#oc: tatiana

[basilone]

She is staring at the painting above the hearth when they enter the room. Her head is tilted as if she is observing the artist’s details, but there is a mild frown at play on her face that seems at odds with the standard look of any art admirer. Rather, her hands are on her hips as though she is fully prepared to quarrel with either artist or painting. There is no gun on her hip. No rifle hanging off her shoulder, either, and Ron highly doubts those threadbare boots of hers conceal any weapon of note. Unarmed. Unarmed and alone. Her frown deepens as she turns on her heel to face them fully. Her chin lifts when she salutes – rigid, measured, perfect – but even at this distance he can see a potential storm at work behind her eyes. She does nothing to soften her gaze as she looks at each of them in turn. Her glance at him is nothing more than a swift once-over, which feels rather like he is being measured and found wanting. If he didn’t know better, he would say that she’s here to start another war.

Introducing Soviet Army officer Tatiana Ilyinichna Petrova from my WIP The Burning House, which is a post-war adventure that begins in 1940s Austria and tracks Ron Speirs's life to 1950s Berlin and beyond.

[pink-limonadart]

Shoot 'em up!

[kaylocia]

ocs

[writtenbytyvani]

On another day she had chosen to wander the castle, Tatiana decided to open doors she hadn’t seen behind yet, curiosity driving her. She found broom closets, cupboards, entrances to the servants hallways that she had not used, herself, yet…

Then Tatiana came upon a storage room in an out of the way part of the castle, one that was seldom tread by the court or the staff. Sheets of cloth covered a number of old furnishings and boxes full of old garments and trinkets. The Queen pulled the sheets away to see the things hidden beneath, finding a particularly lovely music box stashed away in a forgotten, dusty corner. Another sheet revealed a dress form sized for someone she couldn’t put a finger on, given the somewhat unique body proportions. Yet another sheet revealed a number of paintings she had never seen before, and she pulled a few out to see what beauties had been hidden: A scene of a central town square, a forest grotto, an old portrait of Lucian in regal attire. Though there was a different name identifying the figure, she recognized her husband clearly. Another painting showed him with someone else.

Tatiana paused.

It was Serena. She was younger, but she could see it. Tatiana’s face fell, and she moved onto the next painting, only to find a portrait of Serena by herself, dressed in beautiful silks and bearing the Queen’s crown upon her head. The same crown that belonged to Tatiana.

Behind that was another portrait of Lucian and Serena together, and behind that was a portrait of a few different women she didn’t recognize in the same crown, then more again that she did recognize. Tatiana pulled out one painting after another, many of them hidden in different stacks, but each and every one had the exact same crown and each and every one of them had a portrait together with Lucian. Too many were of people she didn’t have a name to, but had to guess were the ones who did not choose Lucian’s offer of immortality. Tatiana knew that records of them still existed, but they were almost never spoken of by Lucian’s curated consorts.

Creeping up into her heart was the whispering demon eating at the hole there. She couldn’t help but chastise herself for knowing already that she was not Lucian’s first love, or even merely his first Queen. But there was something else to it. Something that wondered why these few were never discussed.

Is that why it pained her to see this?

Perhaps it was the quiet desolation of the storage room, far from where anyone would expect to find her, but she sat down on one of the old sofas and stared distantly at one of the nameless queens’ paintings until tears rolled down her cheeks.

Did any of the others wonder where she was? Why they might not find her? Was there really a point in her being Queen when every one of Lucian’s other unliving wives were just as capable? What purpose did Tatiana really serve beyond just a figure to stand and make things in the castle appear normal? What purpose did Tatiana truly serve at Lucian’s side?

There was no need for her. None at all. In fact, this only cemented a growing thought within her: She was going to be replaced.

Had she been so foolish? So truly in love with Lucian that she just ignored it? Pushed it all away until there was nothing but her and Lucian’s affections? And once his affections left her, what was she left with?

Sure, the others were not bad company, but they were not hers. They belonged to Lucian just as much as she did, and they craved Lucian’s attention far more than they did hers. Tatiana was the strange, lonely child, reading books, playing with dead insects, and admiring dead squirrels. Her favorite pet was a reanimated dog, and her closest friends were merely her parents.

The thoughts swirled and swirled around her in the darkness of the room, and Tatiana had no idea how much time had passed until her eyes flicked over to the diminishing candle, barely a couple inches tall now. The woman stood and wiped the drying tears off of her cheeks, put the paintings and furniture back where they had been, and crept over to the door, listening for the absence of people on the other side before slipping out and returning to the rest of the castle.

She slept in her bed that night, alone until Lucian surprised her by asking to sleep with her. She pulled the covers away to let him in and buried her face in his cool chest. The woman did not say anything, made no sign of her upset beyond her desire for comfort, and Lucian merely pet her hair as they fell asleep together.

In the morning, Tatiana rose before him, and laid in bed watching him for a while, wondering what she should do. She had truly fallen in love with him, and had been so happy to enter into this relationship with him. He was beautiful, kind, caring, and wise in ways she wasn’t. He wanted a large and flourishing kingdom, and knew well how to balance keeping the people happy and in line. When people came to him with problems, he was determined to solve them to the best outcome. He was cunning and charming, and while he knew just how to convince the few humans who knew his secret to not let it out, the people actually cared about him in return because he cared about them.

Lucian was magnificent. One of a kind, in Tatiana’s eyes.

But she would be pushed aside before she knew it, and whatever distance was growing between them already would pull them further and further apart.

And Lucian was perfectly willing to let it happen. Lucian knew this, expected it. It was all a part of his grand scheme to outlive every other ruler around him and slowly, but surely, expand his kingdom.

Lucian knew. Lucian knew he would push Tatiana aside one day for another. Take the crown from her and give it to someone else. Take what was left of her life and keep her as part of his collection forever.

Lucian knew.

So Tatiana had to, as well.

The Queen slipped out of her bed and started her morning with a bath, then a meal, and then when Lucian still wasn’t awake, she playfully teased him by tickling his face with his hair.

“Wake up, Lushenska…!”

After a moment, he awoke with a smile, and they exchanged a sweet kiss before Tatiana said she’d meet him in the Council Chambers. The Queen moved through the day with a new thought in her mind, one that she had to hold close. She played her part the same as always, and when Lucian, as expected, parted ways with her to visit one of his lovers for the evening, Tatiana took his hand, kissed the back of it, and told him to enjoy himself.

If she would spend her evenings without her husband, then so be it. But she would be damned if she would have her power taken from her while he got to keep his.

[cowardlykrow]

Owen → Cringe gays [affectionate] → Wife

[cowboy au]

[evita-shelby]

A Dull Party

Aka Eva/reader gets invited to the russian orgy and tommy gets pegged fic

Tommy x Eva/reader x Tatiana Petrovna

Cw: smut, nudity, unhealthy lifestyles, debauchery, a threesome, male receiving anal, pegging

Mdni/ 🔞

When he confessed to having considered sleeping with May, he should’ve known you wouldn’t just deny him sex until you felt better about it.

Tommy had seen the new lingerie and assumed you’d add salt to the wound by prancing around in it to remind him of your one rule.

If you fuck a whore, I will fuck a man before I leave. You hurt me, I will hurt you worse, Thomas Shelby.

This you had vowed with your hands wrapped around his prick to get your point across.

You promised him the world at a very low price, monogamy.

Easy, he’d been monogamous before. Greta had been the only woman he’d ever been loyal to until he met you.

And until he found himself alone with May lying about his marital status when she assumed he was unmarried, Tommy had never considered betraying you like that.

He hadn’t done it; he’d almost done it before you called telling him Arthur and Michael had been arrested and framed for Billy Kitchen’s murder.

You hadn’t known until you got it out of him when Tatiana Petrovna set her sights on you.

“The Duchess invited me to the orgy you neglected to tell me about, honey.” Your falsely sweet tone tells him he’s going to sleep in a guest room tonight. “Imagine my fucking surprise when I learned it from the Russian twat, dear husband of mine.”

“And have them leer at you and paw at you all night, I’m there for business, not pleasure, Evie.” He responds reminding you he doesn’t share either.

“So, am I, do you think you’re the only one of us involved in this mess?”

