#and then - as a god - he’ll take arthur’s soul (and all his friends souls) and carry them into the realm of the gods | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bitsandbobsofwriting · 3 years

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Everyone cries (but only because they’re stupid), they go home, and Leon wins a lot of money :)

Merlin’s Angry Magic Reveal, part 5 (final part)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

TW: Lots of death again I suppose (you’ll see what I mean)

The gang watches on in amazement as Merlin calls lightening strike after lightening strike, seemingly unbothered by the chaos around him, and the power he was displaying.

Merlin really wasn’t kidding when he said they should be scared of him. Damn.

They worry for a moment, and Lancelot has to hold Arthur back, as they notice the first of the three enemy sorcerers step into their line of sight. But they calm quickly when they see Merlin look towards her and nod, before going back to the battle at hand. If he trusted her, then they would to.

Elyan points to her and shouts at everyone to keep a tight grip on the horses as they see the ground beginning to shake, the ripples in the mud heading towards them at an alarming pace.

“Brace yourselves!” is shouted by Leon moments before it reaches them, and all of them are thrown to the ground violently.

No one is injured, but they are dazed, and it takes them a few moments to right themselves again. The next time they look out, a frenzied blue fire is ripping into those closest to Merlin, and dissipating into the air around him.

Now with some space, it would appear that Merlin had taken inspiration from his new found friend, and the ground shakes even more violently than before (though this time much more contained, The Gang doesn’t feel even a small tremor where they stand).

Gwen speaks up quietly, but still loud enough that everyone can hear her over the shrieking:

“Gods above... how long has he been able to do that?”

Morgana answers her:

“The Druids don’t fuck around. They did say he would be The Most Powerful Warlock to Ever Walk the Earth, I guess we should’ve seen this coming.”

Everyone nods distractedly, but no one can tear their gaze from the scene in front of them. The ground snaps shut with one last rumble, over half the army having disappeared, and they see the remaining soldiers turn to flee.

Every one of them gasps in shock as vines burst from the ground, and begin to rip the deserters to shreds. None of them thought that Merlin was the type to kill someone who had their back turned, but like he said earlier... he was pissed.

Suddenly the battlefield is near empty, and silent. They’re distracted by the slight tilt of Merlin’s head, and the distant sounds of howling wolves (no doubt summoned to take care of the last few soldiers), so don’t see the frenzied King sneak up on him before it’s too late.

Arthur takes in a sudden breath when he notices and begins sprinting towards Merlin, no one holding him back this time.

The King of Camelot shouts his warning too late as the sword pierces Merlin’s back, and is forced with a shove out through his chest.

The sorcerers in front of him stare on in shock, too far away from Arthur for him to be paying them any attention.

He pulls his sword out as Merlin’s attacker stumbles back, and cuts him down without a thought, without looking away from Merlin for even a second.

He collapses on the floors behind his friend (could he really call him that after last night?) and begins to beg (begging who, he isn’t quite sure. Anyone that would listen, he supposes) :

“ No.... no no no, Come on Merls, don’t do this to me. You promised.”

He has to hold in a pained gasp as he turns Merlin over, and is struck with horror as he realises the exact resemblance to the vision from four days ago.

The blank stare of Merlin’s eyes, the blood from his mouth. All identical.

Arthur is so wrapped up in his shock, that he doesn’t notice The Gang finally catching up, and gathering around him.

Everyone is in shock, painful cries escaping them. Both at the death of their friend, and the sporadic breathing and sobs of Arthur.

Lancelot pushes to the front, and kneels on the other side of Merlin, taking his already cold hand in his own and whispering to himself (to Merlin) :

“Come on.... come on, Merlin. You can do it, you’re immortal remember. Come on.”

After what felt like forever, the forgotten sorcerers push through the crowd. Everyone is too shocked to notice the intrusion.

The girl takes in a deep breath, and whispers:

“Emrys...” before crouching next to Arthur, and tilting her head, as if waiting.

She looks up to her two companions, and they nod at her, seeming to all be agreeing on something. She swallows and looks back towards Merlin’s blank face, reaching towards the hilt of the sword at his spine.

Leon and Elyan jump into action, grabbing her shoulders and pulling her back:

“What are you doing?!” and “Don’t touch him!” are shouted simultaneously as they grip her, but she looks back in annoyance before replying sharply:

“I’m trying to help! How do you expect him to wake up with a great big bloody sword through his chest?”

This seems to get Arthur’s attention, and he looks up for the first time, eyes red and cheeks wet as he stares at her in confusion.

Her annoyance fades, and she gives him a soft look as she explains:

“He will be fine, I promise. But he won’t wake up if he’s just immediately going to die again. His body has to heal before his soul returns to it. We need to take it out.”

In Arthur’s state of shock and grief, it takes him a few moments to fully register what was said, but he shakes his head and looks back at her, before saying in a quiet, shaking voice:

“He’ll come back?”

All three of the sorcerers nod slowly understanding his grief, and the girl reaches for the hilt of the sword once again, slowly this time.

“Do it.” from Arthur prompts her to grip the metal, and pull it from Merlin’s body with a sickening squelch.

The whole gang grimaces as it come away slick with blood, and try not to look at the floor as the puddle around him begins to expand even quicker than before.

Everyone stares at Merlin with bated breath, waiting and hoping (well... the gang is hoping. The three helpers don’t seem too worried) for any sort of movement.

After what seemed like hours, Merlin’s eyes blink slowly, and he brings in half a shuddered breath before coughing violently, and rolling off of Arthur’s lap and onto the floor, onto his hands and knees.

The Gang stares in shock as their previously dead friend coughs and splutters, blood flying from his mouth, before he collapses down onto his back, clutching his chest:

“That bloody hurt.”

Gwaine is the first to begin laughing, not necessarily out of humour, but an adrenaline crash mixed with a no-longer-dead friend will do that to you sometimes.

Merlin stares up in confusion as everyone joins in, some hysterical (and probably still in shock), and some just quietly chucking at how stupid they’d been.

Percival is the first to catch his breath and speak:

“Are you telling me... that after all that worrying... we literally just had to pull the thing out of you, and you’d be fine again?”

Merlin shrugs as best he can from his position on the floor (made even harder by the fact that one of his hands was being gripped by Arthur, the other by Lancelot) and replies with a smirk:

“I guess so. I told you I’d be fine!”

Everyone shakes their heads in disbelief, and Lancelot stands, pulling Merlin and Arthur with him. Merlin is quickly engulfed in a tight group hug, the sorcerers having just managed to escape and standing off to the side, staring on in amusement.

Arthur is the last to pull away, and Merlin’s now free arms wrap around him without hesitation as he buries his head in his friend’s (?) neck:

“I told you. Nothing can keep me away from you... at least not for too long. Pull it out a little quicker next time, yeah?”

Arthur laughs quietly and pulls back, pressing his forehead against Merlin’s before quietly replying with a smile:

“Bold of you to assume I will ever allow this to happen again.”

It’s Merlin’s turn to laugh this time, and the both of them ignore the confusion on everyone else’s faces (as far as they were all concerned, that comment came unprompted out of nowhere).

Arthur coughs slightly and pulls back, his face flushed, seeming to remember that they were surrounded by their closest friends.

Merlin rolls his eyes before also stepping back, and giving Arthur a pointed look:

“Don’t look so embarrassed Arthur. I’m pretty sure this lot knew before we did.”

He doesn’t give Arthur time to reply, instead looking around at his friends with an exhausted, but shining smile on his face:

“Time to go home, I think.”

The journey back to Camelot is relaxed, and full of smiles. Arthur spends the whole journey glued to Merlin’s side, and Leon spends the whole journey with a self satisfied smirk on his face (if they get their act together at some point in the next 2 weeks, which Leon has absolute faith they will, then he wins a lot of money).

They had invited the three sorcerers to join them, but they declined, saying they had been missing a long time, and wanted to get home. The Gang provided them with some spare clothes, and helped them catch some of the enemy’s horses, (who had miraculously not run too far during the battle) before sending them on their way with an open invite to visit Camelot any time they would like.

They rush home, but they aren’t nearly as tense and desperate as they were on the way out, so it takes them an extra day to get there, not that any of them minded.

Once Merlin had gained a little of his strength back, he reached out to the Druids who remained in the city as advisors, so that the council could be updated on the state of things.

The people were told that the King and the Inner Council had been successful in their mission, and would be returning home within a few days, victorious.

The meeting they got at the gates to the city was astounding. Banners and flowers and declarations of celebration surrounded them all the way from the city walls, to the castle, and even the Council seemed in a good mood (a rare occurrence).

They were especially happy when Arthur dumped a dented crown, and a slashed and bloody cloak on the table, announcing that the opposition had no heir, and if they moved quickly, the neighbouring Kingdom would be absorbed into Camelot. Arthur, King by Conquest, had almost doubled the size of his kingdom.

He sent out half an army, along with Leon, Elyan, and Lancelot, within the week. They took medical supplies and food, as a show of good faith to the commoners. The first month or so would be spent clearing the kingdom of any supporters of the fallen king, and spreading compassion and help. Once that was complete, Arthur would go there personally, to greet his new people (and probably sign a lot of paperwork, but bleugh).

Merlin and Arthur are sitting back in their comfy chairs by the fire in Arthur’s chambers, when Arthur casually mentions gifting the new land to Merlin, and making him King. Or at least Lord.

Merlin looked at him indignantly, it had only been a few days since they got back, and they were both still exhausted, but he replied with such vigour that you would never have known that he’d died barely a week prior:

“Absolutely not. I don’t think I would make a good King, Arthur. And I don’t want it anyway. I’d be weeks away, and everyone I care about lives here. You can’t get rid of me that easily, especially not after such an emotional confession.” He raise an eyebrow and smirks as Arthur flushes, looking to his lap:

“Shut up.”

The conversation hadn’t been had yet, but neither felt awkward about it, they both knew the truth. After Merlin woke up again, it felt like time had reset, like once more they had all the time in the world. Neither of them are great at talking about their emotions, and both were prepared to wait until the moment seemed right, until they both had the right words.

Merlin laughs at Arthur, before absentmindedly reaching out a hand towards him. Arthur takes it without question, and looks back to Merlin, face serious, but loving:

“I meant it Merlin. I love you, with everything I have. I would give all of it up for you, the crown, Camelot, everything.”

Merlin smiles, blushing, and stands, pulling Arthur to stand with him.

They still grip hands, and stare into the blue of each others eyes as Merlin’s voice echoes in Arthur’s head:

“I love you too. I told you Arthur, this is where I belong, with you.”

Both of them ignore the tears gathering in their eyes as they lean forwards. They meet in the middle, in a slow kiss that has both of their hearts jumping.

Merlin wraps his arms around the King’s waist as Arthur lifts his hands up to rest against his Sorcerer’s chest, pulling at his collar slightly.

They pull away slowly, needing breath, but not willing to part as they once again find themselves resting their foreheads against each other:

“Merls, you'll stay, won’t you?”

Merlin responds without even a second of hesitation, a fond smile on his face:

“Forever.”

Leon gets his money (which Gwaine never stops grumbling about: “If they’d held off for two more weeks, I would’ve won!”) and is very smug about it.

As time passes, Morgana’s terrifying visions start to make more sense.

Gaius and Hunith did in fact cry... three years down the line when Arthur finally requested that the Druids perform one of their binding ceremonies on himself and Merlin, their closest friends and family as the only witnesses.

(There was, of course, a larger, more public celebration of their joining, but the private affair was the important one.)

The silver crown, forged by the Druids behind Merlin’s back (as a sort of... wedding gift, Arthur would say) was used a few days later in Merlin’s official crowning. Made to look like leaves and vines and flowers and berries, truly the most Druidic, magical, nature inspired crown anyone had ever set their eyes upon.

(Arthur thought that Merlin never looked better, more himself, than when he donned the crown. But Arthur would never say that out loud, Merlin was still shy at heart, and he didn’t want to discourage him from wearing it.)

The tombstone, they discovered, was the fallen King’s. He was cruel, and cowardly, but Arthur had honour, and had the crown and cloak washed and buried in his bloodline’s cemetery. Nothing fancy, just a stone and a name and two dates.

(For history’s sake. After learning the truth about magic, Arthur swore that he would never knowingly erase history, not even his own mistakes.)

The empty chambers were obvious in the end. It may have taken three years for them to be officially wed, but their rooms were down the corridor from one another... and Arthur had a nicer bed. It only took a week or so before they were sleeping besides one another every night, and who would argue against it? Arthur was King, and Merlin had once again saved the kingdom, they could bloody well do what they liked.

They never actually figured out specifically when Morgana saw nine of them sat at the table, looking blank. Merlin was so often late to meetings, leaving the rest of them to wait patiently (or not so patiently) for his arrival. It could have been any number of times over the years.

After all their fretting, the anxiety of the war and the worry for her friend had led Morgana down a grim path. Perhaps it was because she was looking for reasons to dissuade Merlin from going?

Whatever the cause, her and Merlin continue to work together to hone their crafts, Gwen supporting her every step of the way.

Now. Morgana and Gwen. They were a little more subtle about their relationship, but they also moved a little quicker, and were quietly bound to one another within a year of the Great Battle of Merlin’s BAMFness. Not that anyone was that surprised, mind you.

Speaking of Merlin’s BAMFness, there were definitely more shows of Merlin’s power once they got home. Despite being Court Sorcerer, Merlin was still affected by the years spent hiding and in fear (something that Arthur never quite forgave himself for), and never used his magic in public much, not if he could help it.

He used it for simple things, or when asked, but never would he allow himself to succumb to his emotions, positive or negative, and always kept tight control. The last thing he wanted to do, was accidently convince someone that magic was dangerous and evil and undo all the work he and Arthur had done.

Nowadays, after months of pestering by the gang (mainly Gwaine and Percival) to “show us something cool! Come on Merlin, you defeated an entire army, we know you can show us something cool!” , he was definitely more comfortable using his magic in every day situations.

Arthur was eternally grateful for that, he had done all he could, and he continued to support Merlin, but he knew that unless that validation came from elsewhere as well, Merlin would never be comfortable in his own skin.

BUT for now they have everything. Merthur is happy, Leon is smug, Morgwen is happy and smug, and the gang stays together, and happy, forever.

All because Merlin got depressed and angry and yelled at Arthur in the middle of the forest one day.

THE END

Actually the end this time. Might be a bit anti climactic, but happy ending are a little anti climactic sometimes, and that’s ok.

I have a bunch of drafts on the go but if you’ve got anything specific you want my take on, go for it ✌️

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redemptionbaby · 3 years

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Reader gets drunk and tries to summon a demon for whatever reason. When they wake up, they find they were not only were they successful, but that demon!Arthur is stuck there until he fulfills their desire so he can claim their soul. But they dont remember what that desire was.

Demon! Arthur Morgan

When you wake up, you meet the eyes of a demon. And he’s like, kinda irritated. Not like furious, no fire and brimstone, not mad with ire. Like he was just about to clock out for the day, and you’re holding him up with a stupid question.

“Awake, are we? Mind tellin’ me why you summoned my ass all the way here, only to pass out and make me wait for you to come to?”

When you explain that you have no idea what this is about, that you don’t know why you would’ve summoned a demon, his face shifts into one much more dreading as he drags a clawed hand down his face

“You... you really don’t remember? Well, I can’t go until I grant your wish— and take your soul. Them’s the rules, nothin’ I can do about it.”

When he pulls himself together a little more, accepting the situation for what it is, he comes to a decision. He’ll just... help you out. Follow you around, crack guesses as to what you might have wished for, and fulfill them

You bear his sigil on your body, symbolizing the deal. It’ll fade once he’s fulfilled your wish, and he’ll be free to return to the underworld with your soul.

You’re getting the better end of the deal here. Lots of wishes getting fulfilled for the price of a single soul, and all because you didn’t remember your own wish.

Arthur is insufferable and inescapable. He’s always following you around, his tail swishing, and only you can see him. Always making guesses at what it is you could want— or could have wanted when you performed the ritual

In this pursuit, he learns everything about you. He has no choice. He learns about all the things you like, everything you’ve always dreamed of doing, all the people you just barely tolerate in the day to day, the places you miss.

You don’t admit it at first, but it’s nice to have someone around. You don’t really have friends or family, it’s just been you for so long.

So long in fact, that for a while Arthur is convinced that what you were wishing for was love. He did everything in his power to set you up with people, nudge connections, used his demonic influences to whisper in the ears of other mortals so they would take notice of all of the things that were so wonderful about you

And for once, he didn’t have to lie. He knew all sorts of wonderful things about you, things he admired and didn’t realize.

Over time, he notices himself souring to these people. No one he sees seems right for you, not what you deserve. Or so he tells himself.

Meanwhile, each night he watches over you while you sleep, telling himself that your wish might have been to feel safe— you did live alone, after all.

One day, he finds himself sabotaging a potential love interest. He decides that love must not be what you wished for.

These days go on, and Arthur finds they’ve become the best days of his unholy existence. He loves every crevice of your being. Every secret piece of you, like he’s undone an origami crane and traced his fingers over every fold. There is so much to you that he’s never known in himself or anyone else. Your perpetual lonesomeness to him is evidence of an unjust god, a jealous one. For if your true nature and complexity were known to others, you would surely be worshipped beyond his measure.

You let his wretched hands on your skin. His tail curls around your waist. His hair leaves cinders and ash on your clothes. And one day, during on of these precious moments with you, his sigil is exposed. And he can see it fading. You look ready, and he feels anything but.

“I figured out what my wish was, Arthur.”

He holds back tainted tears.

“And what’s that, sweetheart?”

“I didn’t want to feel lonely anymore.”

He implores you not to say that, that there must be something else you want from him. Wealth, power, fame. This can’t be it. You put his clawed hand over your breast, and thank him for everything.

He blinks, and he’s burnt up, gone back to hell. The hand that was over your heart has in it the softest, prettiest, wispy little essence he’s ever seen. He doesn’t doubt that any other demon would have killed thousands for a soul like this. To eat it would grant him enormous power. He could trade it for anything his blackened heart desired.

He slips it with care into a glass flask to keep at his hip. He does the demonic equivalent of throwing himself into his work, hunting other souls, building something of an estate. He no longer spends much time debauched in unholy excess. His only wish is... to no longer be lonely. And the only way for that to happen is to wait.

To be a demon that knows loneliness is a wretched thing. He is pitied by many, but it doesn’t phase him.

One day, at a ripe old age, beloved by many, you die. And a handsome man has appeared to take you to eternity.

The flask shatters, your soul once again one with your consciousness, and as a shade Arthur thinks you look just as beautiful as you did all those years ago. He’s not lonely anymore.

#arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan #writing #headcanon #au #demon au

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moral-turpitudes · 3 years

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College Headcanons: Modern!Peaky Blinders Edition

Part 1 | Part 2

A/N: This came to me in a dream. Enjoy.

Thomas Shelby:

Double Major: Political Science and Business Management (bc he likes to work himself to death) Minor: Military Sciences/ROTC

Likes debating and trying to outsmart the professor.

Often seen on campus with bloody knuckles from rocking someone’s jaw.

Would 100% punch a motherfucker for being mean to someone he cares about.

Doesn’t need to be in a fraternity to be known around campus, just don’t mess with him and you’ll be fine.

All the girls whisper as he walks by but he don’t give a fuck cuz he has to go to his lectures.

He’s on time for every class and pulls out his pocket watch if the professor is more than 5 minutes late. If the professor can’t bother showing up then he dips out.

Almost got suspended for one too many fist fights.

Has a “thing” for the barista at the campus Starbucks. He learned after frequent visits, that her name was Grace and that she liked black coffee just like him.

Mysterious and moody af. No one knows if they’ve ever seen him smile, except when chatting up Grace.

Tries his best to study, but ends up getting dragged into his siblings shenanigans or into his head about the family business.

Keeps to himself for the most part, except for having a few close friends.

Hates technology so he uses a typewriter and prefers receiving letters/mail over emails.

Can’t figure out how to use Grace the baristas phone when typing in his number and tells her to write it down instead.

Often tells her to meet him after her shift. 😏

Professors hate him because of his reliance on paper. Totes not eco-friendly but he doesn’t care. Tommy always gets his way.

Grace always gives him a cookie for free cuz she knows he forgets to eat.

Always seen smoking or sneaking drinks of whiskey in a flask, even at 7am lectures.

Binge drinks on weekends with his bros, and drunk calls barista Grace when he has maybe 3 working brain cells left for the night. On other weekends when he’s coherent, he meets with Polly and tries to discuss business plans since their dad dipped out like a bitch.

To make matters worse, after dating for a while, Grace just leaves him. He thinks his aunt Polly may have been too hard on her, but he didn’t know until later that she lied when she said she didn’t know about the business. But barista bitch knew everything, and was gonna expose them to her higher-ups in the criminal justice department before long.

Arthur Shelby:

Major: Agriculture Minor: Military Science/ROTC

Graduated just barely.

Ended up in some trouble with his peeps in the military science department, probs for cussing someone out.

Angry, loud, and emotional af.

Loved drinking with John and his frat boy friends.

No one messed with him if they valued their life.

Started one too many fights and got suspended for reals. Almost beat a man to death but we don’t talk about that.

He gets stressed really easily so in his free time he draws horses.

When he gets real mad he takes it to the campus boxing ring and punches to his hearts content.

On his way back to his dorm one night he saw a girl who was in his agriculture class. She was cute and also in a “Christian” ministry group on campus. He decided to chat her up when she was preaching, just to see what it was about.

They later dated but then she cheated around with a fellow churchy man and just went off the rails. When he found out it wasn’t pretty.

