awritesthings1 - Tumblr blog

awritesthings1 · 3 months

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Reblogging because I forgot to add the tag list 🤦‍♀️

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

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader

Summary: You ask your husband Tommy if he believes in ghosts. The answer might surprise you.

Warnings: dark, angst, spooky.

ao3 link

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

It was near the end of winter, and another autumn of earl grey teas and tireless raking of crunchy leaves was fast approaching Arrow House. Tommy’s peaky cap lived on the coat hanger by the front door, dusted in the faint smell of smog. Gone was the silver razor; the Shelby’s were much too respectable for that anymore. In came the monogram initials, all of which had been carefully handstitched onto cuffs and collars to match golden cufflinks, and out came the fine woolen overcoats.

The weather lay thickly that year over the English countryside, enough to invoke a ghostly mist around the trimmed hedges and shorn grass. A stillness crept in as sly as a cat when the fog came down, covering all life with a sheer dew. The garden retired into a dull combination of cool greens and toe-curling crystal air.

It was at this time of year that the monsters came out to play in their ominously shaped shadows and faint howls. Where there was a tick of movement, an airy silence and childhood fear followed. Tommy would have teased you endlessly for your paranoia if he hadn’t suffered through the same fate after the war. You supposed he had more of a right than you because his fears came from a very real place, and yours were out of superstition.

“Spirits,” Tommy clarified. “Yes, it’s in my blood.”

“But have you ever seen one?”

Tommy turns his head to look at you, squeezing you closer to his chest from where you both lay under the covers.

“Why’d you ask?” His accent was thicker in the morning.

If anyone knew anything about spirits, it would be your husband. He was more superstitious than you due to his gypsy blood. The things he told you about the community were nothing short of witchcraft—charming dogs, telling fortunes, and cursing wrong'uns. It puzzled you at first that your seemingly pragmatic, calculating husband believed nothing short of Madame Boswell’s words as nothing but gospel.

You stared out the window, attempting to conjure up the right words, but shivered instead when his fingers ghosted across your back.

“Well… I don’t know. I don’t think I would believe in something until I saw it for sure with my own two eyes.”

He hummed and smiled lazily. “Why do people believe in God, hm?”

You pressed your lips together and shrugged as best you could in his embrace.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Eh?”

“Have you ever seen a spirit?"

Tommy’s eyes glazed over in thought. It was the answer you dreaded.

“Yes.”

“Were you scared?”

He blinked out of the daze.

“No.”

Your hand moved to rest on the cusp of his cheek.

“What happened?”

He cleared his throat and laced his hand with yours there on his face.

“I was nine. Madame Lovell’s nephew drowned in a lake the day before, and then on the day of the funeral, it rained. I was running back from over the hill when I saw him. He stood there staring at me through the spray of rain.”

Your thumb swiped over the tops of Tommy’s cheekbones.

“You’re certain? Maybe the rain got in your eye, and what you saw was a shadow or maybe even an eyelash in your eye. That happens to me sometimes.”

“I know what I saw.”

You hummed in acknowledgement, then tried to picture the scene for yourself. You stood atop some grassy hill, peering down into the valley. Dark plumes of smoke rose from a small coffin stationed at the bottom of the hill, slivering up through the wildflowers and tree branches to where you stood. Then there, through the smoke and rainfall that blinded your eyes, was the boy who drowned.

“Was he scared?”

A pause, then: “no.”

That night, you settled by your vanity, combing out knots and patting lotion onto your skin. The haunted look of that boy Tommy said he saw lingered in the back of your mind, and every vague shape or shadow shifted in the corner of your eye. Paranoia—that's all it was. You didn’t want to be caught staring at a dark corner like some half-mad crook. Tommy would be crossing the threshold into your room any moment now. Maybe if his last-minute business hadn’t held him up in his office, he would be here with you now, and you wouldn’t be glancing over at that suspicious coat hanging up by the wardrobe. The lamps that were lit didn’t stretch far enough to illuminate the monsters from their hiding spots.

It was a trick of the brain, that’s all.

And surely enough, Tommy’s footsteps were heard down the hall. Your shoulders slumped in relief. The autumn season was only one for the dramatics.

Your hand cream pot clattered onto the vanity, swirling in circles until it came to a stop just as you heard Tommy outside the door. But when you stood to greet him with a kiss, the door to your bedroom remained closed, and the doorhandle remained still.

“You can come in!" You laughed, but a sort of coldness seized your heart with terror when you wondered why Tommy was just standing there on the other side.

“Tommy?” You inquired after a painfully thin stretch of silence.

Again, nothing.

You reached for your comb, holding the long, sharp piece you used to part your hair out like a knife. You weren’t naïve. Tommy had enemies, opportunistic ones, too.

And so you stood there, straining to hear any noise beyond your heartbeat that thundered in your ears. You tried slowing your breathing to hear better, but your eyes then began to water from the strain and your refusal to blink. Then it happened, as abruptly as you imagined. The door burst open. Tommy rushed in, slammed the door shut behind him, and stormed over to the closet without so much a look in your direction.

“Tommy?” You squawked, still seized in terror.

He grunted, shrugging on his overcoat and snatching his leather gloves from the tallboy.

“What’s going on?”

Finally, he paused. His eyes were bloodshot and far away. You feared he looked through you rather than at you. He came closer then, pulling you into his arms and laying a warm kiss on your temple.

“Everything’s ok, darling.”