It’s not the end of the trouble, it is merely the beginning.

All the jokes die when the Russians demand you undress just as John and Arthur had.

Tommy’s this close to taking the offered vodka and making a poor man’s bomb out of it when she kneels and takes the knives in your garters sensually.

You keep your eyes on him with a wicked red smile as the Duchess continued her show, thinking you have a boring sex life.

The sapphire always looks better nestled between your bare tits, something he knows better than the affluent people here. If they knew the sort of games the two of you play, they’d throw a better party.

“Such beauty, you cannot even tell she gave him two children already.” The duchess caressed you, playing with your nipples and forcing everyone to see how she turned you on with the finesse of a maestro.

“These may stay on for now.” The mad woman reached the too short knickers made entirely with see through tulle and lace. “She won’t need them later, right, Mr. Shelby?”

Temptation in the flesh, so tempting Tommy briefly considers fratricide when his brothers are forced to see what only belongs to him.

They’re only half-joking, he’d told Arthur. This was a test of his commitment to the cause, a fucking cause he knows isn’t worth the money they’re getting.

“Your orgy would have been a failure if I didn’t lose every stitch of clothing, your grace. The last orgy I attended left me in such a state I left with one of my conquest’s underwear.” You answer for him driving the Russians’ attention back to you, you love being naked, a thing he only enjoys when it’s just for him.

Tommy has no idea if you are shitting with him, or you were as crazy as these fuckers are.

Both, your smile says, always both, darling.

You have not seen this sort of debauchery since you hosted a drug and alcohol fueled orgy during the summer solstice of 1918 to celebrate the Xochipilli and Xochiquetzal.

Of course, yours was much more tasteful and none were coerced, underpaid, and mistreated servants. No wonder the Communists were so thorough in their takeover.

The people stare and try to get your attention, but Tommy stakes his claim on you by refusing to let you wander away no matter what Tatiana tries.

“Once you marry a Shelby, you belong to them until you die.” Tommy said and the duchess believes him.

“The more the merrier then.” She said with that mad look in her eyes and allows you to dress again.

You’ve met people like her, drunk on their power and money until they die in a crash of pretty glass and blood on the cobblestone below a high balcony. In fact, you had aspired to be the beautiful and tragic creature dead on the ground.

But now your eyes have opened and the dense fog in your head has cleared.

And now that you’ve arrived at the stronghold with the jewels, you are even less impressed by these parasites with worthless titles.

“Couldn’t trust me to be professional, eh, Shelby? Had to bring your posh wife too?” Alfie is more interesting than the phony jewels they’ll offer.

“Oh, Mr. Solomons, can’t call it a party unless I am here, and I won’t be leaving until I get another Fabergé egg for my collection and have a good fuck in this dull party.” You bare your teeth through your smile, already tasting their fear in the air as they present you with paste instead of stone.

They just had to ask, didn’t they?

“It’s quite dull, much like the jewels, I am afraid. My husband won’t let me fuck anyone but him and now perhaps I shall punish him to be bored with me, dearest Tatiana.” You say lounging in only your tiny drawers and the sapphire now accompanied by a gaudy paste thing they tried to pass off as real.

“Might make an exception to share him with you, if you show me something that will make it worth the new lingerie.” You are resting your naked legs on your husband’s lap as you eye Tatiana, knowing exactly how you will get the night you came here for.

She wants to fuck your husband; all people want to. You don’t share, your selfish and spoiled ways from before the war have never left and you don’t plan to leave them now.

Now you were shown the only good place for an orgy in this old shell of a house.

The private chapel in all its glory.

Nothing gets you wet like mocking the god in whom you do not believe.

“Better?” the unhinged Russian noblewoman says as she shut the door behind the three of you.

And it was.

“Haven’t fucked a woman since ’18, and my dear husband refuses my offer of adding one to the mix, you know. Thinks I might leave him for her if he does.” A lie, Tommy just thinks it’s a test of his loyalty.

“And would you?” Tatiana asks, dark eyes glittering in the candlelight as you take the initiative and show your husband this is a one-time offer only.

One night to give into their fantasies with the Russian twat and leave him in a state where he will be glad you don’t share.

“Women are too wet for me; men are so nice and dry.” You giggle and pull her into a kiss relishing the way your husband looks on to this sordid entertainment.

Been so long since you’ve tasted lipstick and felt the softness of a woman against you. If the night ends better than it began, you might consider letting Tommy add May or even whichever woman crosses his path next have one taste of heaven before you send them to hell.

“Have you ever fucked a man like man fucks a woman, Mrs. Shelby?” the story of the priest in Tsibli forgotten in her need to appear much more interesting than you, who are nothing more than another dime a dozen wife.

Oh, how wrong she is, but you let her interest you as she reaches for a box holding the most beautiful set of dilators, carved to look like the real thing and one even resembled Tommy’s cock.

Even better it came with the harness you’d tried in Mexico, the one that let a woman fuck another with the wooden cock. A thrilling thing, the reversal of power where you are given the position of a man.

Something you have been dying to try out with Tommy after you discovered you were not the first to explore his asshole.

There is a clear no in Tommy’s eyes, but if this business were to go without a hitch, especially now that Tatiana wanted to change things up for the thrill of it, they must go along with it.

“I’ll be gentle, I promise.” You say repeating the words he told you when he convinced you to let him fuck your ass. You had enjoyed it, you were far more adventurous in bed than him, and those few times he wanted to do something different were never disappointing. “You can even fuck her to your heart’s content in exchange for this one little measly gift, my love.”

He nods as if he ever had a chance to say no.

Maybe if you hadn’t opened your wicked mouth the two of you would be pretending erotic asphyxiation was new and exotic. But you had and now you feel your toes curl at just the sight of Tommy fucking Tatiana against the prie-dieu and his most sacred hole exposed to your devilry.

Nothing you’ve done before can ever match up to this, you think as you fuck your husband as he rails the woman no longer speaking English at the merciless pace you’ve set.

A religious experience in every sense of the word.

“We’re never doing this again.” Tommy vows in Romani as you leave the place wearing someone else’s dress and the mink coat Tatiana gave you in exchange for your diamond encrusted knives.

“And we won’t, I promise.” You say knowing you’ll receive a perfect replica of Tommy’s cock and a harness tailored to your measurements once the Duchess leaves for Austria with her cut of the money.

[harperonni]

Lill sketch of Boris and his daughters, Tatiana and Putunia

[aloharyda]

Butches are for kissing. As well as being extremely useful for when you need to smudge test lipstick.

[sovhina]

Finally posting my Romanus and my take on Alessa and Hadrian for The Golden Rose by @anathemafiction !! Which I highly recommended it’s so fun <33

[justrandomgrill]

I am insane. More attacks. I take no hostages

@lysterene

@cerimarii

@beetlebane

@dovehearts-blog

@spaghetti-trash

@lululeighsworld

@peachiehambo

@larachelledrawsfe

@lovehollyberry

@resident-cake-anon

@geummi

@toon-kirby

@emotiandon

@yulgurr

@ourovalley

[basilone]

I am summoning another fic from the groupchat vault today while I work on the prompts left in my inbox. 😊It's a little look at what the war has been like for Soviet captain Tatiana Petrova, only told through the lens of my god-chosen AU instead of the main fic this time. My fellow Speirs fans might enjoy the very clear nods to him here. 😉 As always, the AU is written in such a way that you do not need to know more beyond "certain gods choose certain soldiers, Speirs is chosen by War" — I strive to make my fics as accessible as possible! Warnings: mentions of graphic violence and death. (We're in Stalingrad for this one, after all.)

She’s losing the city.

It’s a knowledge that has sat in her chest for at least two barely-dark nights now. She’s felt the rush of it pound through her skull with every thunderclap of a bomb strike. There’s not a lot left in this rubble – skeletons of houses that harbor the decaying and the newly dead alike, gaping maws of craters where roads should never have ended – save for that feeling that it’s still a city, sprawled out from where she stands, stone and dirt as far as the eye can see.

And it isn’t hers to lose. Cities don’t do that. They don’t belong to anyone. It doesn’t matter that she knows every street of this section she’s been allotted. Doesn’t matter that she knows exactly how many steps she needs to take every time to move past the tallest skeleton house where death tends to loom in windowseats. (It’s forty-three steps, just like the year she thinks they’re in now, and every time she tries she knows that she’s only safe on step twenty-five when she can duck behind the remains of a bench.)