Her friends and pastor most likely shamed her cuz she be ✨sinning✨. Therefore not helping her mental state.

Her name was Linda. Never trust a Linda.

Everyone tried to console Arthur but only boxing and drinking at Johns frat house did the trick.

Tommy often had to run to his dorm in the middle of the night to talk him out his mental breakdowns. College is hard.

In the end, he was glad he did agriculture even if his crazy ex would constantly stare at him during lectures, probably plotting his demise.

Some days he’d take out his frustrations by chopping wood and helping out on the farm where he worked and studied most days.

But you bet your ass fuckin’ Linda showed up to his dorm one time though with a gun and tried to shoot him, but she didn’t know his brothers and aunt were there too. Polly may have shot her in the arm tho. But when the campus PD showed up shit really went down.

We don’t know where Linda is now, but that’s probs for the best.

John Shelby:

Major: Music (idk I felt like he’s a musical boi) Minor: Military Science/ROTC

He’s a frat boy through and through. He drops it low on the dance floor and is known to dive onto beer pong tables.

Constantly going to parties and hooking up with sorority girls, that is until he meets a girl named Esme who’d been dragged to the party by her friends.

Suddenly he ain’t no hoe no more, he’s head over boots in love with her and she loves him too.

They be sneaking around in various buildings, often having to make a run for it to escape security.

He’d play her songs after hard training days with his military buds cuz it helps him calm down.

He’s not as violent as his older brothers, but he’ll fuck a person up if needed.

His fraternity is the second most important thing to him besides his girl. He loves the energy of the fraternity, the partying, and acting a whole fool with his friends, but Esme has him whipped.

His studies are struggling though cuz he loves to get turnt. He hates the studying aspect of college.

Always getting his brothers into trouble.

Snorts coke off Esme’s tits on occasion at the frat parties. It’s a wild time.

Has the mouth of a sailor but a heart of gold.

Talks of kids with Esme after dating for a year. Can’t afford a ring yet tho, but their bud Jeremiah marries them anyway on a whim.

After Arthur and the Grace fiasco ensues, he drops out of college because Esme falls pregnant. In the end, she ends up getting the chickens and wild cottage!core house she’d always wanted. They both decide to raise their kids there, living their best lives until Tommy drags them into more family matters later on.

Ada Shelby:

Major: English Minor: Gender & Women’s Studies

Always seen in the most stylish clothes.

She’s quiet most times but can be very knowledgeable on various subjects.

She’s constantly going off on her older brothers and trying to smack some sense into them.

Feels like something is off with the barista Tommy’s been seeing, but it’s not her problem.

Can 100% find her chilling in the back of Starbucks reading old novels or writing literature reviews.

When she’s not there, she’s holed up in the library where she works part time, studying and practicing for debates.

10/10 would fuck in the library cuz she knows all the best secret places to go to. 😏

Organizes meetings with different campus associations and demands equality for students.

Spends her free time surfing the net for clothes or keeping an eye out for a potential new bae.

Is probably the best at studying. She earns the best grades let’s be honest.

Will not hesitate to call a bitch out. She may not throw hands but she’ll throw words that can cut you like a knife.

Works for the campus paper, spilling all the tea on campus life. Her brothers often reluctantly agree to be her mock interview subjects for a range of assignments.

She breaks necks when walking around campus, everyone moves out of their way for her.

She’s a bad bitch.

Finn Shelby:

Major: Photography Minor: English

He hates how violent his brothers are but would 10/10 back them up if needed.

Often asks Ada for advice on studying and girls.

Doesn’t like the frat boy scene like John, but goes to the parties anyways with his best friends Isiah and Bonnie.

He’s a freshman and you can tell. He still has a glimmer of life in his eyes and a pep in his step as he walks around campus.

When he’s not taking pictures for class, he’s taking pictures of his girlfriend.

She’s his muse even when doing the simplest of things like sitting in a chair or reading one of his English books.

Each week he’d surprise her with a picture he took when she wasn’t looking, telling her how beautiful she is.

He may not look strong, but after many nights at the boxing ring with Arthur, he knew how to throw a punch.

He almost flunked his studies a couple times, getting too caught up in partying or being with his girl, but Ada and his Aunt Polly set him straight.

Voted by his family as most likely to not get arrested or suspended from college.

He’d have deep conversations with his friends, often confusing them because it was just that deep.

In his spare time he’d go boxing with Arthur or would try to help Tommy with his essays, but Tommy would get frustrated and tell him to fuck off within the first 10 minutes.

Polly Gray:

Profession: Business Management Professor Side Job: Managing the blinder business with Tommy

When she’s not teaching class, she’s managing the blinder business that was left to her and Tommy to tackle. This also means covering up any suspicions that arise on campus. She has her hands full.

She’s Tommy’s only shred of common sense some days when he gets too stressed out from his 10,000 majors and minors, or wants to plan to overthrow the university.

Will not hesitate to slap someone, preferably her unruly nephews.

Anyone can lie to her but the truth always falls through the cracks, and when she finds out, you’d pray you faced the devil instead.

In her spare time she reads tea leaves and prays for the corrupt souls of her son and his cousins. She really just begs to god that they can come together for once to get the business in line, but even that may be asking too much.

Knows a snake when she sees one. *cough* *cough* Grace the barista.

She’s the first one to tell someone I told ya so, especially her students when they flunk her tests because they decided to get drunk the night before.

When she’s not yelling at her nephews or grading papers, she can be seen at the local bar chatting up coworkers and old flames, hoping to find “the one” eventually. She ends up having a “thing” for the quirky Philosophy professor though. He’s kind of shady cuz she finds out he’s in a similar business on the side, but it only makes her like him more. She craves the danger.

They later end up in a whirlwind romance similar to John and Esme, and everyone loves that for them.

She can also be seen with her head in her hands when trying to persuade Tommy to use technology.

“What is copy and paste Pol? Can’t I just write it down? What’s up with all these gadgets aye?”

“If you want your hand to fall off and to make me lose my mind, then yes, write it down. Grading is bloody hard enough as it is, let alone grading your papers. You’re just like your father ya know, always doing things the hard way.”

Tells Gina off when she gets the chance just like she did Grace. She didn’t shoot her like Linda though, she just hurt some feelings.

May have aided in Grace’s “sudden” departure…maybe…just a little bit.

Secretly ships Tommy with a woman named Lizzie who had been her assistant at her office. She knew she could trust her more, at least.

Despite her harshness, she’s just trying to keep her family from completely fucking up their lives.

Michael Gray:

Major: Accounting Minor: Business Management

Like Tommy, he doesn’t get the hype of fraternities so he just hangs out with his cousins or his small circle of friends, they aren’t saints though.

His mom, Polly is his business management professor. She always calls on him and gives him a hard time when he spaces out in class.

Is often seen around campus with a few friends or his girlfriend Gina who he met in business class. They’re sickening and it was like a whirlwind romance tbh.

He usually finds himself cleaning up his cousin’s messes when it comes to fighting, but if he has to throw some punches he will.

He’s not as impulsive when it comes to matters of business, but where matters of the heart are concerned that’s another story.

When the blinders and Polly were all at her house for dinner one night he announced he was going to marry Gina. Arthur and John laughed and Tommy smirked slightly, still butt-hurt after his Grace left him for little-to-no reason. Ada grinned and bared the news whilst Polly nearly smacked him on the head.

People didn’t dare mess with him, and that went for all his cousins as well.

He spent a majority of his days in class crunching numbers, and most his nights out with the boys getting drunk or fuckin’ with Gina.

Because his mom held him accountable, his grades rivaled Ada’s causing them to get into some friendly competition at times.

He’s cunning like Tommy though. He got into many a screaming match with the older blinder after trying to take over his position in the family business. It ended in some black eyes and Polly smacking both of them with her newspaper. He knew better than to mess with the devil himself.

Despite the tensions between the cousins at times, he’s always the one they go to when they can’t figure out their math homework, and he’d always have to meet one of them in the library at 3 am to smuggle in some cocaine and a drink to keep them studying.

#katies headcanons #thomas shelby #arthur shelby #john shelby #ada shelby #finn shelby #polly gray #michael gray #peaky blinders headcanons #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders imagines #peaky blinders #can y’all tell I’m obsessed with the dark academia aesthetic lately?

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a-libra-writes · 4 years

Text

How the Peaky Blinders React To Your Scars

So the original request was a reader having a large facial scar she covers up, I tried to make it a lil flexible/easier to cover up, very similar to my GoT scar preference? sure why not

In this preference, you'll be with: Tommy Shelby, Arthur Shelby, John Shelby, Ada Shelby, Polly Gray, Michael Gray, Alfie Solomons, Lizzie Stark, Isaiah Jesus, Luca Changretta, Aberama Gold

THOMAS SHELBY

To be blunt about it, you intrigued Tommy more than most women because you were still startlingly pretty, and you had such a peculiar, almost haunting look in your eyes that he couldn’t help but be drawn in. He’d find an excuse to talk to you, even if you tried to dodge his attempts at conversation for one reason or another. Tommy would never stare or address you differently, he’d seem the same to anyone who knew him, but internally he was very interested by the mystery of it all.

He’d never ask you directly what happened, never. You’d have to volunteer that information, and he’d wait. However … as his affection grew, he’d grow protective even if you weren’t an item, and he’d begin to wonder if the person who did it was still alive, god help them. He’d become attached now, and anyone who stared or insulted you would be lucky to get off with just a harsh word.

ARTHUR SHELBY

You were used to people being startled when they looked at you, and Arthur was no different, so you brushed it off. Mr. Shelby worked with your boss, so you had to be polite. You just wish he’d stop staring whenever he came in to do business. The thing was, Arthur began to overlook the scar and was getting flustered from how sweet and charming you were. That was more disarming. The misunderstanding continued until he was waiting in your boss’ shop and overheard some man quietly insulting you to his friend… That ended with your boss hastily cleaning blood and glass off the floor and you alone with Arthur, dabbing a cloth on his bloody knuckles. He sort of blurted out the best apology he had, fumbling over his words and basically confessing how pretty and sweet he found you.

When you’re dating, any thoughts about the scarring falls to the wayside, as it’s just a part of you. Only sometimes when you look a little forlorn as you touch your face does he wonder what happened, though he feels like he’d just screw up if he asked about it. You know he still finds you lovely no matter what, because it just takes a kiss and a smile to get him to blush.

JOHN SHELBY

John puts his foot in his mouth constantly, everyone knows that. When he first saw you walk into the betting office to get to work, he blurted, “Did she get cut or what?”. Ada hit him so swiftly he stumbled back in surprise. He’d never seen a woman with scars like that, and you were still pretty, he realized a few minutes later. He knew what he said was idiotic, but it still took a few days before he managed an apology to you, feeling like a fool the whole time. He was interested, though, so John would hang around and talk with you when you weren’t busy. He started to get quite a crush, and it bothered him to think what happened to you. He thought back to all the men he cut, and it filled him with anger and disgust to think of someone doing the same to you.

Later when you two were an item, anytime John recalled that first meeting he felt his soul cringing out of his body. He’ll still randomly apologize for it, and you remind him it’s been more than a year at that point. It would be best to tell John what happened, because he’d think of all these scenarios in his head and it’d drive him a little mad wondering which was true. You better believe he’d become unreasonable and think of revenge if the person who did it was still around.

ADA SHELBY

Truthfully, Ada was drawn to you because she felt pity. It must have hurt so much, and being a woman, you must have been given a hard time, both before and after the ordeal … Well, you proved her wrong with how energetic and lively you were, not caring a bit about what people said. You didn’t even seem to notice it half the time. It made Ada think about how stupid and shallow her assumptions were… Also, it didn’t make you any less cute. She thought they were attractive, in an odd way, it only added to how interesting and different she found you. Her crush was hidden to no one who paid attention (which, granted, only Polly seemed to notice such things).

Ada wanted to befriend you right away, thinking she could keep that crush under control. Spoiler, she couldn’t. Whenever you show a more vulnerable side, worrying about how your scars look or remembering how you got them, Ada is quick to bring you close and give you plenty of kisses and reassurance. She’ll kiss your scarred side until there’s no question of her affection.

POLLY GRAY

She didn’t need to see the scars on your face to know you’d been through a hard time, it was there in your posture and your eyes, but you kept on. You worked for the Shelbys and you worked damn hard, although she wished you wouldn’t keep your head down all the time. Polly wish you’d speak up for yourself and stand your ground, and although she didn’t want to mother hen you, that would end up happening. For some reason, she felt a connection with you, although often she wondered if that was silliness on her part. When it came to the story of your scars, she’d let you come to her. It’d happen on a stormy evening when you were seated with her by the fire, full of warm tea, and the story would just come out.

You felt like you could tell her, and you could, Polly would take the secret seriously if you wanted it to be one. Still, she couldn’t help but think of who did it… If the person or group was still alive, still walking the streets of London, or hell - even Heath street - well … You wouldn’t tell, but she’d be silently struggling with what to do about it. After that, each time she’d look at your face, she’d get a nagging voice telling her to do something. Perhaps you didn’t want it, but perhaps you didn’t have to know.

MICHAEL GRAY

So, he’s a superficial young man, especially when it comes to women. He was disarmed by your appearance, even if he had to admit the rest of you was gorgeous. He knew it was an irrational feeling, but there it was. He didn’t want to get involved with a woman in the company, anyway. The thing was you were competent, and funny, and he relied on you more than once to get trickier deals done. Tommy trusted you as well, and it began to bother Michael when he noticed his cousin subtly flirting with you. It bothered him even more when someone commented on your looks - “Just look at her,” He’d hear someone sneer, and he’d loudly retort, “Yes, that color looks lovely on her, doesn’t it? She’s excellent to have at the company, for many reasons.”

He’d said things like that several times, but then you finally overheard. The defense startled you, since Michael always seemed so professional, so distant, but then you began to notice how protective he was getting, the little gifts he’d bring in, how many times he’d take you to dinners and parties. Eventually you had to just laugh and ask Michael if he was your boyfriend yet. A sudden kiss was your response.

ALFIE SOLOMONS

Frightening as he was to your father, Alfie was nothing but respectful and kind to you, even humorous. He liked to bring you something considerate, like flowers or some bread, whenever he discussed business with your father. It was so unlike the other men you’d met. For Alfie’s part, he’d never treat such a lovely, sweet lady any differently for something like a scar. He didn’t even care what the circumstances were, he was taken with you right away when he walked into your father’s establishment, and the scar didn’t add or take away from that. His favor wasn’t subtle at all, and as much as it flustered your father, Alfie made it clear he wanted to take you out at some point.

When you’re dating and intimate, he’s the sort of man to come to your defense no matter whose harassing you and what they’re saying. So, someone insulting your scarring gets the same punishment as someone whistling at you or questioning your virtue: Bloody bones. Alfie doesn’t like to show his temper in front of you, but protecting you is like a reflex. No one speaks about his girl like that. Much later when the cancer and the bullet begins to damage his eyes and face, he makes morbid jokes about how you two match and you’re clearly perfect for each other -- although you’re still far prettier.

LIZZIE STARK

In your first meeting, Lizzie immediately felt sorry for you, and that thought instantly bothered her. Who was she to assume you were some sad, lost bird? You seemed eager to work for the company, more focused on that than what you looked like, and she ought to not make assumptions. As Lizzie worked with you and became your friend, she stopped thinking about it, only glancing now and again if the light hit your scars just right. The problem with staring is she’d start looking at your eyelashes, then your lips, then your neck … Thank god you were too busy to notice. She hoped you didn’t notice, because then you might think she was looking at the scars… Although, in a way, they had their charm, too.

Lizzie is protective of you, especially if you don’t speak up. Anyone making a comment about you, even if it’s one of the Shelby boys, is going to get a sharp retort. She may even scold you for not sticking up for yourself, though you’ve heard everything under the sun at this point. She thinks you’re gorgeous and will tell you so, not settling for you blushing and shying away. She means it, damn it, and she’s not going to let a bunch of stupid men or stuck-up women make you feel bad about yourself.

ISAIAH JESUS

Because he’s helped his father with wounded men for years, scars don’t bother Isaiah like they do other people. He’s seen and helped patch up some grisly injuries that led to worse scarring. Isaiah was taken aback by your’s not because they were the worst he’s seen, far from it, but because he could tell what caused them and how much it could’ve hurt. While he was usually quick to flirt with any pretty girl in sight, it felt odd to do the same with you, almost disrespectful. So he approached you from a friendly perspective, and was glad that you both were able to talk so easily.

Once he gets to know you better and you’re friends, Isaiah wonders if it’s alright to give you some ointments to help if the scars start itching or aching. He asks his father for advice on this (his dad thinks the crush is cute). While he’s chill and easygoing when you hang out, his angry side comes out if anyone speaks out against you, and he knows plenty of young assholes who think they’re tough for harassing a girl. He’ll beat them up, no exceptions, though afterward he’d apologize bashfully for losing his head. Michael is the one who points out his crush during a night of drinking and Isaiah is too smashed to deny it. He’s completely taken with you.

LUCA CHANGRETTA

Most ladies Luca has been with are the more superficial type, meant exclusively to be arm candy, pleasure and little else. He was with one of them when he noticed you at a party. You had a bold, striking dress and an equally arresting smile - it took him a moment to notice the scars, but the people around you didn’t seem to notice, too interested in what you were saying. Luca liked that confidence, it drew him in right away. He liked that smile you had, it was crooked because of the scars, but it was cheeky and genuine. He spent much of the party speaking with you.

Luca liked taking you out on dates and spending money to please you. The more he got to know you, the deeper his feelings were, though he was mostly unaware of it until his father cheekily asked when you’d be introduced to the family. He was quick to your defense if anyone rudely commented on your scars or tried to ask you about them. Luca rarely thought of them after the first few dates, because there was so much else to focus on, in his opinion.

ABERAMA GOLD

It’s not just your unusual looks, but the sort of mystery that you give off that interests him. What can he say, he loves interesting people, especially if they’re pretty women. When he first started speaking to you with his usual charm, he realized that you didn’t believe him when he said you were lovely. Apparently you weren’t told that often, and that was a crime in his books. Each time you’d go out, he’d make a point to compliment your outfit and looks, and it was all genuine, even if you demurred or sighed in disagreement. You could’ve had scars all over and he’d still find you darling, and that was the truth.

While he wouldn’t push you to tell him what happened, often his mind would drift to it. He’d get angry thinking about who hurt you like that, and he’d idly wonder if they were still around … Maybe he could ask some questions, get some answers, so to speak. If you’d let him, he likes to run his fingers along them while he kisses you, feeling how soft the skin still is. He’d grin and offer to show you his old knife and bullet wounds … somewhere private, of course.

#peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders preference #tommy shelby x reader #arthur shelby x reader #john shelby x reader #ada shelby x reader #alfie solomons x reader #lizzie stark x reader #isaiah jesus x reader #luca changretta x reader #aberama gold x reader #polly gray x reader #michael gray x reader #somebody plz give isaiah some gifs sob

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littlestarofthewest · 3 years

Text

Coming Back To You

This is my gift to @cowboydeluxe for the Morston Secret Santa. I hope you’ll enjoy it :)

Pairing: Arthur x John | Words: 4121 | Rating: Explicit | Tags: blood, gore, smut

Arthur holds up his binoculars to check the treeline again. Next to him, John is fumbling with some matches, trying to light a cigarette. Heavy winds shake the trees, and the sky is so dark that it might as well be night.

John finally gets the cigarette lit and barely manages to take a drag before Arthur wiggles his fingers at him to demand the cigarette from him. He doesn't look at John while giving it back seconds later, his eyes still on the forest in front of them.

"Are you sure about this one?" Arthur asks.

"He was bitten three years ago," John says, blowing smoke into the air above their heads. "His family says he didn't take it well. He's wandering around in those woods and hasn't changed back for half a year."

"Then there should be more of them," Arthur says with doubt in his voice.

John shrugs. "Seems like the locals don't go into the woods anymore. That's why he's coming closer to town now, looking for someone to bite."

"Alright," Arthur says, finally putting the binoculars down. "Let's take him."

They head back to their horses and ride over to the treeline. Arthur rides in without hesitation, but John stops for a moment to take a deep breath. He prefers the times when they only trap werewolves and make them see reason. Most of them know how to control themselves, after all. This one is marked for death, though. He took too many lives and changed god knows how many poor souls.

Inside the forest, it doesn't take Arthur long to find a trail they can follow. The werewolf must have been here recently. They pass a little hunting cabin that's been smashed to pieces and even some uprooted trees.

"He must be a big one," Arthur says, and John nods, a shiver running down his spine.

"Sure we can take him?"

"Size doesn't matter if we hit him right." Arthur takes his rifle from his satchel and points into the trees. "You go left. We make a circle and meet in the middle. Let's see if we can find him tonight."

John's not sure he wants to find that beast, but he still steers his horse in the pointed out direction. The wind blows through the trees, and the constant rustling of leaves makes John nervous. He strains his ears for other sounds, nature way too loud for his taste.

More fallen trees litter the ground, and John finds a pretty mutilated deer. That werewolf must be out of his mind hungry. That's just one more reason to leave, but that's not what they do. He and Arthur have been hunting these monsters for years, ever since one almost killed Arthur.

John's lost in thought, remembering how shaken up Arthur was back then. He doesn't notice how nervous his horse is until it's too late. It shrieks, spooked by a sound in the trees, and a second later, something hot and heavy jumps them, knocking John off his horse.

The werewolf follows the horse, and John does his best to get to his feet, but when his horse gallops out of reach, the werewolf turns, looking for easier prey. John doesn't plan on being just that. He aims his rifle, and before the werewolf can take another step, John riddles it with silver bullets.

