brooding expression seemed to shadow a little more, some kind of sad awe overcoming him. With my eyes closed I didn't see anything of him at all. But I heard it.

Taglist

The silence. The gentle creek of the punch bag swinging to a halt, a stillness capturing the room. A silence I had complete power over.

For a moment the realisation threatened to dizzy me, I felt the tingling rush of selfawareness in my fingertips and cheeks. I drew a breath and forced it down. Shut it off. Remained perfectly balanced, exhaled slowly, in complete control as I began to spin slowly like a china figure in a music box. Delicate. Pristine.

And still the silence remained. Isaiah stood watching me as if he didn't recognise the girl in front of him at all. And perhaps he didn't. I must have seemed a far cry from the girl who'd put a gun to her own head and threatened to throw herself out of the window only the day before.

Perhaps now, in a state of hypnotic concentration, caught in the wrap of my celestial revolve, I appeared from certain angles, to be Sonya.

And it was that thought which choked me. That thought which seized my body so that I knew I was going to fall even before the door burst open and Alfie's voice startled both me and Isaiah.

It was the thought of Sonya which sent me toppling. It just so happened that Alfie's poorly timed entrance appeared to be the cause. The disturbance which left the fragility of my balance all too obvious when I wavered and fell from my position to the floor.

Except I didn't hit the floor. Didn't feel the unforgiving thud or the burn of friction when my thigh came down against the vinyl.

Instead I felt the thud of a chest beneath my shoulder, two arms closed carefully around me as Isaiah stumbled to break my fall and hold me secure.

Instead I felt myself overwhelmed by the warmth of being caught, the snug of someone else's embrace as he scooped me up with ease.

"Fuckin hell Solomon's you never heard of knockin?" Snapped Isaiah, his frustration vibrating through his chest and mine as he spoke, still holding me. His grip was tense but not too tight and I could tell he wasn't about to let me go any time soon. I should have minded that but in the moment I didn't. In the moment I was grateful for his arms around my waist, one hand holding my shoulder, his body shielding mine so that Alfie couldn't see the way I was left trembling like a little bird. I was breathless. Not because of the shock but because the perilous move had torn through the last of my energy reserves and now that I was being held up by someone else I was realising just how exhausted I really was.

"Ever heard of knockin? Sunshine this is my fuckin house ain't it... Oh I'm sorry do excuse me little Shelby..." he said with a faux gracious gesture, "ain't used to minding me language and your little lap dog really does have a way of tempting my worse side..." he said sneering at Isaiah.

"Don't give a fuck who's house it is mate, she coulda been hurt... Fuckin fell because of you!"

I could feel the muscles in Isaiah's arms tense as he spoke and his temper flared and when I leant back against his chest, tilted my head back to look up at him I could see his glare burning, nostrils flared as he snarled at Alfie. But Alfie hardly seemed to notice Isaiahs temper, didn't seem phased by the threat in his eyes as he chuckled and shook his head.

"You care about the little gypsys health so much Lapdog, then perhaps you might like to think about letting her stay up so late eh?" He said, his eyes softening but not soft. "What do you think little Shelby? I reckon it's past your bedtime ain't it..."

And though his condescending tone left my cheeks burning with a furious blush, my eyes shadowy with a stubborn sulk, I could feel my own frailty in every shaking breath I took. So when Isaiah spoke up again in my defense I just shook my head.

"He's right Siah, I'm fuckin tired anyway." I said trying to shrug my way out of his hold on me, but in the moment I tugged away he held me a little more firm. His hands moving down to my waist to steady me before he let me go.

And even when he let me walk free he followed so close behind that I was sure I could feel his steps overlapping mine. His chest shadowing my shoulder blades.

I stopped in the doorway, inches from Alfie. Looked up at him with wide and blinking innocent eyes.

"Goodnight Mr Solomon's" I said as sweetly as I could, my smirk tugging at my lips when I curtseyed, held his gaze with a simmering glare to let him know I was laughing at him still.

"Call her Gypsy one more time..." growled Isaiah, his eyes full of disgust when he snarled at the older man. The two of them starring eachother down in the doorway, neither one willing to back down.

Alfie let out a low whistle, his eyes twinkling with unforgiving amusement.

"Get a muzzle for your pet little Shelby..." he chuckled as he stepped inside the gym and watched us walk back down the hall together.

@inalovesrabbits-blog

@cocoaflowers

@zablife

@jomarch-wannabe

@itsghostgirlyo

@marwwfairy

@toddlerbodybag

@everysage

@tommyshelbyswhore

@kas3ylovesyou

@kxnnxy

@starrykitn

@call-sign-shark

@only-malala

@galactict3a

@darkcastle167

@liliac-dreamer

@impossibleheartflower

@mollybegger-blog

@vanhelsingsbigtoe

[shelbydelrey]

Her Hidden Fangs

Arthur never gave much attention to Heaven's weird nocturnal habits or to her absurd despise for garlic. But after he catches her sipping a blood bag in the middle of the kitchen, the man will have to re-evaluate everything that he knows about his roomate.

This is my little gift for your 1K Followers milestone @call-sign-shark 😁 I've recently read a book called My Roomate Is a Vampire and i couldn't stop thinking that it could be a fun modern scenario for Arthur and Heaven. Hope you like it! 😘

[sneakyblinders]

superstition - modern!tommy shelby x ofc

A/N: hello! this is something i've had brewing in my mind for quite some time! Modern!Tommy Shelby x ofc, Amandine. Based in southeast Louisiana. (If you ever have the opportunity to go... please take it. It's one of the best places on earth.) If you're wanting some ambiance, or getting the vibe of the story... take a listen to this ambiance music on Youtube! warnings: language, cheating, sexual themes. not canon. an au.

1998–Southeast Louisiana

“You know what you’re getting yourself into, don’t you, Thomas?” Polly asked a pink cheeked teenage Tommy as he stumbled in the backdoor, tucking his shirt back into his pants. 

He licked his lips, sweat running down his back. “What do you mean?” he asked. 

“That girl, Tommy,” she paused. The ceiling fan whirred, kicking away the leftover smells from dinner. The heat. “Amandine,” Polly shuddered. “Her family is dangerous. Her grandmere is a seer, you know.” 

Tommy nodded. He did know. “I love her, Pol,” he said, straightening his back. 

Polly chuckled. “You’ll see what someone like Amandine Theiriot does with love.” 

2011–Southeast Louisiana

The restaurant bustled. Dishwashers were running furiously, line cooks and waiters bickered over a particularly fussy patron. Amandine rolled her eyes. The heat was overwhelming. July in Louisiana was brutally unbearable, and a heatwave made going into the kitchen every day damn near impossible. 

“Dine!” Gio, the sous chef called out to her. “Dine, there’s somebody here fer ya!” 

Her eyes wandered tiredly to the man in the corner. Her man. “Tommy?” she breathed quietly. So quietly she wasn’t sure if anybody but herself heard her. 

He didn’t smile at her. All joy was gone from his eyes. His lips were in a firm line, hands in his jean pockets, his military backpack slung over one shoulder. The kitchen staff moved out of Amandine’s way as she made her way to Tommy, moving in a trance-like pattern. 

“You’re home?” she asked. He smelled like the bayou. Faintly like aftershave. Smoke and whiskey. He’d not come directly here. 

“Here I stand,” he drawled, the deep baritone of his voice sending a chill down her spine like only he could. 

“I waited,” she said gently as desire filled his eyes. 

“I see,” he responded as she reached out to touch his cheek–touch a scar she hadn’t seen before. “Let’s go home, baby,” he said, her touch filling him with the deepest sense of belonging he’d felt in nearly eight years. 

The staff mumbled under their breath as their head chef walked out for the night, dinner tickets be damned. 

Amandine sensed a darkness in Tommy’s spirit. A darkness that wasn’t there before the war. Before Iraq. She guessed too many tours would do that to a person. Her heart felt heavy as he drove them through the windy southeast Louisiana streets, back to their once shared home. Before the war separated them. He didn’t speak. Neither did she. 

The bayou, their home, was dark. There weren’t too many streetlights on these two lane roads leading them to their home. The home they’d purchased at eighteen and nineteen before the world went upside down. 

Tommy drove his truck, the truck Amandine had been using the last seven years, up their gravel driveway, the motion sensor lights at the top of their home kicking on. It looked a little cleaner than when he had last seen it seven years ago. 

The garage was the entire bottom floor, two flights of stairs leading to the house above. In the swamp, a house on stilts, or raised houses, are normal to aid in air circulation and prevent flood damage when the inevitable hurricanes blasted through the swamp. Tommy tiredly dragged his legs up the steps, Amandine following behind him. 

He fumbled with his keys, finding the right one for the front door and unlocked it, shocked when he saw the difference in the house. “You fixed it up?” 

She smiled softly. “Yeah,” she looked at him nervously. “Daddy and Grandpere and the boys helped. Thought you might like it,” she said. 

He let his dusty backpack fall to the floor with a thud, closing and locking the door behind them before he pushed her up against the door, crashing his lips to hers. 

It was a mess of clothes and sloppy kisses, but they made their way to the bedroom where they devoured one another. 

The next morning they woke up next to each other for the first time in seven years. An uncomfortable silence had fallen between the two of them the night before, causing them to fall asleep with their backs to one another. Something had shifted–something had changed. 

“So,” Amandine began the next morning, sun streaming in through the slats of the blinds. “Who was she?” she asked. 

“Who was he?” Tommy asked, reaching for a cigarette on his nightstand. 

“I’ll tell you if you tell me,” she said, sitting up in bed, leaning against the headboard. 

“Deal,” he said nonchalantly, exhaling smoke. 

“Vincent Camponi,” she said. She could faintly see his jaw twitch in anger. 

“Grace Burgess,” he said, mind wandering to the blond he fell in love with at war. The one who had almost cost him his life. 

“Will you go to her?” Amandine asked. 

“Can’t,” he said, not meeting her eyes. “The curse,” he exhaled. “The bond,” he said, holding up his palm, the faint scar from where they’d joined themselves together in Gypsy tradition so many years ago. 

The curse he referred to, was also cast that night they made their vow. That if anything should separate them, they would be dually cursed for the rest of their days. Bad luck following. Their children would be cursed. Their families would be destined for doom. Their businesses would decline and their money would disappear. 

“Where’s Della?” he asked to change the subject. 

“With Mama and Daddy,” Amandine said. 

“Let’s go get her. No sense in keeping us all apart for any longer than we have to, hm?” he said, stubbing out his cigarette and walking to the shower. 

“Yeah,” Amandine said softly. “No sense in that.” 

[soleilceirinen]

The Portrait | modern!Tommy Shelby x Reader

Summary: Thomas Shelby is your History professor at the university. One day he wants to meet you at his office and it scares you a bit. Definitely, you are not expecting to see what's waiting for you there. Modern AU.

Warnings: nothing.

A/N: this is short and maybe makes no sense but I just wanted to write something after not writing anything in months. Also, it's inspired by a real teacher I had, who kept a huge self portrait in his university office. It was horrible and funny at the same time.

Sorry for the English, it isn't my first language. There are probably a lot of mistakes but I don't feel like proofreading it more. Thanks for reading it!

Peaky Blinders Masterlist | Cillian Murphy Masterlist

In the three years that you had been studying at the university, you had never been in professor Shelby’s office. Not even once. But there were rumours, each of them crazier than the next one. They said that one of the walls was covered by a bookshelf which actually was a secret door to access professor Solomon’s office, who some people believed were his secret lover. But that was nothing compared to other things you had heard, such as not going alone to his office if you were a young woman, just in case. 

Of course, you didn’t believe any of this. Unfortunately, you had learned the hard way that sometimes people were mean and they would talk shit about others just out of jealousy, or self discontent. Some people had very sad and empty lifes. 