This city isn’t hers, but it might as well be. Who else remains here but she, allowing the rats to swarm her feet without screeching about it the way she might’ve done in some other life? (Where the sun was not a traitor and Sasha’s smile was not a photograph.) Who else draws breath in this city between one shelling and the next, between one shot and the other, between the tank that cannot move its turret and the carcasses of good intentions? (She’s not alone. There are others here. Sometimes, the streets ring out with song before the silence comes and chokes the air from her lungs.)

It doesn’t feel like it’s hers to keep. They fight for every room in every house. They fight for every street corner. For every alleyway. For every access point below the city, for every vantage point above it, for every route to the water that does not end with blood. They’re losing, they must be, because she’s in new rooms every time she blinks and she’s forgotten the taste of crystal clear water by now. (And they’re not losing, they’re not, because Katya’s exhale is sharp in the morning air and not a single bullet goes to waste. They’re not losing, they can’t, because Sergey moves rock and root to clear their path and then obstructs the way for those who’re following them. They are not losing this city, not while they are here, not while they share whatever food they find and rig the remains to be a trap for the hungry that come after they’ve gone.)

Lately, she’s been functioning on a breath and a prayer.

She’s tried to curb the latter. Tried to stomp it out, to quench its finicky flame, because there’s not a whole lot that gets done with prayer at all. Whatever she’s doing to it ��� protect us, she snarls, let us live – probably would be classified as demand instead of prayer. She bares her teeth the way wolves do, snap and lock around the panic of inhale-exhale, and offers her throat to the unseen and unheard. May you take me if you think me coward, she seethes, opening her enemy from sternum to throat just like the rabbits Kolya used to skin, but you owe me this fucking city and its fucking peace at this point.

She does not believe in bargaining chips. Does not buy into a truce, or a standoff, or any of the other things they call when they’re all too exhausted and night comes with too swift a foot. She doesn’t think she can cut a deal with a god at all, but there’s only so many breaths she’s got before the panic hits. (She knows it’s that. Can feel the fear of it tremble in her fingertips as she wrenches her knife free. Can feel the huff and puff of it in her lungs, too quick, too constricting. She doesn’t look at the glazed-over eyes of the dead and dying. Can’t meet them, not with the wellspring in the back of her mind that dares her to look and see come and see hear the squalling babe’s cry thunk boom splash –)

She’s alone now, or as alone as someone can be when they know exactly where their allies are and the crudely-drawn map before her tells her more of the story than she’d cared to know. There’s just her in this room, in this fucking cavern the enemy created for itself from the rubble of her houses in her city, and her throat’s parched with a scream that renders her belly full to bursting. (There have been rats here, too, and they’ve eaten and eaten and feasted long before her boots crushed the bones underfoot.)

She’s alone and her breath won’t leave her lungs.

Her hand bleeds around the rock she used to break through the glass casings. (Who puts glass casings in a war? Who makes the glass survive the shatter-bang of bullets?) There’s red drip-dropping onto the parchment, onto the paper and vellum and all the other things they used to tell stories on. Some of her strength is bleeding out of her as she stares at lines she does not understand, as a language she only knows to speak in garbled wartongue glares up at her from note after note.

There’s her tongue here, too, older than their scraps of paper. And thus it came to pass, she squints in the dim light, that the ancients revealed themselves from sea and mountain, hungering in the passageways…

“Fuck that,” she rasps out, recognizing the myth for what it is. Tucks the offending parchment in the same pouch where she keeps her gunpowder. If it survives, it will pass to Kolya who alone knows the chaos that resides within such matter. “Ghost stories. Fairytales. Sad lies to tell our children.”

There’s anger in her belly, coarse and seething, which twists in her lap like a viper’s pit and gleams darkly whenever she allows it to meet a semblance of light. Where will they reveal themselves now that this city is about to fall?

She blinks at the dark that sweeps into her space. Stares at the night that unfolds from the corners of the room, where the dead have met the living earth, and scatters all the light away from itself. There’s dirt in its scent, heavy with muck and grime and something utterly deathless that makes her drop her stone onto the floor. There are shards of dust in her wound that begin to bite and snap at her skin like the embers of a wildfire. Like termites eating their own. There’s ash on her tongue.

She blinks at the dark. The dark blinks back.

“Here,” it says. They say, for they are many. He says, for he is just one man. “Here will I reveal myself.”

“Vyyti, uyti,” she snarls back, voice cracking on the demand of get out, leave. Her eyes widen in a refusal to close for the encroaching dark. “You are not welcome.”

His head tilts. His eyes carry pinpricks of light that should not be warm, except they are and he must think her stupid if he thinks she will follow that. (There is no safety in the light. The light gets you killed. Fire murders, hope dies, the flicker of a flame is only good when attached to something that can raze the enemy to the ground. These things she knows. These things she has learned. She will not follow.)

“You called for me.”

He makes it sound simple. She doesn’t think it is. She huffs. Rolls her eyes for good measure. Tastes the iron twang of blood on her tongue when her head meets the stone wall behind her and she bites down on her lip to stop the dark from changing the colors around her to endless black.

“Any god, any relief,” she spits out, aiming the blood at him despite the gap between them. “Anything that lets me live.” Her laughter is sharp, biting, barking like that of the rabid dogs that have overtaken the river’s second bank. “You must be something desperate, nyet?”

“Not quite.”

Her eyebrow raises. “Everyone here is.”

“I am not everyone.”

“You are here, also,” she points out, rising to her feet soon after. The bones snap and crunch beneath her heel. “Desperate,” she hisses, viper’s venom coating her tongue in earnest now, “tricky, false. Preying on dead and dying, look at you, shadow to hopelessness. What kind of god is that, hm? What are you?”

“I thought you do not believe in gods, Tatiana Ilyinichna.”

“So did I.”

(And she doesn’t, still, though she’s seen the shining ones amid the enemy. She doesn’t, still, though this creature before her speaks her name like a caress and she has not given him such privilege. She doesn’t, still, because to believe is to know the war is lost.)

“I am here,” he says again.

“Congratulations. Now leave.”

“Not…”

“Not…?”

She stares him down, this man with darkness flitting around him, this creature with eyes like midnight, this abomination dressed in a soldier’s garb. Her blood drips from her hand. She’s certain at least one other wound reopened. The burns she sustained from that ill-fated run-in with that tank itch and scrape against her uniform. The hair on the back of her neck stands upright the longer she looks at him. Raises against her as though she were a cat being stroked wrong, as though it means to warn her.

Her sense of danger fled this city long ago. There is just fear now, stark in this room, stark everywhere she walks, and there’s the act of doing.

She walks up to this one, whom all the vellums around her call a god, and aims for its throat.

“There you are,” he says, from beside her this time, because her fist meets air and he moves the way shadows do before the midday sun eats them whole. “There is your fight.”

There’s hunger there, ravenous in the familiar syllables that flood his tongue and coat her language with something utterly foreign, and something that she thinks would’ve sounded like pride if Kolya or Sasha had spoken it. (Kolya never speaks these days. Sasha cannot speak, though she thinks she used to hear his voice in the trees before they burned too.)

“Fuck you,” she replies conversationally, turning and balling her fist anew. “I am not yours to judge.”

“No, you are not. You are mine to want.”

She steps back. Snaps like an animal that knows it is about to be wounded. “Gods don’t want. They take.”

“So let me,” he responds, smile gleaming like hers did in the mirror before she watched herself kill five grown men and a sniveling boy. “Let me take.”

“I do not even know what you are.”

“Don’t you? You, who sung me to life the moment you could speak? You, who took three pills every day to be rid of me?”

“I will eat them as soon as I find them,” she promises. Her voice does not waver, though of course she knows. She knows him. Knows this dark as well as she knows the sound of her own pulse. “You will fall back into shadow. You will not be in me.”

“I expect no less from you, Tatusha.”

“Do not speak that name!”

“Tatiana,” he corrects, so smoothly it is as though he has never uttered Sasha’s name for her at all. “I know your choices. It will only be for this time. For this battle, such as it is.”