At first, it seems to be a done deal. The werewolf sinks to the ground, blood oozing out of his wounds, but then he lets out a horrific scream before getting back up. John does his best to reload as quickly as he can, but the werewolf lunges forward, a lot quicker than him.

John barely manages to hold up his rifle before the werewolf pushes him to the ground. He snaps at John, his stinking breath washing over John, making him dizzy. Still, John uses the rifle as his last line of defense, hoping against hope that there's a way out of this.

"Arthur! Help me!" he screams against the sound of the wind.

The werewolf pauses for a second as if he remembers that he used to talk to people, but then he growls and snaps at John again, his fangs closing around the rifle. When the werewolf pulls away, John can no longer hold on to the weapon, and it flies away, dropping to the ground out of reach for John.

Letting out a scream, the werewolf gets in motion again, but before he can jump John, he gets pushed back by bullets hitting his face. Arthur comes rushing through the trees on his horse, sticking his knife into the werewolf's head. He screams even worse than before, but instead of attacking them again, he takes off, disappearing deep into the woods.

Arthur turns his horse and jumps out of the saddle next to John. "Hey, you alright? Did he get you?"

"I don't think so," John says, but he's still unable to move.

Arthur helps him up, brushing leaves and dirt from his clothes. "Let's get you home. Where's your horse?"

"Ran off."

"Then you'll ride with me."

Arthur gets back in the saddle before pulling John up, and they make their way back at a slow pace. After a while, Arthur looks over his shoulder. "You're still with me?"

"All good," John says, a tingling feeling in his chest.

He knows that Arthur's just trying to be a good friend, but he still enjoys it a lot to be taken care of. Nobody made much of a fuss about him all his life, so every bit of affection makes him almost dizzy.

John holds on to Arthur's jacket, resting his head on Arthur's back. It's unnecessary since he's not even injured, but John won't let such a chance slide. After all, it doesn't often happen that he can be close to somebody, especially the one he longs to be with the most.

As they reach the hunting cabin they're currently staying in, Arthur hops down first before helping John down from his horse. Inside, Arthur gets a fire going, hanging up a small kettle to warm up some water.

"Let's get you cleaned up," he says, and John slips off his jacket.

When he tries to open his shirt's buttons, he fumbles a little, losing control of his fingers. Without a word, Arthur reaches for the buttons instead and peels the shirt from John's lean body.

John never would have asked that of him, but Arthur fetches the warm water and washes John, starting by his face.

"Sure you're okay?" he asks, his eyes boring into John's.

"That thing just surprised me," John says. "I thought I had it, but it just wouldn't go down."

Arthur drags the washcloth over John's shoulders and along his neck, his eyes roaming over every inch of John's skin. John knows he's only checking him for wounds, but it still makes his skin prickle.

"We shot it full of silver, and my knife was laced with wolf's bane," Arthur says. "He will die tonight."

"What if he's one of the old ones?"

Arthur huffs. "I'm still not convinced that's a thing."

He keeps washing John, moving from his stomach to his back, while John thinks about the stories. The werewolves Arthur and John hunt are part human, part wolf. With enough focus, they can switch back and forth, making it possible for the ones infected to stay human, even during the full moon.

The old ones are said to be different, though. They're more animal than human, and over time, they fall into being wolves all the time, unable to think clearly. Supposedly, they're not easily killed, if at all. John always wondered if they might encounter one of the old ones one day.

Arthur's skeptical about them even existing, but John can't shake the idea. That monster that jumped him today seemed quite old and clearly out of its mind.

"Are you hungry?" Arthur asks, bringing John back to reality.

"I could eat," John says.

Arthur gets up and throws a fresh shirt over to John. It's one of Arthur's. "I'll fetch you something."

Arthur goes outside, leaving John to bury his face in Arthur's shirt, sighing deeply.

-------

John is still asleep when Arthur gets up, snoring slightly. Arthur watches him for a moment, a new wave of relief washing over him. Yesterday was a close one. Arthur's determined to hunt rogue werewolves, but John's life is too much of a price to pay.

Arthur can't help himself and strokes a strand of hair out of John's face, his fingers lingering for a moment on John's cheek. Arthur wishes he could do this while John was awake, but he doesn't dare. Washing him like he did yesterday is much likely the closest he'll ever get. Arthur often thought about confessing his feelings to John, but he's too scared to destroy their friendship.

With a sigh, Arthur turns around and heads outside. Although he told John that the werewolf was surely dead, he's not so sure. Arthur heard John shoot, knowing that he didn't miss a single shot. That thing should have been more than dead by the time Arthur put the knife in its head. Arthur needs to be sure.

He rides back into the woods, following John's tracks from the day before. It doesn't take him long to reach the spot where they fought off the werewolf. Arthur gets down from the horse, checking the ground for more clues.

There are drops of blood on the leaves, so they at least wounded the werewolf. Arthur keeps going but soon loses the trail. The strong winds must have blown the leaves away, making it hard for Arthur to find anything.

He's not sure how long he wandered through the woods, but after a while, he comes back to the same spot without any idea where the werewolf went. Arthur whistles for his horse, ready to go back and make sure that John is okay.

Arthur's about to get in the saddle when he hears stomping and breaking wood. He grabs his rifle right when the werewolf appears on the other side of the clearing. Arthur's horse flares its nostrils but doesn't run, and although Arthur aims his rifle at the werewolf, he can't bring himself to shoot either. This isn't the werewolf from yesterday, the fur somewhat shaggy and a lot darker.

"Change back and tell me who you are," Arthur says, pointing his rifle, "or I have to shoot."

The werewolf lets out a low howl and goes on its hind legs, moving its paws around as if it wants to show Arthur something. Arthur shakes his head.

"Look, mister, if you want to live, you change back right now."

The werewolf whines and dances around on the spot, and Arthur can't shake the feeling that it looks familiar, but it's too dangerous to trust a werewolf at sight. Arthur puts a warning shot at its feet, and with a soul-crushing cry, it jumps away and disappears between the trees.

Arthur waits a few more seconds before lowering his gun, and he's about to leave when something hits his back with force. He stumbles forward and falls to the ground, the weapon buried under him. Arthur's horse neighs, and by the time Arthur looks around, he sees it kicking at a werewolf.

It's the beast from the day before, and now that he sees it up close, Arthur wonders if maybe John was right about the old ones. This thing in front of him feels old and out of place, and it still got Arthur's knife sticking out of its head. There's just no way it can still be alive.

Arthur's mind is filled with every rumor he's heard about the old ones. They're far beyond reason, nothing human left inside of them. Wolf's bane and silver hurt them, but the only thing that can kill them is another werewolf. Arthur heard stories about beheading them or setting them on fire, but there's absolutely nothing he can do to defend himself.

Leaving his rifle where it is, Arthur gets to his feet and does the only sensible thing - run. He zigzags through the trees, hearing a loud growl behind him. Seconds later, Arthur's horse is stomping past him, far out of reach.

Arthur curses and thinks about hiding or climbing one of the trees, but he's pretty sure that the werewolf will catch his scent with the way he walked through the woods earlier. Crashing sounds behind Arthur tell him that the werewolf is gaining on him. Despite his better judgment, Arthur looks back.

The beast comes after him with giant leaps, only a few feet away. Arthur thinks about John, regretting that he'll never get to tell him how he feels. All Arthur can do is face the end. He stops and waits for the werewolf to reach him.

It never does.

The werewolf from earlier jumps the old one, burying its teeth in its opponent's neck. The old one throws it off after a short struggle, and they begin a fight to the death. Growling fills the woods, the wolves biting and scratching at each other, and the old one lands a hit, tearing open the other's cheek with its claws.

Arthur's about to run off when the new werewolf lets out a pained scream, turning Arthur's blood to ice. It's almost as if he can feel the pain himself, a strong urge to protect the wolf taking hold of him. He pulls out his revolver and shoots at the old werewolf.

It can't feel much more than a sting, but it still turns, rushing at Arthur. He ducks behind a tree, feeling the impact when the old wolf runs into it. It growls with fury, clawing at everything in sight, but it doesn't land a hit. Arthur shoots it into both paws, making it howl.

Then, there's a horrible ripping sound, and blood splatters to the ground next to the tree. Arthur stares in horror as the old wolf drops to the ground, its throat ripped open. The new werewolf isn't done with it, though. It steps over the other wolf, scratching and tearing until the beast's head comes off.

The woods turn silent after that. No more howls, no wind, and no shooting. Just Arthur's rapid breathing, and the werewolf licking one of its wounded paws. Arthur steps back, holding up the revolver. The werewolf follows the sudden movement and gets to its feet, taking a step closer to Arthur.

"Who the hell are-?" Arthur interrupts himself when the sun falls through the trees, illuminating the werewolf's face. Arthur would recognize these eyes everywhere.

"John?"

The wolf ducks its head, letting out a low howl. Arthur takes a step closer, unable to help himself. He stretches out his hand, and the wolf holds his face against it before moving closer, rubbing his whole body against Arthur like a cat.

"Jesus, what happened?" Arthur asks.

He knows there's no way John can answer him in this state. Somehow, the old werewolf must have hurt John, turning him in the process. The first time coming back is said to be the hardest, and it looks like John doesn't know how to do it.

Arthur runs his hand over John's head, and somehow it feels a lot less awkward than he thought it would. Then he holds John's face in his hand, holding his gaze.

"You have to turn back, you hear me?"

John looks back at him but whines, rubbing his face against Arthur's hand.

"Come here," Arthur says, for once giving in to his feelings. He hugs John to his chest, running his fingers through John's fur. "You have to come back to me. I know you can do it."

He's holding on to John as tight as he can, and suddenly, John seems to shrink in his arms. The fur turns to warm skin under Arthur's fingers, and John grabs Arthur's shirt and leans against him, his face a bloody mess.

"Arthur," he says, his voice even raspier than usual, right before passing out in Arthur's arms.

Arthur sinks down to the ground with him, just holding him to his chest. "It's alright, John. I've got you."

------

John wakes up from a horrible nightmare, pictures of bloody teeth and sharp claws still on his mind. Although he feels exhausted, he tries to get up, just to find out that he can't. Thick ropes tie his arms to the bed. John pulls at them, but there's no way he can free himself.

"Help," John croaks, the one word making him cough as his throat burns like fire.

Arthur appears in his field of vision, a worried expression on his face. He holds a cup to John's lips and lifts his head enough so John can take a few sips.

"What happened?" John asks while Arthur sits down next to him.

"You don't remember the woods?" he asks. "How you've fought with the werewolf?"

More pictures race through John's mind, and he groans. "It wasn't a dream. I'm one of them now."

"I have no idea how, but it seems so."

Arthur sounds sad, defeated. It pains John to be the reason for it. "Was a scratch on my leg. I found it after waking up. I figured you'd go back into the woods, so I followed you and then-"

John doesn't finish the sentence, unable to remember what happened next. All he feels is a sense of dread and the fear of losing Arthur.

"Guess you turned on your way," Arthur says. "Lucky for me, or I would be dead."

"Yeah, lucky," John says, pulling on his ropes again. He's not sure why, but it begins to annoy him that he's tied down. "Any chance you get me out of these?"

"Not sure I should," Arthur says. "I feared you might turn in your sleep, and you still could."

"I changed back, didn't I?"

"You did."

Despite saying the words, Arthur doesn't move. Hot anger flares in John's chest, and he pulls on the ropes with more force, his voice a deep growl when he speaks. "Let me out!"

"You gotta stay with me, John," Arthur says, his calm tone only riling John up.

"I don't want to," John grunts, "I want to turn and rip these off."

"If you change back after such a short time, you might not be able to do it again."

"I know, goddammit," John curses, still straining his muscles without meaning to. "I have no idea how to stop."

Arthur puts a hand on John's chest, holding him down. "You have to fight it."

"I don't know how."

John pushes himself up, fighting against Arthur's strength. He wants to be strong again, have claws and teeth to rip everybody apart who stands in his way. He wants power and no more painful thoughts.

Everything inside John wants to turn, only one thing holding him back. Arthur's hand on his chest.

"This helps," John huffs. "You - touching me."

"This?" Arthur asks, looking at his own hand with wonder.

"Please, Arthur, don't let me turn."

Arthur watches John for a moment, then he leans forward to untie the ropes. "It's gonna be fine."

"Are you crazy?" John shouts, but Arthur doesn't stop.

The second John's hand is free, he grabs Arthur, holding on to his shirt. Arthur unties his other arm before looking at him. "You can do it. Like you said, you turned back."

John wishes he could trust himself like that, but his insides are burning, the wolf fighting to come out.

"Please, Arthur," he begs, his voice getting weaker. "I need something. You."

Arthur's coming closer, John tugging eagerly at his shirt. They look at each other in the eyes until Arthur closes the gap between them, touching his lips to John's.

The wolf inside screams, but John's singing heart is drowning him out. Arthur is kissing him. That's something the wolf can't have.

John throws his arms around Arthur and kisses him like his life depends on it. "More. Please."

They deepen the kiss, and John tears at Arthur's clothes. He pulls off his shirt and Arthur cups John's stitched up face, holding on to him while John gets Arthur's pants down. He eagerly pulls at Arthur, desperate to be as close as he always longed for.

They end up pressed against each other, kissing and touching, forgetting the world around them. John can feel the wolf disappear, Arthur the only thing on his mind. He can touch him, taste him, and hold him close like he always wanted.

John can't remember being this happy before. Despite his pain and the wolf bite, this is the best thing that's ever happened to him.

"You're with me?" Arthur whispers into his ear, and John pulls him in for a kiss, smiling against his lips.

"Just keep going, Morgan."

They grind against each other until John can barely take it anymore. He reaches down to help them both along. Arthur growls, sounding like a wolf himself. His teeth scrape along John's neck as if he wants to bite down any second. The thought drives John over the edge, his hand moving in a frenzy until he takes Arthur with him.

Arthur buries his face against John's neck, both of them catching their breath until Arthur moves and they settle down next to each other.

"You're good?" Arthur asks, and John's stomach seems to do a little hop. Arthur's concern for him is almost more than he can handle.

"Yeah, all good, I don't feel like turning anymore," John says. Arthur turns to him, running his fingers over the scratch on John's thigh. It makes John wonder about the future. "How do I keep it from happening?"

"You find something else that matters more to you," Arthur says without pause.

"And you think that will work?"

"I know it does," Arthur says.

There's something about the way he said it that gives John pause. "How would you know?"

Arthur turns to him, something wild in his eyes that John has never seen before. Then he opens his mouth to growl at John, his teeth sharper and longer than they usually are. John blinks in surprise, and suddenly Arthur's face is back to normal.

"You're a werewolf? Since when?" John asks.

"Remember the one that attacked me back in the day, before we started hunting them? I only said I was fine, but it got me."

John stares at him, unable to believe it. "All these years? But I've never seen you turn."

Arthur runs his hands over his face as if the wolf inside of him could come off this way. "I did a couple of times in the beginning. Killed a few animals at a farm. Hosea stopped me before I could kill the farmer, too. Told me to find a purpose, something to keep me in the human world. And if I ever turned again, he promised to shoot me. Haven't turned since."

It's hard for John to get all of this into his head, but his thoughts finally arrive at the present day. "That thing in the woods was about to kill you, and you didn't turn?"

"Couldn't risk it," Arthur says. "Not with you nearby. You might have ended up with two werewolves on your ass."

"You're such a dumbass."

"Says the feller who's jumped an old one after being a werewolf for all but five minutes."

"Saving your ass," John insists, and Arthur nods.

"You still have to promise me something."

"What?"

"I know it's tempting, especially after you killed that wolf today, but if we keep doing this, you can't turn ever again," Arthur says, his voice dead serious. "There's no guarantee that I can bring you back."

"Fine, I promise," John says, although he's not sure if he can keep his word. "What's your thing then? That keeps you human."

Arthur huffs, not quite meeting John's gaze, and his answer is barely audible. "You."

A shiver runs down John's spine. The idea of being so important to Arthur for such a long time takes his breath away. Still, he can't pass off an opportunity to tease Arthur.

"I see," he says, "so you've been in love with me all this time?"

Arthur growls. "Shut up, Marston."

"Make me."

John is just joking, but Arthur lunges at him, taking his breath away with a kiss. John's about to defend himself when Arthur's lips ghost along his ear.

"Yes," he says, the one word bringing goosebumps all over John's body.

He puts his arms around Arthur, holding him close. He's no longer afraid.

"Me too."

#morston #morstonsecretsanta2020 #rdr2 smut #rdr2 fanfic #my writing #werewolf au

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imagines-all-day-everyday · 4 years

Text

whizz-bang.

Requested by anonymous:

“Hi, could you please do reader comforting Tommy about the aftermath of the billy kimber fight.”

Warnings: Swearing (it’s peaky blinders duh), angst, violence, fluff

Notes: FIRST PEAKY BLINDERS IMAGINE!!! AND IT’S FOR TOMMY <3

---------------------

“To Danny Whizz-Bang!” The Shelby brothers yelled out, clinking their glasses together before downing their first of many drinks for the night.

“To Danny Whizz-Bang.” *yn* mumbled under her breath before taking a large gulp of her whiskey.

She winced slightly as the strong liquor burned her throat. She’d never liked whiskey, but it was Tommy’s favourite drink and tonight was his night. After months of scheming and plotting and bloodshed, he’d finally defeated Billy Kimber and his men.

But fuck had it come at a cost.

She let a small sigh escape her lips as she traced the rim of the empty glass with her pointer finger. Glancing over her shoulder, she watched the boys from her spot at the bar down their second drink.

She had a feeling it’d be a long night.

“Grace not in tonight, Harry?” She asked the bartender when she noted the absence of the blonde barmaid.

“No, she’s quit she has.”

“Quit?” *yn* exclaimed in surprise. “Whatever for?”

Harry shrugged at her question as he filled up three more glasses of whiskey. “Somethin’ about heading to London. Getting away from something I reckon.” He explained before picking up the drinks and bringing them over to the boys.

More like getting away from someone, she thought.

With that thought, her eyes wandered over to the second eldest Shelby. Tommy was seated alone at a table, nursing a drink. Even though this was supposed to be a celebration, she knew him well enough to tell that he was in mourning. She watched as he brought a cigarette to his lips and inhaled deeply before letting the smoke waft out of his mouth. God he was beautiful.

As if he sensed her gaze his blue eyes shifted to meet hers. The pair stared at each other for a few moments before *yn* shot him a small smile and turned her attention back to the bar.

“Another one Miss *yn*?”

“Please.” She exacerbated, pushing her empty glass towards Harry eagerly.

“You might wanna slow down there.” A voice teased as she sculled down the liquor the second Harry had finished pouring it.

“Tommy Shelby telling someone to slow down, now that’s a first.” She smirked as she turned her attention to the man beside her.

“It looks like it won’t be the last tonight by the looks of it.” He mused as he watched her push the glass back over to Harry.

“You’re the one who’s always telling me to loosen up.” She answered, raising a brow at him as he took a seat beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

He hummed in response as he took another gulp of his drink and began mindlessly trailing his fingers up and down her bare arm.

He watched her as she leant over and grabbed his pack of cigarettes. Wordlessly he struck a match, holding it out for her as she placed the cigarette in her mouth and leant forward. Once it was alight she leant her head on his shoulder before removing the cigarette from her mouth to exhale.

Thomas and *yn*’s relationship had always been one hard to define. They’d been friends for as long as both could remember - ‘joined at the hip since they could walk’ - was what Polly would always say. Over time there friendship had turned to feelings, although had never progressed further than that.

Both had past boyfriends and girlfriends, although never serious, and to Tommy’s selfish relief he found *yn* still unmarried when he returned from war. Though never spoken about, there was a mutual desire to not be with anyone else.

Polly woke up every single day waiting to hear the news that Tommy had finally proposed, but that day still had not come.

“Grace is gone.”

“I heard.” Tommy answered back, looking out the corner of her eye to observe *yn*’s reaction.

“Said she’s goin’ to London, to get away from something.” *yn* continued, trying to make herself sound as nonchalant as possible. Tommy watched her as she moved her head from his shoulder to sit up in her chair. “You going to go after her?” She heard herself ask before she could try and stop herself from sounding jealous.

“Now why would I do that?” Tommy asked, raising a brow at her as her cheeks grew pink in embarrassment. She mumbled something under her breath and shrugged before shoving her cigarette back in her mouth in a fluster.

She ran a hand through her hair and kept her eyes fixed on her half empty glass to avoid making eye contact with him. Tommy felt a small smile tug at his lips as he watched her fidget under his gaze.

Her lips parted slightly as she placed a new cigarette in her mouth and moved to light it. It was almost laughable how much time Tommy spent picturing how soft her lips were and how they'd feel against his, how her arms would feel wrapped around him as she whispered comforting things to him.

How could he ever explain to her that everything he did, he did for her?

That the only reason he’d fought to keep himself alive while he was crammed in the tunnels was because he’d promised her that he would return home. That ever since he was a little boy, she’d been the only one for him. That no one, not even someone like Grace, could turn his head even for a second.

But that was all too emotional, and emotions got you and your loved ones killed in his line of work.

He forced himself to push those thoughts aside as he downed the rest of his whiskey. He pushed it back towards Harry as he continued to trace *yn*’s soft skin with his callus fingers. He watched as she jiggled her leg up and down and chewed at her bottom lip. Something she only did when she was deep in thought.

“What are you thinking about?” He asked her. “*yn*.” He continued, nudging her slightly when she didn’t respond.

“Hmm? Oh... nothing.” She shook her head as she fiddled with the bracelet (gifted to her by Thomas on her 21st birthday) absentmindedly.