It didn’t make sense to you because Thomas Shelby never messed with anyone. The man taught his classes and left, unlike other teachers who tried really hard to be friends with their students, he knew where to set the limits. He was serious and a good professor, one of the best you had ever had. 

His lectures were focused on the first half of 20th Century History. Sometimes, Thomas would talk about World War I in a way that made you feel like he had been there, as if he were telling you all his memories. 

-

On Monday you got an email from him. Your heart skipped a beat, he wanted to meet you at his office. The message was brief and concise, it just said that he wanted to talk to you, along with the appointment’s date. Now you were a nervous wreck. What did he want to talk about with you? You couldn’t know, maybe your last essay was so horrible that he wanted to say it to your face and see your reaction.

Taking a deep breath, you tried to push away all those thoughts. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal and you were creating a mountain out of a grain of sand. Besides, it made no sense to dwell on the suffering if you didn’t even know the reason why he wanted to meet.

-

It had been five minutes since you arrived at Mr. Shelby’s office. The only problem was that you couldn’t find the strength to knock on the closed door. You just wanted to put off the moment as long as possible.

"You can do it. Tommy doesn't bite, you know?"

The sudden presence of someone behind you made you turn around in surprise. You thought you were alone in the empty hallway but clearly you were wrong because Mr. Solomons was standing next to you, seemingly amused. After all, his office was the one next to Thomas's. 

He was your professor too, although his lectures didn’t captivate you as much as those of Mr. Shelby. It wasn’t because they weren’t interesting, he specialised on Jewish History and cultural heritage, but the way he rambled was certainly disconcerting. Some days after leaving his class you weren’t even able to determine what he had been talking about since  he liked to spill ideas that in theory had some kind of connection with each other.

“I know, thanks for the encouragement,” you replied quietly. He placed one of his large hands on your shoulder and gave you a friendly squeeze before walking past you, as he headed towards his own office. 

-

Mr. Shelby's deep voice invited you in from the other side of the door. You entered slowly, fixing your gaze on the floor. He waited, sitting on the other side of the desk as he watched you with interest. 

“How are you, Y/N?”

The answer died in your throat the moment you gathered enough courage to look up in order to meet his blue eyes. Mr. Shelby stared at you expectantly, one eyebrow raised. You covered your mouth with your hand, the last thing you wanted to do now was bursting into laughter but you couldn’t take your eyes away from the painting.

Right behind him, almost covering the whole surfice of the wall, hung a huge portrait. It wasn’t a photograph, it looked like an oil painting on canvas. In it appeared Mr. Shelby, who was wearing the kind of clothes that men would probably wear back in the 1920’s, standing next to a majestic white horse. Slowly, your eyes moved from the painting to the man in front of you. 

Who in his right mind has a painting like that in their university office? It was the tackiest thing you had seen in a long time. Definitely, not what you were expecting to find there. 

“Y/N?”

Mr. Shelby's soft voice brought you back to reality. To the here and now. "Yes, good. And you?"

"Not bad. You'll wonder why I summoned you today," he said, as he rummaged through the piles of papers and books that littered his desk. You made a small noise of confirmation, so he continued speaking. "I really liked your last essay about the role of women in society during World War I. Have you ever been to France?"

You tilted your head to the side, for a moment nothing made sense. What did one thing have to do with the other? You kept looking at the portrait, as if the answer was painted somewhere there. "France?" 

At your bewildered face, Mr. Shelby laughed softly. It sounded as if he were letting out a gust of air. His eyes shined gently, he seemed to be in a good mood. “Yes, the country. The university’s History department has been offered a student exchange with a French university. It’s only a week but in five days you can do many things. I was talking to Mr. Solomons and we agreed that you are one of our most promising students, it might be interesting for you to go.”

"Really? I don't know what to say..." you mumbled, your cheeks turning red and warm. You wanted to cry, or laugh, or both. "I've never been to France, I don't even speak French."

Mr. Shelby found what he was looking for. He placed a form in front of you and pointed his finger at it. "Think about it. If you decide to go, fill this out and bring it to me in a couple of days. It's a great opportunity," he added.

Nodding, you took the form and put it carefully between your notes so it wouldn’t get all wrinkled. “Thank you so much for considering me,” you finally said, truly grateful. 

You looked one last time at the painted version of Thomas. His cold eyes returned an icy stare from above, with an almost cruel expression. He seemed so distant, like someone who no longer has anything to lose. It made you wonder, in the first place, the history behind the painting. Did he commission it? Why? Anyway, he could have hung it at his house, not there. 

Before stepping out of the office, you looked over your shoulder and smiled at him. What you weren’t expecting was Thomas returning the smile back at you, but he did and for a brief moment, his face lit up. That face couldn’t be further away from the hard features of his painted version. 

As you walked down the hallway you shook your head. So many nerves for nothing. It also infuriated you a little bit to think about all the shit people said about him behind his back, all rumours, since nobody ever mentioned the painting. 

However, you had something clear. Despite the bad reputation that preceded him, you kind of liked Thomas Shelby. He had the most incredible pair of blue eyes and the worst taste when it came to decoration, but nobody is perfect.

[60zcowboy]

modern au arthur

[darklydeliciousdesires]

Happy Hanukkah-Mas! - A Beth and Alfie Solomons One Shot Story.

They're baaaack! I absolutely adored returning to their world for a little one-off treat, guys, and hope you all love catching up with them again, too. Enjoy :)

Words - 7,478

Warnings - Fluff and smut, lots of it! Minors DNI!

There is much as a mother that I feel my arm in perpetual twist over, my emotions stirred by the large, slate blue eyes of my son, Abe and my daughter, Flora. They truly do know how to get around their father and I with such insufferably effective cuteness. The celebration of Christmas in our Jewish household is just one of those arm twisting, big, cute eye pleading moments that I speak of. 

Although my husband and I are very liberal in our faith, not anywhere as stalwart in our Jewishness as generations gone by (heck, even my beloved bubbe has a tiny Christmas tree and Father Christmas themed decorations!) we do enjoy observing the traditions of Hanukkah, especially passing this onto our children. We light the menorah and recite our blessings before taking to the kitchen and getting into a god-almighty mess while preparing the latkes and jellied doughnuts.  

Let it be known here that Bethany Solomons and deep frying do not exactly go hand in hand.  

Up until their respective ages of five and two, the children seemed perfectly content to revel in our deep frying, dreidel playing, menorah lighting and song singing traditions. That was until these tiny souls began noticing the traditions of their friends slightly differed from ours. Suddenly, there was talk of turkey and tinsel, of baubles and a large, fresh scented tree. Father Christmas was a name that began to be spoken more freely.  

In fact, it was Flora who changed the tides there while scrambling onto her daddy’s lap one evening when she was two, tiny hands fiddling with his beard as she went through her nightly routine of ‘let’s ask daddy as many questions as humanely possible’ where one particularly struck my husband in a direct hit to the heartstrings.  

“Daddy, Father Christmas doesn’t come to our house. Is that because we’re bad children? We’re on the naughty list, aren’t we?” 

To watch him sit there, his eyes glassing as he tried not to allow for his emotions to be so heavily stirred by our youngest was something I could not endure without shoving my nose into a nearby magazine in order to hide my own tears.  

“Nah, my little peach,” he’d eventually offered, after swallowing a lump in his throat he likened to the size of Cyril, our beloved sixty-kilogram bullmastiff. “It’s just that we believe different traditions, innit? You’re only on the naughty list when you’re running around here covered in chocolate and refusing to get in the bath, ain’t ya?” 

He’d then tickled her into submission, or so he’d thought. Flora, just like the man whose lap she was sat upon at the time, is nothing short of persistent in the pursuit of achieving an end goal. After Abe had returned home from his karate class, he too joined in.  

Never let it be said that my offspring cannot work as an effective emotional tag team. Our first Christmas tree was purchased the following afternoon. Cyril duly lifted his leg to it. Alfie was incensed. The children scream laughed. All was well, if not a little soggy.  

Happy Hanukkah-Mas, everyone! 

Taking a pause from typing, Beth reached for her wine, the kitchen quiet and fresh smelling after her efforts in deep cleaning had left everywhere sparkling. It was that time of year again, where the Solomons clan began their dual holiday festivities, the nine days of their Hanukkah coming to a close, ready to pave the way for all things Christmas. 

“No peeing up the tree this year, matey.” she spoke, her hand reaching for the soft crinkles of Cyril’s muzzle, her faithful old companion sniffing her fingers as she offered him fuss. She could barely believe he was twelve, an age almost unheard of for a bullmastiff to reach.  

The giant dog now lived a much more leisurely pace, long walks replaced now by a little trot around the block, the dog returning to lie himself in the middle of the welcome hall and huff about it for a good ten minutes before he’d wander off, usually in search of the children.  

If Cyril’s heart beat for anything other than a good marrow bone from the butchers, it was Abe and Flora. Beth honestly feared for the day they would come to lose him, knowing the devastation that would befall the family to be bereft of their longtime canine companion. He was more than that to them, though.  

Cyril Solomons always was, and always would be their first child. 

“Where’s your dad?” she asked, the dog’s ears pricking as he heaved himself up, ambling out of the kitchen and down to the office, Beth pushing the glass door open.  

“Evening, baby beast.” No, Alfie had never ceased use of the same pet name for her that he’d coined nine years previously, back when they’d first gotten together. “How’s the article going? Nearly done, yeah?” 

She half shrugged with a hum. “About halfway through. I’m bloody knackered, though, so I’ve come to steal you. My tummy is rumbling.” Moving around the desk, she placed her wine down, seating herself in his lap. “What’s with these? These Solomons crinkles you have going on here?” 

Her finger was playfully batted away, her hulking bear of a husband laughing gruffly. “You and your bloody cheek,” he began, kissing her head. “Them lines are the Abe and Flora crinkles these days, them and their fuckin’ demands. Look at this ‘ere, right. She can’t just want the doll you can go to Smyths and buy, can she, your daughter. Nah, gotta want the fuckin’ Rolls bleedin’ Royce of dolls that daddy ‘ere can’t pissing find in stock!” 

He had a penchant for that. When the kids were good, they were their children. When they were causing him mild to moderate strife, they were solely Beth’s.  

Looking at the screen, she shook her head, reaching for the mousse and closing the browser window. “I found it already, it’s on the way from a store in New York. DHL have assured me it’ll arrive by the eighteenth.”  

“Well then why didn’t you fuckin’ tell me, Bethany with the lovely legs? Lovely legs that are gonna catch a right walloping. Sitting here for hours, I’ve been, looking for that fuckin’ doll!” 

“I did!” she exclaimed, slapping his hand as he began laying smacks against her thigh. 

“Fuckin’ lies!” 

Leaning in close, she widened her doe eyes, her nose touching his. “I bloody did! Magda will back me up, she was standing right next to me when I told you.” 

Her playful growl was met by muttering and grumbling. “Moody sod.” 

“Yeah, but you love me, treacle,” he chirped, Beth leaning to kiss his cheek.  

“That I do. Now, come on. I meant it when I said my tummy was rumbling, so you need to emerge.” Picking up her wine, she slid back to her feet, Alfie wheeling his chair closer to the desk once more.  

“I’ve just got one email I need to...” 

“Alfie,” she warned. 

“Five minutes, darlin’. You go order the food. Get us a chicken madras, a keema naan and all the dippy stuff with the poppadom's. Go on, go be a crackin’ wife and order in all the nosh that’ll have me farting like bagpipes for the next day or so.” 

She threw her head back, her laugh loud. “Five minutes, or I deliberately wake Abe and get him to come in and ask you all about where babies come from.” 

“You bloody dare,” he warned, Beth leaning back around the office door. 