“Where are you going?” Your voice broke. “Did something happen?”

“No…” He hushed. “No.”

“Then where are you going? It’s still dark outside!”

He sighed into your disheveled hair, then pulled away.

“I need to check on one of the horses. Get into bed; I’ll be back soon.”

You clutched his lapels in protest. “No!”

He said your name sternly: “I really need to go. Frances is in her room if you need anything.”

“Tommy, I heard something!” Then, you lowered your voice so only he could hear, “I think someone’s in the house.”

He pulled you in by the scruff of your neck. “No one’s here, love. It’s just us and Frances.”

His boots thud severely against the wooden floor to the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

Begrudgingly, you let him leave and confined yourself to the bed, pulling the covers over your face like a small child afraid of the dark. You left all the lights on, determined to let any intruders know that yes, you were home, and yes, you would see them coming. Tommy would be back soon, and if Tommy didn’t suspect anything amiss, he was probably right.

But the grandfather clock in the other room kept ticking, tick tick tick, and little fairies scampered about in the garden below. The moon’s solemn gaze glared judgingly through the windows, past the squinting shutters, and onto your skin. Ink from family portraits bled into one horrifying mess of shadows. You threw back the hungry covers, which seemed to be swallowing you whole, and knocked your shoulder into the jaw of the door (you had mistaken it for being further than it really was). A teacup flew off a shelf, but you dodged it with one ugly turn of your ankle.

Then you ran down the winding stairs, through the narrowing hallway, and out the chattering front doors of Arrow House. A lustrous mist had fallen over the land, thick enough that your arms whipped around senselessly, blinded by the clouded night, in your attempt to trek to the stables.

The stable gates were banging back and forth by the time you reached them. They whack your behind when you pass them, and you would’ve cried if it weren’t for the airy atmosphere peeling the moisture from your eyes.

“Tommy!”

A clack of hooves answered you.

Your feet burned despite the bitter cold, swelling with each step. Still in your nightgown, the elements worked together, clawing, scratching, and biting at your bare skin. The swell of a draft caught the tip of your nose, and you whipped around just in time to see a coat disappearing around the back of the stable where the paddock was.

Fear acted like a glaze of sweltering iron, hissing the rhythm out of your heart.

“I can see you!” You tried to warn as if you were the hunter and not the hunted.

Leather hands wrapped around your shoulders from behind.

“Are you insane, eh?” Tommy’s gruff voice scolded in your ear.

You turned around to crumple into his embrace.

“Tommy, something’s not right about this house.”

“Is that why you’re out here? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

It could have been a ghost, a careful soulless thing—a soundless haunting memory with no cause for action, warping around the edges of reality. It was then a great whipping lash of winter lakes and violent snowflakes cut into the lines of your knuckles and sliced beneath your skin.

Your lips moved sometime after that, or maybe it was before; you couldn’t remember. Nothing seemed to make sense. The man in the moon wound away your surroundings one by one, like a fisherman with his catch on a hook.

“What?”

“You don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what, Tommy?”

Silence held a knife to your neck.

“Out in the paddock..." His dark, long eyelashes brushed earnestly along his high-cut cheekbones, and you feared the thought that had seemingly paralyzed your husband from saying any more. If it weren’t already dark, a shadow might’ve passed over his features.

A fountain of words prepared to gush out, but you slipped on a puddle that appeared around your feet. You stepped back with a gasp. It wasn’t raining.

“I’m sorry, my love. I should’ve listened to you.”

The puddle kept growing. Words turned into water.

“What the fuck is happening, Tommy?"

His thumb brushed the apple of your cheek.

“I’ll avenge you. I will.”

You cried.

“Shhh, don’t be afraid, darling." Tommy kissed your ice-cold forehead.

You choked. Water: water pooled out of your mouth and suffocated your lungs. You couldn't breathe.

“Go back to bed for me, eh?”

All over your nightgown—water, water, water.

The horse trough out in the paddock, the goldfish swimming past your cheek, straw in your teeth, Tommy, Tommy, Tommy, no response, no one, the weight of a hand tangling in your hair, air, air, air, no air.

Drip, drip, drip.

Water in your eyes, ears, nose, mouth—

You never saw them coming.

“I promise, love. I’ll get the bastards that…”

He choked as if he were also choking on water, water, water.

“I never saw them coming, Tommy,” you hiccupped, but it was all water, water, water—

“I know.”

Gurgling.

“I just wanted to find you.”

“I know, I know.”

They pinned your arms back.

“The fucking water trough, Tommy!”

He swallowed painfully.

You couldn’t see him anymore. His face had washed away in your straw, goldfish, blood, water, water, water, tears. Blindly, you traced under his eyes and felt his salty, grief, widowed, water tears.

There’s so much tears and sorrow there in that stable that it begins pouring from outside and through the roof. Most days it was in the paddock, but tonight it was here.

Frances, the housekeeper, watched from her window. On these types of nights, when Arrow House became entrapped in a spell and rain drizzled over the countryside, Thomas Shelby would squelch across the overgrown grass to the paddock behind the stable before disappearing. Where he went, she didn’t know. The hazy sheet of mist left much to the imagination. What he saw out there? She didn’t know either. The poor bastard probably just missed his wife.

Frances briefly left her room to peer into Mr. Shelby’s. Letting out a sigh of relief, the room appeared untouched, still frozen in the state Mrs. Shelby left it when she went out to find her husband that tragic afternoon. The sheets were still tossed aside, the teacup still shattered on the ground, her comb still waiting on the bedside table.