“I swear it’s nothing important.” She insisted when she looked up to see him staring at her with his brow raised.

“Just tell me, love.” He sighed softly and she could tell that after the day he’d had, his patience was wearing thin.

“....Danny.” She finally admitted, speaking so quietly that Tommy barely caught the name muttered.

“Danny?” He repeated, surprise laced in his words. “Mm.” She nodded sheepishly as she fiddled with her fingers.

“I know it’s probably better for him this way you know, like he used to say, he came home from the war but left his brains in the mud.” She explained, a small smile flashing on her lips at the fond memory.

“But... his wife Rosie and his boys...” She trailed off as she heard her voice waver. “They’ll get looked after, won’t they?” She asked, finally forcing herself to look back over at Tommy.

She was met with an expressionless look.

This was the problem with *yn*. She made him feel things. The boys understood. When you lost someone, you paid your respects and you moved on. That was the only way you could survive the war. And that was the only way you could survive the business they were in.

But *yn*, she didn’t understand that. She mulled and pondered and felt for the ones that fallen men like Danny left behind. Her soul was still left mostly in tact, unlike Tommy and his brothers. And what Thomas hated was that when she said things like this, it made him feel too.

“Tom?” *yn* murmured, her eyes narrowing in concern as she tried to decipher what that complicated brain of his was thinking about.

“Oi you two love birds! Quite fucking talking and come over and have a fucking proper drink!” Arthur shouted as John howled in drunken agreement.

“*yn* will I’m sure.” Thomas answered as he suddenly rose from his seat. “Where are you going?” *yn* asked him, getting up from her stool hurriedly as she watched him pick up his cap and place it firmly on his head.

“Home.” He answered and the sudden change in his tone and mood didn’t go unnoticed.

“I’ll come then, we can just have a drink there.” She reasoned with him as she moved to grab her purse.

“Stay *yn*.” He spoke, flicking his finished cigarette onto the bench as he moved past her to grab his coat. She knew he was trying to be as gentle as possible with her, but his words still came out as more of an order than a suggestion. Without another word he shrugged on his coat, adjusted his cap one last time and stormed out of the Garrison.

“What the fuck is his problem.” She huffed, grabbing her drink before making her way over to join Arthur and John.

“You know what he’s fucking like, *yn*.” Arthur shrugged.

“Yeah don’t worry about it love, he’ll get over it.” John comforted, patting her on the shoulder gently as she took a sip of her whiskey.

“Even a mind reader couldn't understand our brother.” Arthur continued, smiling once he heard a small giggle slip past her lips.

“Now, I’ve been trying to convince Arthur to play this drinking game I heard about from a friend down in London, but he’s too pussy to give it a go.”

“Am fucking not!”Arthur shouted, horrified that John would try to embarrass him in front of *yn*.

“Well Arthur might be too pussy, but I most definitely am not.” *yn* smirked causing both boys’ eyes to light up.

“Now this is gonna be fucking fun.”

------------------------------

Turns out, although *yn* wasn’t a pussy, she was almost too good at drinking games.

Indeed, two hours later as she pushed open the door of the Garrison she realised she was almost completely sober. After completely destroying the boys at the drinking game, both had passed out in a drunken state and she’d only left after Harry assured once the boys had woken up he’d make sure they got home safe.

She giggled to herself as she thought about how miserably hung over both boys were going to be tomorrow. She then felt a blush creep up onto her cheeks as an unexpectedly dirty thought about Thomas pushed itself into the forefront of her mind.

Maybe she was more affected than she thought.

As she wandered through the now quiet streets of Small Heath, swinging her bag beside her, she let herself indulge in thoughts that she liked to call her little Tommy Shelby moments.

She came to a sudden stand still when her eyes fell on a very familiar and very tempting door. She should just leave him alone, she thought. He was probably asleep or busy conjuring up another plan. She should just walk straight past and go to her own apartment and go to sleep.

Or you could go and make sure he’s ok, he seemed upset when he left the Garrison. Usually she didn’t listen to her ‘sinful’ side as she called it, but with Irish whiskey flowing through her veins, this voice didn’t seem so crazy after all.

Before she could overthink her actions, she inched towards the door and pushed against it gently. When it didn’t swing open she reached into her purse and pulled out her key. She always felt slightly awkward using it, but Tommy and the rest of the Shelby’s insisted that it was her home too.

The key clicked into place and this time when she pushed the door, it swung open easily. She internally winced as it creaked quite loudly, the whole family were extremely light sleepers.

She closed the door softly behind her as she stepped into the kitchen. The house was almost entirely black, with only a warm glow coming from a single candle near the couch.

“*yn*?”

The quiet and mouse like voice nearly made her jump out of her skin. “Bloody hell Finn you nearly gave me a heart attack.” She scolded once she spotted the small boy lying on the couch.

“What are you doing up so late hmm?” She asked him as she made her way over towards him.

“Couldn’t sleep. Tommy kept waking me up.” Finn murmured as *yn* came to crouch down beside him.

“Tommy?” She echoed in confusion. “Mmhmm I could hear him yelling and stuff.” Finn replied.

The nightmares.

“This happens a lot doesn’t it?” *yn* answered softly as she moved to begin running her fingers through his brown hair.

“Yeah.” Finn nodded as he rubbed at his eyes. “But we aren’t supposed to talk about it.”

“I know you aren’t. But you know you can always talk to me and I won’t tell anyone.” *yn* whispered softly as she watched the boy get closer and closer to sleep.

“I know, that’s why you’re the best wife ever.”

“Wife?” *yn* queried, amusement laced through her words.

“Yeah, wife. That’s what Aunt Pol calls you, Tommy’s wife.” Finn yawned as he snuggled further into the couch.

The answer made a pink rouge appear on her cheeks and a love giddy smile creep onto her lips. “And what does Tommy say about that?”

Except instead of answering her, all she got was a small snore emitting from Finn’s parted lips. She shook her head and bit her lip to stop from giggling as she pulled the blanket up to his chin and tucked him in gently. After placing a gentle kiss on his forehead she rose to her feet and began to make her way up the stairs.

Once she reached Thomas’ door she came to a stand still. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there for, probably only a minute, but it felt like hours. This was ridiculous, she’d known him for her entire life, she had no reason to be nervous.

But this time, she knew something was different.

Brushing that aside she channeled the little liquid courage she had left and forced herself to connect her knuckles to the chipped wood. When she immediately didn’t hear movement from behind the door she began to feel guilty that she may have woken him up.

“Just give me a second.”

She waited a few moments before twisting the door knob and easing the door open. The first thing that hit her was the smell. It wasn’t particularly pungent or fragrant - but it was familiar. It was a smell that she had detected on nearly every man who had gone off to war and come back.

The second was Tommy seated on his bed almost completely on top of his pillow, staring at her wide eyed.

“You don’t need to hide it from me, you know.” *yn* murmured quietly as she took a few steps into his room. “I know all the boys use it from time to time.”

“All the boys you speak to, eh?” He shot back, his eyes never leaving her figure as she came to take a seat beside him.

“Very funny.” She drawled, fighting the smile that was threatening to emerge on her features.

Tommy didn’t answer, instead he moved over to his side table and grabbed his cigarette case.

“I’m sorry if I woke you.” She continued, watching him as he placed his freshly lit cigarette to his lips.

“You didn’t wake me.”

She wanted to probe further into why he wasn’t sleeping, if his nightmares had been getting worse again, but she didn’t want to push it. His eyes flickered up to her face when she raised her hand to gesture for the cigarette. Wordlessly he passed the cigarette to her awaiting fingers, watching intently as she inhaled the nicotine deeply.

She felt her heart hammer in her chest as Tommy brought a calloused hand up to her face to brush her hair behind her ear. She felt a shiver run up her spine as his thumb brushed against her cheek bone, the cool metal of his ring was a weird contrast to her hot skin.

“You’re so fucking beautiful.” Tommy mumbled against his cigarette as his eyes soaked in every finite detail of her face. “Like a work of fucking art.” He breathed out as his thick eyelashes grew wet as salty tears pooled in the corners of his eyes. “You know that, don’t ya?”

“Tommy...” She murmured as she watched the tears finally escape from his blue irises to slide down his cheeks.

The sound of his name made him recoil, turning his back to her so he could bury his face in his hands. “Fuck!” He hissed, running a hand through his hair, tugging on the ends stressfully.

“Tom...” *yn* repeated as she placed a hand on his shoulder.

There were a few moments of silence as the sound of Thomas’ stifled sniffles filled the room. Before she could overthink her actions, *yn* leant forward and wrapped her arms tightly around him, pressing her chest against his back.

“It’s ok to cry you know.” She mumbled into his ear before pressing a gentle kiss to his cheek. Wordlessly Tommy twisted around in her arms to face her before wrapping his arms around her waist. She moulded into his body instantly, her hands instantly beginning to rub his back.

“He was a good man. He kept me alive in France.” Tommy breathed out as his tears pooled against the skin on her neck. “I know he was.” *yn* agreed quietly. “But he gave his life up to protect yours, because he knew that you have unfinished business, that you need to be around to protect all of us.”

There was a pause as Tommy pulled away slightly to look at her, studying her for a few moments as his fingers traced patterns on her lower back. He watched her curiously as she brought her fingers up to delicately wipe his tears away.

“You always somehow to bring the emotions out of me.” He observed as she withdraw her hands from his face. “Someone’s got to keep you human.” She teased lightly and to her relief, a small smile twitched onto his lips.

He brought a hand up to trace her jaw before twisting his fingers into the hairs on the nape of her neck. Without another word he guided her head forward to meet his, their lips finally connecting in a kiss.

She felt her heart thumping against her rib cage as Tommy’s lips brushed against hers. It wasn’t what she had expected. In the novels she had read it always went on about fireworks and butterflies and being weak in the knees, but *yn* didn’t feel that.

Instead, she finally felt a sense of completeness and familiarity - like this was something that was supposed to have happened a life time ago - and now that it had finally happened, she felt calm and fulfilled.

As the pair pulled away from each other and locked eyes with each other they both knew it - this was right, it was so fucking right.

“I love you, I always have.” Tommy confessed and the words once again made *yn* feel a sense of completeness.

“I love you too Tommy, and I’m always going to be here by your side, for every single step of the way, I’ll be here.”

----------------

gah this made me so happy - I hope you guys love it ! :) x

#tommy shelby #thomas shelby #thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby oneshot #thomas shelby one shot #thomas shelby imagines #tommy shelby imagine #tommy shelby oneshot #tommy shelby one shot #peaky blinders #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders imagines #peaky blinders oneshot #peaky blinders one shot

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thelordstears · 3 years

Text

Hohohoho- did this mother fucker do some writing? Why of course.

"I want you to live and die in the same breath, and so with a revolver glistening silver underneath your childhood home I will make the bullet the breath you breathe." - Caldvain Lucelo

"My name tastes like a hungry tiger on my fucking tongue." - Vokard Killjaw

"The only thing money buys you is enemies." - Myles Catsenberg

"People in power like to step into the shoes of the weak just to see how best to break them. And I swear as I stared into the eyes of that living, breathing embodiment of everything that's wrong with humanity, I could feel miles that weren't my own being walked in boots I recognize." - Gerard Bronko

"The shadows, they dance, my friend. In the dark they sway, in the light they wither, it's a serenade melody of shadow and decay." - Ruvickza Havinsaw

"I dance with death as if she were a pretty woman, but soon as she steps cold heel on my toes, I'll succumb to the cold waters of this darkness I'm drowning in." - Jared Ashes

"I don't think the forbidden fruit was ever, an apple sitting in the tree. It was always a metaphor. We all have our own forbidden fruit. For some it's lust, desire, greed. For others it's murder. But it was always a bit more specific with me. My forbidden fruit sits like a rotting orchard in my chest, whispering to me all the secrets that killed me." - Exton Varkno

"I traded my life for violence the day I stepped into a battlefield, bullets between my teeth and gunpowder in my lungs." - Dust Tilvain

"There's something dark, brewing inside of me and it stems from the cruelty that hunts me with knives of shadow and sin. I can't tell whether or not I'll come out the other side of this battle me, cause soon as that blade swings through the air and crimson smiles haunt my mind, I know that I won't be Jolt Netz. My tombstone would be etched with infamous names and killer's identities." - Jolt Netz

"He sits like a bullet on my tongue, tearing into the essence of life with fangs of gold and horror. And as he smiles, you know that it is not of kind nature, but a warning that Hell hath no fury like a scorned devil." - Ruva Buckrein

"They call us damned, they call us cruel and unjust. But darkness lives in the hearts of man, and my friend, all we are doing is returning you to humanity." - Virgillio Kreuten

"There's something cruel about how Heaven dances before the angels who fell. As if it mocks their pain with a pearly white smile filled with angel toothed fangs." - Kristen

"I was a bullet fading memory sitting on the edge of another man's revolver. I'd do anything to get my next fucking hit, my next fucking high. And so I stand here with broken bullets sitting at my boot, wondering if this is the price I payed to become nothing more then a silhouette of who I shoulda been." - Bovako Stillsworth

"I was a pawn, once. But I moved through the white and black checkered board, shifting through identities at rapid speeds. I've been the brook. The knight. The bishop. But as I reached the end of the board, my friend. I said checkmate and became something far more powerful then a King, or a Queen. I became he who controls the board, rolling die as if they were the seers golden strings." - David Faim

"Safety is an illusion, created by society to keep us quiet." - Quentin Satchel

"He's a pale white ghost that sits like a dream in the shadows, and before you know it, my friend, he'll snatch you in his nightmare hungry maw, and all you know will become dark." - Arthur Wellburn

"I stared into eyes mad and unwell, sinking in oceans that were never my own. And as I tripped over my boots, I came to realize these boot-prints were never mine either. I'm just a stranger walking in Cage's skin nowadays, wondering when the fuck I'll be myself." - Cage Azvinka

"Death doesn't taste cold. It doesn't taste of dark things and chaos. Death tastes like the lips of someone you've lost, it tastes of rose petals and lust, of nights spent in each other's arms and worst of all, for some people. Death tastes of love." - Norman O'Driscoll

"You know how it is, we all think we're good people. We all live as if we're the hero in our own fucking comic book, but then you gotta make choices. And none of 'em are favorable. All of 'em end with some form of death, and you get to thinking if this is the new normal, and blood runs red on the mellow streets of innocence. What the fuck does that make a hero but a villain hiding behind his regretful eyes?" - Kyro Bellford

"I stood for nobility, for peace. For something the world could be proud of in the end. But my world fell apart as sinister smiles surrounded me and darkness swooped in on every god don side. What a cruel thing it must be, to fall into the dark when light is right around the corner." - Jenvick Hester

"I am a revolver of secrets and lies. Each chamber holds a bullet, my friend. Dare you step into the firing range of these gunpowder identities that'll cling to you like shivering shadows?" - Caveston Gustello

"This world is fucked up. No wonder I wanted to escape it, right? No wonder I wanted to drift away from reality on wings of cocaine and hallucinations that left me bleeding from the heart. I just don't know why, out of all the things I can't run from, it's the fucking ghost that sits in my memory like a cruel, barking and biting dog. It'll always be there. It'll always remain, there. Because to be rid of the addiction ghost would be to be rid of who I am, too." - Rain Morvosina

"I sit very quiet in my mind, as if I fear even a whisper would shatter the glass of me. I thought, as I held my child in my arms that I had found life blossoming inside of me, for once, finally. I had found it, I had lived. But it was not life I had given to the world, but decadent and starving death. With his reddened teeth and decaying angels, he rips my mind apart with his existence alone. I have committed an awful, dreadful sin. One that can never be forgiven. For I am the mother of evil, and that, is nothing that God can love." - Francine Flowrick

"Reality always crashes down on the weary. It comes for the broken with claws, sharp, rotting things they are, tearing at the fabric of beating hearts and minds that think and remember, that hurt and scar so easily. I've always been the thing that hunts the bad things. The quiet bumps in the dark that haunt childhood minds and whispered madness that haunts the well and lovely of society. I was never really a man, was I? I was always something to be feared by the dark. So does that make me an invisible shadow?" - Mosrvey Vitinbow

"You know how it is. When you see someone that's broken you think you can fix them, you think you can save them from the darkness you'd seen yourself. But she was never broken. She was never something anyone could fix. She was cruel. She was delusional and wicked. And I'd never seen that in someone before. But a young heart had become a decaying one before I even had a chance to watch daisies and roses bloom in her chest. Love never stood a chance with something cruel and animalistic as her." - Moana Steenfield

"They called me something sinister, as if who I am could be defined by words pulled from the darkest poets man kind has ever known. But I was never poetry, I was never something that could be explained. Death came for me with rotting fingers and a smile, and up in flames went the pain. Up in flames went all the horror in my heart. If I wasn't this rotting, dying thing of cruelty and bloodstained lip, who would I be? Perhaps I wouldn't be Bethy, if I wasn't wicked, if I wasn't something mad and quiet. And to be myself, perhaps, is my loveliest sin of all." - Bethy Angelice

"Monsters don't follow a code of any sort. With their fangs of humanity and grins of dark, they sit still like starving vultures, waiting to drag another dead man's soul into the quiet emptiness of their madness. I've met monsters. I've met cruelty. And often I wonder, is it such a cruel sin, to send a beast into the dark from whence he came?" - Ozbey Crocker

"She was broken before the Devil of delusions had ever gotten to her. As if her mind was a paint peeled mansion, creeping at the edge of an abandoned ghost town. I had never met such cruelty in someone so young until she sat at the edge of a boy's bed, hatred and something sinister dancing in eyes pale and lifeless." - Paul Daykos

"He came for me with ashen bone fingers, his eyes dancing with unheavenly delusions. Dark and quiet was the punishment for my madness, for my devilry wrapped in child like horror. He told me that they call us a murder of crows. And what a heavenly thing it must be, to hold black feathers divine beneath your nails, ripping into the threadbare and gentle animalistic nature of the beaked beasts that caw little whispers of death in the sky. What a cruel, decadent beast he was. Sitting at the edge of insanity with his eight ball and shaky ashen bone fingers." - Bethy Angelice

"I ripped my blade from out a dying man's chest, and it was with, some sense of dread and a cruel form of poetry I realized it was my heart on the tip of that blade." - Richarlosse Caldwane

"Ya know, I think we're all just hearts, tryna find our way through the darkness in our ribcage. All it takes is a spark or two of some, curious emotion to light the way." - Markino Ravine

"My tears roll down my cheek like a brand seared into my memory. As if my sorrow is forever with me." - Jimmy Rummers

"I would swallow my grief, but I fear if I were to do so I would consume his memory." - Marvel Felinmote

"The world has no care for girls like me, but since when did that mean I don't get to have any care for someone like me? I battled with my demons until they became my friends, the angels with horns on my shoulder. Isn't it beautiful, to turn your nightmares into dreams with a forgiving smile?" - Emnia Ruzit

"I'm nothing but broken bottle amens spoken too fucking late." - Ash Caesar

"I marched into the battlefield me, but as the shrapnel and gunfire started surroundin' my heart on every side, it felt almost as if, history had begun etching my name away into the oh so infamous name of war." - Carickstan Spellman

"I wade in these depths unfamiliar, quiet madness creeping up the edges of my weed infested skull. This quaint little garden of insanity and unwell morality is mine, I tend to it with dagger like rain, letting the sun set it ablaze as Winter's ice cuts into it as if it were, a fresh cattle on the hook. This mind of mine is a shattered, broken, dying thing. But perhaps more so then ever I fear, that this garden has rotted, like seaweed left too long from out the ocean's waves. I am seafoam madness and coral reef sorrow, sinking into this ocean of who I am, drowning in things I never knew, nor perhaps, ever wanted to see." - Azekiel Gynsello

"I sit on the edge of violence like dark poetry unspoken. I am the ebony crow, soaring through dreams, weaving them into nightmares and shadow." - Everett Beaumont

"I once stood strong, like a soldier on the battlefield, knowing his country would win the war. But as my rifle fell from decaying fingers, clattering to the dirt, I found that hope, is a dead end dream, cause damn brother, the future turns against your promises." - Ramo Bonewitz

"My mother was an empty powder keg, but slowly, ever so slowly she filled herself with gunpowder rage, sinking into the depths of her anger. And as she looked at me, with perhaps, eyes that yearned for something more then the beast she'd become, I stared her back, with eyes she just couldn't love." - Rain Morvosina

"I tap my fingers against a type writer, tip tapping away as my memories are on display, like ink on a page that documents the misery of a man who doesn't know any other life. And as these poems and prose bleed into my fingers through the black letters I touch, I come to wonder if it was wrong of me, to escape reality with a writer's eyes." - Bovako Stillsworth

"My daddy always used to say that hate isn't the majority, they just scream louder then those who fear the stripping of their voice for speaking out against injustice. And he's right, cause as I shiver and shake in the face of someone's anger, I fear the consequences of speaking against violence." - Harmoni Thievesmire

"Regret is a chamber in which I sleep." - Romiro Smilowitz

"There's secrets in your heart. I would suggest casting them from your ribcage so they don't start tumbling from your lip, because if you so much as whisper of the darkness in me rest assured, you'll lose yourself in the span of a revolver chamber's glistening silver." - Markston Valentine

"You went walking into Hell thinking it was the sun, didn't you? Don't you know beasts look like you? You've been a man of the law, for how long? And you didn't think twice what laid behind my smile?" - Markston Valentine

"To some I'm a death omen, others call me a bad man. Some people look at me as if I were some extant revival of Judas, sticking my knife in the back of justice, but to you, I'm a savior wrapped in the blood of the monster under your fucking bed." - Galio Brute