“Don’t try me, boo.” Poking her tongue out, she giggled, heading back into the kitchen and taking a seat once more, putting in their order with the Royal Bengal before tapping away a little more of her article. She’d just closed her laptop when Alfie joined her, pulling a bottle of San Pelegrino from the fridge and splashing it into a glass, adding ice while telling her about his working day.  

Since becoming a father, he’d done what nobody expected and actually relinquished a little control over his empire, allowing those he employed to get stuck in with the lion’s share of the day-to-day operations, in order to be present for his children. Losing his own father so young had made him realise just what he’d missed growing up, now he had little ones of his own.  

The kitchen was soon filled with the aromas of India, Beth adding everything to bowls, Alfie hindering her every step of the way, and Cyril hopeful that a few morsels might be dropped upon the floor.  

“It’s nice to be able to have a bowl of samosas out and not have to fight off tiny hands for them,” she mused, picking one up and dunking it into the mint dip.  

“And then only half eating them, storing the fuckin’ things away behind cushions and in shoes an’ all that,” Alfie spoke through a mouthful of poppadom, shaking his head. “Them bloody kids. Wouldn’t have ‘em any other way, though.” 

Neither would she. They were loud and boisterous, but that came with the territory. Seven and four years old meant a perpetual state of noisy. Those noisy states were out of the front door at nine the following morning, both off to their bubbe Solomon’s house for the morning. Beth dropped them with Sarra at just gone half past, leaving her to fight the traffic to head over to Primrose Hill, her breakfast date already there waiting for her.  

“Oh babe!” she cried, opening her arms to Mimi as she rose from the table. “I thought you were bringing the baby? Aww, I was looking forward to a little smush!” 

“No, she barely slept all night, so I’ve left her with Josh and a tonne of expressed milk. Bloody boobs are so sore, and I thought having implants was bad!” Kissing her cheek, Mimi then gestured to the table, a latte waiting for her. “Thought I’d order that in for you. I might be a knackered new mummy, but at least I remembered my erm...” she trailed off, winding her hand around as she thought on the word. “I always want to say my Antoinette, but she was a queen.” 

“Etiquette?” Beth offered, Mimi snapping her fingers. 

“That’s it!” 

Some things never changed.  

“So, how have you been, other than tired with sore boobs? I bloody remember that only too well, Mims,” she spoke, picking up her latte and giving it a cautionary blow before taking her first sip. Ahhh, a double shot. Heaven. How well her beloved Mims knew her.  

“I’ve been alright, you know,” she began, perusing the menu before her. “I mean, a woman can function perfectly well on ten minutes of sleep a night, can’t she?”  

“And if she can’t she gets used to it pretty flipping quick,” Beth quipped, making her decision over breakfast quickly. Pancakes with turkey bacon and eggs. She was famished. “How did your check-up go? Are all the sore bits healing nicely?” 

Both women had suffered quite badly during childbirth, Beth’s experience with Abe something so terrible, she very nearly elected a C-Section for Flora. Her midwife had advised her against such, though, stating a natural birth would be much better when she was fully fit and capable. Flora had been a blessing, thankfully, a speed birth of half an hour in active labour, her little girl out in six pushes.  

Mimi nodded as she sipped her orange juice, setting the tall glass back down. “Everything is healing as it should be, and I should be fine to ride again soon!” She’d kept her beloved horses, Bryn and Sunny, thinking at first that she would put them out on loan for a time to someone with enough of that very commodity to devote to them. That was until her darling friends had stepped in to help, Beth and Kinga appointing themselves as exercisers of Mimi’s four-legged friends.  

Being a much more skilled horsewoman than she had been nine years before upon first meeting Mimi, Bryn and all of his naughtiness was appointed to her, Kinga more novice and being tasked with Sunny’s exercise. They went most days in the afternoon, the people at the stables where they were kept taking on their day-to-day care.  

It was one of Beth’s favourite parts of the day, riding out over the fields after lunch aboard Bryn, or working him over eye wateringly huge fences in the arena, the likes of which she once never thought she’d have the bravery to attempt. 

Mimi had taught her well.  

“Oh, before I forget, give these to Magda before she raises merry hell with me,” Mimi then spoke, picking up a bag from her feet and passing it across to Beth. “She loaned me these for Josh’s office Christmas do. It was such a nice night, made even better for wearing a pair of this season’s Louis Vuitton’s on my feet!” 

Yes, Magda would indeed raise merry hell if any loans from her beloved wardrobe department were not returned promptly. Beth took the bag with a smile, placing it down beside her favourite bag of all time beneath the table, the dark blue Birkin Alfie had bought her all those years ago. She still had to shake her head in wonder sometimes, being a woman of such staggering wealth because of whom she was married to.  

Her world had blended with Alfie’s so effortlessly, it often felt like a dream to her still. There she was, with one of the women he’d once dated, Mimi now a married mother herself and long fully integrated within Beth’s friendship group as well as still being – as Alfie always worded it - ‘the bestest mate a fella could ask for.’ After Josh and her mum, Alfie had been the first she’d called upon finding out she was pregnant with her now eight-week-old daughter, Alissia.  

“How did you cope, being away from Liss for a few hours?” she asked with a smile.  

Mimi looked pained immediately. “I hated it! I missed her so much, and I know she was perfectly fine with Josh’s mum, but it didn’t feel right, not having a little bundle in my arms!”  

She remembered it well with Abe, becoming very emotional on her first night out with Alfie after he’d been born, being left in the care of his godparents, Magda and Dennis. Magda had switched her phone off in the end, Beth had called so incessantly to make sure he was okay. ‘You’ll bloody wake the little fella if you keep on calling me! He's fast asleep on Dennis’s chest, just threw up a load of milk all over the dog an’ all. Having a wail of time, he is!’ she remembered being assured.  

Moving their discussion on, both pledging they would never be the kind of women who couldn’t form conversation over anything other than their children, they sat and spoke about all sorts while catching up, Beth’s most recent articles, Mimi’s tentative plans to begin her own accounting business so that she could circumvent a return to office life and instead, work from home and be with her baby. With Josh earning so well now within the publishing world, her return to work truly didn’t need to be expedited quickly either.  

After breakfast, they made time to pamper themselves with a little salon treat, Mimi having a much-needed deep cleansing facial while Beth opted for a massage, wanting to be nice and relaxed for what would likely turn into a chaotic afternoon. It was Christmas tree shopping day, meaning that her children would go from their usual volume of eight right up to eight thousand, such was their excitement at the fairly new tradition.  

“Oi! Abraham Solomons, I see you back there, winding your sister up!” Alfie shouted, looking in the rearview mirror of his Range Rover two hours later, en route from his mother’s house to the garden centre.  

“She’s kicking me, dad!” 

“She can’t even reach you over there, mate. Nah, don’t you tell me no fibs, or this car gets turned around, right?”  

“But dad!” 

“Enough, my son!” 

Abe shrank down in his car seat with a scowl that was a hundred percent his father, Beth turning to give him a warning look that eventually turned into a smile. The Solomons crinkles were very much a hereditary thing. “Be a good boy.” she cooed, grabbing his foot and giving it a shake. Flora was asleep after ten minutes, Abe entertaining himself by narrating a commentary about the people they drove past in the streets, pulling up outside Birchen Grove Garden Centre after twenty minutes.  

“Come on, Flora snorer,” Alfie chimed, rousing his sleepy youngest. The noises that came from that child while she was sleeping. Beth had nearly haemorrhaged from laughter when he’d likened the sounds to ‘that geezer from the Police Academy films’ back when she was a baby. “Come on, my little peach. Let’s look lively, yeah?” 

“No daddy, I want naps!” she protested, Beth being dragged to examine a display of Christmas wreaths by a much spritelier Abe. 

“Child, you’d sleep your life away if we left ya to it. Come on, daddy’ll play pack horse and carry ya.”  

“Okay.” Immediately she reached for him, beaming as she buried her face against his neck. He gave it all of three minutes, the shiny bright of the garden centre’s Christmas displays delighting her eyes so much, she was scrambling to the floor and running off with her brother.  

“Breakage expenditures guesstimate?” Beth quipped, raising an eyebrow as they ran for a display in excited frenzy.  

“Bloody zero!” he bellowed, making a lady walking past him jump. “Go on, get over there and round up ya kids, duchess. I’ll go sort the tree.”  

She rolled her eyes. “Always my kids when they’re being disruptive.” She strode off, not before Alfie aimed a perfect smack to her bum, calling her little ones away from the glass baubles and trinkets, grabbing a basket on her way. She sensed more ornaments would be chosen, and she wasn’t wrong. At least they kept on brand with the theme of green, blue and silver, though.  

“Abraham!” Alfie barked, appearing with a Christmas tree over his shoulder a short time later, finding his son meddling with the nativity display. “Put the false prophet down, son.”  

Beth cringed, shielding her eyes for a moment beneath her hand as her husband drew disapproving stares, Abe unceremoniously returning to the baby Jesus doll back into the manger with all the passion of LeBron James performing a slam dunk.  

“Do you have to be so vociferously Jewish in your denouncing of the Christian lord and saviour?” she hissed, Alfie beaming. 

“Yeah, darlin’,” he laughed, scratching his beard with his free hand. “I bloody do!” 

Herding the children in the direction of the sales desk, she offered appeasing smiles to those offended by her husband and his boom. “Oy fucking vey.” 

Once the tree had been affixed to the roof, the children and purchases packed away, the family Solomons headed to lunch, the little ones making their demands known for a trip to Five Guys. Burgers often worked very well in placation, especially since Beth had designs on dragging her family to do a little bit of shopping afterwards. Kids with full tummies were often slowed down a tad by the weight of their meal.  

While Alfie was having his ear and wallet bended by two very enthusiastic children at the Hotel Chocolat shop, Beth moved down through the shopping mall a little, coming to a small nostalgia store. Since celebrating Christmas was mostly for the children’s benefit, she and Alfie didn’t exchange gifts for one another, but what she saw in the window swiftly negated that.  

“I’ll take them both, please.” she spoke to the sales assistant, hardly able to keep her giggles in as she watched him retrieve the two Ren and Stimpy plush toys from the window display. She would never forget how hard she had laughed all those years ago, when she and Alfie had gotten stoned together one evening, back when the lines between journalist and subject were becoming blurred.  

“Do you mean Ren, as in Ren and Stimpy?” 

“Yeah, the little angry weasel, or whatever he was.” 

The little angry weasel. The memory still brought her the same feelings of hilarity as they’d shared out in the garden of their home, when they were just beginning to fall for one another. She remembered it well, how she’d sat there with him, smoking weed while inwardly lamenting how unfair it was, to have met her perfect person, but with a very imperfect set of terms and conditions that went hand in hand with dating him.  

She couldn’t imagine her life now, should Alfie not have changed his mind. It often made her feel a pit in her stomach, if she thought on it for too long, being driven out of his life in that Uber, Alfie remaining with someone as deadly as Amira had proved herself to eventually be. Thankfully, the unhinged woman who had almost killed her remained languishing within a prison cell to that day.  

Yes, Beth kept tabs on her, just in case she had qualified for parole ahead of the recommended ten years post-sentencing. She couldn’t not now she was a mother, something within not trusting that her long custodial sentence would change her feelings towards her; or pose a risk to the safety of her children upon her release.  

Shaking the less warming thoughts of their past from her mind, she paid for her purchase and left the shop, popping into the Elemis store quickly to repurchase her skincare goodies, before she was met by her husband and two chocolate wielding children.  

The drive home was uneventful, the kids once again on excited mode as soon as they stepped foot into the house, hurling themselves at the many boxes Beth had brought up from the wine cellar the night before containing the Christmas decorations. With the tree placed into the stand, protective netting cut and two shrieking children armed with ornaments, Alfie stood back and watched the scene for a few moments, grinning adoringly at his little family.  