Satisfied with her findings, she turned to leave when—

What’s that?

A puddle.

There must be a leak somewhere.

Oh well, she’ll see to it in the morning.

With that, she quietly crept away to her room and fell back asleep, undisturbed by the chattering shutters or creaking floorboards. Not even the ghostly cries down the hall woke her.

After all, there was no such thing as ghosts, only things that went bump in the night.

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

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awritesthings1 · 3 months

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Things That Go Bump in the Night

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Wife Reader

Summary: You ask your husband Tommy if he believes in ghosts. The answer might surprise you.

Warnings: dark, angst, spooky.

ao3 link

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Spirits,” Tommy clarified. “Yes, it’s in my blood.”

“But have you ever seen one?”

Tommy turns his head to look at you, squeezing you closer to his chest from where you both lay under the covers.

“Why’d you ask?” His accent was thicker in the morning.

You stared out the window, attempting to conjure up the right words, but shivered instead when his fingers ghosted across your back.

“Well… I don’t know. I don’t think I would believe in something until I saw it for sure with my own two eyes.”

He hummed and smiled lazily. “Why do people believe in God, hm?”

You pressed your lips together and shrugged as best you could in his embrace.

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Eh?”

“Have you ever seen a spirit?"

Tommy’s eyes glazed over in thought. It was the answer you dreaded.

“Yes.”

“Were you scared?”

He blinked out of the daze.

“No.”

Your hand moved to rest on the cusp of his cheek.

“What happened?”

He cleared his throat and laced his hand with yours there on his face.

Your thumb swiped over the tops of Tommy’s cheekbones.

“You’re certain? Maybe the rain got in your eye, and what you saw was a shadow or maybe even an eyelash in your eye. That happens to me sometimes.”

“I know what I saw.”

“Was he scared?”

A pause, then: “no.”

It was a trick of the brain, that’s all.

And surely enough, Tommy’s footsteps were heard down the hall. Your shoulders slumped in relief. The autumn season was only one for the dramatics.

“You can come in!" You laughed, but a sort of coldness seized your heart with terror when you wondered why Tommy was just standing there on the other side.

“Tommy?” You inquired after a painfully thin stretch of silence.

Again, nothing.

You reached for your comb, holding the long, sharp piece you used to part your hair out like a knife. You weren’t naïve. Tommy had enemies, opportunistic ones, too.

“Tommy?” You squawked, still seized in terror.

He grunted, shrugging on his overcoat and snatching his leather gloves from the tallboy.

“What’s going on?”

Finally, he paused. His eyes were bloodshot and far away. You feared he looked through you rather than at you. He came closer then, pulling you into his arms and laying a warm kiss on your temple.

“Everything’s ok, darling.”

“Where are you going?” Your voice broke. “Did something happen?”

“No…” He hushed. “No.”

“Then where are you going? It’s still dark outside!”

He sighed into your disheveled hair, then pulled away.

“I need to check on one of the horses. Get into bed; I’ll be back soon.”

You clutched his lapels in protest. “No!”

He said your name sternly: “I really need to go. Frances is in her room if you need anything.”

“Tommy, I heard something!” Then, you lowered your voice so only he could hear, “I think someone’s in the house.”

He pulled you in by the scruff of your neck. “No one’s here, love. It’s just us and Frances.”

His boots thud severely against the wooden floor to the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

“Tommy!”

A clack of hooves answered you.

Fear acted like a glaze of sweltering iron, hissing the rhythm out of your heart.

“I can see you!” You tried to warn as if you were the hunter and not the hunted.

Leather hands wrapped around your shoulders from behind.

“Are you insane, eh?” Tommy’s gruff voice scolded in your ear.

You turned around to crumple into his embrace.

“Tommy, something’s not right about this house.”

“Is that why you’re out here? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“What?”

“You don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what, Tommy?”

Silence held a knife to your neck.

A fountain of words prepared to gush out, but you slipped on a puddle that appeared around your feet. You stepped back with a gasp. It wasn’t raining.

“I’m sorry, my love. I should’ve listened to you.”

The puddle kept growing. Words turned into water.

“What the fuck is happening, Tommy?"

His thumb brushed the apple of your cheek.

“I’ll avenge you. I will.”

You cried.

“Shhh, don’t be afraid, darling." Tommy kissed your ice-cold forehead.

You choked. Water: water pooled out of your mouth and suffocated your lungs. You couldn't breathe.

“Go back to bed for me, eh?”

All over your nightgown—water, water, water.

Drip, drip, drip.

Water in your eyes, ears, nose, mouth—

You never saw them coming.

“I promise, love. I’ll get the bastards that…”

He choked as if he were also choking on water, water, water.

“I never saw them coming, Tommy,” you hiccupped, but it was all water, water, water—

“I know.”

Gurgling.

“I just wanted to find you.”

“I know, I know.”

They pinned your arms back.

“The fucking water trough, Tommy!”

He swallowed painfully.

There’s so much tears and sorrow there in that stable that it begins pouring from outside and through the roof. Most days it was in the paddock, but tonight it was here.

Frances briefly left her room to peer into Mr. Shelby’s. Letting out a sigh of relief, the room appeared untouched, still frozen in the state Mrs. Shelby left it when she went out to find her husband that tragic night. The sheets were still tossed aside, the teacup still shattered on the ground, her comb still waiting on the bedside table.