"I got an army inside this little chamber, and all of my bullet soldiers want you dead." - Galio Brute

"I'd ask forgiveness for killing the man who hurt Marigold, but I don't think Karma much cares for men who sit on the edge of violence with a grin." - Jakoby Fallhurst

"With my heart beat quick and rapid, the pullin' of my trigger came and went in the blink of that soon to be dead man's eyes." - Jakoby Fallhurst

"I used to sit at the edge of a revolver, right on the barrel. And as the gunsmoke wisped around my head, it felt like I had died while I was a livin', but all it took was a single leap of faith ta find myself outside that chamber 'a dead ends and sorrow glimpsed eyes of mirrored fates." - Jakoby Fallhurst

"Who you are is, patches of dead skin clinging to the tips of your fingers, it'll start with the blood drip, dripping from off the feeble hangnails of your identity, dripping away like wax from a candle ever roaring. Your identity will cling to you, but it will decay. Eventually, it'll start falling off in clumps of hair, dripping away from you forevermore, but it shall be ripped from you, like the first layer of your skin." - Mekivalla Brimsburn

"You call me human, but your panic beating heart unravels me as something eldritch in nature." - Mekivalla Brimsburn

"Do I, sit on your tongue like a sorrow danced question? Do I lay in your heart like an edged razor blade, carving little pieces off of who you are with memories of my smile and actions?" - Mekivalla Brimsburn

"I'm a, threadwork illusion, I slink into shadows unseen and appear like a ghost on the wind, sitting idle on cold cases and graves. Wherever I wander death is sure to follow, and as I look to this, field of open graves, I wonder which one is for me." - Morsvey Vitinbow

"He stared at me with a knife like smile, carving my identity from off my back like angel's wings burning in the midnight sky of Heaven. And as he ripped into the threadwork maze of my mind, he told me that he was just the point edge of a razor, carving pieces of me into pieces of him." - Bosko Hallramo

"His mind was a whisper of humanity, but if he had the courage he could've found a victorious shout of it echoing in a healed scar." - Malachi Razor

"Mystery called to me from the shadows of a forest, and as I discovered what the sinister tune's song meant, I felt as if, something started to die deep inside my bones. Like roses blooming from an open grave." - Abram Gothenburg

"My name sits like a dying raven on my tongue." - Hackton Acokliney

"You're stronger then you know, Gynso, it doesn't take shoving bullets in a chamber to find strength. All it takes is to accept your heart as it is, rainbow, decaying or golden. All hearts are equal, but some wither. Don't dig your heart a grave in an attempt to find yourself." - Keller McVito

"Don't you know, I was just like you once? Fighting for the people, bleeding, for the people. But, when push comes to shove sorrow and rage aren't enough to fill an empty chamber of revolution, so you have to put little pieces of you in those bullets, and eventually, you die, Keller." - Godfree Fallows

"In life, we are presented with two choices. Either you shove who you are so far down your throat that not even you, could reach him, or sit down and think, "Who am I?" and as the answer swirls in your mind, accept that, and become a gentle answer, rather then a forever burning question." - Keller McVito

"Her lips tasted like death ripping cold through my throat, her fingers daggers and knives digging into the notches of my spine. But worst of all, her heart tasted like an unholy omen of my death, sitting idle on her bare back." - Father Vorkaine Thorrel

"We aren't stars blinking out of the light, we're human. And with that, comes the capability to fight back, tooth, and bloody knuckle." - Father Vorkaine Thorrel

"It's once you call yourself holy that you realize you never were." - Father Goriah Thorell

"I place a weathered and scarred hand on my broken and damned heart, praying that I die a man I am." - Nathaniel Wessonlock

"Somedays, when I sit and wonder if I was ever really, a good man I feel a tinge of sorrow beat like a fragile rain drop in my heart. And as my mind tells me the blood staining the forest ground is on my hands, I come to wonder if the act of not noticing, the act of inaction and the act of cowardice, is perhaps more damning then pulling the trigger." - Bart Vanstick

"I don't believe in Karma, justice or anything like that. Those things have never worked in the favor of man, but what I do believe in is my pistol and the will to kill." - Nial Mooranan

"You've poisoned the river's in me, you stripped me screaming from who I am. And I have no fucking problem doing the same to you." - Nial Mooranan

"I'd watch your back, from here on out. There's serpents and vipers in the grass, and your heart is starting to look like a feast." - Sirius Mortales

"I'm a very powerful man, I'm practically a ghost, Ramo. I can be anywhere at any given time in many different vessels, I have eyes in the shadows of Evergreen's Bay. And you, my friend, have been ensnared in death's cold, hungry and starving maw." - Quentin Satchel

"You'd best know I hold a deadly grudge." - Quentin Satchel

"Underneath the shadows of foreign ravens and darkness blotting the cloud's of my heart, I fell, like a decaying angel in the night sky. And humanity called me a beautiful shooting star, and as they wished upon my burning hubris and wax, it was death and a curse they'd receive for wishing on shadows and dying angels." - Mallonzi Heckzen

"There were castles in his bones, pillars that held up his marble floor strength." - Abram Gothenburg

"You, are a dying question, you have no answer ricocheting in those mad bones of yours. And as you choke on your blood, it is insanity and a lack of humanity you'll taste on your teeth." - Ashvallio Bradburry

"That's what I want, don't you see! I don't want, to be human, it caused me such, aching pain, to be man. So with a howl and death in my throat I became something less then that. Something greater, then that." - Burns Mataugh

"I'm king 'a this hill, my throne is secured by my hammer and wit alone, and this hill is littered with the bones of those who tried ta push me. Dare you become bones?" - Shawn Werdesltein

"It was always humanity, that turned men to phantoms. Or the lack thereof." - Crow Sandelfreicks

"I've died, really. You can etch a stone with my forgotten name and seek whispers in the soils of my heart, but deep down, you'll see the bones of decay and raven beaks, wondering why such a merciful man's ribcage is stained with gunmetal and blood." - Crow Sandelfreicks

"You have come to the place saint's go to arise from their feeble skin, and out crawls the sinner hidden deep within the ribcage of hollow bone." - Farquad Debellio

"You've made a merciful man's heart beat with murder." - Crow Sandelfreicks

"In my brother's eyes, I saw shadows he didn't want, in his heart, though, I saw scars bleeding from a broken man's chest. And with some, sad sense of joy, I felt as if I needed to be his hero, for all my life, he's been mine." - Monica Hallmoore

"They called me a shadow, and as I first slipped into the dark, it became a truth sliding from their snake tongues." - Morello Hallmoore

"You will die, decaying like a gentle rose in my garden of withering willow trees, and by the end your petals will be black, your thorns will be covered in crimson pieces of yourself. Dare I say, you'll die a reflection of me?" - Allinza Harzvi

"I met death underneath decaying streetlight, and what a regretful thing it must be, to hold a scythe for something other than harvesting crop." - Greendale Moonwalk

"I, am a killer. A thief of life, and if you want to stop me from grasping at revenge with decaying and moss covered fingers, you will have to kill me." - Porter Blackburn

"To kill a monster you must become one! You can't hide in shadows as if you were a torch, no. You have to be an empty nebula." - Porter Blackburn

"I sit here, decaying in a broken chest, wondering if perhaps it is the sanity that rotted from my corpse." - Ebenezer Vanderholts

"My heart lays on the gallows, blackened and decaying. And the only thing I can ever do is watch the ghosts of my past let it swing." - Mirnivia

"I sing a tune on this three stringed lute, and all the damned beasts of Hell come running, thinking my song of salvation." - Serven Grimes

"Oh I didn't stand a chance in the hallways of sanity and peace, brother. But in this place of decaying laughter, I'm home." - Farquad Debellio

"I lost my mind in the echoes of the sinner's steeple, and as I stumbled blind towards salvation, echoing like a grin in the night, I knew that perhaps, to have no mind was a fate not much unlike death." - Farquad Debellio

"A heart unwell can't be revived, I fear. It can be risen from the dead, but in a sense it will always lurk with a sinister scent of death beating like sick blood in veins dying." - Draven Scotchfuel

"Thing is, I can't remember everyone I've killed. You're just a cold case to me brother." - Ewan Hanstammer

"When you become skin and bone, heart falling from your decaying chest, what do you do? Sometimes I wonder if I should shut off the lights of my flickering mercy, but other days I wonder if all in all, I'm the wick of a dying candle, doomed to fade away with the gust of hurricane rage brewing inside my cracked ribcage." - Harvano Axtortley

"Emotions are liars and bastards Clive, listen to them at your own risk." - Sandro Colorfeid

"In the foreign call of the ravens and crows I find not death omens, but squawks and signals that I am alive. I am breathing, and as the wolf howls to the moon, I know it is not my blood on his muzzle, but the blood of cruelty in the flecks of grey and brown." - Harmania Ackwallow

"I sat in a Church, feeling far off from God, miles away from salvation. And as that silver cross dangled like, faltering faith in the night sky, I knew that perhaps, the worst sin of all is to watch an angel fall." - Genesis Contritum

"You won't find salvation in that town, brother, you'll find four sin clad devils, and brother, I'm only the first mile on the highway to Hell." - Allinza Harzvi

"Sometimes, who we are isn't determined by our choices. Rather it's found in the echoes of someone else's cruel, wicked pieces of fate." - Tabbi Mariwitch

"You can't be the good guy in this place, it reeks of the death of minds and sanity alike. So you have to blend in, study the behavior of the unwell. Become, the unwell. In this place, being yourself is a suicidal act." - Ashvallio Bradburry

"You really think you know this place? There's madness creeping up every corner, girl, and if you wish to survive in this land of shadows, I'd suggest becoming one." - Ashvallio Bradburry

"You should fear the man with no identity, for he will change in the blink of an eye just to watch you fall." - Arthur Wellburn

"You can't just, look me in the eye and find your reflection. You'll find madness, you'll find flicks of love and pieces of grace left behind in your murderous stride." - Arthur Wellburn

"If this life I've lived is Hell, then his hand on my cheek or lips against mine must be what Heaven tastes like." - Annamarie Ghostwallow

"It feels as though, I have died while living. I wander white walls etched in the scars of the unwell, scratching at the confines of a skull that has a hard time containing a mind such as mine, and as I find myself shackled to a past that feels like a ghost following me, I know that perhaps, this is not life, but God's personalized Hell for a girl like me." - Annamarie Ghostwallow

"I once met a man in the shadows of pine trees and lights that flickered in his presence, and as he kneeled to my level and whispered that I was doomed, it was like a promise had seared like a brand in my mind." - Kurt Esterly

"He stood over me, with claws in the shape of human fingers and told me death yearned for the gentle souls rocking back and forth in the decadent night. And as he swooped down like a vulture decaying, I knew that he'd given me a grave without once digging talons into my flesh." - Melessia Maeson

"It was a gentle decay, the funeral of me." - Iresa Ramstead

"Beg for mercy child, get on your knees and wail to the Heavens divine that you may be spared of my wicked blade, but God was never listening to you, was he?" - The Begotten Wolf King

"Ya can't lose, life. You can't exactly win it neither, life can only ever be lived, really, but some people stare at ya with champion's eyes and hunger for something grand, and those are the kinda people who become wolves. Whom become something a little less than human." - Dixie Spindrift

"It is almost as if, when I look in the mirror I can see every single life flashing in my pupils like a threadwork book of memories and pieces of me I'll never truly hold. But perhaps the greatest tragedy of all, is watching as mercy crumbles in the heart of a kingdom of rust." - Delvina Sunset

"You can't just live life in the slums of your sorrow, you gotta let people reach down and give you a helping hand when all seems lost. Don't let the cruelty get to ya, more often then not, it's a shadow, and the sun will watch it wither." - Morgerra Kent

"They told me it would be wonderful, to rise with strength and gunmetal in my bones. But as I pulled a trigger against a criminal's skull, the concrete pooling red with pieces of my mercy, I knew, that they'd lied. Because this isn't strength in me, it's a cruel sense of power that doesn't leave a single soul the same as he was." - Nolan Walkenstein

"I feel as if, I faded away from myself. It wasn't a single violent action, I was not ripped away from this person I am, but rather, soft gusts of wind came on by and with it, left little pieces of me. And eventually, as the hurricane rolled on by, there was nothing left." - Vaughn Bonevarrow

"We were both, black roses, decayin' in some, odd way. But I feel as if, when our petals danced across each other's stems, that perhaps, tinges of red started takin' over the garden of our hearts." - Sandro Colorfeid

"I imagine we too, 'ave become monsters. Even if it weren't our intention." - Jasper Pollymore

"My mind is nothing but cobwebs and dust, barren of any spider to tell me how the silk was spun." - Pam Maywood

"I will stand before you, blade washed in your dreams." - The Begotten Wolf King

"As my father told me of the family name's curse, to bare burns of a torch they'd never hold and he said to me, "Daughter, you run from this home, it's a decaying matter of flesh and flickering torches." And as I told him he's my hero, and regret flickered in his hazel brown eyes, I ran from a heritage that never should've been my own, praying that my father escaped cruelties shadow." - Gwenda Malrosa

"Like bombs fading in the night sky, the boy I raised became nothing but sizzling cinders of explosive horror." - Aphrodite Bonstellos

"In the essence of life and death they whisper, "You are free, sinner's child, fly free like the dove holding parsley in his beak and bring forth a new era of peace." But peace was an illusion, built by the powerful and cruel, and so as I stare into the ever flickering eyes of chaos and sacrifice, I shall hold not parsley and peace in my beak, but threadbare and dying secrets in my bloodied maw." - Unknown McDonaghue

"No matter how many devils climb upon my shoulder, I will make sure they wither with the howling snarl of my rifle." - Espifanio Vanderhoof

"I look at history with the eyes of a warrior, and I know it can't have been easy, to die for causes not much unlike the one I find myself in now. But as I let my past flow through me like strength in my veins, I know I won't die a nobody." - Callenmire Bloodfire

"You can't just stand above peace like this, chaos ain't supposed ta be fair, love ain't sposed ta be this fantasy we can't ever god damn reach. But you sit here, with a grin of steel and bullets and tell me that peace is a fuckin' shadow." - Carleton Kazelstoh

"It always has been, it fades when the night comes down on us weary bastards of the dead world. So why the ever living fuck, would I call peace a friend when she leaves me every time the sun sinks?" - Estus Hunters

"My brother's mercy died in a bed of roses and slick cards, and if he were to stand above me with a razor edged blade, would he revive his mercy, or let it fade in the crimson flash of my death?" - Farstead Newton

"My heart beats sick with the dying cries of wicked bastards who threaten a dynasty pure and mighty. But I shalt not let this heart of mine fall threat to the decaying sense of shadow in the darkness' grin." - Brovalla Bladestone

"When the world threatens to tear who you are away from your bones stand strong and tall, for you will build a new identity from the strength it took to crumble." - Missouri Jolana

"The Devil whispered in my ear, "Succumb, broken child of the graveyard town filled with hollow secrets." But an angel in me told me that no man should find his grave etched with a name that is his own before he lays beneath it." - Scythas Hoffs

"As death drifts like smoke on the wind, spilling from the cigarette between my lips and I breathe in the essence of the huntsman's woods with a wicked grin creeping up my lip like a crease in paper folded by untethered hands, I know that this origami dove has become a wolf of paper and crimson claws." - Morias Doorvensteil

"I stick a match stick between my teeth and call it fangs of explosive nature. But alas, all I do is burn my tongue on bitter beliefs." - Varzol Rothschild

"A sense of belief is only useful when faced with wonder, I have found. For when faced with grotesque horror, belief will find you dead at the bottom of a dead man's loaded gun." - Byron Javellanos

"My heart were never a place I could call home, for as it clambered at me with angry claws and a maw of dagger like fangs I came to realize in the midst of all my hurt and pain, oh I wasn't me, but a threadwork beast made up of patches of sorrow and little pockets of memories. I ain't me, but maybe, I really fuckin' shouldn't be." - Gaston Mckinlay

"You know, dad, I don't think the gunfire makes you who you are. I think the gunfire and smoke builds broken pieces of who you are, but the regret, the love and the joy beating inside your chest is what makes you a soldier." - Liam Holwane

"It lays fresh in my mind, like fish reeled in too early, and I can't help but think I'm a bad man. Perhaps the war cheats in whispers, but if you call me your hero, son, I will accept a cape 'round my shoulders." - Brett Holwane

"My father once told me that the gunfire smoke blinds the vision of morality in soldier's eyes. And I get to wondering if with all this cigarette smoke and shadow blinding me, if it'd be wrong to deem myself a moral man." - Liam Holwane

"No one was there for me until I heard quiet whispers in the flowers others would've chosen to crush for speaking of truths in quiet." - Benjamin Diggory

"They called me a rose pin grenade, and with regret I showed them my shrapnel." - Hallana Ragecue

"My heart wilted away as a ghost I know all too well lingers over my shadow, frail and gentle like the flower of hearts and roses he was." - Harlene Ballendger

"I can taste war dyin' bitter on my tongue, and as I place a weathered hand over my old sailor's cap, breathing in fresh ocean air and dying poems of people long gone, I get to wondering if the war is over, why do I still tremble in the presence of the past? Perhaps all war ever was is a ghost, sitting lonely on soldier's shoulders." - Stickzen Myadro

"In this world I have learned two things. You have to kill who you are to survive, and living and breathing are not the same thing, so as I pulled the trigger of my identity and died a woman I am not, I started living, breathing in the essence of death on a sunny day." - Minzina Strumvell

"She's dying lights in my head, dancing in the monotony of my grey splashed canvas." - Helzano Borvenkayer

"Humanity is just one big fuck up on God's part.” - Darlo Vanishpoi

“ This world is just, a crushing coffin that lays heavy on my chest, with an annoyed sigh I rise in the morning knowing that today is just another cigarette hazed Monday, a booze infested morning. “ - Darlo Vanishpoi

“ Is that all God is? A beast of many colors breaking his creations out of rage and disappointment?” - Darlo Vanishpoi

“ Truthfully, I'm trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel. But it looks oddly familiar, you know? And as I squint to see better in the darkness I'm surrounded by on the daily, I come to realize the light is just the spark of another cigarette, and like a moth, I trot towards the buzzing lights as if they wouldn't god damn kill me. Guess that's all broken men are, moths, drawn to the hazed and dancing lights of another forlorn day." - Darlo Vanishpoi

“ Sweet dreams, my friend, are nothing more then an illusion spun by the mind, and as you drift to the land between dreaming and reality, remember, that nightmares have always been a twisted version of reality, and so they hold some, sinister sense of truth behind their monsters and hallways full of mirrored images of who you're not. “ - Ghost Shiv

“ Don't you find it peculiar, how we call humanity beasts and animals because they spill the blood of their own kind? But tell me one predator that hunts its own kind. Tell me one species in this universe, besides human, that will rip its own kind to shreds because they felt like it. You'll find that humanity is the darkest kind of animal to roam the planet, and with my empty smile, I seek to prove it. “ - Ghost Shiv

“ Someone I know once told me that the broken have to stick together, and, that's such a peculiar thought. Because as soon as a mirror drops to the concrete, the glass pieces scatter away from one another." - Ghost Shiv

“ I was born in a world of shadow, sitting at a long table of bones and roses, and as I scarfed down every meal of death I could find life gave me a scythe in which I could reap with. “ - Clementine Ashburnum

“ Violence for violence is the rule of beasts, they say. But I say violence for violence has always been the rule of humanity, for we were never much good at hiding our fangs, where we?” - Clementine Ashburnum

“ I was born to rule this land of shadow and bone, and so I sit atop my throne of violence and thank the beasts for swallowing me whole. “ - Clementine Ashburnum

“The world doth not spin kindly. It thrashes like a violent wave and fills the ship of humanity with cold, black water, firing cannons into the mast and oak wood of our boat. And so the storm destroys what is left of humanity, and thus we become beasts.” - Clementine Ashburnum

“ I've been kicked down and broken my whole life, choking on things that shouldn't exist, my pops always told me that we'll make it through another day. We just gotta go day by day, we just gotta get our minds through another damn week. And I say sorry to the clouds that he didn't damn well make it, cause as I lay roses at his grave tears roll like anger from my cheek and I clench my damn fist. Cause life just ain't fair, is it?” - Arnoldo Hungaris

“ Some people are born in Hell, and there's no way out of the flame. “ - Arnoldo Hungaris

“ All my life I've just wanted to be a somebody, but the day I was born the world looked down on me with a cruel grin and said that I just weren't born to be someone. So I picked up pieces of identity off the gravel road I'd been travelin' and played myself a game of identity roulette, never knowing who the fuck I'd be with the next pullin' of my dead man's trigger. “ - Arnoldo Hungaris

“ You ever feel as though your sense of self is dyin', witherin' away inta something that just don't god damn exist any longer? Cause this person I am has been fadin' from me for a long forty five years, and I'm just tryna catch the little pieces 'a identity as they flitter away like cinders in the damn breeze. “ - Dante Dunbar

“ My son looks ta me with sorrowed eyes and my daughter looks at me with wonder and joy, tellin' me I'm a good man. I'm the best go don' father she ever could'a had. But there's secrets sitting idle on my breath, but they don't ever leap from off my tongue, cuz I'm scared 'a what'll happen when all my darkness tumbles out from this box of pain I've shoved it in. It beats against the cage of pinewood and chain, roaring a melody of violence swearin' up and down that when it gets out I'm fucked and there ain't nuthin' I can do 'bout it. And I start ta believe the dark and toxic thoughts.” - Dante Dunbar