“Let me go and get a few work things done so I ain’t worrying about ‘em all weekend,” he spoke, giving her a little nod. “I’ll fetch you a Merlot on me way back, duchess.” She turned to blow him a kiss before he left the lounge, his grin still firmly in place as he headed down to the office, playing catch up on a few pressing demands on his time for half an hour. 

He then headed to the kitchen, preparing himself a coffee and sorting Cyril’s dinner once he got there. 4:47pm on a Saturday. That time nine years ago would usually mean the house was full of the hustle and bustle of various women getting ready, him returning from a leisurely dog walk and doing a quick bit of business prior to taking his three girlfriends’ out to somewhere fancy. 

How things had changed, and all for the better. 

On that particular Saturday evening, they were playing gracious hosts to Magda and Dennis, their friends coming over for dinner in a few hours, Alfie lifting the lid on the crockpot and giving the beef Bourguignon that had been slow cooking all day a good stir. Nobody cooked like his mother, but bloody hell, Beth gave her a run for her money.  

Furnished with a coffee, he took the large glass of wine through, handing it to his wife with a kiss. “You’ve done a cracking job with that, as usual.” Nodding toward the Christmas tree, he smiled, Beth leaning back into his embrace as Abe flicked the socket, all the warm white lights twinkling into glittered life.  

He might have complained, but beneath the layers of outward distain, he secretly loved Christmas just as much as he did Hanukkah. The joy it brought to his children was immeasurable, and for them, he would move the earth. Putting up a tree, buying gifts and having a nice turkey roast were small by comparison.  

After the decorations had been carefully laid out, Beth placing winter spice wax melts into the burners dotted around the home and running the vacuum around, the kids made their demands for dinner, Alfie sorting them with their request for fish fingers while Beth went to put the clean laundry away and run herself a bath.  

By the time she was done, she refilled the tub for the children, drying her hair while Alfie put himself on bathtime duty.  

“Daddy, look! You’re Father Christmas now!” Flora chirped, giggling as she covered his beard in a barrage of bubbles from the tub.  

“Nah, I ain’t! I’m not that old, and me belly ain’t that big either!”  

She was quick in her cheekily delivered comeback. “Yeah, it is.” 

“Oi!” he growled, picking up the small bucket bath toy and emptying it over her head. “Less of that, or I’m phoning Father Christmas and telling him not to drop by here on Christmas Eve, right?” 

Flora was aghast, Abe tittering to himself. “You wouldn’t, daddy!” 

“Yeah?” he spoke, reaching for the kid’s shampoo. “I do a hundred sit ups a day to make sure I ain’t got no Father Christmas belly, so you’ll cast your aspersions elsewhere, you hear me?”  

“Daddy, daddy,” she began, Alfie beginning to lather her hair. “Are aspersions what mummy makes with the cheese and butter?” 

He and Beth snorted with laughter immediately. “No, little babe. That’s asparagus.” 

“Oh!”  

“Blimey, she’s Mims mark two.” Beth laughed, shaking her head as she finished drying her hair. Once bath fresh and towel swathed, the children were dried and dressed in their pyjamas, both gladly going to bed with little protest. This left the couple with approximately ten minutes to get changed, Alfie sauntering around their ensuite naked as the day he was born, hampering Beth’s progress with her makeup.  

“Got time for a quickie?” 

She scoffed, loading her blusher brush and giving it a little tap. “Darling, with you there’s no such thing. Besides, they’ll be here in less than five minutes, and I’ve got to get the starter in the oven.” Turning around, she sighed painedly, looking down to see a certain part of her husband pointing right at her. “Later. Promise.”  

Giving his cock a good squeeze, she evoked his rumbling groan, delighting his neck with a little nibble before heading into the walk in, pulling on her underwear, grey flared trousers and a simple cropped white sweater. She then remembered her meal choice and changed it for black. There was no way she fancied trying to get Bourguignon sauce out of pale cashmere, she thought, racing when she heard the doorbell chime. 

Clipping her gold hoop earrings in, she was just alighting the stairs when the bell sounded for a second time, Beth jogging down the remainder and jumping over a snoozing Cyril.  

“Where you bloody been?” Magda charged, kissing her cheek. “Shagging, were ya?” 

“Almost,” she winked, reaching to kiss Dennis and take the bottle of Bollinger he carried with him with thanks.  

“Sold that Aston Martin this morning, so I thought we’d celebrate, love,” he spoke, Beth congratulating him as she swung the door shut behind them, Cyril heaving himself up to welcome their guests. “Hello, old lad. Claus sends his regards.”  

Out of their four rottweilers, Claus was the only one who remained, just turned nine and much like Cyril, a lot slower on his feet. It didn’t stop him from showing their two newer dogs who was boss, though, the couple switching from their preferred breed when two beautiful Staffordshire bull terriers had come up for adoption at Battersea Dog’s Home. Magda had triumphed in bending Dennis’s ear about it until he’d finally relented, bringing home Marley and Karma almost two years ago.  

“Where’s me kids?” the lady herself cried, noticing the lounge empty of small people. 

“We put ‘em to bed, or if they’d seen their auntie there’s no way we’d ever have got them to go willingly,” Alfie spoke, opening his arms as he entered the lounge. “How are ya, Mags? Lookin’ gorgeous as ever.”  

“They’re half the flippin’ reason I came!” she joked, kissing his cheek. “And thanks, you nearly had me here in joggers and a t shirt. Been up to my fucking eyes with it all day, I have. Inventory. Beth! Has our Mimi brought them bloody shoes back, or have I got to go up Primrose Hill and lynch the soppy mare for ‘em? Had to include ‘em on the list without ‘em actually being there to save me flippin’ hide!” 

She breathed a sigh of relief when her bestie lifted the bag from behind the sofa, pointing to it. “Come on, come tell me all about your wardrobe woes while I get this champagne on ice.” 

Magda did not disappoint. The inventory of the wardrobe department was a huge undertaking, Magda spending the four days it took before everything was cleared ready for the new season’s attire to fill her sacred space catalogued and cleared out, the items heading back to their respective fashion houses.  

“So I’m there, right, and I’m yelling at the dopey cow that two C’s mean Chanel and two G’s mean Gucci, and if she can’t work that out then why the fuck is she trying to carve out a career in fashion in the first flippin’ place! Told her to go get me bloody coffee and have a think about it while she was gone. Honestly, these flamin’ bloody bastard people they send me to train!”  

Some things truly never did change. Magda had not softened at all, and Beth still found much entertainment in her various tirades against the newcomers to ELLE magazine. “And you wanna know the best part? Only fucking walks past Ralph Lauren during his visit and asks who he is!” 

Beth was aghast. “You’re bloody joking me!” 

“Babe, I nearly fell through the fucking floor!” Taking the champagne handed to her with thanks, she toasted her, pulling her cigarettes from her bag. “Just going for a quick smoke, back in a flash.”  

They had a truly lovely evening together, all discussing their impending break out to Santorini to escape the cold grey that was a winter in London, heading over for a week the day after Boxing Day, wanting to see in the New Year in the sunshine at Beth and Alfie’s luxurious villa.  

“I’ll still never forgive you, mate. Stoned and naked, chasing me down, you twat,” Dennis remarked, remembering back to the first time he and Magda had visited the island to stay within Alfie’s abode, the man himself roaring with laughter at the memory. God, it felt like it had been yesterday, yet nine long, fun filled years had passed in the time between.  

“At least you didn’t have him rubbing his cock all over your leg!” Magda snorted, Alfie winking. 

“Don’t pretend you didn’t bloody love it, Mags!” She pulled a kissy face at him, lifting her wine glass and taking a big gulp, washing down the remainer of her food. Beth truly had done a splendid job with everything.  

The pair stayed for coffee before heading home, Beth loading the dishwasher while humming to music playing on her phone, the feel of Alfie’s hands rubbing over her bum signalling his arrival in the kitchen.  

“Right, now it’s just us and you’ve got the dishes all seen to, it’s someone else’s turn for a bloody good seeing to. Know what I mean, treacle?”  

Oh, how she did.  

She only just about had the chance to add a tablet into the slot and kick the door shut before she was thrown over his shoulder, squealing as he smacked her bum with every step that took them up to their bedroom.  

They tumbled into a kiss, greedy, sinful, longing. All that they had once been hadn’t been diminished by marriage, children or time, their fires still burning as brightly as ever for one another. Making short work of their undress, they hit the bed in a tangle of limbs, Alfie quickly extracting himself to go and flick the lock on the bedroom door, save another embarrassed explanation to Abe over what they were doing.  

“Were you and mum wrestling?” the little lad had inquired, after his parents had hastily dressed upon the morning they’d been caught at it, back when he was five. 

Alfie had never cringed so hard in all his life. “Somat like that, my son.” It had been down to Beth to tentatively explain the birds and the bees, Alfie making himself scarce at speed. 

With any entry from small people prevented, he returned to the bed, grabbing Beth’s legs and lying himself between them, his mouth returning to hers with a hungry grunt. The noise had sparks fluttering through her core, the sound of her husband stirred by passion causing tingles to spark, the scent of her arousal intoxicating to him, his hand sliding down her body to cup at her. She gasped, biting his lower lip before their tongues danced wickedly again, a thick finger swiping at her folds, feeling her petals, the heat of her magmatic against him as he explored.   

“Been wanting this all fuckin’ evening, baby beast.” he panted, mouth slipping to her neck, pressing sumptuous, full-lipped kisses that made her shiver like a summer rose touched by the first chill of autumnal frost. 

A sob welled in her throat, pouring from her like wine as that thick digit pushed within, her glistening walls hugging upon it, eyes a burn of blue fire, body keening against his. God, how she still craved him with such unbridled hunger, their connection every inch as magmatic as it had ever been. She rocked against his hand, greedy for more, a second finger joining the first as he held her neck and returned his lips to hers, kissing her with unmatched thirst. 

He was rigid as iron against her hip, her hands smoothing over tattooed flesh, his muscles cording beneath her touch. She grasped him, pulling upward on his cock, sending a ripple through him that caused his chest to jolt. There was no touch more perfect than that of his wife. He breathed raggedly against the swirl of her tongue, head dipping, teeth sharp at her nipples in turn, fingers curling within her soaking cunt to rake exactly where she needed them to.  

She gasped words of longing, Alfie’s mouth descending in a path of loving, heated kisses, the taste of her skin like sweet berries upon his tongue, every touch a constellation laid over her pale curves, igniting her lust to burn like a forest fire. 

Her sex called to him like a siren through a dark, misty night, polarizing, screaming to him, his mouth descending to feast upon her. Closing his full lips around her glistening folds, he sucked upon her hungrily, the elixir of her pouring into his mouth as he tasted her, lost himself to her, felt himself burn to hear the aroused cadence of his beautiful wife.   

She tasted like sharp honey, womanly nectar seeping onto his tongue as he lapped at her in greed, craving more as he buried his mouth against her, her pale legs virtually knotting themselves around his head. Her wail filled the room in soft song, and the sound burned the edges of his very marrow, his heart skipping beats. 

Her hips rucked against his face, a rush of heat evoked by his tongue tracing never ending circles at her clit making her glow, the pleasure biting and throbbing, his hands roaming her all over. She felt besieged by all he bestowed upon her, the touch familiar but never boring. It never was with Alfie. Monotony was not a word heard of within their bedroom. 

Driving his tongue harder against her potent bundle, feeling the little bud beginning to quake under the unrelenting licks, he watched her, her body quivering as he caused a caustic rush. Glimmers began to skitter through her as he brought her to the brink of it, Beth teetering as he paused in tease, gently blowing upon her clit before sucking once again.  