Satisfied with her findings, she turned to leave when—

What’s that?

A puddle.

There must be a leak somewhere.

Oh well, she’ll see to it in the morning.

With that, she quietly crept away to her room and fell back asleep, undisturbed by the chattering shutters or creaking floorboards. Not even the ghostly cries down the hall woke her.

After all, there was no such thing as ghosts, only things that went bump in the night.

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

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awritesthings1 · 4 months

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All The Things We Don't Say

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Female Reader

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

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

ao3 link

Smash!

“Pick it up!”

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

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

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

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

You hated him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You noticed his two front teeth were missing.

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

At ten years old, you knew better than that.

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

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

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

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

You ran inside said house and slammed the door shut.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tommy laughed. “You won’t marry him.”

“What choice do I have, Tom?”

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

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

You hit his shoulder.

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

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

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

You sighed and followed his gaze.

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

Tommy scoffed.

You frowned at him. “What?”

He shook his head.

“What! Tom—”

“Don’t marry him.”

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

“You know why.”

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

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

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

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

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

You lacked the special ingredient that marriages needed: love.

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

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

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

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

“Is Tommy home?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Silence followed closely after.

“Then why are you here?” Tommy sighed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A knock came on the door: “Tommy?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your heart.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’ll catch the next train then.”

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

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

You’ll never forget her dismissive laughter.

“My dear, you won’t.”

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

No. It wasn’t possible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dread made your stomach tender and your breath short.

“I’m enrolling in the Red Cross.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s me! Where’s Tommy and John?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I was looking for you, I—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Your grip on the cover loosened. “Huh?”

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

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

“And done what?”

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

What have they done to you, Tom?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then how—”

“I had to see you.”

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

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

“About what, Thomas?”

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

You began shivering despite the way your body flushed.

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

“Bloody drunk off his ass.”

“And you?”

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

“You can go join him if you wish.”

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

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

He sighed.

“I wish that were true.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What have they done to you, Tom?

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Tommy… it’s me.”

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

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

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

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

“Am I dead?”

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

“Can I have a smoke then?”

“I don’t know how to love, Tommy!”

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

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

“I shouldn’t have come tonight.”

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

“It was a mista—”

“You fucking did!”

“Tommy!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No!”

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

“You’re not cursed!”

“And I can’t stop it, Tommy!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Is it supposed to hurt?”

“It’s perfectly normal.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Charles! Come here!” Tommy called.

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

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

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

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

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

“No!”

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

“No!” cried your little boy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I do! I do!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s quieter.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Someone got shot.”

Your eyes widened. “Are Polly and—”

“They’re fine.”

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

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

“Doesn’t matter.”

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

“Would anyone want to follow us?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He nuzzled his nose deeper into your pulse.

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

“Italians.”

“Italians?”

“Italians sent the black hands.”

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

“Speak to me, Thomas.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

The tension broke the surface then.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“They’re in love, Tommy.”

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

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

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

“Act like what?”

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

“He’s sweet.”

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

“Why?”

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

“Don’t yell at me.”

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

“You’re so certain?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I will.”

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

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

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awritesthings1 · 4 months

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Silent Night

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Reader

Summary: Set the Christmas before World War 1, Tommy and you share a special moment on the front steps of Watery Lane.

ao3 link

“Merry Christmas, Tom.”

The words were swept away by the shrill cry of the wind battering the powerlines above Watery Lane. Together, you sat nestled beneath a faint porch light as the snow blanketed the streets of Small Heath. Tommy leaned into your back, and you snuggled into his chest, with both his legs bracketing you in. The stars—which were hard to make out by how heavy the snow fell—vacated the sky for incandescent streetlights.

Tommy squeezed his arms around you in response, which were locked around your shoulders and clasped at your chest. His warm breath tickled the hairs on your neck. You involuntarily shivered, although he mistook it for the cold, pressing a firm kiss to your pulse. Your back curled delightfully into the warmth of his body and overcoat.

The only Christmas lights you would get to see in 1913 were candles perched on windowsills and streetlights that faded in and out depending on how hard the snow fell. None of it mattered, though. You survived another year in Birmingham, which was enough to be grateful for. Your body hummed lowly like a cat, purring as you admired the stark white flakes falling a breath away from your boots. Tommy’s eyelashes brushed against your skin as he shielded them in the valley of your neck and shoulder.

Muffled music played through the walls across the street. Silhouettes danced through the windowpanes, back and forth, around and forward.

For Christmas, Tommy gifted you a long, soft, red scarf. You wore it around your neck, but it hung loosely due to Tommy’s insistent nose nudging it down. The side that draped over your lap, you used to wrap around your hands like mittens for warmth.

“We should get back,” you whispered behind heavy eyelids.

Tommy hummed into your neck but didn’t make any further movement. You couldn’t blame him either. The period leading up to the holiday season was nothing short of exhausting. Polly needed to gather enough food to feed the mouths around the table, Tommy needed to find small gifts for everyone to open, and Arthur needed to win enough bets to pay for firewood. And you? You tried to shrink beneath the floorboards to feel like less of a burden because you were left under Polly’s care five Christmases ago by your father, who had decided to pack up his things and move across the pond for better job opportunities. He promised to send money back to Polly to pay for your needs, but she was still waiting on the first payment all these years later.