“ I grew up fast brother, and I didn't quite grow up so kind. So as I tell you I'm a bad man with regrets, don't you praise me without knowin' what them deadly sins is. “ - Dante Dunbar

“ Sometimes life will damn you to a fate so cruel and demented that you don't really come to figure kindness exists. Every eye seems like a stalker's gaze, every word feels like a lie off a tongue of silver, but some people are good, I've come to learn. “ - Clover Delecroix

“ I'm just a man trying his hardest to survive in this fucked up world, but my life was stripped from me so fast by four Devils who claimed themselves unwell and cruel. And as they came for me with insanity riddled grins and monster filled eyes, I came to realize that monsters will always wear the skin of man, because it's the easiest way to blend in, man. “ - Clifton Arslania

“ Ya know, my mom used to say that the kindest angels make the cruelest demons, and as I look to my scarred and weathered hands I get to wondering if I was an angel, once upon a time. But my halo's starting to grow horns and my wings are falling off my back feather by feather, and in the end, I'm just gonna be another man who let his demons take over the house in his head. “ - Clifton Arslania

“ I was just a kid when my whole world fell apart, and now I'm six feet from the edge of my fate, and I'm starting to wonder if it would be such a long fall. “ - Clifton Arslania

“ I can still remember her laugh, the way she'd fight back a smile when I told her how proud I was. She was a rebellious kid with trouble in her heart but hope in her smile, and without her.. I fear all I am is trouble and cigarette smoke, holding onto memories I swear I'll never forget. But these memories start to slowly fade, as if an eraser strikes at them, little pieces of them drifting away. I begin to forget what her laugh sounded like. I begin to forget the way her smile danced, or how she'd show me these, stupid, fucking internet things I never understood. Or how she told me all about the boy she liked, how she even thought that, she might have a future with him. But the future was ripped from her like a shadow, and I fear, with her future I too, was lost. “ - Darlita Romilez

“ My name tastes like a bitter drug on my tongue.” - Darlita Romilez

"I met a man full of ghosts in the haunted streets of my hometown, and as he rose specters from the grave of secrets and lies, I came to realize why people fear the dark. It isn't because of the shadows, but what owns said shadows, what lurks alongside, said shadows. You see, there's always going to be monsters hiding in the dark crevices of humanity, and they'll always say that the light is their domain and us kind hearted saints have taken it forcefully from their clawed hands. But monsters lie, my friend. It is only monster nature for them to smile with blood in their teeth, for as soon as a man spills blood for his own self gain, he becomes something very much less than human. “ - Fred Douglass

“ My heart is an old one, it has been since I turned thirteen and spilled my secrets from a chipped tea cup, my parents using the single shard of glass to try and cut the truth from out my rainbow heart. But they never could. Because the truth, it doth not die. “ - Fred Douglass

“ I heard once that the truth is like a lion, let it go, it will defend itself. And this, is very well true. But lies are like cowering, frightened little crows, and soon as you throw a stone their way they squawk and caw, fleeing like a deer from a wildfire.” - Fred Douglass

“ I'll raise my revolver to the misery and pull the trigger, because a man who has something to fight for is always gonna be stronger than the man who has nothing left to die for. “ - Sav Gothenburg

“ Life, in all of its sorrow, is a story, we gotta read every chapter of our life. No skimming. No skipping pages because the pain is too much to bare. We gotta let our story be complete. Sometimes the ink will warp and twist into blood and bone, but we gotta pick up the quill and write a story that ain't all that bad. “ - Sav Gothenburg

“ I've always been an odd girl, chasing shadows because they intrigued me or finding warmth in the cold pale glow of the moon. “ - Claire Orwell

“ I'm just a tragedy away from fading away into the night from whence I came.” - Claire Orwell

“ I'm afraid of the dark because it's where I've resided all my life.” - Claire Orwell

“I was not loved as a child. I can still hear booming shouts that forced me to hide away from reality, I can still feel the broken bottles against my cheek, or the way my covers felt like a safe haven away from all the rage inside my childhood home. But I hath no covers to hide under to escape my mind.” - Claire Orwell

“ I'm just a girl of trouble wondering where the hell the light at the end of her tunnel has gone, cause I keep tripping on barbed wire and regret, wondering if any cars will catch me on my way to salvation. “ - Christie Shadow

“ I met a man at the edge of the streetlights, he sparked up a cigarette, tattoos flickering in the orange glow like scars of battle, and he told me that he could give me an opportunity to be someone. To actually matter. And with a foolish smile, I followed him, like the deer who didn't mind the bloodstains on the wolf's maw. “ - Christie Shadow

“ You know, I always just wanted to be somebody. I wanted to live a life I could be proud'a, but when you're born on the streets with a mother who doesn't care and a father who left a long time ago, you don't much get that chance. She was just a drugged up ghost, sitting on the edge of her deathbed with red eyes and a smile. So I followed a path that I thought would be my one way ticket out of Hell. But the cruel men always hid paradise behind their smiles, huh?” - Christie Shadow

“ I tried to pick up a dagger and toss it at my misery, but it always sinks into my peace like fangs of cruelty, chipping pieces of me away with the edge of a scalpel. “ - Christie Shadow

“ People are always trying to say that humanity is inherently wicked, but that was never true. I've seen the kindness in men's hearts, but I've also seen the wickedness that flows like death in the veins of a man who called himself a wicked and lean vulture sitting atop the Church to consume the flesh of the saintly and good hearted.” - Chester Bronkzeim

“ My identity is like wallpaper from an old mansion, sometimes it peels away, it cracks and starts to show the true colors of who I am. And there's a secret or two in my walls.” - Chester Bronkzeim

“He grins, the blood of my identity on his fucking teeth.” - Chester Bronkzeim

"Don't you understand, the beasts have always been hiding in the public eye? They look like your every day people. They smile. They laugh. But don't you dare trust the bad man's grin, it's filled with broken promises and hearts he's stopped on a fucking whim. “ - Leo Griggs

“ They've always praised the wolves with blood on their fucking teeth, so I just learned to blend in with the crowd and flash a crimson stained smile to the crowd. Woops and cheers from society sound like a melody of violence to the powerful.” - Leo Griggs

“ My ribcage has always looked like the open doors of a slaughterhouse.” - Leo Griggs

“I stand like a death omen, sitting atop the old graveyard of saints, laughing at the way they've been buried underneath my fucking power.” - Charlie Griggs

“ Why would I be kind, when I could be powerful? “ - Charlie Griggs

“ True power does not come from kindness, my friend. Take a look at the fucking history books won'tcha? Nothing was ever done without a little multitude of violence and sin. Wanna free the slaves? You're gonna have to take up arms and spill some blood for the cause. Violence is the foundation on which humanity stands, has been ever since Cain struck down Abel, and in my eyes, it always will, be the foundation on which we stand.” - Charlie Griggs

“ Humanity is a tapestry of the Devil's dreams, and damn, if I ain't a testament to all the lord tried to condemn. “ - Charlie Griggs

“ When I first stood with blood on my hands and murder in my black heart, I knew that who I am had died a heart wrenching death. He choked on the same bullet as the man who laid dead at my fucking feet.” - Charlie Griggs

“ This world's not kind to those who live by the code of honor and kindness, but you can't let this beat you down. You can't let this kill ya. Or else the world will become a graveyard of dreamers who gave up. “ - Gavin Rustington

“ Most of those who fall subscribe to the ideology that others deserve the fall with 'em, so they reach claws from out the depths of their misery and pull others down with them. This creates a perpetual cycle of violence and death. Don't dare swallow the idea that your pain is a violent raging melody that everyone deserves to hear sung so darkly into the night.” - Gavin Rustington

“ Not all villains were angels, but not all Devils are cruel, and not all angels are kind. The world's just not so black and white." - Gavin Rustington

“ My heart beats a melody of rage and cruelty sinkin' inta the miserable depths of my revenge, and as the flames flicker in my eyes, I feel like a reflection of the tragedies that broke me down ta a vengeance driven beast, sippin' on blood red streams as if they were clear. “ - Vokard Killjaw

“ Brother, there's blood on my cold teeth and some sense of decay lurkin' in my jaw, so as I smile and my fangs start a rottin', you best know that life took this whole boy and turned him inta an arson lullaby, bitin' down on bullets etched with a name all too familiar. “ - Vokard Killjaw

“ I met death in the flickerin' flames of Hell and with a silver drenched smile he told me tragedy lurked in the veins of all whom seek a higher purpose. And as I cut open my wrists, tragedy mixed in with my blood, my vision blurrin' with delusions of peace, I found that rage tastes like my name on my tongue, and death tastes like mercy on the teeth of the vengeful. “ - Vokard Killjaw

“ I struck out at the young age 'a thirteen, choking on my halo of dust and decadent stars, prayin' ta the lord that he'd save me from the Devil that wore my father's eyes. But he never did. God don't listen ta the broken, he watches 'em fall, he watches 'em stumble through thorns and blackberry bushes, but he don't ever give a helpin' hand, do he? Cuz I sit here in my corner of nowhere and drink myself a quiet hummed lullaby of whiskey regrets and cigarette stained memories, wondering how the Hell I became my father. “ - Denzel Thievesmire

“ I'd say sorry for what I done, but it won't change a damn thing, it won't bring together the hearts I broke, it won't heal the scars I etched, so I let fate take me on down ta the river in which I may drown in my sins.” - Denzel Thievesmire

“ My sister once told me that life is a colored blade, and depending on how true our heart is, the blood will be a different color. So I gotsa wonder why black blood drips from the blade of life as it etches me with scars of my human nature.” - Denzel Thievesmire

“ I didn't want trouble, but brother, trouble wanted me.” - Denzel Thievesmire

“ The man who raised me was a shadow in the daylight, standing above who I could be with a scythe, willing to reap my identity from me as soon as I found out who I am. And I always accepted that, because I had never known any other life. But as Olly danced his fingers across my cheek and told me that freedom is not a house of four walls and staying shackled to a single place, I knew that, maybe I could finally be somebody. Maybe I could finally be me.” - Stenlana Borswell

“ I'd read of romance in so many novels, envying the girls and boys who found a happily ever after at the end of their story. I was jealous of fiction because I had never really lived in reality. But as soon as his lips pressed against mine, my heart started to beat with colors it had never seen, as if our love was a tapestry of what could be, and what would be. I found love in front of me, and I couldn't just let it escape. So with courage in my heart I ripped myself free from cruelties shadow, soaring on pale white wings of bravery and identity I'd never known. “ - Stenlana Borswell

“ Hate, my friend, is as old as time. But so is love. “ - Celdvel Creitz

“I strap this old hat to my head and strike a match, creating a spark of revolution in the air of cruelty and division.” - Celdvel Creitz

“ I reserve my hate for those who stand above peace like shadow lickin' flames, sittin' at the edge of a cruel man's revolver swearing up and down, this is the only damn way. There's wolves hidin' in the shadows of the revolution, and brother, they blend in with the sheep, they always will. Cause monsters always shared human qualities.” - Celdvel Creitz

“ My life hasn't been a kind one, I'm shotgun shells and violence on the cold shore of peace, and as I stumble blindly on a path that was never truly my own, I come to realize that a man who's seen violence will never be the same. Any man with blood on his hands will never be an angel, after all, we're human, we're fragile and kind, decaying as we walk towards another day with hearts of violent tendencies.” - Cavinsta Tilvain

“ It is as if my mind works in agony, slaving away at a factory, spewing out toxic thoughts and packaging them to deliver to my fragile heart, as if my mind is an overworked employee, enraged by the conditions in which he is worked.” - Cavinsta Tilvain

“ Since our minds were starving, they devoured themselves in search of a meal.” - Cavinsta Tilvain

“ I'm not a fighter, I'm a killer. There's such a fine difference in that. A fighter raises a fist or two for what he loves, a killer raises a revolver in search of another day, praying that he'll survive this murder of self. But he never does, hm? “ - Cavinsta Tilvain

“ I just wanted to see my sons grow up and be strong, capable young men. But the past follows us close, and no matter how many miles we run, its always that much faster, gripping our scars with razor sharp claws, carrying us away with fangs we recognize. Cause we've been bitten by them before. “ - Cathleen Colt

“A shadow is only as dark as he who walks alongside it.” - Cathleen Colt

“ I'm scratched up and fucked in the head looking for a way out of this maze of memories and shadows, but I'm always finding dead ends, man. And I fear I always will. Because sorrow doesn't let the kind girl go, it holds her down and rips the tears from her cheeks with blood dripping fangs, holding her still, holding her down forevermore. Licking pieces off of you with a razor sharp tongue, and as you weep, she always collects your tears. “ - Carvoxi Crickenmow

“ I stand still, frozen by the fear and sorrow, and every single time I take a step, the beast in me stirs, as if awoken by the sound of my foot shuffling against concrete. “ - Carvoxi Crinckenmow

“ What a sorrowful thing it is, to hold onto the memories that killed me because they're all I have left. “ - Carvoxi Crickenmow

“ Chance, I have learned, is everything. “ - David Faim

“ Think of life like a game of Russian roulette. We all have different chambers. We all have a different amount of bullets. It's up to us when we pull the trigger. So I sat in my quiet office, picking at the fabrics of my heart, and with a sigh I put the revolver under my chin. And with one action colors burst from my skull, pieces of me splattered against the white walls in red and grey, and as I slumped against an old chair, who I am died. And who I am would stay that way. I had always been lost, ever since that fateful Christmas Eve, clutching to the pieces of me I wished I could keep, uttering the same word over and over again, as if I were some distorted echo. "Why?" I cried. "Why?" I screamed. "Why?" I whispered. But answers never came for the weary ghost of David Faim. “ - David Faim

“ Chance doesn't care about who you are. It comes for you with greedy fingers that look like golden bullets, and as it digs into your mind it searches for misery, and if it can't find any. Well rest assured it will make some with gunpowder and regret. “ - David Faim

“ There was a locked door where life was supposed to be, my friend, and death was the key that'd always been hidden in plain sight. “ - Ioza Ragmathora

“ You can not find me in the Heavens nor below in the fiery depths of Hell, for I am a being so dark and twisted that the world doth not give me damnation or salvation. For I would corrupt both. “ - Ioza Ragmathora

“ I chose violence over peace because it gave me a chance to live. “ - Ioza Ragmathora

“ I sit like a whisper in my mind, decaying like a rose in the Winter, stem and thorn falling apart as the breeze drifts past me. I've never been a girl of peace, always did darkness know my name. And the shadows knew that. It's how they tricked me into following the colored lights. Because to a girl who's known darkness her whole life, light of any kind feels like salvation, like grace. Like Heaven. But I found that it was the flames of Hell I had followed, like a doe trotting just behind her mother, finding that it was blood trails she'd been following all along. “ - Kemlia O’Sullrain

“ I have bled so much from my wrists. Humanity. Peace. Joy. Everything that makes me Kemlia O'Sullrain has bled from my veins like a river splashing against the shores of Heaven. “ - Kemlia O’Sullrain

“ There is no peace for the beasts of this circus. We howl, we laugh, we cry. But we do not die. We never do. Which is perhaps the most sorrowful thing, to live in a world that never loved you. That never cared. “ - Kemlia O’Sullrain

“ You know, when you're just an orphan that no one wants, you get to wondering what the fuck your purpose is in this world. And then you get adopted, and you think life will look up. But perfect doesn't last. Not in a world of violence. Not in a world of hate. “ - Wendy Pazcko

“ Justice has never looked so cold in his eyes.” - Wendy Pazcko

“ I prowl underneath the shade like a shada' of violence, sinkin' unholy fangs inta the deer and sheep who think cougars will spare the peaceful. But there's never been a rule 'a violence that didn't kill the good hearted. So I sling a rifle over my shoulder and become the violent. “ - Carter Burningham

“ Ya know, a young girl once told me that I was damned for what I'd done ta her heart, and so I flashed her a yella grin and told her I know, that's why I fuckin' did it. Because I've lived a life chock full 'a sin, so what's one more? What's ten more? Hell, what's another lifetime 'a damnation ta the sinnin' man but paradise? “ - Carter Burningham

“ It is not often, that a soldier can hear the sound of silence.” - Carrick Miles

“ I would never call myself a hero. Because every war has its sides, every soldier has his story, so in turn every man I ever killed had a past, a family. People who loved him or her dearly. And with one bullet, I damned them to a sound of silence and regret, sinking into their skull like gunpowder misery. I'm not a good man, I'm not a hero. So please don't call me one. “ - Carrick Miles

“ I'm a soldier, yes. But a hero? I never could've been. For destiny told me to pull a trigger against my heart, and with a lonesome little sigh and a voice soaked in the tears of angels and saints alike, I pulled back the hammer and said, "Yes sir." - Carrick Miles

“ "When da world kicks ya right in ya bloody snout, you oughta stand tall and mig'y like the oak tree in a garden 'a withering willows. I mean, If ye sit 'round like a lazy bum and say I did all I could, ya're just the butt of a cigarette, sittin' lonely in da fuckin' ash tray. “ - Caldayo Blousey

“ I's learned that love is a war, and often, it's hate that'll shoot ya down like a bird soarin' through the sky, crashin' inta the trees without wings ta guide ya.” - Caldayo Blousey

“ If ya wanna fuck with da Blousey's I suggest turnin' da other way, cause mate, we ain't sheep, we ain't angels, neither. We're dogs, loyal as can be.” - Caldayo Blousey

“ I was just a kid of the streets, running towards destiny with tattered sneakers and a grin so big you'd think it was cut into my cheeks, but that kid died, man. And he's not coming back. “ - Cage Azvinka

“ I'm just a broken nobody in a world that demands I be someone.” - Cage Azvinka

“ It honest to God feels like I'm cursed. By what, I can never god damn tell, maybe it's me, maybe it's something old as time that creeps up my sinner's bones, but whatever this is, people call it reality. They call it destiny, fate, or anything else that excuses them from their actions. “ - Cage Azvinka

"If you wanna find a heart, stop looking in my ribcage. “ - Bone Hungarson

“ I used to feel, it was such a wonderful, beautiful thing. But as I slide razors across my wrist it must be the empathy I'm bleeding from me, all the things that make me human running from out my veins in crimson splotches. “ - Bone Hungarson

“ I wish to control my thoughts, but demons nag at my skull, tearing little pieces of my mind off with a hungry maw and bleeding teeth. So I accept this monster I've become and become friends with the demons that seek to kill me. “ - Bone Hungarson

“ I never wanted to be a gunmetal soldier, but here I am, with a spine of smoke and wildfire, sitting at the edge of war with a pistol and an aim that was earned through the death of others. “ - Gordon Jackson

“ I've fought in countries I can't fucking name, killed men I can hardly remember, and I know they say only the mad man remembers everyone he ever killed. But maybe it's the only way to stay sane. “ - Gordon Jackson

“ That's the regretful thing about life, it tears people away from you that you thought you'd have for a long time.” - Gordon Jackson

“ I sit on the edge of revolution, wondering if I'll have to raise my fists, or a steady revolver.” - Lily Van Velk

“ He's a shadow that's been cast over our town, and so we gotta be the darkness that vanquishes him, we gotta be the dark so that we can find the light. “ - Lily Van Velk

“ My ma didn't raise no fool, she raised a woman who fights her battles with wit and a trusty ol' revolver etched with the family name. I see pieces 'a my ma in my reflection and as I load this chamber with pieces 'a myself, I pray ta every God listenin' that by the end of the war 'gainst peace I'm still me. “ - Harmalene Stagner

“ I am a whisper on the horizon.” - Raimunduss Wolffes

“Having power, and being powerful, are two very different things.” - Raimunduss Wolffes

“ They call me a phantom, a bastard drunk off of power and sin, but in truth, I am drunk off the idea of immortality. The Gods can not create something eternal. For everything withers. Everything dies. But there's little pockets of their Godhood hidden in cracks and corners, and perhaps as I travel the world with my ever steely gaze and strong sense of belief in my goal, that I can change the perception of immortality. “ - Raimunduss Wolffes

“ We're all just trying to find ourselves in a maze of who we're not, shuffling through different identities, wondering when we'll find ourselves in our own damn skin. And as I brushed my fingers against my own cheek, looking at this woman I'd become, I knew that I had finally found the end of the maze. All those dead ends and, I'd finally found home in arms that were my own. “ - Blossomwitz Dakota

“ My identity slips from between my fingers like the river's water, and as I sink into this ocean of black blood, I know that perhaps, I was never an angel, just a devil who didn't know what sin tasted like. “ - Betty Shalfien

“My tears don't change a thing but the hue of the soil.” - Betty Shalfien

“ Life doesn't ever treat people fairly, bad things happen to good people simply because, the world doesn't really operate on what's right or wrong, it doesn't operate on karma or social status. The world just spins while we move with it, and people are always blaming the bad things that happen on the world. But usually the fault is always behind the person who pulled the trigger, or the person who used the knife to cut scars into your fragile heart.” - Barb Riverbrook

“True weakness comes from the black heart.” - Aura Honeybadger

“ It is not often the kind man survives the chilling and calculated wrath of the powerful, cruel one, for as he sticks by his morals and says he'd never stoop to my level, this old and decaying tombstone of mercy swoops down like the guillotine's shadow, cutting his head from off his neck. Who do you think won? The kind man who wouldn't kill? Or the cruel and unmerciful shadow of a man standing above the kind man's grave with ghosts of roses to lay at his forgotten and unmarked grave? “ - Clayton W. Scarrberry

“ I believe that, on that cold Autumn evening I met death dancing under the pale and flickering streetlights, for no one else could truly rip at the seams of mercy like her. No one else could've torn heroism from my heart but her. Death won't always come for you with a scythe, my friend. Sometimes death looks at you with loving, human eyes and steals you away with a cold kiss that feels much like the opposite of life. “ - Clayton W. Scarrberry