She came apart with a feral cry, her thighs rigid, panting as her release washed over her in ceaseless waves. His lips tended a diligent path back to her mouth, cock daggering into her trembling centre, a rumbled gasp floating from his mouth to hers as he felt her walls fluttering around his girth.   

He stretched and filled her, hands weaving through the long dark of her hair, Beth moaning against each sweet kiss offered, tasting herself upon his mouth. The very flesh and blood of him drew out the primal need within her to give him everything and take what he so willingly poured into her. 

Their intense love and lust for one another collided in perfect alchemy, her slippery walls flexing around him as she glossed the thick cock splitting her wide, her wails like celestial music drifting into his mind as she wrapped her beautiful legs around him. Pushing into his chest, she turned him, Alfie hitting the bed with a thud and a chuckle.  

“Oh, so the duchess wants to be in charge for a bit, ay?”  

She grinned, leaning to him, offering kisses steeped in smoking honey. “Well, if there’s one person you relinquish control for.” 

She began to move against him with tantalising allure, her hips circling as she bore down on his length, little pricks of pleasure melting down her spine. It took diligence, but he was soon a mess beneath her, sweat streaking his tattooed flesh, his cock throbbing within the clench of her walls. Her movements became more focused, wanting to send him reeling into the blinding eclipse of pleasure, feel his enormity crest beneath her.   

The soaking clench of her cunt fluttered strongly around him, the pressure perfect as he felt it crackle furiously before the fire ripped through him completely. With his cock pulsing, he filled her of all which she milked from him, his head thudding back against the bed, gritted teeth finally relaxing as he swam in ecstasy.  

His soul floated somewhere above him, rendered a shaking wreck by her, colours illuminating behind his closed eyelids, everything fluid as the waves continued to wash through him, his heart thundering. She gentled her motions, coming to a stop, her walls flexing around him, but not in the same way as he knew would have had she reached the same cataclysmic finish as he, and for that, he would make much amends. 

They lay stroking one another, chattering, laughing as the night hours drew out. He needed a little more recovery time, now he’d hit his mid-forties, but once that was attained... 

Beth shrieked loudly as her back hit the bedroom wall, glad the children’s bedrooms were a fair enough distance for her yelp not to wake them, laughing excitedly. His mouth covered hers, her legs firm in their hug around his waist as his hands glided over her sweat slicked hair, hips beginning to drive forth into her burning centre. 

She wailed at the fever-hot intrusion of him, merciless in his delivery, fucked hard and fast against the wall coated in luxury paint. His groans spilled onto her tongue, swirling with his, her moans arrowing into the epicentre of his lust for her as he drove into her like a piston. 

Her elegant, dark red nails clawed at his back, marking him, the sting both sharp and sweet as he persisted in frantically building her up to inferno. For him, she would burn to her very bones and back. He’d never accepted any less. 

Alfie never would either. 

Her cries of abandon filled the air as he slowed his rhythm, backing off from a frenzied, merciless pounding of her cunt to a slow, purposeful movement, dragging every girthy inch of his cock in a sumptuously slow glide against her twitching walls.  

Spearing her again hard, he reached her hilt and shuddered with overwhelming desire, arms snaking beneath her trembling thighs to spread her wider, allowing him to bottom out deeper, filling her to the very summit of her cunt. He then slowed, everything potently drawn out, the tempest swirling slowly, but by no means less brutally.  

He was soaked in her slick, her walls hugging him snugly as he withdrew slowly once again, his cock glistening in the low light. It was almost too much to withstand for him, how hot she smouldered all over, but nowhere more so than her cunt. She was like magma around him, without the pain of an unhealable burn.   

Alternating, he drove into her hard again, balls smacking against her with a lewd slap as he began to fuck her frenziedly, Beth demanding he go harder, her nails once again clawing like a feral feline as she felt her ascension flood her body. Sparks skittered through her, her release the full moon rising over his dark horizon as she came apart for him with maddening intensity.   

He pounded her voraciously, giving her no time to recover from his afflictions, fucking her with consuming vigour. Her aroused cries grew louder, her voice breaking with fervour, each thrust the ignition for lightning to begin darting up her spine once more.    

“That’s it, baby. Come again for me.” He growled low in her ear, tongue brushing her throat and his hand fisting her clammy hair to yank her head back, the howl of release reverberating through his ear as his teeth implanted themselves into her shoulder, the pain adding to the overwhelming pleasure.    

Little tremors wracked his cock as he slowed again, wanting to experience those pleasurable twinges as intensely as possible. Re-establishing the surging pace, he let go of her hair and gripped her shoulders, forcing her to take the full, unyielding brunt of every acerbically delivered thrust.    

His groans were as low as rolling thunder, chasing the next release he knew she had for him. They were slick with sweat, bodies simmering, ready and willing to boil for one another again, the embers of their fuck growing, glowing, the fire roaring through them as he felt himself spill into the viscid clutch of her cunt as she shook hard through her own release.   

They swam in bliss together, alone in the bright light of orgasmic abandon, just him and her entwined, the rest of the world falling away. The sound of her soft exclamations through each laboured gasp brought him back from it, looking at her adoringly.  

“My Bethany. Still a little wild’un, ain’t ya, darlin?” 

Trying to catch her breath, she left out a comic huff, kissing the tip of his nose as he chuckled. “Always am for you, boo.” 

He carried her to the ensuite, both taking a quick, refreshing shower to cleanse the sweat which had beaded them, Beth pulling on a clean nightie and Alfie his pyjama bottoms, unlocking the door on the way back to the bed. Gone were the days of enjoying sleeping with nothing other than each other wrapped around their nakedness, now that they usually had early morning visitors to their bed.  

Whistle, beep, snore, grizzle, whistle, snore. Yes, they could only be the sounds of one person that awoke Alfie at 5:52am the following morning, pulling back the duvet to see Flora snuggled up beside him.  

“Ahh, ‘ello, Officer Jones,” he spoke, stroking her messy hair, Beth snorting with laughter at his side. 

“We have to let them watch those films at some point, they’ll love them,” she spoke, referring to the Police Academy films, one of the characters who of course her daughter seemed to take after in the sound effects department.  

“Yeah, when they’re a bit older,” he agreed, pulling back the duvet to see Abe snuggled in beside his mother. “Ahh, the other one found his way in too. Like homing beacons, innit?” 

Just then, the door was shunted open, their furry child ambling in and jumping up onto the foot of the bed, the family complete. Flora stirred, rubbing her eyes and smiling widely. “Cyril.” she croaked, crawling from under the covers, her fleecy security blanket within her grasp. Plonking herself down next to the gargantuan dog, she covered them both with the swathe of soft, grey fleece, kissing his head and wrapping her arms around his neck.  

“I suppose you’re going to get up and workout, hmm?” Beth asked, Alfie turning over and wrapping her in his arms, reaching to gently stroke Abe’s head.  

“Nah, love. I’m happy exactly where I am.” 

That went for all five of them. 

The End.  

[justrainandcoffee]

2017

"Like the old days" Alfie had said.

Meaning of "Let's do a road trip together. No GPS, no smartphones. Just maps, a compass and a camera to take pictures."

Tommy knew it was a bad idea. But...

They were in America. Their first trip together as a couple. Travelling in a rental car around the country didn't sound that bad at the beginning.

Alfie was driving because according to him, Tommy drove like a granny.

The first days were the best. It was autumn but the sun was still warm. They stopped in several places, enjoyed the landscapes and the mutual company. Very new relationship, their love was still pure.

Problems started the sixth day.

"Why don't you admit that you don't know how to read a map, sweetheart?"

Tommy frowned. "I always said that I don't know how to read a map, Alfie. You were very positive that I was going to learn soon."

Alfie pulled over and looked at his boyfriend "yes, well my bad. And now where are fucking lost."

"Because you didn't want to bring a GPS."

"No. They're annoying. Turn left, turn right... Fuck off."

"The best we can do it's to wait until a car pass and ask for help," Tommy said "Any ideas what to do in the meantime?"

Alfie smirked before kissing him, "Yeah. A few."

Alfie x Tommy masterlist.

[moral-terpitude]

Misadventures - 15.2

and it won’t be long • ‘til we drop this match • when I burn to your fingertips • you can throw what’s left

[Masterlist] [Series Masterlist]

Misadvetures taglist: @cillmequick @emotionalcadaver @zablife @raincoffeeandfandoms

Summary: The longest day ever only gets longer.

Word Count: 6,802

Warnings: Swearing, sight discussion of miscarriage and sexual assault, discussion of cheating, unwanted sexual tension, sexual themes, Tommy being a fucking idiot.

A/N: Ahaha, I'm grinning like a fool but, yall are gonna hate where I ended this. The clue of the Polaroids has been there since the beginning and this part is why.

“Are you alright?” Tommy’s reappearance almost startled her, although it shouldn’t have. It was his house. Who else would come looking for her in the bedroom?

She had retreated after a rather brief run (she wasn’t sure what she had thought she would accomplish with the stint on the treadmill other than becoming slightly sweaty and remembering why she didn’t run in the first place) to, despite the conflicting emotions jumbling around in her stomach, start to unpack. 

“No,” she didn’t intend to pout, but, seeing who Tommy might have stayed with had their shit not hit the fan made her feel so inadequate, piled on top of everything else that had happened, Quinn wasn’t quite sure how to feel, “not really.”

“Why?”

“I’m sorry,” Quinn sighed as she hung the navy floral dress that she had bought to wear to dinner that night on the back of the door. In retrospect the boned bodice, slight gap at the thigh in the wrap skirt, and low cut of it may not have been entirely appropriate for a family dinner, but, she had fallen in love with it the moment she saw it, “you didn’t tell me she looked like Rosetti’s fucking Prosperine!”

That was what she was looking for earlier. 

Tommy took a deep breath, pacing the floor of what once had been their room. Nothing had changed except for it being devoid of all of Lizzie’s belongings, a thin accumulation of dust sitting on top of his own. 

“I’m sorry.”

She closed her eyes, letting out a breath, “It’s not your fault.”

Quinn fiddled with the back of the gold post, reminding herself if she pulled on it too hard the opal on the front would go flying off into oblivion, never to be found again, as her she opened her eyes, wandering the room, navy sheets turned down on the bed–

“Is that the same–” she was thankful when Tommy cut her off, because she was sure that speaking before she thought the sentence through and trying to find the rest of it as she spoke would land her spitting out the rest of the words in a rather obtuse way.

“No. I took the mattress out to the river and set it on fire.” There was a dark look in his eye as he spoke that didn’t make her doubt him for a second.

“Noted.”

“I have some things to go take care of,” he placed a hand on either of her shoulders, and Quinn groaned, interjecting before he could continue.

“Am I going to have to bandage you up when you come back, too?” 

Tommy could hear from the tone in her voice that she was trying to pass it off as a joke, but her face was intensely serious. 

“Hey,” one hand found the back of her neck, pulling her close before wrapping her into his embrace, “I always come back in one piece, eh? Only occasionally with some holes.”

“Oh fuck, they’re gonna Swiss cheese you,” Quinn wailed, burying her face in his chest, trying to take some comfort in at the way he pulled her closer, “in movies when people say that kinda shit they always come back tore to shreds.”

“That only happens when they aren’t prepared.”

She took a deep breath, appreciating the familiarity and comfort that she found in the smell of his cologne, the warm ambery smell lingering still in her nostrils as she pulled back to look at him.

“I’m going to try and not think about any of this new found information while you’re gone,” she nodded, as if the action would convince her it was okay to relax when she knew she would be worried sick, “maybe I’ll take a nap.”

“Pol said she was in the sitting room if you wanted tea.”

“Hmm, I feel like that’s a nonnegotiable invitation.” Quinn grumbled as he released her, pulling on the jacket draped over the arm of the chair that resided in the corner of the room. 