You shifted into Tommy’s embrace, turning around so that you could peck him on the lips. Cheekily, he held the back of your neck and kissed you back more eagerly. You couldn’t help the smile that formed at his sudden passion, but you pulled away nonetheless, not wanting to be caught sucking face on the front doorsteps by any of the Shelby family members or by passersby. When you drew back enough to see his face, you saw the way his eyelids blinked low and slow. The blue in his eyes was frozen into a dull gray, like how you imagined a translucent ghost might be.

You brushed the longer part of his hair back and felt his temperature with the back of your hand. He was burning up, despite the cold weather.

“Let’s go inside, Tom." You smiled gently, briefly letting your nose press into his collar for warmth as you hugged him.

He grumbled something unintelligible, but let you pull him to his feet. Instinctively, his hand went to the small of your back as you both shuffled inside, where the smell of Polly’s Christmas mince pies greeted you. By the time you were wrapped up in a blanket and cuddled together in front of the fire, the pies were still warm, and the magic of Christmas still remained. The night went on; Arthur told some amusing stories to Ada and John; Finn fell asleep on the floor; and Polly carefully slipped a cushion beneath his head. And even if nothing terribly remarkable happened, the Christmas of 1913 wormed its way into your heart, where it would remain for many years to come.

A/N: I have a longfic ready to publish but I'm holding it hostage because I don't want it to get lost in the holiday fics lol. Also I have a tag list so leave a comment if you want to be tagged in any new Tommy fics I write :)

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

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awritesthings1 · 5 months

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Tag list!

(Updated 18/01/24)

Hello! If you enjoyed my Tommy Shelby fics 'Midnight Interlude' and 'Gone with the Leaves' you might be interested in joining my tag list. (At the moment I'm only writing for Tommy).

Comment on this post if you would like to be added or message me if you want to be removed :)

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

#thomas shelby #tommy shelby #tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby x reader #peaky blinders #cillian murphy #tommy shelby fanfic #tommy shelby x you #tommy shelby imagine #cillian murphy fanfiction #cillian murphy x reader #cillian x reader #thomas shelby x you #thomas shelby imagine

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awritesthings1 · 5 months

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Welcome!

I write fanfiction! Below are links to my work. I also have an AO3 which you can visit here.

(This is a temporary masterlist until I can make a nice one lol).

Tommy Shelby Masterlist

Anakin Skywalker Masterlist

Taglist

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awritesthings1 · 5 months

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Tommy Shelby Masterlist

One Shots

Midnight Interlude You try to convince Tommy, your husband, to come back to sleep.

Gone with the Leaves Despite your happy marriage to Tommy, you feel an undeniable jealousy towards Lizzie. Perhaps a day in the forest will do you some good.

Silent Night Set the Christmas before World War 1, Tommy and you share a special moment on the front steps of Watery Lane.

All The Things We Don't Say An anthology of your life with Tommy, from friends to strangers to lovers, and all the little moments in between.

Things That Go Bump in the Night You ask your husband Tommy if he believes in ghosts. The answer might surprise you.

Good Taste The country wives make fun of your sapphire necklace. Tommy finds a way to cheer you up.

Utterly Thoughtless On your wedding night, Tommy begins acting strange. Something is on his mind.

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awritesthings1 · 5 months

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Gone with the Leaves

Pairing: Tommy Shelby / Wife Reader

Summary: Despite your happy marriage to Tommy, you feel an undeniable jealousy towards Lizzie. Perhaps a day in the forest will do you some good.

ao3 link

A/N: I'm starting a tag list, comment if you want to be added :)

“You write like you’re running out of time,” mused Lizzie Stark, former prostitute, now Tommy’s secretary. “They have typewriters for those types of things, y’know?”

You saw the volley of cannonballs that launched and subsequently landed on Tommy’s desk as the words left her mouth. It wasn’t that you expected more of poor old plain Lizzie, but you thought that the time she had spent lying on her back staring past the shoulder of a customer at the ceiling would have taught her to read a room. Nevertheless, she stood there, quite amused with herself, smiling stupidly at your husband.

Tommy, who had been sitting at his desk all afternoon attending to letters, the ledger, and god knows what else, peered up from the paper. “What did you say?”

This time, it was your turn to be amused. He pointed accusingly at Lizzie, who by then had realised her impetuous mistake. Her wide eyes fluttered to you desperately, like a bee that had indulged itself in so much pollen that it became stuck in its own honey. No, that was putting it lightly. She looked to you like a frightened child who knew exactly what kind of trouble they were in.

You made sure you looked the other way.

“It was only a silly joke,” came her spluttering apology.

Tommy squinted, and his mouth curled into a frown. Smoke chased the deep exhale from the cigarette hanging between his lips. Your husband carried this terrifying look to him that many feared. Without the peaky cap to cover his striking blue eyes, you saw his glare cut away the cords in Lizzie’s throat with just one look. How could poor Lizzie defend herself from eyes that had witnessed nightmarish things?

“I’m not clear. Is it funny that I sign my letters by hand, or are you above using ink now that you have graduated from the bed to the desk?”

Lizzie’s mouth wormed into a thin line, yet she still looked to you for help. Of what help she thought you would possibly spare, you weren’t sure. For once, Lizzie used initiative and showed herself out.

Your heels clacked across the wooden threshold of your husband’s office. Now that no one was there to disturb you both, you sat down on Tommy’s lap. By then, he was leaning back on his chair, work abandoned for the time being until he could wash the sour sight of Lizzie Stark from his eyes.