“We are losing. I am losing my city.”

He inclines his head. “For now.”

“And you can change it?”

“No.” A beat. An offered hand. “You can. If you are, ah, something desperate.”

He sings in her blood. The dark swallows her, drapes itself around her shoulders like a second coat, turns and enters her wounds until she gasps and her hand jerks upward of its own volition. There’s nothing else to be in this world but desperate. There’s nothing else that remains of her, such as the fear is, such as her heart is also.

Something desperate.

Her hand closes around his. Around theirs. Around hers.

“Good,” says the dark-eyed woman with a voice that sounds like the rush of wings. “Let us begin.”

(Two years and some time to this day, she finally meets the man. He is tall like most of these Americans are, though far more unsmiling than those he is surrounded by, and he fills the room before she turns to greet him. His too-dark eyes barely linger on the patches of blood that still coat her uniform, nor does he seem surprised by the state of her boots or the absence of most of her hair. There’s something of her in the grace of his movements.

She’s alive through them. And she, being who she is, summons her desperation one more time and gives him war.)

[kaylocia]

stupid oc comic based off a tweet

[isablooo]

Tatiana of Crescențiu and the Undead Countess

[sneakyblinders]

this line of work pt 1

A/N: this will be part 1 of a few part mini series (read part 2 here!) featuring tommy and bee aka our darling couple <3 (keeping it as one part would've been far too long.) warnings: blood, violence, pregnancy, mentions of childbirth, angst, language, alcohol, tommy kissing women he shouldn't be. not canon. a part of my tommy & his darling wife au &lt;3 7.6k words. i take no credit for the gif!

1957

Tommy slammed his palms down on his desk, rage boiling in his blood. He walked to the front of his home office, towards the door. Several maids were dusting, conversing quietly between themselves. “Where the fuck is my wife?” he yelled. 

They looked at each other, panic coursing through their minds. “We’re not sure, Mr. Shelby, we haven’t seen her since this morning,” the older of the two said softly. 

“Well, go fucking find her and tell her to come here now!” he yelled, storming back into his office, slamming the door, making everything in this corridor of the Shelby Manor rattle. 

The maids scurried off down the halls, rushing to find Bee. They find her in the kitchens, elbow deep in kneading a loaf of bread. “Mrs. Shelby,” the younger maid said breathlessly. “Mr. Shelby is upset, he says he needs you immediately.” 

Bee’s brow furrowed, checking the time. Only ten thirty. What has happened. She goes to the sink and washes her hands. “We can have one of the bakers finish that, Ma’am,” the older maid said, eyeing the nearly finished dough. 

“No, no I’d like to finish it myself,” she tells them. “I love doing it. Thank you for finding me,” you tell them, throwing them a sympathetic smile. 

She makes her way down the halls to her husband's office and pushes open the doors. His face is red with anger, and by all the smoke in the room she guessed he’d gone through about three cigarettes in the time it took the maids to find her. 

He points a finger at Bee. “Why the fuck,” he starts, tone low and dangerous. “Would you keep something like this from me?” he asks, waving a piece of paper at her. 

Bee’s brow furrows, confused. “What is it?” she asks, not taking his meaning, not sure what he’s accusing her of not telling him. She tells him everything. 

“Don’t fucking play that with me!” he yells, slamming the piece of paper down. 

Her blood begins to boil, walking over to him and taking the piece of paper from his desk. Sloppy handwriting was scrawled on the page, a request for a meeting with the two of them, regarding your youngest daughter, Claire. It was signed by a “Paul Davidson”. “I don’t know who this man is,” she tells him, eyes wide. “What’s wrong, Thomas?” she asked him. His back is turned to her. 

He whirls around, furious, hands slamming on his desk. “What’s fucking wrong, is I know our daughters tell you everything. You knew Claire is in correspondence with a man, so it is beyond fucking me, why you would fail to mention that the man who is pursuing our daughter is a fucking no good gangster from Liverpool!” he seethes, jaw clenched so tight she thought his teeth might chip. “You have some things to explain to me.” 

She stood up straight. “Thomas,” she told him, lips in a tight line. “I have never once, in all the years we have been together, kept something from you. I have always been honest and forthcoming. I did know Claire was in correspondence with a man, yes, but I did not know who he was. She didn’t tell me. So,” she told him calmly, setting the piece of paper down on the desk. “Pull your head out of your ass, which is the only logical explanation I can think of for the way you’re speaking to me,” she told him, lips pursed. “Do not come anywhere near me until your head is firmly back on your shoulders and your temper under control. You will not speak to me in this way. I will talk to Claire,” She told him, voice firm. 

Bee walks out of his office, slamming the door and walking up the steps to their youngest daughter's room leaving her husband staring blankly at the door before falling into his chair with a sigh. 

Bee didn’t bother knocking, she knew Claire would be awake and dressed. She was her father’s child in that regard. “Knock, please?” she said, tone annoyed as she turned to face her mother from her vanity table. 

“I’m not in the mood for formalities,” Bee told her harshly, eyeing Claire in the mirror as she adjusted her earrings. “You have some explaining to do.” 

She wrinkled her face. “About what?” 

“About some man named Paul Davidson writing your father,” Bee says, and the color drains from Claire’s face. 

“He did?” she says, not meeting her mothers eyes in the mirror. 

“He did, and your father is furious,” Claire closes her eyes and sighs, resting her forehead in her palm. “So unless you’d like to face the wrath of the king, I suggest you start talking,” Bee tells her sternly. 

“I didn’t know he was a gangster at first,” she admits, turning to face her mother. “I met him at the fair, and he won me this box,” she tells Bee, pointing to a heart shaped, crystal box. “We’ve been writing ever since.”

“He’s taken with you, then?” Bee asks, sitting on the foot of her bed. 

“I suppose so,” she says shyly.

“Cut the shit,” Bee sneers. “Your father is three steps away from asking Johnny Dogs to bring the car around and take him to Liverpool today. Start speaking plainly, now.”

A tiny bit of fear flashed in Claire’s eyes. She typically didn’t have to be this stern with her children–Tommy typically shouldered the unpleasant parts of parenthood for the both of them, something she was grateful for. The oldest two were nothing like the twins, who were nothing like the youngest two. Each of them were very different sets of children, which had proved to make parenting very difficult for her and Tommy. But Claire and Anthony… they were different children, requiring a much stronger hand than the older four. 

“He’s–he’s been here,” she tells Bee and rage flashes through her eyes, mouth dropping open. “He’s snuck in the evenings, when you and Daddy are riding in the pastures or at the Garrison dancing,” Bee’s mouth dropped open further. “Nothing’s happened!” she hurriedly says. 

“Bull shit!” Bee yells, eyes wide. “Claire, I was not born yesterday, please.”

“We haven’t had sex, if that’s what you’re worried about! He’s a good man, Mum!” 

“I don’t care if he’s a good, bad or awful man, I am upset that you didn’t tell me as soon as you knew! You know about your father’s history with these things,” Bee tells her and her face flushes in embarrassment. “And if he found out he was in this house, he’d cut him from throat to crotch,” Bee adds. 

“Please, don’t tell Daddy,” Claire pleads with you, walking over to where she sits. “Please, Mum, he’ll be so upset.” 

Bee looks her in the eyes. “Claire, I have never kept things from your father and I certainly won’t start now. I will have to tell him, and I am not sure I can persuade him to change his mind on what he intends to do to Paul.”

Claire shakes her head. “You can always change Daddy’s mind! You just have to look at him and he folds!” she tells her mother. 

She wasn’t wrong, usually. But this time–this was different. “Claire, Darling, I am afraid this might be a little different.” 

“How?” she asks, tears in her eyes. 

“This is concerning your safety. Your father got out of that line of business for a reason,” Bee explains. 

“Yes, because you threatened him!” she exclaimed. 

Bee sighed. She wasn’t wrong again, but she was missing important details. “Yes, I did threaten him, but do you know why?” Claire shook her head no as Bee pulled the skirt of her dress up her legs, revealing a nasty scar the size of an American half dollar on the side of her thigh. Claire winced, seeing the bullet wound scar. “That was a bullet meant for your father that I took,” Bee says, dark eyes flaming in anger. “And that is why I threatened him. He almost died, several times because of that life, Claire. I almost died. You never had to experience it because he was out of it by the time you were born–and it almost killed him to get out of it, but he did. So I hope you understand why wanting to run to a man who still lives that way is a slap in the face to both of us.”