“You’d be correct.”

“Be careful.”

“I will.”

Quinn huffed, slumping down in said chair as the door clicked closed, pilfering another cigarette from the side table. 

Pursing her lips and watching the smoke roll to the ceiling as if it were some kind of incense she was burning, she realized that would have been a rather apt time for an exchange of “I love you”’s, but, she had sworn to herself as some strange rule that she was never saying it first in a relationship ever again.

She felt teary eyed and she hated it. She debated running a bath in the rather deep tub she had discovered while putting her toiletries away as an uncomfortable cramp twisted in her lower abdomen.

Letting her head fall back, staring intently at the white ceiling, as if it were going to open up and give her all the answers she was looking for, she took a drag of the cigarette, deciding it was best before letting the whole thing go to waste.

She had always considered the irregularity of her periods due to her birth control to be a blessing. They had never been a steady thing anyway, no matter what the doctors put her on, and it was a wonder that Gerard had managed to knock her up at all in the first place, but the drawback to what she had considered to be a win was that she was never prepared.

She left the butt in the ashtray, lit another, and made her way down stairs before she snuck out the side door, seeing that her phone was connected to the WiFi, that fun new thing iPhones did to share the internet password through proximity, and hoped, no pleaded, that whoever or whatever was up there would convince Dalton to stop what he was doing and answer the phone. 

“Mama, did your plane not just land?” He quirked a brow as Quinn padded barefoot over the stones in the circular drive, watching as Tommy’s vehicle finally pulled away. 

She tried her best to choke back the tears that pricked at the corner of her eyes. 

“Yeah and I think I’m way over my head here, Dee.”

“Why, what’s wrong?” She noted the genuine concern in his voice as his features softened, and she took a long drag off of the cigarette before responding. 

“You ever been to a house that doesn’t have an address?”

“What do you mean? Like the White House? We went there that one time on a field trip during band—“

“Dalton, this house just has a name. Just a name etched in a fucking cornerstone. It’s a whole fucking estate country house with horses and a pool and—“

“Oh, motherfucker is rich rich.” She was thankful when his assessment cut off her rambling.

“Yeah, I’m headed to tea with his aunt in my best lululemon leggings, so, wish me luck.”

“Oh sweet pea, I just hope you make it out alive.”

She felt her face fall, throat choking up as she blew smoke once again, “I would elaborate at how fucking ironic that is, but I don’t even have the words at the moment.”

Resigned to her fate, she made her way into the sitting room to see Polly was perched in the arm chair, flipping through the magazine in a way that Quinn knew was meant as a distraction. She wanted Quinn to think she hadn’t seen her, but from the air she had around her, it looked like she was upset that she had been kept waiting. 

Quinn was surprised to be met with the soft smell of Chai tea, the white and gold teapot with its coordinated cups looking rather picturesque on the tray in the middle of the coffee table.

“How was the flight?” Polly hadn’t looked up from the article her eyes were darting across, steam already rolling up from her cup, and Quinn took the hint that she wouldn’t be having tea unless she poured it for herself. 

She did her best not to slosh the liquid out the side of the cup, “It was as good as a flight can be. Not much turbulence, no crying kids. Just the adjustment to the time change is the worst of it.”

Polly hummed, “The back and forth takes some getting used to,” she discarded the magazine on the side table, “we’ve all traveled across the ocean enough times that it’s second nature at this point.”

Quinn took a sip of the tea, “Well, it’s not the first time I’ve flown. I was in Munich a few weeks ago for work. Thankfully, this time I was able to travel lighter.”

“Do you travel for work often?”

“Not regularly.”

Quinn did her best to muscle her way through more of the dry small talk, as they avoided all together the topic of why exactly she had to stitch John up on the dining room table earlier, and resisted the urge to down the cup of tea in an effort to move the exchange along at a rapid pace the more personal the questions got.

“Do you have any children?”

Quinn about choked on the sip of tea she had just taken before she weighed the cup in her hands. On one hand, she never wanted to discredit Robin’s existence in her life and she was sure Tommy never would have mentioned the situation to his Aunt, so on the other hand, what was the point of getting into it all right now?

“No,” she lied, as soon as she said the words the uneasy feeling in her stomach was tightening, betraying what she thought was the right decision, “I don’t.”

“Do you want them?”

Quinn could feel the cold sweat break out over her body. What did it matter to Polly? This was already something her and Tommy had talked about between themselves, why did she have to be so fucking nosy about—

“I love kids, I love my nieces and nephews, but I just don’t picture myself having any of my own.”

Polly hummed, returning her cup to the tray. 

“Let me read your leaves for you.”

Quinn glanced down into the now almost empty cup, realizing that this was a statement that she couldn’t quite refute lest she would probably offend the woman.

She nodded, swallowing, feeling an uneasy sensation spread through her body reminiscent of the time Dalton was determined to get her to play with an Ouija board in an old abandoned house off of a dirt road the summer before they went into high school.

She had thrown it in the trash as soon as they had gotten back home and it popped back up in his trunk a month later.

“Take the cup in your left hand, swirl the leaves around three times, and dump the liquid back into the teapot.”

“Okay,” Quinn whispered, trying to keep her face neutral as she did as she was instructed, while not feeling ridiculous, returning the cup to it’s previous home on the tray.

“Now, tell me what you see.”

“It looks like…” Quinn squinted, feeling an odd way about the entire process, “a nail.”

Polly shifted her gaze around the rim of the cup then deeper into the bowl, a disapproving noise leaving her nose as she looked, “So it does.”

Her eyes roamed the cup, and Quinn watched intently, “however, there’s an eye there, so that means protection.”

“What does the nail mean?”

Polly’s steely gaze met Quinn in what she could only describe as a haunting way, “An attack.”

“Well, I guess I know to keep an eye out now.” 

She did her best to keep the sarcasm out of her voice as she tried to get comfortable in the chair, wondering how long she had left until it could be seen as polite to excuse herself for a nap to recuperate from their travels.

“So, what is it that you want from Thomas?”

Quinn cocked her head to the side, brows furrowing, startled at the sudden forwardness that had been brought to the conversation.

So, that was the point behind all of this. 

“If it’s money,” Polly paused, the clove cigarette sparking to life, “I can tell you it won’t be gotten easily. Lizzie birthed him a whole daughter and only got the bare necessities out of the ordeal.”

Quinn snorted. She wasn’t too sure how Lizzie’s demand of a brand new car and a whole house of her own fell into the qualifications of bare necessities, but she had never pried much further into how their arrangement worked out other than what came up in conversation, so, otherwise, she would have to take Polly’s word for it.

“Grace, well—“

She felt like the air went cold around her at just the mention of Grace’s name. It wasn’t a conversation Quinn wanted to get stuck in, or to let on how much she knew about the situation. 

“I don’t want Tommy’s money.”

“You say the words, however, you look like someone who might.”

Quinn cleared her throat, shifting herself in the seat gently, “Well fortunately, for you, despite how I may look, I work 30 to 35 hours a week, and the going rate for a tattoo artist with my skill set in New York is around $250 an hour.”

Polly’s expression remained unwaveringly stern. 

“I don’t short myself.”

Quinn could see a hint of a smirk playing at the edge of the older woman’s mouth before she continued.

“Last year, before I had to pay out 30.6% in self employment taxes, I brought home $390,000. That’s from work made with my own two hands. That’s also before the commission I receive from the other artists who rent out portions of the studio. I also sell shirts, stickers, and patches online of artwork made from my own designs. So, don’t look at me like I need his money.”

The front door slammed closed, and she would have been relieved if it had been Tommy returning, albeit rather quickly, but, it seemed she wouldn’t be having such luck.

Quinn swallowed, thankful for the interruption (regardless of who it was) of who she remembered from the short glimpse she got of them, to be Polly’s son and his wife Gina, trailed by another girl that of course bore a striking resemblance to Michael.

Anna.

Quinn tried not to think too much about the information that Tommy had given her regarding their childhood, because, although she knew there was no way possible, she had this strange lingering feeling about Polly that she was able to read her mind.

It was silly, but the thought was there and it terrified her.

She couldn’t help but notice something that she saw in her own eyes for a long time when she looked at Michael and Anna, that look that something was buried deep down, kept secret and hidden from everyone else.

She almost wished she didn’t know.

Maybe other people still saw it in her too.

Quinn cleared her throat as she stood, giving the tea leaves a final swirl before she was completely righted in an effort to stop thinking about the exchange as a whole, “I’m going to go find the kitchen, get some water.”

Of course, the effort to dismiss herself wasn’t effective. She was a stranger in a strange land who apparently looked like she might steal the family jewels. How dare any of them let her wander the house of the man she was seeing unattended.

“Oh, I can show you to the kitchen.” Gina spoke, putting on a smile that Quinn could tell wasn’t well-intentioned.

Quinn nodded, not overly fond of the idea of being alone with her. There was something about the way she could feel the girl observing her that made her feel well past uncomfortable.

There was silence until they got to a set of stairs that seemed to descend in a way that one would enter an old cellar, sans wooden doors in the floor.

“The kitchen is downstairs?”

Gina scoffed, “The house is rather antiquated. It was built as a servants kitchen in order not to disturb the rest of the household and disrupt gatherings hosted by the lady of the house, as well as mitigating the risk of fire and keeping the house from warming more in the hot seasons.”

“Hmm,” Quinn trailed behind the girl down the stairs, biting into the back of the post in her lip in order to keep from saying any more.

Yes, let’s rub it in that I’m just some lowly little–

“So,” she posed her slender body with a hip against the counter, “what do you think about it here so far?”

“It’s been…eventful.”

Quinn wasn’t sure how else to describe the day in a positive light. 

Gina chuckled, rummaging around in her little bag before procuring a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

“I’m surprised Tommy brought someone so, new, home so soon.”

Quinn shook her head, letting her eyes wander the subway tiles in the pristine kitchen, black marble counter tops and a whole other dining table, although not as elaborate as the one upstairs.

“What are you worried about?”

“Tommy just, well, as long as I’ve known him, seems to have a bit of the Devil in him.”

Quinn scoffed, opening and closing different cabinets before finally finding a glass, and filling it from the tap. 

“Well, good for me that I wasn’t raised Catholic,” Quinn took a sip of the water, getting in the only dig back she could come up with. Try however much she might there was no way Gina was distancing herself from the little bit of the Boston accent that came and went, which, only made Quinn’s mind bounce to wondering why Blake Griffin left the Pistons, went to the Nets, and then pretty well sat bench for the Celtics after returning from an injury, but, it wasn’t something she needed to concern herself with that much in that moment , “and please, don’t stand here and think you’re going to tell me something that I don’t already know about Tommy.”

“Oh, I know lots.”

Quinn smiled, “Well, I can assure you, I know more than you think.”

“I think if you knew as much of the truth as you let on you’d be on the next flight back to New York.”

Quinn could have let out the groan she was holding in. What was this girl gaining by trying to give her hell?

“What, are you afraid the novelty of being the only American in the family will wear off too quickly if there's someone else around?”

Gina squinted, taking a drag off of the cigarette, “You must be, what, a little older than me—“

Quinn resisted rolling her eyes, “I’m twenty-six.”

“Oh, fuck, so there is more of an age gap there than I had estimated.”

She gave up, rolling her eyes anyway, “Yeah, yeah. It’s not news to me that Tommy’s older than I am.”

“Let me guess, Daddy didn’t give you enough attention?”

There was a beat where Quinn let the words sink in.

“Excuse me?” Quinn sat the glass down on the counter, eyes wandering the white subway tiles that ran to the ceiling, as Gina’s redbottomed heels clacked across the floor, the quiet echo the only other noise in the room.