“ I'm a hollow secret sitting at the edge of peace, waiting for fools and saints to clamber on by to ask me for advice, and as they hear my words tumble from a lip bruised and silver, they're satisfied, for awhile. But as soon as my words twist and turn into curses, they regret talking to the old raven who knows a thing or two. “ - Royal Hondros

“ I see my daughter look at me with sorrowed eyes, telling me that I'm a bastard, a cheat, a horrible father. And she can bark, bark and bark all she likes, but deep down she must know, she'll never bite. She is no wolf, neither am I. But she likes to think herself one, so I'll sit in quiet anticipation and watch as she riles herself up, until eventually she tires herself out and finds that, to die, does not mean to be buried.” - Royal Hondros

“ Man, I've met a lot of the darkness in this world, most of it in the eyes of a man full of specters and dead railroad ghosts, selling his nightmares to all who wanted to find peace of mind. He's the reason, I've got blood on my fucking hands, and that, man, I just can't forgive. But if I ever could, I'd spill blood again just to watch him fall down his sinner's tracks, caught between the two trains he's ruled by. “ - Mark Bellwitz

“ I've led a life of trouble and cigarette smoke, chasing daydreams and girls when I was just a young gun with his smile wide and bright. But sometimes, life, it pulls the dreamers down to reality and tells them to walk on without their dreams, because life is harsh, it's cruel, and a dreamer can't survive without a little bit of nightmares. So I walk through a valley of nightmares praying that I'm enough to survive, and as Ciri takes my hand I know, maybe I'm not enough to survive on my own, but with her? I've got one helluva fighting chance. “ - Mark Bellwitz

“ I'm just a howl drunk beast, rippin' through the skin 'a Laramie Diamond.” - Laramie Diamond

“ There's two wolves in me, mate. One howls and bites, gnawing at the confines of me skull, crackin' little pieces of me mind on 'is way outta me, but da other is a loyal bugga', sittin' at da edge of wisdom with a song in 'is fur draped heart. And dey say the wolf who'll win is da one ya feed. And so, with a soldier's broken sigh, I pull another trigger and feed da beast in me. “ - Laramie Diamond

“ I'll be honest, somedays I feel lost, somedays I'm wondering in a quaint little maze, walking towards the edge of my sorrow, wondering what it would feel like, to leap into the waters below. But I have people all around me who help me when I'm down, and I think that's a beautiful thing, ya know? Sure, I miss my dad.. a lot, but he'd want me to keep on pushing forward, he'd want me to manage to, move on, not forget, but move on. “ - Aurora Hop

“ I know that perhaps, my father lives in these quaint little mazes of me. I've got a lot left to live for, ya know? Like uncle Ickden and Orin, they've always been heroes, shoving me out the way of danger and brandishing quills and pens like revolvers of truth. And I hope they both know, how much they've helped me. Because when my father vanished in the wind, they built me a new pair of wings and told me to soar, even if the new wings were built from torn off pieces of theirs.” - Aurora Hop

“ I don't wanna be just, some guy, I wanna be Ashton Worthington, the boy who became something. “ - Ashton Worthington

“ Usually what you ponder on will become you, so if you start thinking deeply about yourself, eventually you'll become him, right? Conjure who you are into reality with simple thoughts and deep love for who you are. “ - Ashton Worthington

“ You can't be who you're not, because in the end, that person will rip through you, whether it's a violent matter or not is entirely up to you. “ - Ashton Worthington

“ My sister told me her truths, letting them spill from the gentle river's of her heart, and as I told her I still look up to her, and I always will, I remember her crying a little bit and giving me a big ol' hug. Because she's always been my hero, ya know? She doesn't wear a cape, but she wears fancy gowns and hoods I don't know the name of, and as she smiles wide with that amazing wife of hers, I know that she's a happy, hero. “ - Andrina Prinscella

“ I once stood like a reaper in a field of forgotten graves, sitting as rage dying in an empty chest, pulling the trigger of my revolver because I had something in my fucking chamber, but then, life came along and built me a new pair of wings in the eyes of a man who's troubled but beyond all reason and doubt, loved. His lips taste like redemption, his eyes swim with my peace, and when I hold his hand I know that perhaps, he and I heal each other with little pieces of ourselves. “ - Mary Adler

“ I think it's beautiful, that a hurting soul can become a loved one within the span of a few weeks, a cruel woman like me can find life in the eyes of all she loves within months. “ - Mary Adler

“ I am a question rattling in my throat and dying on my tongue.” - Geras Creek

“ She once, asked me who I am, and, it's such a simple question, but a difficult one to answer.” - Geras Creek

“ Blood that is not my own forms like bruises on my lips.” - Geras Creek

“ I'm road kill sitting on the side of a dead end highway, a deer with it's ribcage ripping through its flesh, and as I rise from this grave of concrete and gravel, I become less and less familiar with my humanity. And one day, my humanity shall flicker and fade away like a candle's flame in a gust of hurricane winds, dripping down the wick like a forgotten secret in the wax. “ - Geras Creek

“ I often wonder what it would be like, to succumb to fantasy, where I could hold my son again, or love the world as it is, but this world isn't beautiful, it's cold and ugly, reminding us humans that we're just a plague infecting the notches of its gentle spine, sitting on its heart like a flower that never should've bloomed. “ - Moonshine

“ I remember the man who killed me, he sits like a poltergeist in my fragile mind, screaming and shouting in empty sins and cruel man's shadow eyes. He once told me that I was nothing but a doll sitting quiet on the shelf, dust and mildew creeping up the edges of my dress as I decayed and rotted with all of God's other forgotten toys. And with a tear glossed cheek, I realize the cruel bastard was right, because I weep myself a lullaby of ponies dancing in a field wishing I could join them. “ - Moonshine

“ My children look at me with mourning eyes, tear glossed and sorrowed, like, glass reflections of my heart. “ - Leonard Bakers

“ I can still remember everything about Kristin, for she sits here in my mind like a ghost I don't wanna expel from this world, you know, I can still see my fingers coiled with her bright orange hair, or how she'd scrunch up her nose to keep her glasses from falling off her cute, pretty and beautiful face. Or how, her eyes told a story, something beautiful and intensely poetic, and as she danced her fingers across my cheek, or pressed her lips against my skin and my bruises, I thought that I had found life in her whispers. But a man tore my love from me, and as she screamed and cried for mercy, God turned his back on the world and left it a quiet whisper. “ - Leonard Bakers

“ Time doesn't heal all wounds, my friend, it just teaches us how to live with scars on our fragile and decaying hearts of gold." - Leonard Bakers

“ I quite often feel as though I am far from myself, sitting like a pale white raven, pecking at the seams of graves he's dug, some are me, some are other people, but either way, these white feathers pale don't reflect my heart. “ - Alejandro Lepo

“ I am like a dying, withering daisy and as the gardener comes to tend to her crop, she would cut me from this bed of soil and mourn for this poor little decaying thing she couldn't save. “ - Alejandro Lepo

“ There's blood on my hands where the empathy used to be.” - Quentin Satchel

“ On a whim I could have, anything I wanted in my hands. I'll admit, I've sinned deviously. Hunted man in the forests of my mansion, gunning young girls down as if they were lions in the deserts of Africa and spilt blood all because, well, I felt like it, really. “ - Quentin Satchel

“ Anyone, could've become me. “ - Quentin Satchel

“ I met death at the young age of ten, watching as blood splattered the halls of my home, a dying cry of mercy ripping through everything I ever knew's throat, and as I sat there in silence, I think something might've broken in me, perhaps it was my purity seeping like crimson omens from my veins. “ - Cavos Von Glorenstein

“ My friend, this world is not so kind, I am a fair example of that.” - Cavos Von Glorenstein

"What do you do when home is a person you've lost? “ - Addison Von Sparrow

“ I remember when I first met him, his bones filled with sorrow scraped scars, his heart rotting like a dying star in his chest, and I felt as if, when I traced my fingers across his bare chest, little pieces of him began to heal, as if he was finally becoming himself. And so I kissed his scars and his bruises, running my hands through his thick hair as I loved him without regret, without a drip of doubt. And as he held me in his arms and kissed my cheek with lips fraught with troubled sins and shadows, I knew that love was always beautiful, and it always will be. “ - Addison Von Sparrow

“ My childhood home reeked of death and gunmetal smoke, old whiskey stain sins hiding in the breath of my father, and as my heart was torn from me kickin' and screaming, I came ta learn that it's a lot better, to die while breathing then to live your whole life powerless. “ - Sarvel Humington

“ I was just a weak lil boy in the streets of war, but I met a woman on the edge of mercy's spine, wicked and tall she stood, monsters fangs hidin' 'neath her gums, and she told me I could be a King of the streets, patrollin' the Devil's country with a backbone of gunmetal bones and black blood veins. So, with a crooked lil grin and eyes alit with the death of my innocence, I tipped my hat and said, "Yes ma'm." - Sarvel Humington

“ In this here place, we're all reapers of oneself, strippin' who we are from our veins so we can survive the town Heaven never knew. “ - Sarvel Humington

“ I think people like to shove the kind down because they know that they stand a chance when faced with cruelty.” - Estina Piscator

“ I'm not gonna be ashamed of who I am, I'm not gonna let people say this isn't who I am, because I tried to tell myself that for a long time, but eventually I had to accept myself. I don't need no man in my life, because in truth, I've always wanted a Queen of a princess to come on by with a flowy gown and a cute smile. I'm not afraid to say it, I'm a god damn lesbian, and anyone who has a problem with that can go back into their little hole of ignorance and die shallow and stupid. “ - Estina Piscator

“ My name tastes like revolution smoke and death on my tongue.” - Teresa Vanderboom

“ Somedays I fear God looks at me with scornful and hateful eyes, telling me I should be one with her angels, but I sit here, like a gentle and decaying rose, wondering why my petals stick to me when all I ever was is thorns and a broken stem. “ - Teresa Vanderboom

“ I don't know what the world wants of me, but as I dance with my lover underneath the moon's golden glow, I know that perhaps, to be alive is beautiful for most. But when you live past your death, it becomes something ugly, to breathe. “ - Teresa Vanderboom

“ I look in the mirror only ta see somebody that's not me, the heart of Rupert Vanderboom is still there, but there's a stranger's eyes starin' back at me, and sometimes I wish I was just a coffin, with who I am rotting in the marble material above me. “ - Rupert Vanderboom

“ She once told me that though we look different, there's still something she loves about me dancing fragile in my heart. But sometimes I wonder if my lips feel like a stranger against her skin, or if my fingers curling into hers feels unfamiliar. “ - Rupert Vanderboom

“ They always tell ya you get kicked down, that's life, it's a journey from one tragedy to the next, lookin' for the intervals of peace in-between the chaos and sorrow. But I'm just a tragedy who never found the peace, because throughout this life I've lived I've met many people, all whom are different, but I always stay stagnant, regretful, sorrowed by the years that pass me by. “ - Rupert Vanderboom

"When the world is fallin', mate, we gotta rise.” - Matilda Blight

“ I was just a woman 'a the streets, looking after her two boys, wonderin' why life didn't love me enough ta give me shelter under her wings, and as I clutched at the stars with human fingers and a will ta live breathin' in me heart, I knew that perhaps, life didn't need to love me, for me to love her. “ - Matilda Blight

“ Janette is a beautiful and war torn soul, and I hope that as I hold 'er hand she feels a little less cold, a little more human then she did all those years ago, livin' under the shadow of mercy. I love 'er, ya know, when she first pressed her lips against mine, or our skin collided in tangled sheets and a bed of roses, I knew wot love was, and I knew I'd always wan' it. “ - Matilda Blight

“ I sit in a lake of ice, the crowd gasping at the man who froze, and as I sink into the depths of my rage, I know that perhaps, this beast is all that I can ever be. “ - Maxadon Destodel

“ I'm swinging from this noose of my rage, wondering why it won't snaps and let me breathe for a single second, and as I lose myself to the anger that seethes like death in my veins, I know that all who come to know me must see a beast swimming in my eyes. All except for her. I met her in a pinewood forest, wondering if it was perhaps, Heaven I had found after all my years spent living in a Hell I call earth. She dabbed at my wounds gently, telling me that all would be okay, just listen to the gentle hums of nature, and a strange sense of peace I'd never known washed over me. But as I was ripped from her by ghosts wearing white lab coats and needle prodded gums, I knew that I would never hold peace in my gentle fingers again.” - Maxadon Destodel

“ I'm a guilty man with ghost blood flowin' through his veins.” - The Sheriff

“I'm the reaper of my own heart, sittin' in the essence of death like a question no one should ask, and as I pull back the hammer of this old revolver, I know that death shall come for me one of these days, and I shall stand here, ready to face her as I have so many damn times. Ya see, death comes to you like a mistress, she sits there in a dress of feeble lies, but they look like shimmering truths. She stands like a lovely question you wanna answer, and as she places a finger on your cheek and kisses your scars, infecting them with the decay of vultures and crows, you know that you've died, and you can't do nuthin' to stop it at that point, for you're tangled in death's sheets, wondering why you can't escape the spider's web.” - The Sheriff

“ I pull back my hammer and put a bullet of fatal identities in my skull, death lulling me to sleep with gentle, boney fingers that force who I am to decay. “ - The Sheriff

“ My sister asked me who I am, once, and sadly, I'm just a ghost of who her brother was." - The Sheriff

#writer #characters #characterdialogue #author #writing

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my-funky-little-cowboy · 4 years

Text

@yeehawgust Day 18 Hell on Wheels

Characters: Arthur Morgan & Hosea Matthews Words: 2,592 Warnings: None [ ko-fi] || [ ao3 ]

“I think I see some lights up there on the road!” Arthur called out, excitedly.

They had been on the road for a few days and, despite it meaning he had gotten out of his chores, he was getting restless on the endless trek.

Hosea had thought it was about time for Arthur to get in on the plans now that he had turned twenty. In retrospect, now he wasn’t sure if this had been a mistake. The kid was a hard worker, but god forbid if he didn’t have something to do.

The sun had set a couple hours earlier and they hadn’t seen another soul since then. The temperature had dropped dramatically since the sun had gone down, but Hosea had insisted they push on, much to Arthur’s dismay.

“We should be coming up on Deadwood soon.” Hosea said. “We can stop there.” He pressed his heels into the horse’s side and pushed on.

“Deadwood? What’s that?” Arthur asked, following after him.

“You ain’t ever heard of Deadwood? Yeah...I guess you would have been a bit too young to remember the stories. It was a town that popped up when they found gold in the Black Hills.”

“There’s gold out here?” Arthur asked, his excitement building again.

“Yeah, maybe if you’re lucky you’ll stumble upon some and strike it rich.” Hosea smirked.

“You think?” Arthur spurred the old mare, galloping to catch up.

“No, Arthur.” Hosea sighed. “Not unless you want to go and work in some other fool’s mine. Even so, you won’t be getting any gold from those hills.” He heard Arthur groan, but he didn’t speak anymore about it. They continued on into town in silence, Hosea occasionally glancing over to check on the young man.

He had grown up so fast the last couple years, Hosea had a hard time imagining that the man next to him had been that scrawny street urchin only a few years back. For one, he had gotten tall. Hosea had floated the joke about Arthur passing Dutch in height a few weeks back and it hadn’t gone over well. The kid also ate like a horse, which was to be expected, but it had been a long time since either Dutch or Hosea had been a boy and it had come as more of a shock to them than the ladies.

“He is a growing boy.” Bessie had pointed out one night after they had taken him in. Gently reminding Hosea that it wasn’t the boy’s fault, he couldn’t help his hunger any more than he was able to help his height.

“I know.” Hosea said, resigned, lacing his fingers between hers. “You ever think we would be parents?”

Her laugh was light and airy, she squeezed his hand gently. “Can’t say that this was how I envisioned it.” She laid her head against his shoulder, staring into the fire. “But I can’t imagine it any other way now.”

They had made the outskirts of the town, the cluster of tents were alive with reverie and music. The sounds of rail workers singing carried through the crisp fall air.

So the railroad is heading here next?

They continued into town, passing down the main stretch of road, Hosea slowing Hollyhock as they passed the saloon. “You get any better at cards?”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “You were always cheating.”

“Prove it.” Hosea laughed. “How about you head in there and see if you can stir anything up. I’m going to head down the street and see what else I can find.”

Arthur pulled back on the reigns turning his old mare off to in front of the saloon and jumped down. “You comin’ back this way, or should we meet somewhere?’

“I’ll be back a little later, don’t start anything.” Hosea warned.

“I won’t!” Arthur called over his shoulder, waving him away.

He pushed through the saloon doors, a number of patrons glanced up momentarily at the newcomer before returning to their drinks and conversation. He surveyed the room, seeing a lively game of blackjack in the corner as well as a group playing five finger fillet near the back of the bar.

Sauntering over to the bar and leaned heavily against the wood, knocking his knuckles on the bar to get the barkeep’s attention.

“Could I get a whiskey?”

The bartender glanced quickly at Arthur, before gesturing politely to the patron in front of him.

“A dollar.” The bartender grumbled, placing the glass roughly on the bar, he filled it.

“A dollar?! Shit, just leave the bottle.” He shelled out a handful of coins from his satchel and dropped them onto the bar.

The man behind the bar scowled and left the bottle, sweeping the coins up as he left. Arthur tipped his hat cheekily at him and threw back the shot before grabbing the bottle from the bar and pushing back into the crowded room.

He lifted the bottle to his lips, taking a long swig from it, the whiskey burned his throat, settling into his stomach. The warmth spread through him and he stumbled his way to the card table, exaggerating his drunken swagger.

“T’seat taken?” He slurred, dropping into the empty chair before anyone could oppose.

The man’s eyes moved from Arthur to the bottle and back to the young man’s face, giving him a predatory smile.

“Nah.” He growled. “Game’s Blackjack. You ever play, boy?”

Arthur prickled at his words, but held his tongue, taking another swig from the bottle and slamming it back onto the table.

“‘Course” He slurred, sloppily digging into his satchel and pulling a handful of coins out, scattering them onto the table.

The man huffed out a laugh and slid the chips across the table to him “Alright, kid. Let’s play.”

He picked up the deck, shuffling them deftly in his hands, Arthur made a chip dance through his fingers, waiting for the deal.

“Place your bets, gentleman.” The dealer placed the deck back onto the table. The players slid their chips onto the table, each looking around at each other as they laid out their bets.

“Bets are in, let’s get this started.”

The dealer laid out the cards, and Arthur looked down at his hand, fifteen. He groaned internally, looking over at the dealer’s showing card...a King. He glanced at the other players hands, all generally low, the highest being a seventeen.

If I bet this time they might underestimate me going forward, Hosea always bets on fifteen.

The other players made their moves, each standing below twenty and the dealer came to Arthur

“I’ll take another.” He said, the dealer flipped the card, and Arthur held his breath.

“Nineteen.” The dealer called.

Arthur smirked and waved his hand over his cards to stand. The dealer’s eyes narrowed and he flipped his card.

“Dealer shows thirteen.” He flipped a card, “eighteen,” flipping another card, “bust.”

“Yeah, that’s how we do it.” One of the other players shouted, as Arthur looked over the other cards sitting on the table, committing them to memory as the dealer paid out the winnings.

They continued to play, Arthur making sure to keep the bottle at his side, taking long drawls from the bottle but only occasionally letting the liquid pass his lips.

He counted the cards he knew to be left in the deck, as the next hand was dealt. His eyes moved across the other players cards, all checking out against the list of remaining cards. The dealer turned down his card and Arthur’s breath caught in his chest. He looked up at the dealer, rage bubbled in his gut and his eyes burned into the dealer.

He’s cheating, but if I call it out he’ll know I was counting cards.

The hand played out, the dealer knocking out two of the other players, pulling the last of their chips across the table. The men spewed a variety of obscenities as they pushed back from the table. Arthur pretended to take another swig from his bottle, eyeing the dealer as the three remaining players put their bets down. Arthur sliding a large number of chips across the table, kicking up his act.

“Les make things more interessin’.” He slurred, knocking the chips over as he pulled his hand back, scattering them into the discard pile and pushing it over, revealing the majority of the faces. “Oh shit...” He chuckled, “...that was mighty clumsy of me.”

The dealer quickly righted the discard pile, but not before Arthur noticed the other missing face cards, his face a frown of disapproval.

“It’s fine.” He growled and picked up the cards, beginning to deal the next hand. ”Just be more careful.”

Arthur winked at him and tipped his hat clumsily.

The cards were laid out, and again another previously used card sits face up in front of the dealer. Arthur felt the warmth from the whiskey beginning to take control, merging with the anger from the dealer cheating, he frowned at the hand, ignoring his own. The dealer moved down the line of players, each staying at various numbers under twenty.

“You just gonna sit there, or you gonna play?” The dealer’s voice broke Arthur from his thoughts.

“Hit.” He growled without even looking down at his cards.

“You sure?” The dealer asked, pulling a card from the deck and holding it low above the table.

“Hit. Me.” His voice was icy as his eyes locked with the dealer. The dealer shrugged and tossed the card down in front of him.

“Twenty-one.” The dealer exclaimed, a confused look spread across his face for a flash before it was replaced with aggravation.

Arthur’s lips curled into a dangerous smile and the dealer flipped his card. The cards showing a Blackjack.

“Push.” The dealer hissed, his eyes narrowing on Arthur. Gathering the chips from the other players, he slid the cards out from in front of Arthur and dropped them onto the discard pile. Looking back up to Arthur as he picked the deck back up to deal again.