Claire swallows the lump in her throat. You turn to walk out of the room, but she stops Bee. “Mummy, please! What if this is my chance to have a love like you and Daddy do!” tears threatened to spill onto her cheeks. 

Bee’s voice does not waver as she tells her, “Not everyone gets our kind of love, Darling. And for that, I truly am sorry.” 

That evening at dinner, the air was tense, Tommy still not having apologized for his outburst to Bee. She’d excused herself and gone upstairs and bathed, spreading her favorite lotion over her body and pulling a light blue nightgown on. It was long with lace trim and a deep neckline. 

Bee sat at her vanity, spreading Ponds on her face when Tommy entered your shared room, face filled with fatigue. “Hello, Gorgeous,” he rasped, walking slowly over to his wife, gently putting his hands on her shoulders, bending to press a kiss where her neck met her shoulder. 

“Thomas,” she addressed him sternly, avoiding the effect his kisses still had, even after all these years. 

“I’m sorry,” he breathed into her skin, pressing another kiss into her shoulder. “Please, talk to me,” he whispered. “You know I can’t bear it when you’re upset with me.” 

She turned around to face him. “Don’t ever speak to me that way again, Thomas.” 

He shook his head. “I won’t. I know you don’t keep things from me, I’m just so angry with her,” he says. Bee stands to her feet and begins to work at removing his cufflinks. He looks down at her, wondering how in the hell she’d put up with him for this long. 

“Well, I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to tell you,” she says, setting his cufflinks down on her vanity and moving to unclasp his sleeve garters. It was 1957, he could get tailored shirts, but he said he quite prefers the garters. She likes them, too. “They met at the fair and have been writing ever since,” she took a deep breath. “She has, apparently, snuck him in here when we’ve been out,” his eyes snap to hers, an exasperated look on his face. “She tells me nothing has happened.” 

“Oh fuck me,” he mumbles, turning away from Bee, running a hand down his face. “This is a nightmare,” she refrains from chuckling at her husband's distress. “This is recompense for all the terrible things I thought about you when we were courting, isn’t it?” he asked, a hand on his hip, the other arm extended out towards the wall, palm open. He looked so tired. “Fuck where did we go so wrong with these youngest two? They’re going to be the death of me, I swear.” 

Bee walks over to him and removes the braces from his shoulders while he unbuttons his shirt. She fetches his sleeping clothes from the drawer and hands them to him. He shucks the rest of his clothes off, pulling his comfortable clothes on. He sits on the edge of the bed and reaches for a cigarette. She climbs on the bed behind him, fingers starting to massage his shoulders. He melts into her touch. 

“She wants to have a love like ours,” she whispers to him and she feels his body sag as tears threaten to spill onto her cheeks. 

“I want all our children to have that,” her husband tells her in a small voice. A voice so small she almost didn’t recognize it. 

“I do too, sweetheart,” she pressed a kiss to the back of his neck, arms wrapping around his shoulders, hands resting softly on his chest. “We certainly have set the expectation for love rather high, hm?” 

Tommy sharply inhales. He reaches back to touch her thigh. The one with the nasty scar. The nasty scar that she would wear as yet another symbol of love and devotion. “Do you remember that day?” he asked. 

She replied, “How could I forget?”

It was April 6, 1924. The Shelby Foundation’s first annual fundraiser gala. Everyone who was anyone was there. The entire family attended, dressed in their newest and finest clothes. The alcohol and food flowed freely, the best live music in the country was hired and paid well that evening. It was hosted in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. Bee wore a beautiful pale yellow gown to offset the dreaded Russian sapphire Tommy had given her a few nights before. The dress cascaded over the growing bump of their second child. 

Tommy had nearly made the two of them late, unable to resist how beautiful Bee looked–her hair done perfectly, lipstick a light pink, only meant to accentuate the natural color of her lips. He’d made love to her sweetly, taking his time devouring every inch of her, whispering sweet words of praise and adoration in her ear. Afterwards he helped her redress, and the two of them nearly ran down the steps of the Manor to get to the car to make it to the city in time. 

Bee had been proud of this party she’d organized. Hundreds of people were there to donate to the Shelby Foundation, a cover organization which Tommy intended to funnel money through for some business he was in contract with the Russians about. He had promised her, after she’d yelled at him for using the city's poor and abandoned children as a marketing tool for financial gain, that he would donate a portion of his own income to the orphans of the city.

People flocked to Bee and Tommy, congratulating them on the new step in Tommy’s career, and thanked Bee for the beautiful party that she organized. They congratulated them on their second child, many people not knowing about her pregnancy until that evening. Tommy beamed with pride when people would comment on how beautiful Bee looked that night. His wife. It was her who did all of this. It was her who motivated him to be more, do more. It made him hungry for success. Crave it. Prove to all the sorry bastards who told them he would never have it all, that he could have it all. And she was by his side, doing it all with him. 

The Duchess, Tatiana, approached them. “Mr. Shelby, please introduce me to your wife, I have heard much about you!” she eyed Bee, a girlish grin on her face. 

“Duchess Tatiana Petrovna, my wife, Mrs. Bee Shelby,” Tommy said, eyes dull as he tried to avoid the eye contact the duchess was giving. 

Tatiana held her hand out and Bee shook it, smiling at her. “How do you two know each other?” Bee asked, eyeing her husband, who gazed down at her lovingly. 

“Mutual business, that’s all,” he told her, hand on the small of her back. 

Bee was called away to speak to a woman about a cash donation and after, Tommy came to find her. “Darling, you look beautiful–” he started. 

She waved him off. “Why was she making eyes at you?” She asked him, anger rolling in her belly. 

“The Russian deal,” he began, holding her hands in his. Bee nodded. “She is one of the people I am in contact with. I have to work with her on this. Unfortunately they have requested that she seduce me as a part of the cause, which,” he held up a finger to her lips. “I have told her it is pointless, to which she immediately replied that it made sense that her attempts would be futile after seeing you tonight,” he leans in towards her. “Darling, she says this necklace is cursed,” he whispers. “Please, take it off.”

She laughed slightly. Bee never understood some of the superstitions Tommy believed. Curses, witches, fortune tellers. She knew it was a part of his heritage, things he and Polly held close, but had never experienced them the way he had. “What will you do with it?” She asks as he reaches behind her neck to unclasp it. 

“Throw it somewhere far away from us,” he says, pecking your lips. 

At that moment, a waiter stops in front of the two of them, several paces away and pulls a gun from behind his towel that was draped over his arm. “Thomas!” She gasps. Tommy drops the necklace as she reaches her arms around him to throw both of them down on the ground, trying to be as careful as she can about her belly; the man screams something along the lines of ‘For Angel’. Out of the corner of Bee’s eye she sees Arthur tackle the man to the ground, the gun firing right before Bee and Tommy land to the ground, searing pain shooting through her leg. 

There are screams of terror that echo off the walls of the museum. John, Finn and Michael scramble over to the gunman, several of them holding him down while others find objects to throw at him. 

Polly runs to Bee, lying on the ground in Tommy’s arms. He’s screaming for someone to get an ambulance. Polly runs to the phone, pink dress trailing behind her. “My love, my love, stay with me, yeah? Please, please don’t go, please,” Tommy begs her. Her hand reaches up to grab his wrist as she writhes in pain in his arms. Her legs felt sticky from the blood pouring from her thigh. 

“Thomas,” she manages to get out. 

“Please, don’t leave me here,” he begs her, tears in his eyes. 

She didn’t remember much after that. 

Bee woke up what felt like days later, in a hospital room, Tommy rushed over to her bedside, grabbing her hands with his, pressing urgent kisses to her knuckles. “Thomas?” She croaks, throat dry. 

“My darling,” he cries, tears spilling over his cheeks onto her hand, her lap. “My love, my love,” his shoulders are heaving, eyes rimmed red from a lack of sleep and an abundance of crying. 