“Well,” her red lips parted, blowing smoke in Quinn’s face before continuing, the overall proximity of their closeness making the animal of Quinn’s anxiousness rear its ugly head, freezing herself between Gina and the counter as if there were nowhere to go, “someone doesn’t go to all of this trouble,” Quinn felt herself shudder as Gina ran the fingers of her free hand through her hair, the tip of one of her almond shaped nails finding the path of one of the lines etched into her neck that her mother had absolutely hated when she returned home to visit the first time after getting it done, the sensation feeling far too personal for someone she just met and wasn’t quite sure if she liked, “if they truly were comfortable with themself. You might be exotic looking and fun for now, but, just wait til he gets bored of you.”

Don’t freeze, Quinn. Freezing doesn’t get you anywhere. 

“I know if Tommy were here right now, you wouldn’t have even thought about talking to me like this,” Quinn whispered, staring Gina down as she slid herself from the compromising position, taking note, as she tried to assess the room between the two of them, or the lack of it, of the small bump under the flowing fabric of Gina’s dress, and deciding that it may very well be a necessity to fight dirty if she were willing to survive around here, “It sounds like you might just be jealous that you fucked the wrong part of the family, but, I’m the one that’s waking in the morning smelling like his cologne with his head between my thighs,” she clicked her tongue to the roof of her mouth, before turning to walk away, “so, remember that.”

She was a few steps away before she continued, ”Oh, and ya know, you should probably lay off the smoking. That’s frowned upon now-a-days.” 

Quinn cleared her throat, staring at her own feet, as she passed Anna in the opposite direction on the stairs. 

“Michael says he’s ready to go,” her voice was rather meek as she used the words to announce her presence to her sister-in-law.

“Good! Tell your brother I’m ready to get the fuck out of here.”

Quinn made her way back to the bedroom, checking the time on the clock to see that, with the few hours they had managed to kill with all the happenings, she should probably start to put herself together. 

The whole exchange with Gina left her head pounding, not at all looking forward to the dinner they were supposed to be attending all together.

The message Polly had given her about the reading of the tea leaves had also left her a bit flustered, causing her to get turned around somewhere looking for the stairs and have to find her way back to the entryway just to start over.

It must be wrong. It has to just be picking up on something from the past. Everything with Gerard makes sense for their being an attack and protection, so that has to be it.

Instead of dwelling on what she couldn’t control, for once, she started to put energy into getting ready instead. 

“Hi,” Quinn looked surprised as Tommy entered the bathroom, closing the door behind himself, “you are surprisingly covered in much less blood than I expected.”

He chuckled as she moved to the side, giving him access to the sink to wash the blood from his hands, as she unplugged the curling iron, checking that she was satisfied with every curl and line of makeup that had taken her much longer than she would have liked.

“Is he still in one piece?” Quinn whispered, watching the blood circle the drain until the water ran clear.

“Against me better judgment, yes.”

Quinn hummed, handing off the towel as Tommy shut off the water. 

“You wouldn’t happen to know if there’s Midol anywhere in the probably several bathrooms here, would you?”

Tommy raised a brow, halfway ready to shake his head.

“It’s, um, shit what is the base of it,” her brow furrowed, “naproxen sodium?”

She gave him credit for only the slight widening of eyes when he finally realized what she was talking about, “For monthly things?”

“Yes, Tommy, for monthly things.” 

“Doubtful that there’s anything here. I could have Ada–”

“No, it’s okay, I can just deal with it–”

“You can take the car. I think I left it run, honestly. There’s a Boots pharmacy by the Morrisons. There may be one closer. I just know I’ve grabbed things from there when Ruby’s been sick.”

Quinn nodded, stretching, watching him intently in the mirror behind her as he pulled the shirt over his head, discarding it to the floor, “Okay, can you just tie this up for me? I managed to get it tightened.”

“Hmm,” she watched their reflections in the mirror as his lips made contact with the side of her throat, skin flushing as she bit into her own lip, watching intently the way his muscles moved under his skin, “I’d rather not,” he took his time, mouth moving along exposed flesh before grabbing the strings at her lower back and giving them a hard tug, “but, if you insist.”

“Thank you,” she whispered the words against his lips before relinquishing a quick peck, realizing if she gave in to any more than that they would never be on time for dinner.

Quinn regretted the heels as soon as she finished tying the long strings around her legs, but, other than some flats and moccasins, they were the only thing that went with the dress.

“Bluetooth device already connected. Unable to pair.” The woman’s robotic voice came across the speakers as she adjusted the seat. 

“Stupid fucking car,” Quinn grumbled, fighting with her phone once again to get it to even show up in the Bluetooth menu, let alone get it to pair.

Already connected? No, it isn’t. 

She crammed buttons and clicked through the menu again. She wasn’t going to call Tommy to come fix it. He had already gotten in the shower and it shouldn’t have been that hard to figure out by herself.

After abusing the buttons on the console a few more times, she tossed the phone in her lap so she could see the map, searching for the pharmacy he had mentioned, and setting off without thinking too much more of it.

As she turned the corner onto the main road, to her surprise, his phone clanked around in the open console area under the radio. 

“Oh, fuck. Bluetooth device connected. That would be it.”

The screen lit up, showing there were three messages and a slew of missed calls. 

There were missed calls from Ada, Finn, and a few other businessy sounding contacts that didn’t really catch Quinn’s eye as anything more than a run of the mill day on Tommy’s phone. Which, to this point, not that she was much better, she noticed that it was something he could barely live without.

But the messages, those, were from a contact named May Carleton. 

May, from what Quinn had picked up from bits and pieces of information, trained Tommy’s horses. It had never struck her as anything unusual, until that moment.

Quinn sighed, trying to ignore the nagging feeling in her gut, continuing on down the route her phone was taking her. However, it pestered her all the way to the pharmacy. 

She threw the car in park, sinking down in the seat, and tried to tell herself to mind her own business. For fucks sake, they were here, partly, to watch a fucking horse race, so it only made sense that the horse trainer would be messaging him.

About the horse.

Unfortunately, logic didn’t win in her mind.

Her heart hammered as she swiped the screen, no prompting for a passcode because it was still connected to the car. 

She tried to take a deep enough breath as she scrolled past the message mentioning what room the woman was staying at and in which hotel, and she wanted to slam the whole fucking phone into the concrete when she reached a nude photo of the woman in front of a mirror, red robe open with everything on display, tan skin, brown hair, red lipstick. 

Everything she wasn’t. 

She nodded, seeing red and swiping back down. She was good at this kind of thing. Torturing herself. She still would catch herself sometimes, however not in a long time, searching, unblocking, and scrolling through Gerard’s instagram, looking back at how happy they had been, trying to figure out what had gone wrong.

Other than the obvious.

Can’t stop thinking about the last time you were here. Can I see you again when you’re back for the races?

Only if you wear that dress you know I like. 

That I can do. 

“Well, it sure fucking seems that you’d prefer her wearing nothing at all, fucking Thomas Michael.” Quinn spat, continuing down to the messages that had just been received, “Christ he’s so fucking arrogant, that dress you know I like. Fuck!”

Her eyes could barely focus on the words, whether it was from the tears that threatened to crest over her waterline or the, just short of, rage that was coursing through her veins each time her heart hammered in the cage of her chest, she wasn’t quite sure.

I’m staying at Mallory Court for the night, it was all that was available. It’s rather quaint for something so cheap.  

I’m in room 26. One of the suites. 

Will I see you tonight?

Quinn ground her teeth as she weighed her options: 

She could go there and confront the woman. 

She could go retrieve Tommy and go there and confront the woman. 

She could go get her shit and go to the airport. 

Or 4. she could go back and leave his phone in the car and act like nothing ever happened. 

The last one wasn’t even a desirable option, because it wasn’t something she would be able to live with herself if she did. 

She opened the map, putting in the destination as the hotel, and slammed the car in reverse. 

“Tommy, you fucking dolt, where’s your phone?” Ada yelled down the hall after trying to call her brother the entire drive to make sure everyone was meeting at the house before going out to dinner, but now, her phone started to ring as if he was calling her, as he stood before her on the stairs, brow furrowed. 

“Hello?” 

There was some rustling and a sniffle, “Ada, are you at Tommy’s? Is he there?” 

Quinn couldn’t help but let her voice waver a tad, try as she might to be strong and firm, she just wanted to punch both this May and Tommy in the fucking face at the moment. 

“Yes, he’s right here,” Ada pulled the phone from her ear, clicking it onto speakerphone before Quinn continued. 

“Okay, well, I’ve discovered I have another errand to run,” she clicked her tongue to the top of her mouth, “somewhere called Mallory Court. That should be enough information for Tommy, shouldn’t it?”

Ada watched her brother as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, nodding before pulling the undershirt he was halfway into over his head. 

“He’s nodding. That’s all I know, Quinn.”

“Thanks, Ada.”

“Fuck,” he hissed, retreating to the bedroom and returning with a sweatshirt, realizing there wasn’t time to finish getting ready before fixing the mess that was already starting to unfold.

Quinn hung up, allowing Ada to attack her brother with her hand bag, each blow accompanying her monosyllabic sentences, “What? Did? You! Do?!”

“Fuck, Ada, calm down, eh?” He let out a sigh, scratching at the nape of his neck. “It’s just a fucking misunderstanding, alright. Let me borrow your vehicle. I’ll go grab John, we’ll get it sorted.”

“You fucking better,” she said through gritted teeth, “you fucking better fix this Tommy, because I actually like her.”

The hotel itself was terra cotta, and, as the message said, rather quaint. The grounds were manicured nicely and the flower beds hadn’t lost their plumage to the fall weather yet.

Quinn walked in with the determination of a woman who knew exactly where she was going. Heels clicking across the floor as she tried to pace herself, heart hammering in her chest at the impending doom that had settled in the back of her mind. 

She was glad she had already dressed for the dinner they were attending that evening, the floral dress with its boned bodice and low cut top was enough to draw attention. To make her actually look like a woman worth fearing.

She was sure it wasn’t intentional, but she could feel eyes on her as she passed through the lobby.

She looked down, the scar from the old gem hidden behind the new one in her chest and realized some of the staring may have just been at her general appearance anyway. 

26. 

She knocked three times on the door, firm and succinct, the way Tommy always knocked, and waited. The door cracked, the same woman from the photos standing there in a plush robe with a look of confusion on her face.

“Hmm,” Quinn didn’t have much else to say. She had hoped she had been wrong, that it was all some misunderstanding, but there she was, this woman, in the flesh in front of her, “of course.”

“I’m sorry, can I help you?”

Quinn could feel her legs turning to gelatin as her heart raced in her chest. 

“Actually, yes. I’m just curious,” Quinn shook her head as Tommy’s phone vibrated in her hand, glancing down to see John trying to call him, “how many of the people you train horses for do you fuck on the side? Is that free or is it included in the price?”

The woman’s brow furrowed, crossing her arms over the plush white robe. 

“Excuse me. Do I know you?”

Quinn sighed, taking a few steps forward, her presence pushing the woman back into the room, not liking that in less than a day here she had to revive this mean-spirited part of herself that she had worked so hard to separate from, one that used to get in fights at bars and wouldn’t think twice about breaking a beer bottle over a drunk man’s head for looking at her the wrong way, “You wouldn’t know me, but I know you. I know of you anyway.” she held up Tommy’s phone, wiggling it in the space between them, scrunching her nose, “I know you’re May Carleton who is staying in room 26 at Mallory Court. So, maybe you should let me in and we should have a chat.”

She swallowed hard, backing into the settee at the foot of the bed as Quinn stood boldly in the space.

It was taking everything in her to keep her shoulders squared and chin up, but the tension of her muscles seemed to be what was keeping her focused on not losing her mind completely and tearing the woman and everything in the entire room to shreds. 