“You know I don’t like her,” you said plainly.

There was no need for fake smiles or lies with Tommy. You knew him, and he knew you.

Tommy exhaled loudly, stubbing out the last of his cigarette on his ashtray and taking a swig of whiskey before his calloused hand found your waist.

He clears his throat. “It’s only business with her.”

“I know, but that doesn’t mean I like her any less.”

Tommy loved you, not Lizzie Stark, yet you couldn’t stomach the undeniable jealousy that arose with her presence. Perhaps it was a natural inclination women had toward their lovers. Lizzie had never done anything outwardly wrong to you. So, what was it then that turned your plain teeth into hissing fangs?

Everyone knew that Tommy was one of her paying customers before you met him, but so were all of Small Heath. You never felt insecure in your relationship with Tommy; there was no need to feel threatened by a prostitute. Yet that wouldn’t stop the catty feline that emerged from its slumber when Lizzie’s wandering eyes battered at your husband.

No. Lizzie Stark would never know what it felt like to be loved by a man like Tommy. What you held in your hands each night was a transcendental, unconditional type of love—one that surpassed the heart and soul, which drew two beings together in the most unconventional yet fitting way. The way that covers kept you warm at night, Tommy watched over your hearth and kept the fire burning, even if he were on the other side of the country.

You closed your eyes, leaning into the valley between Tommy’s neck and shoulder as you listened for the bah-dum-bah-dum of his heart. They sat together in silence, cherishing each other’s presence, while Tommy rested his cheek on your head. Outside, the world waited, barking at their front door and scratching at the delicately carved wood. Even the rain lashed at the windowpanes, playing together like one elemental orchestra.

The hand not resting on your waist rose to gently stroke up and down your arm. You shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold.

“I think you have some work to attend to in the bedroom,” you mumbled into his neck.

Your nose searched for the spot where he applied his aftershave.

“Eh?” Came his gruff response.

Your hand wandered down his suit in answer.

The sheets were bundled around Tommy’s naked waist when you sauntered back over to the bed with his case of cigarettes in hand. Gratefully, he took the case from your hand, wrapping an arm around your shoulder to pull you into the warmth of his chest. Then he began the usual routine. He fished out a cigarette to offer, but you shook your head no, so he slid it once, then twice, across his bottom lip. On the bedside table, he grabbed the half-empty matchbox to light the cigarette.

Tommy was the resident chain smoker in your house. With an appetite for tobacco and whiskey, you often wondered just how he sustained himself throughout the day. Of course, there were the home-cooked meals at Arrow House waiting for his return, although that didn’t stop you from worrying any less. It was pathetic, really, sitting all alone in his study, twiddling your fingers, and sitting beneath his portrait like you were praying to him. Tommy was no god, no matter how much he tried to convince everyone else. Yet whenever headlights passed the window and lit up the office momentarily, you would stand up and peer out, hoping to spot your husband exiting the car.

He cleared his throat, drawing your attention back to the present. You loved watching the way the cigarette shifted between his lips when he spoke, even more when his hooded eyes looked over at you. Tommy was a man of few words, simply because he didn’t need language to communicate. His body spoke for him in tongues for all his enemies to understand. And more importantly, in a way your body understood.

Your hand abandoned his tattoo to stroke a thumb across his full bottom lip. Lust swelled there, eager to chase the rest of the night away into a haze of pleasure until the sun rose. As tempting as it was, you sighed at the thought. You would rather spend this time taking in your husband, remembering the fine details across his face and body, from the scar in the hollow of his cheek to the rough texture beneath his shoulder blade where a bullet was once lodged. You wanted to trace the sockets of his eyes the way a blind person would, treasuring each valley, mountain, and cut of skin as if it were to disappear the second you stopped touching him.

“You’re beautiful,” you decided, bathed in candlelight, tangled up between the sheets and Tommy’s arms.

Tommy’s brows furrowed, and the cigarette hung dangerously loose from where his lips curled into a frown. He grunted, clearly dissatisfied with your words. Tommy wasn’t beautiful. He was hard, ambitious, and unmovable force.

Beautiful was a conventional word savored for the finest women. To you? It meant so much more. Crafted in a way that would cause people to stare, sure, but there was also a poetic sense to the word. The type of beauty you would use to describe a well-written novel or heart-wrenching poem. Thomas Shelby stood for something, and that was beautiful.

“Then what are you, eh?”

A lazy smile floated onto your face, so much so that you had to bite your lip to refrain from looking devastatingly pleased at his answer.

A woman, a dreamer, a friend, a reader, an achiever. “A wife.”

He huffed, raising his eyebrows playfully.

Why was it that most women felt like they could only fit the frame of one? With Tommy, you were never limited to the endless possibilities. You treasured being a wife the same way you treasured your other roles. Marriage wasn’t the end all be all. Perhaps that’s another lie men spun—that perfectly capable women stopped existing as soon as a diamond ring slid onto their finger. How sad, you thought, to waste away all that potential when men were still free to pursue stupid ideas like war and dog fights.

Tommy was unbothered by traditional ideas like that. Change powered his ambition; he had no time for parallel lines. You could be his wife, a writer, a singer, or a mother—whatever you wanted—and he wouldn’t think of you any less.

You hummed, chasing that cigarette from his lips and stubbing it out in the ash tray by his bedside table. Tommy didn’t seem too heartbroken about it. In fact, there was some mirth in his gaze. His hands traced up your naked spine, pulling your body further into his until you could smell the smoke in his breath.