“Water,” she croaks. He reaches for a pitcher at her bedside and pours her a small cup, bringing it to her lips. He wipes away the little bits of water that gather at the corners of her mouth with his thumb. An intense pain in her leg shoots through her, making her wince. “My leg,” Bee says, tears in her eyes from the pain. She moved to put a hand on her belly, and it was much flatter than she last recalled. “The baby,” she said in a panicked voice. 

“You were shot,” he explains, smoothing her hair back from her face. “The Italians–you remember that mess?” he asked. She nodded. “They tried to kill me the other night and–you got in the way,” he said, more tears spilling onto his cheeks. “The doctors had to sedate you,” he continued. “Had to get the baby out,” he says, choking back tears. “She’s here, she’s small and weak but she’s fighting.” 

“What did you name her? When can I see her? Are you alright?” She asks, rattling off questions one by one, trying to see if a bandage adorned his body anywhere. 

“I am shattered, my love,” he says. “It should be me,” he tells her, chin trembling. 

“I would do it again, Thomas,” she tells him weakly. 

He shakes his head. “What did I do so right to deserve you, hm? My perfect angel, my perfect wife,” he says, pressing another kiss to her knuckles. “I love you, I love you,” he whispers it to her over and over. A chant, a prayer, a reassurance to himself. It’s the last thing she hears as she drifts back off to sleep. 

A week later, Bee was deemed well enough to return home, with baby Katherine in tow. There was a large group of people congregated in the foyer of the Shelby Manor, which Frances was trying desperately to tame. Tommy’s entire family gathered, everyone arguing and screaming at one another as to who would get the biggest ass chewing from Tommy. Bee’s family simmered in silence, seething with a deep hatred for this life, for this man who dragged her into this. 

Tommy brought Bee in the back way, carrying her up the steps to their shared room, handing the baby off to Frances. He ensured she was comfortable, fluffing every pillow twice and putting plenty of blankets and books within her reach. “Don’t move a muscle out of this bed unless I’m here to help you,” he told her, wagging a finger. 

“I won’t, I won’t,” she told him, exasperated at her husband already. 

“Get some rest, I'll tame the crowds,” he told her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. 

“Bring your family up in an hour and a half,” she told him, eyeing the clock. “I have something to say to them.”

He nods. “Okay,” he tells you, pressing another kiss to her forehead. “Anything you say, Darling. Just say it and it’s yours.” 

Tommy descended down the stairs, hearing his family screaming at one another. When he reached the foot of the stairs, Bee’s sister, Emile, nearly flew across the foyer at him, a harsh slap landing on his cheek. 

“You bastard!” she screamed, fists hitting his chest. “Look what you’ve done to her! Are you happy? Are you happy you’ve successfully ruined the best thing in your life?” 

Everyone went quiet. Edward, Bee’s brother, pulled Emile from Tommy, a sobbing heap. “No one wants to get the call we did, Tommy,” he says. 

Tommy nods. “I know,” he says before turning towards his family. “Michael, Polly, I’d like to speak to you,” he said, motioning towards his office. 

Arthur and John gave each other a look, Ada raised her eyebrows. Polly and Michael struggled to keep up with Tommy’s pace as he walked through the halls of his home towards his office. He flung open the heavy doors, inhaling the familiar scent. He sighed as he walked around his desk, filled with papers, letters, and various correspondence that had come flooding in over the last week and a half he had been away.

“How is she, Thomas?” Polly asks nervously, sitting down across from him. “How’s the baby?”

Tommy exhales, pulling a cigarette to his lips. “She’s tired and in pain but she’s home. The baby is weak and small but she’s fighting. She was four weeks early.”

Michael cleared his throat nervously. “Will she be able to keep her leg?” 

Tommy lit his cigarette. “Dunno yet,” he said, hands shaking at the thought. He spoke to them regarding their end of the business. “After all this business with the Russians is over, we’re going completely legitimate,” he tells them. 

Michael nodded his head. “It’s for the best, Tommy,” he said. Polly agreed. 

“Alright, meet me up by our chambers in about an hour and a half. She wants to see all of you,” he said. “Send Arthur and John in.” 

Arthur and John slowly stalked in, right as tears threatened to fill Tommy’s eyes again. He eyed the wedding photo of you on his desk and thought of your sister's words. He had ruined you. He had known all along he would be your demise. 

“How is she, Tom?” Arthur asked. 

Tommy looked up at them, anger pouring from his eyes. “She’s fucking fine.” 

“We uh–we cut Angel Changretta,” Arthur told him. “Finished ‘im off. In the hospital last night.” 

Tommy nodded. “Good,” he lit another cigarette. “Find the old man and bring him to me,” he thought for a moment. “Does he have a wife?” They didn’t answer him, but by the looks on their faces, he knew the answer. “Shoot her and bring him to me alive. I want to do it myself,” he said, jaw set tightly. 

“Uh, Tom,” John began. “Mrs. Changretta was a teacher at our school.” 

“Yeah, she’s a good woman, Tom,” Arthur continued. 

Tommy narrowed his eyes at them. “Then if she’s a good woman, she’ll go to heaven, eh, Arthur?” Arthur wouldn’t meet his gaze and neither would John. “After this business with the Russians is done, all legitimate business will take priority, and everything illegal will be phased out,” he announced. Arthur and John’s necks nearly cracked to look at him. 

“Since when?” John asked, indignation in his voice. 

Tommy slammed a fist on his desk, rage boiling over. “Since my fucking wife, took a bullet, meant for me!” he screamed, eyes icy. “She wants to see you all soon so fuck off before I shoot the both of you myself,” he says dismissing them. 

John and Arthur eyed the floor. “Come on, John,” Arthur says quietly. 

“Yeah, yeah alright. Always second class now, eh, Arthur?” John sneered over his shoulder as they walked out of the office. 

If they thought Tommy’s outrage was difficult to handle, they had no clue of the wrath they were about to face. 

Everyone gathered in the hallway of the Shelby Manor that housed Tommy and Bee’s chambers. It was a sacred wing of the house no one really ever dared enter unless they wanted to subject their senses to their voracious lovemaking. Tommy had gone in to check on her a few moments before, telling her if she wasn’t feeling up to it, he would tell them all to come back later. 

“No, no I want to get this over with,” she said. He opened the door to their room as she laid in the bed, feeling rather small. “Get in here, all of you,” she said, her voice making her sound larger than she felt. “You too, Ada,” she said, noticing Ada lingering in the doorway. Tommy stood with his family, ready to face his wife’s wrath alongside them. 

“You look good, sis,” John offered. 

“Shut the hell up,” she snapped. Everyone’s eyes widened. “I would like to know,” the tone of her voice was dangerous, no one having heard this side of her before. “When it was, that we decided to make war over who a secretary is stepping out with in her romantic life? Hm?” her jaw was set, lips in a straight line. “Because last I checked, unless there is something any of you would like to admit to me or your wives, none of you have had any kind of hold on Lizzie Stark in years,” Tommy, Arthur and John shifted uncomfortably on their feet. “So I am unclear on what the reason was that one of you blooming fucking idiots, decided to cut Angel Changretta!” She roared. “Someone answer me!” Bee screamed, head pounding. “Do any of you really think a turf war over a whore-turned-secretary is worth our lives? This isn’t the way it was five years ago! We all have children now, families we have to think of!” she yells, tears in her eyes. “So in saying that, you,” she points at Tommy. “Will call off the rest of this fucking mess with the Italians,” her finger moved to John. “And you are going to make a treaty with them, and you!” she points to Arthur. “Are going to make sure he doesn’t fuck it up.” 

They all eyed her with wide eyes. John chuckled nervously. “By who’s orders?” 

“The woman who may not get to keep her leg, that’s who.” she says, tone deathly. “Get out of my house, you all disgust me,” she waves them off. “And!” She shouted as they turned to leave. “If I can keep my leg,” she pointed at all of them. “The first thing I am going to do when I am able to stand is call all of you in for a meeting and kick all of you in the shins. Twice. Get out.” 

They all hurried to file out of Tommy and Bee’s chambers, heads down. 