Trust. 

The word popped into her brain like a punch to the gut. She had let Tommy in so quickly and it had been so easy. And now what? 

“Would you like a drink?” The words came out strangled as May maneuvered herself from between Quinn and the seat, like someone fighting to pull their way out of a too deeply dug hole. 

“I don’t drink.” Quinn wandered the room and picked up the hem of the floor length dress hanging on the back of the bathroom door, letting the fabric fall from her hands as she roamed the room. 

“Well, a woman like you with Tommy Shelby, I can’t believe you don’t drink.”

Quinn wasn’t sure which way to take the implication. 

Maybe Tommy was difficult to deal with. 

“What exactly does a woman like me look like to you?” Quinn cocked her head to the side, eyes roaming the woman's features as she waited for a response.

There was silence. Quinn wasn’t used to being taller than most women, but it seemed the heels she had picked had been a good choice. 

“Do I look like an idiot for you to think I don’t understand what’s going on?”

“At the moment, yes. You haven’t a clue what’s going on here.”

“Oh! Between the naked photos, asking what dress you should wear, and providing what room you’re staying in, I think I know exactly what’s going on here.” Quinn counted each part of the statement off on her fingers before shifting her weight to her other hip.

The woman hung her head, biting into her bottom lip. 

“You’re here, waiting for him, in a robe with nothing else underneath. That’s what’s going on here.”

Quinn let her eyes wander the room. For a woman who seemed like she was trying to seduce a man, it wasn’t like she had put in much effort into making the space look much more alluring than a plain hotel room. She at least would have lit some candles.

“I’m not one to throw around threats that don’t have any weight behind them, but if you don’t leave him alone, there will be fucking hell to pay,” she paused, “I will make sure of it.”

Quinn wasn't sure in what way there would be hell to pay, but, she wasn’t intending to let it be an unfulfilled threat either, so she would just have to cross that bridge if they got to that point.

Three knocks at the door that hadn’t quite latched behind them had both the women looking to see Tommy standing in the doorway. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she grinned, “did I interrupt your liaison?” Quinn crossed her legs as she dropped herself into the seat and leaned back on the cushions, giving a bored sigh as she looked at her nails, the rings on her fingers, and then back up to Tommy’s pained expression. 

“Quinn—“

“No, no. Don’t let me interrupt. Carry on. As if I wasn’t here.” She gestured for him to enter the room. 

“I’ve come to retrieve you. That’s it. To keep you from—“

“What? Finding out the truth? Causing a scene?!” She stood, glancing briefly at the red vase on the table, filled with flowers, before grabbing it, testing the weight of it in her hand for a moment before whipping it at the closet door. 

Unsurprisingly, it shattered, water and broken glass pooling at Tommy’s feet before she continued. It made her feel bad, for a moment, but something about letting out all her pent up frustration about the way the day had been going also felt very good.

“You. You,” She pointed at Tommy, closing the gap between them, the brand new set of nails that she had gotten done the day before leaving glimmering in the light, “laid in my bed, and you fucking lied to me. I asked you if there was anyone, and you fucking lied.”

She was nose to nose with him, trying to keep an even temper.

“Quinn—“

“I’ll tell you what,” she backed off and looked between May’s startled expression and Tommy’s neutral one, “It might just be easier if I let you sort this out amongst yourselves, it seems you have some catching up to do, and if I play my cards right, I’ll be on a plane back to New York in a few hours, so.”

Quinn turned to depart, all intentions of brushing past Tommy simply and heading into the hallway, but he waited until she was next to him before he spoke. 

“John’s already taken the car, and I have the keys, so you’re not going anywhere.”

She swallowed thickly, taking in the way Tommy’s face changed as May laughed. 

“You.” He pointed at her, closing the gap between the two of them, and her expression grew sharp, “If you contact me again about anything that isn’t business, I’ll break every contract we have and walk. I’ll pay out the money and find someone else, because I don’t need you. I made a mistake doing anything that wasn’t business with you, Mrs. Carleton.”

Quinn watched tears prick at the woman’s eyes as she covered her mouth, nodding feverishly as Tommy turned, brushing past her to leave without another word. 

Quinn didn’t look back as she tried to catch up to his quick stride leading down the hallway. 

“Tommy,” she could tell from the way he walked he wasn’t pleased, an innate ability etched into the inner workings of her brain from always feeling as if she had to read Gerard’s mood to figure out if it was a day to walk on eggshells or not, “I—“

“Don’t.” The elevator door dinged, and he took a steadying breath, not even chancing a glance in her direction, “we’ll talk about it when we get back.”

“Oh, you’re right we’re—“

“Quinn.” 

The evenness of his voice told her to quit while she was ahead and regain some composure lest she fly off the handle and cause a bigger scene in the lobby of the hotel.

She wasn’t crazy, but the mood she was in, she wasn’t above jerking the steering wheel and sending the vehicle off the road either. The thrum of embarrassment flowing through her body with every quickened heart beat.

Has everything up to this point really been a lie?

The next part is nowhere near ready, so you know, but, tell me what you think! I'm sure there will be plenty of screaming in some way shape or form!

[madamebaggio]

Notes: Well... It's been quite a while here... Again.

Previously...

***

Chapter 3

Sansa had been raised to be one thing and one thing only: a lady.

Nowadays the term might be used in different ways across the globe, but Sansa was old money, old blood and old status. To her being a lady meant exactly what it’d meant two hundred years ago.

Or it had meant at some point.

The Starks were one of the few families with noble blood to not only survive but persistently thrive through the centuries. While many of those old families had lost money and land, they’d not only kept it all, but they kept the prestige and the respect related to their names.

Sansa could name ancestors who’d fought in many a war for King and country. Her family had been proud of their name and history, and so had she.

Until it all came crashing down.

Now she was the last Stark and she was a criminal.

Her father and mother would be appalled were they alive, but then again… They weren’t, so there was that.

Sansa hadn’t planned on becoming a criminal. If such a thing could actually be planned.

Sansa was her mother’s pride and joy from a young age and she shone as the dutiful daughter. She had the perfect manners, grades and friends. She had wanted to be like the ladies of before, the ones who really knew what the term meant, like her mother.

She’d been a spoiled brat, but it’d been the only life she’d known then. The years changed that, and by the time she was 23 she was already working for a criminal organization.

She was 26 when she became its leader.

No, it hadn’t been the plan, but it was what she had left and she was going to do it and do it well. There was a certain charm to being a lady criminal, and Sansa had learnt to do what had to be done.

It wasn’t fun, but it made money -shitloads of it. And she had needed it to save the family home, even if there was no family left to put in said home.

She’d learned a lot in those last years, and very little surprised her.

So Tommy Shelby’s message didn’t surprise her.

The fact that he wanted to meet her for dinner in a famously expensive-slash-romantic restaurant was a bit more surprising.

“What do you think he wants?” Margaery asked, amusement shining in her eyes.

“To show who’s the boss.” Sansa said, even as she dressed for dinner.

Yes, she’d accepted his invitation, more of pure boredom than actual interest.

Margaery hummed. “What are you planning on wearing?”

Sansa indicated the blue cocktail dress she was already wearing. Margaery made a face. “Oh no.”

Sansa arched an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting something else?”

“Yes.” Her friend approached her closet. “You look like a boring housewife going to her husband's company dinner.”

“That’s specific.” She snorted.

“It’s that boring.” Margaery started going through her dresses, until she finally pulled one out. “This one.”

Sansa was already shaking her head. “No.” Sansa eyed the black dress. “That dress is not for business.”

“And we know for a fact he isn’t interested in business.” Margaery pushed the black towards her.

“We don’t.” Sansa said, refusing to take the dress.

“Even better.” Margaery insisted. “Because then we’ll know for a fact. Trust me. I know men.”

Sansa rolled her eyes. “I know that.”

***

Thomas was waiting for Sansa Stark with a glass of whisky in his hand. He might look casual and relaxed to those who didn’t know him, but Tommy Shelby was nothing of the kind.

He had chosen everything about that night with care and consideration, because he was extremely curious about Lady Sansa Stark.

He wanted to know how such a young lady had become the head of the Arryn Group. How had she killed Baelish, and how could he thank her for that.

It wasn ‘t surprising that he’d never met Sansa in a professional capacity before, as he’d never done business with Baelish, and had hated the man. He was a snake and a coward, two things that Tommy despised on a man.

Their business also didn’t overlap, as the Arryn group was more into gambling and prostitution and he had other interests.

However, he was curious then and he’d only be satisfied once he’d had more time to talk to her. This time he had more information, and he wanted to see what she’d say to it.

She arrived punctually and he saw her hair before she saw her.

Sansa was a beautiful woman, and she knew it. She walked confidently through the restaurant, ignoring every single head turned in her direction.

Her black dress had a plunging neckline, but everything else about her was understated. No big jewelry, no flash lipstick, small clutch on her hand.

A classic.

He got up when she got closer. “Mr. Shelby.”

He offered his hand. “Lady Stark.” This time they just shook hands and her hold was firm and certain.

“Thank you for inviting me to dinner.” She gave him a ladylike smile.

“Thank you for accepting my invitation.” He despised all those ridiculous courtesies but he could play this game a little longer.

He held the chair for her and waited until she was properly seated before returning to his place.

“So…” She gave him another one of those vacant smiles. “You got me here. What do you want?”

“The horse, of course.”

She didn’t react at all to his statement. “All of this work just for a horse?”

“Winter Rose isn’t just any horse, is she?”

“No, she isn’t.” When the waiter stopped by her side, Sansa ordered a glass of wine without even removing her eyes from Tommy.

He waited until the man left. “So you see my point.”

“I do.” She nodded. “But my answer hasn’t changed and now I’m feeling disappointed.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Why?”

“I thought you might have something actually interesting to say to me.” She told him carelessly.

“Oh Lady Stark… You really don’t want to play that game with me.”

“What game?”

They both got quiet as the waiter came back and did all the necessary presentation before fucking finally serving her wine and leaving them.

“Because what’s interesting to men like me, normally scare ladies like you.” He warned her.

She took a sip from her wine, then smirked at him. “Do you promise?”

[evita-shelby]

Always

Or Eva and Jack have a love story spanning several life times

They had fallen in love with each other for the first time in 1834 when he was Martin O’Feeney and she was Aoife, the apothecary’s daughter. They had made their wedding vows in secret under the stars before he left for his first posting.

He had vowed to always return to her, and she vowed to always belong to him and him alone.

Even after they left Ireland in 1847 and lived out the rest of their years in America, their promise to each other lived beyond their lifetimes.

In September 1892, Martin is reborn as John ‘Jack’ Nelson and four years later, his beloved Aoife is born as Eva Smith. They do not marry for love, and yet their souls have been so entwined by fate no one would believe it had been for any other reason.

Their love becomes immortalized in history as the couple who built the family that would take over America for the better post-World War II. Their legacy becoming too great to ever be forgotten, and yet, their souls are not done loving each other even when they die in luxury after sixty-two years of marriage.

Born within three months of each other in 1991, Jack Nelson and Eva Smith find each other again in a casino in Las Vegas the summer before both begin Business School that Fall. It was unlike anything they had ever been in, so in love they eloped before their big day came.

Three lifetimes would not prove enough, in the distant future long after the world changes until North America became Panem, Martin O’Feeney is born Iacobus Nelson and Aoife as Eva Smith. Two Hunger Games Victors from two different districts defying all to be together as they have been in their previous lifetimes.

He had vowed to always return to her, and she vowed to always belong to him and him alone.

Death could never bring itself to end their love story.

Stories: Two Souls Bound for Hell (Black '47), National Anthem(Peaky Blinders), What Happens in Vegas (modern au) and They didn't know we were seeds(hunger games au)