“Yes,” he breathed in loudly through his nose, “my wife.”

The following day, you were invited to the Basnett's hunting party. You would’ve been more enthusiastic to write about your excitement to attend if the whole ordeal hadn’t been so troublesome. Because a few days prior, when you were visiting your husband’s office, you had caught sight of the letter on Lizzie’s desk, a letter that was supposed to reach you days earlier.

“What’s this?” You asked.

“Oh, nothing interesting,” Lizzie had said, too occupied with filing her nails while on the clock.

You kept your composure for the sake of keeping the peace. You didn’t wish to disturb Tommy if he were to walk by.

“This is a letter addressed to me,” you pressed.

“Oh.” She stopped for a moment, then leaned over to read the letter you had pulled from the messy pile. “No, it’s addressed to Tommy.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Shelby,” you hissed quietly, with emphasis on the missus.

“Hm, I didn’t notice.”

“You are paid to notice.” You fought the urge to comment that she was paid for other things not long ago. “How long has this been sitting here?”

Lizzie tapped her cigarette ash into the tray. “The post boy dropped that lot off yesterday.”

Even if it was only two days late to reach your hand, by society’s standards, that may have well been taken as you snubbing the invitation. Frustratingly, you had to cancel your plans that day and personally deliver your letter to the Basnett’s door, citing some excuse of it having been lost in the post.

“That woman is up to no good.” You said glumly that night into Tommy’s chest.

“I’ll speak to her,” he promised in that stoic tone of his.

Whether he had been true to his words, you weren’t sure because Lizzie made an effort to avoid you when possible.

“Oh! Mrs. Shelby! How wonderful for you to join us! Come in, come in. The men are readying their rifles for the hunt outside. How exciting!” Gushed Lady Basnett, shooing you into the atrium of her lavish mansion.

Your riding boots clacked across the floor before being muffled by an intricately woven rug. You stared up at the chandelier, childishly wondering if it would hit you if it were to fall at that moment.

“Right this way, Mrs. Shelby!” Lady Basnett ushered excitably.

You debated if all her energy was for show—to please her husband and be the good wife he expected of her. After she showed you through to the veranda and down to the circle of wives who had gathered under the trees while their husbands readied for the hunt, you decided that no, she must truly enjoy planning social occasions like this, as evidenced by the way she kissed Sarah’s cheek in greeting with a wide grin.

It pleased you to know that Lady Basnett found joy in something. Ever since her eldest died in the war, she has been known to be a bit of a recluse.

“Oh, what a beautiful ring! May we see it?” Doe-eyed Catherine asked.

She was one of the younger wives, like yourself. Catherine married an older man, twice her senior. Many of the wives here faulted her for it behind her back, but not you. You saw more of yourself in her than you did in any of the other women. Because, despite the age gap, the girl seemed to be utterly head-over-heels in love with a man society deemed old-fashioned for her. And how could you blame her when you swore an oath to a gangster of all people?

You obliged and let the wives twist and turn your hand to better inspect the diamonds on your ring finger.

“It’s perfect!”

“How many carats?”

“My Mary would be so jealous!”

After dutifully showing your wedding ring, you noticed the men beginning to mount their horses.

Catherine hooked her arm around yours. “Come on, we are going to be left behind!”

She jovially pulled you along the stone tiles at a speed that made you grateful for wearing riding boots. The backyard was grand in the sense that the acres they owned stretched vastly into the nearby forest. Although there were impressive features, like the hedge they had grown into a maze and the trees that were shaped into birds.

“Lady Basnett owned an aviary of budgies. Dear little things they were, she was devastated when they all escaped one night after the groundskeeper forgot to close the door,” Catherine commented, having noticed the way your head was turned.

You laughed, because you could precisely picture Lady Basnett as the type to fawn over little budgies.

Catherine led you to the horses, where some of the wives were already perched, waiting for the party to leave. None of them carried rifles, but rather wicker baskets strapped to the saddle for the picnic they planned to have at the top of the hill while they waited for their husbands to finish hunting.

Together, you set off, having mounted the back of Catherine’s mare. Deeper into the forest you went, the black mare trotting over loose dirt and rocks. Both of you remained at the end of the pack, preferring to keep to yourselves in light conversation.

Then it all happened so suddenly. One of the rifles went off up ahead, and a flock of birds rushed at you from the break in the foliage, startling your mare. You gasped in shock and reached for Catherine’s jacket to hold on, but only skimmed her. She went face first into the dirt while you were swept into the air like a leaf and fell with the grace of a rock. The ground thundered as the mare galloped into the distance.

“Fuck!” Catherine spat.

(On her fall she had taken a mouthful of soil and leaves.)

“They’ll come back,” you tried to reassure her.

Hours later, the two of you still had not been found.

“I was a prostitute before George found me, y’know.”

No, you didn’t know.

“That’s why I’m so young and he so old,” she smiled fondly, laughing as if it were the most normal thing.

You couldn’t find it in your heart to dislike her because of her circumstances. She was your friend, and a true one at that.

What was it that Tommy said? The past is the past.

The sun began to set when one of the men from the hunting party found you both huddled together under a tree. Kindly, he let the two of you ride the rest of the way back despite your hesitance to mount another horse.