Tommy spent weeks groveling at his wife’s feet, taking her scornful looks and hateful words. Guilt ate at him every moment knowing it should be him in her position. He would do anything to reverse the roles. She had wailed and cried, wanting to see the baby, wanting to hold her. Tommy insisted she was too weak still, which created more tears and resentment. 

One night during a particularly bad spell of pain, she gripped his shirt, tears and fire in her eyes. “If you do not get out of this life, Thomas, I will take our children and leave. They cannot live like this. And neither can I.” 

“You don’t mean that,” he said, terror filling his eyes. 

“I mean every word, Thomas. I didn’t sign up for this.” She winced in pain. 

“You knew what I was when you married me and you still chose to walk down the aisle and say your vows. You saw me long before our vows and you still wanted me. You don’t get to back out now,” he snarled. 

She shook her head. “I didn’t sign up to take bullets for my husband who’s idiotic family makes war over who a secretary steps out with.”

No one had heeded her warnings of ending the war with the Changretta’s, and the family lived on the edges of their seats day by day. Bee was a sitting duck, waiting for the moment someone was bold enough to approach their home and attack her. 

Tommy’s eyes filled with hurt at her words. “What can I do?” he asked, anger subsiding to fear. 

“Get rid of her,” his wife snarled, grasping at her leg. 

The next morning, Tommy walked slowly into the betting shop, approaching Lizzie’s desk outside his office. “Lizzie,” he said softly. “I need to speak with you,” he eyed the other secretaries who were trying their best to not listen in to what he was saying. 

Lizzie looked up at him quizzically before standing to her feet and following him into the office. He shut the doors behind them. 

“Sit, please,” he told her, reaching for his bottle of whiskey. She sat down. 

“How is Bee?” she asked nervously.

Tommy shook his head. “Don’t speak of her,” he nearly whispered, pouring himself a glass full of whiskey. 

Lizzie’s eyes widened. “Is she alright?” 

Tommy chuckled, bringing the glass to his lips. He swallowed half the glass in one go, setting it back down on his desk with a thud. “No, Lizzie, she isn’t. She hasn’t seen her son in nearly three weeks, and she has yet to hold her baby girl. They cry for her every night. Her family is ready to drag her back to London and she has cursed my name every day since she woke up. She is not alright.”

Lizzie looked down at her hands in her lap. “I tried to tell Arthur, at that party at the Manor a few months back. I loved Angel,” she said softly. 

Tommy planted both his palms firmly on his desk, shoulders broad, the fabric of his suit jacket straining against his frame. His eyes darkened. “You were literally,” his eyes narrowed at her in hatred. “Sleeping with our enemy.” 

“There was a truce! It had been in effect for years!” she argued back. 

“Yeah until John got wind of it! The truce was over after that, Lizzie! You’ve left me with no choice!” he shouted. 

Her eyebrows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Lizzie,” he sighed. “I have to fire you.” 

Her jaw dropped. “Don’t you think I’ve suffered enough?” she asked. “They killed the man I loved!” 

“And his people nearly killed the only good thing in my life!” he shouted, face red. “And she is moments away from leaving me as soon as she can because of all this now please, don’t make this harder than it has to be!” he yelled. 

She stood up, her hips pressed against the front of his desk. She reached a hand out to touch his face, and he had to stop himself from leaning into it. “What has she made of you, Tommy?” she asked him, sympathy dripping from her voice. “What power she holds over you,” she mused aloud, thumb rubbing gently against his cheek. “The power all women wish to hold over the man they love,” she shook her head softly, tears running down her face. “What has she made of you?” 

She dropped her hand from his face and walked out, Tommy’s head drooped to hang between his shoulders. He sank into his chair and sobbed. 

A doctor's appointment a week later confirmed the good fortune of Bee being able to keep her leg. She was still on crutches and unable to walk for extended periods of time, but her prognosis was good. Tommy was elated at the news, sliding the doctor a few extra pounds, to which she rolled her eyes. She was finally allowed to hold the baby, and she spent most of her waking hours in her room with the baby, admiring her small features. 

For the first time in their marriage, she’d subjected Tommy to separate bedrooms. She tossed and turned throughout the night and constantly felt the need to stretch, and somehow, Tommy always got in the way. And she was still mad at him. 

He looked at her like a kicked puppy when she’d told him she had asked Frances to make up the spare bedroom and had hobbled down the hallway, closing the door before he had a chance to fight her on it. 

He missed her. He understood her anger, her frustration, but dammit he missed her. Missed hearing her voice. She only ever really spoke to him when it was absolutely necessary. He missed her laugh, her lips on his. Missed falling asleep next to her, eating dinner with her and Peter. She’d taken to eating dinner earlier, before he got home most nights. The loneliness he thought he had long left behind him began to seep back into his bones. 

So when Tatiana made her arrival at the Shelby Manor, he was weak. 

He had returned from an outing with his brothers, a day of hunting and discussing plans for the rest of the Russian deal. He had delivered the news to his brothers that their father, sorry son of a bitch he was, was dead. A part of him was relieved, another part sorrowful. He returned, and his heart lifted when he smelled a familiar perfume—Bee’s. He thought she had come to greet him in his office. 

His face fell when he saw Tatiana, the Russian Duchess in his chair. “I came to inquire about your wife, Mr. Shelby,” she said, eyes wide, tone laced with seduction. “It was a terrible thing that happened to her at your beautiful event, truly.” 

“She hates me, but she’s alive. Which I will take,” he said, leaning against a bookcase as she stood up to fetch him a glass of whiskey. 

“She will not hate you for long, no? Perhaps a little while, but once you cover her from head to toe in diamonds she will forgive you,” she smirked, walking dangerously close to him. “I went to Paris and found her perfume. I liked it, and I thought you might too, Tommy,” she said, batting her eyelashes at him, dragging her fingertips across his chest. 

He sipped his whiskey. “I’m not going to fuck you,” he said, eyes betraying his words. 

“Could’ve fooled me, Mr. Shelby,” she giggled. “If you won’t fuck me then what will we do tonight together?” 

He shook his head. “Nothing.” 

He drank until he was thoroughly drunk that night—for the first time in a long time. The Duchess was giggly, stripped down to her slip and bra. He had told her stories of Bee. Goofy, silly stories. Stories she’d probably die of embarrassment if she knew anyone other than Tommy knew. 

He had told her the story of when Bee had woken up in the hospital, how she’d told him she would take the bullet for him again. Tears welled in his eyes, whether from the alcohol or the overwhelming urge he had to run to her, he couldn’t tell. But in that moment, Tatiana leaned in and kissed him. 

He allowed his lips to meld against hers for a moment before snapping to his senses, pushing her away. “I—I cannot betray her in this way,” he said. 

Tatiana looked at him through her lashes. “You really love her?” 

He nodded his head, wiping her lipstick from his lips. “With all I am.” 

She jumped up, grabbing his gun and running towards the stairs. Running after her, she skipped towards Tommy and Bee’s bedroom. “Let me show Mrs. Shelby!” She giggled, turning a corner a little too sharply and sliding on the hardwood. She giggled a little louder, causing Sara to pop her head out of the door down the opposite end of the hallway in the children’s wing. 

“Go back to bed, Sara, please,” Tommy pleaded, running after the Duchess. 

Sara’s eyes widened as she shut herself back in her room. Tommy heard his bedroom door creak open and a frustrated grunt from the Duchess. “Where is she, Tommy? Thought she might like to see me,” she said, pulling his suit jacket closer around her shoulders. He wondered to himself when she had managed to pull that on. 

“She wouldn’t, she’s fast asleep by now and she’s a bear when she’s woken up, please, let’s go back downstairs,” Tommy pleaded as she began to empty bullets from the chamber of his gun. “What’re you doing?” He asked. 

“Something we do in Russia,” she said breathily, turning the chamber before setting the barrel back in place, cocking the gun back and lifting it to her temple. 

“Don’t do this, please,” Tommy said, a hand out towards her. 

“It makes me feel alive!” She said, finger on the trigger, squeezing. 

“No!” Tommy screamed, wrestling the gun away from her. He knocked the gun from her hands, and as he did, she grabbed his wrist, pulling him towards her, the gun clattering to the floor. She pulled him flush against her, their bodies toppling over onto the bed, her lips crashing against his. 