“That was some impressive luck, boy, you play cards a lot?” The dealer tossed a card in front of him, his voice dripping with poison.

“Frequently enough, I s’pose.” All traces of drunkenness disappearing from his voice and his free hand moved slowly to the revolver at his side.

“And yet you have to cheat.” His fingers snapping down the second card in front of Arthur.

“That is a big accusation, friend.” Arthur bit back and the other players shuffled uneasily, each reaching for their own weapons. The tension at the table reached its peak and Arthur clicked back the hammer of the revolver in his lap.

The dealer smirked as he sat back, waving his hands, palm up, across the table for them to continue the game. “Well, if it ain’t true, then let’s play.”

The men at the table looked between themselves, then to Arthur. The click of the hammers made him break his gaze with the dealer, glancing quickly to the side, before looking back to the table.

The cards sat there, mocking him, the dealer’s hand showing another of the cards from the discard pile. The anger bubbled over again and he slammed his fist on the table, the chips shuttering with the impact.

“Why don’t you get off your high horse, you’ve been cheatin’ all night!” He pushed up from the table. The two men beside him jumped to their feet, pulling their guns from their holsters.

The dealer pushed himself back from the table, fumbling for his own gun. “Hey now! The hell you talkin’ about?!”

“You’re giving yourself cards from the draw pile!” Arthur gestured to the discard pile with his gun. The men looked to the discard pile and back to the dealer.

“Are you serious?” One of the men growled at the dealer. “You’ve been cheating you damn bastard!” He waved his gun at the dealer who backed up further.

The saloon door swung open just as the cock of the shotgun silenced the room. Hosea stopped in the doorway, his eyes scanning the room. The bartender called out, cutting through the drone of the bar.

“Take it outside. Now.” He pointed the shotgun toward Arthur, motioning toward the back door.

Arthur glanced toward the bartender, keeping his revolver on the dealer. One of the players turned his gun on the bar and Arthur held up a hand as the man fired a round at the bartender.

Arthur spun around as the bullet smashed through a bottle behind the bar. Hosea ducked inside, pulling his pistol from the holster, his eyes locking on Arthur. The young man dove behind a support pillar as the bartender fired a blast from the shotgun toward the blackjack table.

The bar cleared out quickly as patrons made a run for the door, the dealer slipping out among the commotion.

“What the hell were you thinkin’?” Arthur shouted at the player. The bartender fired another round of buckshot toward the back of the room. He glanced around the pillar looking for the closest exit, his eyes meeting with Hosea’s in the door.

“Arthur!” Hosea shouted and waved for him to head that way.

The players returned fire on the bartender, flipping the card table and ducking behind it. Arthur looked back toward the exit, then toward the bar, the man had hid behind the bar to avoid the crossfire as he reloaded.

The shooting stopped and Arthur ducked out from behind the pillar, moving toward Hosea at the door. He waved Arthur to the door, keeping his eyes on the rest of the bar.

The men rushed into the street, the shooting starting up again in the saloon as they ran into the night.

“What the hell happened in there, Arthur?” The men ran down a side alley, stopping in the darkness.

“We were playin’ cards, and the dealer accused me of cheating!” Arthur started.

“Were you?” Hosea interrupted him.

“Just a little countin’ cards, nothing else. But that weren’t what started the shooting!”

Hosea sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “Then what did start it?”

“The dealer was cheatin’ too! And when I called him out--”

“Why would you call him out?”

“He called me a cheater!” Arthur exclaimed.

“Well, you were.” Hosea said flatly.

“Yeah but so was he, and when the other players found out it got real tense. Then the bartender told us to get out, and one of the other players took that at some offense. And well, I think you saw how that ended up.” Arthur rubbed the back of his neck.

Hosea sighed and whistled for the horses. “Let’s get out of here while we can, we don’t need any more trouble.”

They mounted up and rode out of town in silence, the sounds of the gunfight fading into the night. Hosea glanced over his shoulder at Arthur, slowing the horses as they disappeared into the dark trees and the last of the burning lights of the town vanished beyond the treeline.

“You okay?” Hosea broke the silence, his voice tinged with concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Arthur answered quietly. “Though I don’t think Deadwood is the town for us.”

Hosea chuckled and shook his head in the dark. “Yeah, those hell on wheels towns are full of crooks, thieves, and degenerates.”

“Sounds like our type of people.” Arthur deadpanned.

“But not the best targets.” Hosea waved his hand. “I’m just glad you’re safe. Now, let’s find some place to camp for the night.”

#yeehawgust #rdr2 #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #hosea matthews #pre-canon #hyde tries writing #late late late late #hyde rambles #text #text post

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isobel-thorm · 4 years

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Heyy so a while ago you said Ben Wade from 3:10 to Yuma was one of your favourite characters, do you want to talk about why? (he's my favorite too and I'm desperate for a conversation about him)

DO I EVER. Forgive the essay but again, he’s my fave character of all time so I Need To Yell. A Lot. I’ve been a slut for morally grey villains going on for twelve years now and I owe it all to him. This ain’t much of a “conversation” but I want to read any takes about this man as I can, so react, respond, whatever. I just... kinda went crazy here.

First and foremost, his sense of humor is fantastic. It’s super dry and subtle but it works. Secondly, “even bad men love their mama’s” is an iconic line that shows the line in the sand of his morality perfectly. There’s a reason it’s the trope-namer on TV Tropes. Third, this was the first movie I had seen where the villain was artistic and one of his main pastimes was drawing. Art is usually a Quiet Hero thing. There are thousands of villains that are artsy but it’s all dedicated to their presentation vs just a passing skillset. I guess that was his “Save the Cat” moment. For the last bit of the short general reasons: that psychological warfare against the rest of the group where he starts singing the song Tucker was singing to him mere seconds after killing him is still one of the most fantastic things I’ve ever seen.

Now the preachy character breakdown stuff: I love the complexity of his moral code. He doesn’t take any shit, if he doesn’t like you in the slightest or if you fuck something up for him, he’ll kill you- literally point-blank while looking you in eye while pulling the trigger. Guy sticks to his beliefs, alright, fine. But along comes Dan Evans and turns all of that on its head.

Dan has no idea who the Hell he is, and even when they’re acquainted, Dan doesn’t take his shit, and Ben clearly enjoys it because he’s not used to it. And then to boot when they’re finally in the station, Dan, who Ben wrote off as this Quiet, Stoic guy, makes a joke at his own expense and surprises Ben, and you can see the exact moment where Ben basically sells his soul to the guy.

Of course, the ending that sells it all and drives it home: Ben mentions he believes he’s evil/bad/ “rotten as Hell” with no hope of redemption and there’s no point to appeal to his better nature because it doesn’t exist- and then Dan, who’s earned his respect and admiration and heart, looks hopeless for the first time since they met, and Ben’s just “Well fuck, let me do this one Good thing for the one guy who’s earned it, it’s not like I’m gonna say in prison anyway.” And then shit goes down, which leads to:

^ This exact moment. All the development Dan helped him go through gets nailed home, and he does That to the people who worship him like a god, because they fucked with the one person Ben’s ever considered a genuine friend who just wanted respect and glory- something the Gang clearly holds in high regard. And then even when there’s an opening for him to leave, he gets on the train. Yeah, he whistles for the horse so the future escape is still planned, but he still made sure that Dan fulfills the duty he set out to do. He makes sure that Dan and his family is taken care of. Mr “Rotten as Hell” ain’t as rotten as he says he was just for this one single person, and that’s just... the best dynamic/personal standards I’ve ever seen.

Also now I’m wondering if that the brains behind RDR2 had this in mind any time Arthur insists that he’s an Awful Person.

#Anonymous #Ben Wade #long post #I'm so sorry for all this but I have A Lot of feelings about this bastard #I could make a longer essay if I wanted but these are the main bits #3:10 to Yuma

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nami-writes · 3 years

Text

Bittersweet Reunion - Watch Dogs: Legion [WIP]

(can you tell i had no clue what to name this)

so i wrote this after i played wdl and finished the finding bagley mission bc i loved that there was a canon mlm pairing and i thought the whole meeting bradley thing was Incredibly unsatisfying so i did this and originally i was gonna have bagley and arthur get back together but then it started writing itself and bagley wouldnt date arthur bc that’d go against his morals and i was like shit thats not what i planned but also i realized it was in character so this is that disaster lmao

“I’m ready for the rest of my life, Arthur. And I want you to be a part of it.”

The sixth audio file ended with what sounded like a kiss, and Lindsey had to pause to take it in. Bagley had really had a life— a lover. A lover he had to leave behind.

“Arthur… I should remember more about him. But I don’t.”

It sounded so rushed, so nonchalant, that Lindsey knew better than to believe his tone and even Bagley himself knew it. Because, truth was, he was processing the same things Lindsey was and more. He really was damned to eternity, being a human turned AI and all, because now he was experiencing quite a lot of thoughts and certainly not enjoying it. Where was Arthur now? Did he still remember him? Did he miss him? Why was Bagley even wondering if his not-boyfriend still missed him?

Some part of his human half wondered if it’s possible to find Arthur again, meet the person his past self was so deeply in love with that now he found himself longing for him too.

“Sir—”

“Don’t touch me!”

Bagley was pulled out of the thoughts growing less and less artificial by the second as the next audio file began, already far more emotionally charged than the ones prior.

“These people are here to help you, Bags—”

“Don’t call me that!”

He’s snappish and frustrated and angry and current Bagley could almost feel it too. There’s more struggling as Bagley— past Bagley— seemed to be fighting someone off.

“She did this! Someone stop her!”

‘She’ must’ve been Skye Larsen, who else could it have been? He wanted to hope Natalie would listen— just listen, goddammit, this was all Skye’s fault, don’t you know what she’s done?— but he knew it was no use. They didn’t know. Natalie didn’t know. Not a fucking soul knew what she did to him.

“Don’t hurt him! He’s not usually like this!”

“Get out of my head! Get o—”

His voice died out as more noise played, then an unfamiliar voice called for an ambulance.

“Bags. Bagley. Bra—”

And it ended there.

“I’m assuming that ‘she’ was Skye Larsen,” he said to Lindsey. “Seems like the usual suspect where brain fuckery is concerned.” As controlled as he usually was, not even he could keep the slightest bit of anger out of his voice by the end of his sentence.

The next audio file began with a man explaining that Bagley had early on-set dementia, which intrigued him because it didn’t explain when exactly Skye got her hands on him. Then the sister from prior audio files spoke with that same strangely familiar voice, just as demanding as before. “You listen to me. I don’t care what it takes. No brother of mine is going to waste away in some hospital.”

Something was wrong. There was a piece missing somewhere between those memories and he had an idea of where it could be found.

Skygarden.

“Why do I have a feeling we’re not up here to reminisce?” The audio began as Lindsey snapped the last photo.

“Right. I’ve been thinking a lot about your epilepsy.” The sister. Of course. He still couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but she sounded awfully familiar, but not in a good way. In a this-person-has-the-same-name-as-my-primary-school-bully way.

“That’s nice. My doctors stopped thinking about it years ago. I had to give up so much because of it. Rowing, my mates, my…” A sigh followed after he trailed off and he had a feeling that that sigh replaced the word ‘boyfriend.’

“I’m sorry, Bradley.” Bradley. That name sounded familiar. Come to think of it, that must’ve been what Natalie called him in the seventh audio file just before it cut off. He supposed it sounded familiar because, well, it is— was— his name, but there was something more to it. He just couldn’t figure out what. He ran a quick search for Bradleys in London, but of course that left him with thousands of Bradleys and not a single clue as to how to filter out the useless ones.

“Wow. Look at you using my real name for once. I must be truly fucked.” Fucked was an understatement. How did he go from a human to nothing more than an AI? It wasn’t that he was unhappy as an AI, especially considering he worked for DedSec and they were wonderful, they really were, but to think he was once human…

“What if I told you I had something that could work?”

Something deep inside of him that vaguely resembled a computerized heart dropped at those words. He had a bad, bad feeling about this.

“Ha. Never knew you were funny.”

But Skye Larsen created him, didn’t she?

“I’m not. It’s a tech we’re developing. It’s early stages, but… have you ever heard of neural mapping?”

“No.” No, it couldn’t be.

“Here. Let’s go to my lab. I’ll show you.”

Who was this sister?

“Lead the way, Skye.”

And the audio ended.

“I was Skye Larsen’s brother.” It was strange to say out loud. “I’m Bradley. Bradley Larsen.” That was why she sounded so familiar. That was why Skye Larsen was his creator. Fuck. “Bradley Larsen…” He returned to his search for Bradleys and narrowed it down to one Bradley Larsen, brother of Skye Larsen, son of Sinead and Kevin Larsen. “I’ve found a room pre-paid through to April 4, 2040 under the name of Bradley Larsen— paid for by S. Larsen.” Skye.

“So you might still be alive,” Lindsey said. “Where’s the room?”

He checked his databases. “St. Pancras Hotel.”

And when she arrived, it was no less than what he expected, if less than what he wanted.

He left not quite satisfied.

But what else could he do? His father was gone and his mother and sister were dead. He checked his deep profiler and found Natalie through Bradley, but it seemed she was dead as well. And then— Arthur Jenkins, former spouse.

“I think I’ve found Arthur from the sixth audio file,” he said. “Mind getting him for me?”

“Say the word, Bags,” Lindsey said.

He found his schedule and looked for his soonest outing. “He’ll be at Crosier & Cherry Tree at 8 PM.” There was a tinge of sadness in his voice at the location that they both decided to ignore.

He checked the rest of Arthur’s profile, too curious to resist. His photo was attached. To his surprise, Arthur was a curly-haired ginger. Apparently Bradley had known more people with no souls than just Skye Larsen. Age 29, worked as a bartender at Crosier & Cherry— that was why he’d be there. Associated with Melissa Phillips, friend; Natalie Walker, deceased friend; and Bradley Larsen, former spouse. Metadata… looking through it could’ve broken his heart if he had one.

He had countless searches involving dementia up until he was 28 and had hundreds of recorded visits to St. Pancras Hotel, Bradley’s room. Hundreds of visits that, when he accessed the records, seemed to just… stop. Daily-to-weekly visits simply vanished into none. Numerous phone calls to Skye Larsen that Bagley could only assume were angry and accusational because he was charged for harassment due to a complaint from Skye on the same day he stopped visiting.

He tried. He really tried, and then Skye fucked it all up like she always does.

“Bagley, I’ve found him.” He turned his attention to Lindsey’s Optik and, sure enough, he could see the ginger in the photo through the glass window. “Want me to bring him back to the Hackerspace?”

He considered it, but bringing him back would’ve meant involving the others. This was just a one-time thing. “No, just— could you get him somewhere I could talk privately with him?”

“Sure thing.” He watched as she entered the pub and approached Arthur at the counter.

“‘Ello, mate, what can I get for you?” he asked, uncannily cheery with a smile on his face. Something told Bagley this should’ve made him feel… something, but he felt not even a twinge of recognition from anywhere other than the photo on his digital profile.

“I’m here to talk to you, actually,” Lindsey said.

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow and took a second to look her over a second time, his customer service smile fading into skepticism. “Do I know you?”

“No, but I know someone you do. Mind if we talk somewhere else?”

He shrugged. “S’pose not. Better get it on with, then, I’ve got to get back to work.”

Shit. Time was running out and they were already heading to a back room and Bagley hadn’t a fucking clue what to say so when he was cast onto the nearest unwatched telly before Lindsey left, all he could think to say was “Hello, Arthur.”

And then there was a silence where Bagley was internally cursing himself for being such a bloody idiot and Arthur looked like either he was about to drop to his knees in awe or he had shit himself. And then he broke the silence.

“Bradley?” His eyes were lit up with hope, hope Bagley knew he’d have to destroy because he wasn’t Bradley, not really. But he’d worry about that later.

“Oh, Gods, that’s going to be my version of Bradley’s stupid nickname, isn’t it? Though, if you ask me, Bagley is a perfectly good name,” he remarked. He had no idea how to properly handle a situation in which he was meeting the lover he had in a past life, so, naturally, he reverted to his usual self. Arthur was in love with him before, he can put up with him again.

Arthur chuckled, cracking a smile. “Now I know you aren’t Bradley. He hated that nickname.” He took another moment to comprehend what just happened. “But, really, how? How are you— what are you? What is” —he gestured vaguely at the TV screen— “this?”

“That’s a funny story, actually, see—”

“Bradley,” Arthur interrupted him, his smile turning solemn. “I’m serious. Last time I saw you, you were in a bloody wheelchair! What happened to you?”

There was another silence where Bagley tried to think of something ‘serious’ to say, but his actual response felt much more natural to him.

“Don’t call me that,” he said, a feigned grumble but unseen smile in his voice, “that’s not my name.”

And at that, not even Arthur could keep a straight face, but his smile didn’t last long. “Bags. Please. I need answers. I was so sure it was that bitch Skye— sorry, I know she’s your sister and all, but— I spent so long searching for ways to help you and trying to get her to fucking stop— you only ended up in the bloody hospital after she got involved and then she wouldn’t let me keep seeing you and I couldn’t—” His voice broke then and he had to pause, clear his throat and collect himself. “I’m sorry, I tried, I didn’t want to stop visiting. I really didn’t. I’m sorry.”

Bagley didn’t know how to tell him it was all in vain; Skye won in the end, she always did, and he didn’t even remember being Bradley or knowing Arthur at all. As far as he remembered, he’d only known Arthur for five minutes.

“Bagley?”

“It doesn’t matter.” There was no use in prolonging it.

“...What?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated. “I’m not Bradley.”

“Are you mad? Of course you’re Bradley.’

“No, I’m not. Bradley is still in St. Pancras. I’m Bagley.”

Arthur gave a confused chuckle and crossed his arms. “What are you talking about?”

“It was Skye,” he finally said. “It’s a long story, really, but in simpler terms, she tried to fix Bradley’s epilepsy through a process called neural mapping. It essentially separated his consciousness from his body, which gave him dementia and took my human body. I’m his consciousness, but I’m not him.”

Arthur didn’t respond. He seemed to still be processing what he’d just heard.

“And I’m sorry to say, but my memory was wiped not long after my creation. I don’t… remember anything about being Bradley.” He paused. Arthur knew what that meant, and he knew that his next sentence was going to confirm it. “I don’t remember anything about you.”

Arthur took far longer to respond than Bagley would’ve liked. “So you’re—” He stopped. “So Bradley’s really gone.”

“Unfortunately so.”

More silence. “Then why are you here?”

That was a good question, actually. Why was he here?

“I suppose I came to say goodbye,” Bagley said. “Give you some closure on Bradley, so you know what happened. I know you two were quite close.”

He scoffed. “Close is an understatement.” His voice softened. “We were going to get married,” he said. “At least, I think we were. If Skye hadn’t gotten involved— if I’d only had the time— I was going to propose. Had a ring in mind and everything. I’m fairly sure Bradley knew, too. I just wanted us to have that one thing before… before it was too late.”

Bagley had to take a second to let it sink in. In a past life, he’d almost gotten married. How much had he missed out on as a human because of Skye? His voice was solemn as he spoke, a first for him. “I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be.” Arthur offered no elaboration before something else seemed to cloud his mind. Silence seemed to be something both of them were good at. Bagley considered directly asking what was on his mind, but Arthur spoke before he could decide. “Can I ask something of you?”

“Ask away. I’ve only got the rest of my non-life.”

“...Could we try it again?” he asked, hesitation in his words. At Bagley’s confused silence, he uncrossed his arms, a willing show of vulnerability. “I mean, could we try… us, again? I know you don’t remember anything about me or Bradley and you’re not Bradley, I know that, but— maybe something good could come out of it. Maybe— maybe we could still have something.”

“You want us to…” He trailed off, thinking it over. By ‘something,’ he meant a relationship, but— could he be in a relationship? He was still an AI. He wasn’t Bradley. He wasn’t even attracted to Arthur. Hell, he wasn’t even sure he could feel attraction, if that was built into his operating system. Everything in him wanted to say no, it would never work out. An AI taking part in human affairs was a recipe for disaster.

“We could start from the beginning,” Arthur added, as if he knew what Bagley was thinking before he even said it. “I know you don’t really know me so we can start out just friends, nothing more. We can take it as slow as you want and if you decide there’ll never be anything more, we can just stay as friends if that’s what you’re comfortable with. But if you think there can be more, we can try that.”

It was tempting, but… Arthur was still human. And Bagley was not. “Arthur, I’m not sure I was made for this.”

“Then let’s find out,” he said. “I’m okay with anything you are.”

“No, I mean I’m not sure I was made to feel attraction. I believe that’s a fairly important part of relationships,” Bagley said with a hint of humor in the last sentence, though it disappeared by the next. “I’ve never felt that way toward anyone and I’m not sure you’ll be an exception.”

He sighed. “Bags. It doesn’t matter to me whether you like me as a friend or as a boyfriend. What matters is whether or not you’re comfortable with me. I didn’t fall in love with your attraction. I fell in love with you.”

“You fell in love with Bradley,” he corrected. “Not me.”

Regardless of how tempting the offer was and how curious he was to see the extent of his human capabilities, it’d only be an experiment. A trial run of a relationship with someone who was only willing because he was still attached to the person Bagley no longer was. It would be cruel to take advantage of Arthur’s hope for his own curiosity— no different from what Skye did to Bradley. He might’ve had his human body stripped from him, but he still had his humanity.

“Arthur, I’m not Bradley,” he said. “And I know it’s hard to accept, but I can’t be the person you want me to be.”

#wdl #wdl fanfic #unfinished writing #writing #fanfic #wdl bagley

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