“Oh, Tommy!” She gasped when he pulled himself free from her grasp, his hands on her throat—squeezing—tightly. “How did you know?” She asked, cocking an eyebrow at him. 

He removed his hands from her throat with an exasperated huff. “I don’t want you,” he snarled, standing up. 

She giggled. “Only have eyes for your wife, hm? Is that because of guilt, duty or do you really love her that much?” 

Tommy stood in the middle of his room, panting, staring at her in disbelief. Neither of them had heard the door creak open further, Bee standing in the doorway on her crutches. “Answer the question, Thomas,” she demands. 

Their necks snap to look towards her and Tommy’s heart dropped into his stomach. “Mrs. Shelby! I was hoping to see you!” Tatiana beamed, walking towards Bee. 

She lifts the crutch from your good leg up towards Tatiana, the end of it pressing into her bare stomach. “Don’t come a millimeter closer,” she tells her, jaw clenched. Tatiana stops, the elated expression in her eyes falling. “Thomas, answer the question.” 

“Sweetheart, I—“ he stammered. “You know it’s because I love you,” he tells her, taking a step towards you. Bee turns away to walk back down the hall. “Fuck,” he grinds out, following behind her. “My love,” he pleads, cutting her off from her path to her room. “My love, please listen to me,” he says as she lets a crutch crunch down on his foot. He let out a pained yelp as she continued to walk. “It’s not what it looks like,” he says. 

“I am still in this house, Thomas! If you want to fuck another woman, how about you do it when I’m at least not in it, hm?” She tells him, slamming the door in his face. His heart sank when he heard her turn the lock. 

“Darling! Darling, please. Please,” he croaked, throat dry from all the yelling. He slid down the door, sitting down outside the door. 

Hours later, the corridors of the Shelby Manor were dimly illuminated by the orange glow of sunrise. His back was stiff, legs aching. His only source of heat was Scout, who had settled down next to him sometime in the night after the Duchess had fallen asleep in your shared bed. He heard little footsteps pattering down the hallway. “Daddy?” His son, Peter, called. 

Tommy sat up, wiping the drool from the side of his mouth. Scout grunted, shifting her position on the floor. “Hello, son,” Tommy said. 

“What are you doing out here? Mummy’s in there,” Peter said, pointing to the door. 

“Yes, well, Mummy is very upset with me, so she doesn’t want to see me right now,” Tommy explained, straightening Peter’s pajamas. “What’re you doing up?” 

“I had some scary dreams last night,” Peter explained. “You were shouting in my dreams.”

Tommy’s blood ran cold knowing what Peter heard weren’t dreams. He pulled his son close to his chest, pressing a kiss against the top of his head. 

After safely tucking Peter back in his bed, Tommy returned to his bedroom, where the Duchess lay in your shared bed naked. “Good morning,” she nearly purred, stretching her limbs. 

“Get out,” he barked. 

“Waited for you all night,” she said again. 

“Get out!” He screamed. 

She looked at him, gathering her clothes from the various corners of the bed. “Remember, Mr. Shelby,” she whispered. “You may kill the priest. You have my permission.” 

Tommy wasn’t sure what scared him more—not remembering the conversation she was referring to, or the look in her eyes. 

Bee’s rage was boiling over—a new sort of rage she didn’t realize she had the potential for. It was Tommy’s fault she was in this position and he was inviting other women over to have an affair under the same roof. 

A bitter seed had been planted in her heart after she’d regained consciousness enough to remember everything. The love she’d harbored for her husband had turned to enmity. Bordering on hatred. She hated the feeling, but couldn’t shake it. She was almost dead. 

She’d refused to open the door that morning before he went out for the day. Refused to acknowledge him. Refused to speak to him. 

It would haunt her as one of her greatest regrets. 

Bee received a phone call from Ada. Panicked. “Bee, Bee, oh, please, please, you’ve got to help me!” Ada screeched into the phone. 

“Ada, Ada what is it?” Bee asks. It had been nearly two days since she’d seen Tommy with the Duchess. 

“It’s Tommy—he’s—oh, Bee, I don’t know what’s happened to him. He’s in the hospital his skull is cracked and he’s bleeding out of his ears and nose and—“ she rambled on, tears and sobs making it difficult for her to be understood. “Just please, please come here, please,” she sobbed. 

“Where is he?” Bee asks.  

Ada tells you which hospital. “Please come, Bee. I know you’re angry with him for all this but he won’t say a word unless it’s your name, please,” Ada cries. “What if he’s dying?” She asks. 

“I’m coming, Ada. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Bee tells her. She yells down the hall for Frances, who comes running. “Please tell Simmons to get the car ready, I have to go to the hospital.” 

Bee walks as quickly as she can manage through the halls of the Birmingham hospital, the cries of patients making her heart beat a little faster than it probably should have been, seeing as she was still recovering herself. Panic had overwhelmed her on the drive to the hospital. Worry. Worry that if her beloved was dying-she would have spent his last few days being cross with him for something that should have been forgiven already. Guilt ate at her.

She found Tommy’s room, Ada sitting in the chair next to his bed, holding his hand. His face was bruised and bloody, eyes swollen and his entire body soaked with sweat. 

Tears fill her eyes immediately. “Thomas,” she breathes, hobbling as quickly as she can over to him, pain shooting through her heart, her leg, her mind. “Oh, my Darling, my sweetheart, what happened?” She asks, sitting on the edge of his bed, cupping her hand to his cheek softly, fingers immediately sticky from the blood. 

“My love,” he manages to croak out. “Is it you?” 

“Yes, yes, Thomas, it’s me,” she says, taking his hand, running his fingers over her diamond ring. He often ran his fingers over it absentmindedly, knowing every curve and prong. “It’s me, I’m here now,” she tells him. He takes her hand, his grip weak. 

“You’re here?” He says in a small voice. A voice so small she almost didn't recognize it. 

“Yes, I’m here,” she says. She looks over at Ada, confused at the glassed over look in his eyes. 

“He can’t see,” Ada said through tears. 

“Thomas,” she cries, tears spilling down her cheeks, some falling to his chest. 

“Eh, no crying, please. Don’t be angry with me, eh?” He says weakly. 

“I’m not, I’m not, Sweetheart, I’m not,” she cooed. He shakes, body cold and clammy to the touch. “Are you cold?” She asks. 

“No,” he grunts. “‘M hot,” he tells her, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“Okay,” she says, reaching for a cloth on the side table, soaking it in the cool water. She gently runs it over his forehead, gently moving to his face, wiping the sweat from his skin. “Just rest, my love, please,” she tells him gently. 

“Don’t leave,” he says quietly. 

“I won’t. I won’t, my love, I promise,” she tells him, pressing a kiss to his hand before he falls unconscious. 

[viriditic]

⠀⠀★ ۫  ⠀⠀ TATIANA WON'S PERSONAL STYLING     ／  ゛tatiana  has  always  preferred  to  dress  casually,  especially  when  she  got  more  into  music,  and  spent  most  of  her  time  in  her  bed  making  music  on  her  laptop.  with  the  pressures  of  paparazzi  and  publicity,  tati's  style  has  upgraded  a  little  bit  from  just  soccor  jerseys  and  sweatpants  (although  the  jerseys  are  still  making  appearances  in  lives).  now  her  style  mostly  consists  of  black  and  red,  with  some  pink  and  white  thrown  in  there  depending  on  her  mood.  one  thing  about  tati,  she  hates  committing  to  a  sleeve,  so  bandeau  and  tank  tops  are  a  staple.  another  tati  staple  is  her  black  leather  jacket  collection,  a  length  for  every  occasion.  her  go-to  accessories  are  always  either  a  chunky  black  boot  or  a  colourful  small  flat  to  ground  her  a  bit.  she  also  regularly  wears  her glasses.  her  other  staples,  are  her  bangs,  and  although  the  hair  has  seen  many  different  dyes  in  it's  lifetime,  the  bangs  always  stay.  finally,  tatiana  has  been  tatted  and  hiding  them  since  her  debut,  and  has  fifteen  tattoos  as  of  now,  which  include  clouds  on  her  shoulder,  and  a  representative  tattoo  for  all  of  the  no  variety  members.

[aliendragondreaming]

artin