When you returned to Lady Basnett’s, with Catherine in arm, the sun had been set for at least two hours. You hadn’t realized what trouble you had gotten yourself into until you noticed Tommy’s Bentley parked in the crowded driveway of the mansion. Men stood at the gate, armed and waiting. Catherine opened her mouth to remark how ridiculous it was, but you kept your lips sealed after recognizing the guards to be Peaky Blinders.

Tommy had to be beside himself.

A young boy who was playing between the cars popped his head out when the gates squealed open. His ears perked up, and he ran inside, clutching his peaky cap, to probably inform the adults inside of your arrival. People pooled out onto the front steps, the women covering their hearts and sighing with relief, and the men holding their hats to their chests. But when your husband, Tommy, came storming out, they parted like the red sea.

He stalked across the gravel like a predator, his eyes trained on you with an unblinking stare.

“Are you hurt?” He ignored Catherine, cupping your face and frantically looking between both your eyes as if you would disappear.

Upon further inspection, his eyes were bloodshot, and the white sleeves of his blouse were bundled into the golden garters. Your hands itched to muse his disheveled hair into place, but with all the curious onlookers, you thought better of it.

“No.”

George, Catherine’s husband, was quick to whisk her away inside. You heard Lady Basnett’s voice trailing after them: “Oh my, what a terrible thing. Come now, let me pour you some tea.”

Unfortunately, tea wouldn’t make up for any lost ground with Tommy.

“We’re going.”

You knew better to open your mouth to disagree. This was Tommy being afraid and carrying on. He retreated into himself. It didn’t look pretty or like he cared, but he cared; you knew he cared. It was only that no one else was allowed to know that the great Thomas Shelby felt any emotion.

At Arrow House, he swallowed two glasses of whiskey before saying a word. You were pulling at the hem of the overcoat that Tommy had shook off his shoulders to give you for the ride home. Your fingers just couldn’t stand the anxious silence that rang throughout the room.

“What the fuck happened?”

He stood in front of you, stoic as a soldier but cracking around the exterior thanks to his hand, which itched for the cigarette case inside his pocket. (A nervous tick of his.) You grab his hand between your own before he can fish out the case.

“The horse got spooked. It bucked Catherine and me off, but we’re fine.”

His thumb rubs across your knuckles as he looks past your shoulder out the window.

“Do you know where I was when I got the call? Eh? I was handling some business when Lizzie came in and told me some posh old woman was on the line, saying you were missing.”

He exhaled sharply, dropping his gaze to you, where you noticed his eyes soften.

“I thought…” He broke off.

His chin dropped, and he went to itch his nose with his other hand.

“What did you think happened? Is there something I should know about?” Concern leaked into your voice.

“No,” he huffed, clearing his throat. “It doesn’t matter. You’re home, and you’re safe.”

You bit your lip to stop yourself from saying anything that might push him over the edge. He was fragile in a state like this in the sense that he pushed the stronger, more vivid feelings to the side because you were his wife, not a Peaky Blinder. No, you would never be, even though you married one.

Often, you would wish you could turn into the leaves that swept off the pavement and into the air. Imagine then how much easier life would be for you both—to forget the animosity of life and rise above it all, breathe in that crystal air, and then finally exclaim the truth because up there no one could hear them or cared enough to try anyway.

Cautiously, you let go of his hand and traced your fingertips up to knead away the tension in his jaw.

“Thomas… Do you remember what you asked of me? To help you with the whole fucking thing—”

“From now on—”

“Thomas—”

“From now on, let me know where you are going. I will organize a guard to watch over you.”

‘You write like you’re running out of time,’ Lizzie’s poorly placed joke from the start of the week reverberated in your skull.

Was he?

“I need you,” he breathed, the smell of whiskey fanning over your senses.

You nodded, pressing up on your toes to kiss him. A soft breath escaped him when you pulled away.

“You have me.”

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awritesthings1 · 5 months

Text

Midnight Interlude

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Wife Reader

Summary: You try to convince Tommy, your husband, to come back to sleep.

ao3 link

You awoke quietly in the middle of the night, feeling the weight of your slumber resting beneath your eyes. Too tired to lift your eyelids, you shifted in the bed, searching for the comforting cradle of your husband’s arms, only to find the space beside you cold and empty.

Weakly, you opened your eyes to the dark bedroom. Blinking sleepily, you waited for your senses to adjust while attempting to recall if Tommy had mentioned anything about going on a business trip. Your head ached. Where was that Tommy of yours? You weren’t even able to think because your brain was still buzzing from a peculiar dream. Regardless, you were freezing, and without Tommy to keep you warm, you wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. You cursed, pressing a cold hand to your flushed head. Your nose squirmed at the bitter air.

You weren’t sure how many sleepless nights you could endure without your husband. Lately, he had been going on more business trips than usual and staying up late in his office. You went to sleep before him, and by the time you woke up, he was usually already going about his morning. It was if you married a ghost.

The sheets rustled when you swung your feet to the floor. You stretched your arms awake and rolled your neck to the side, receiving a satisfactory pop in return. Wrapping a silk night gown around your body, you left the bedroom, stifling a yawn as you reached his office, where you heard the cackling of candles and the amber hum peeking through from the crack beneath the door. You twisted the nob slowly, careful not to startle Tommy, and entered the room.

“Tommy? You’re still up," you croaked, rubbing at your tired eyes.

Your toes curled as a shiver passed through your body. The wooden floors of your husband’s office were always deathly cold. And where was that ambitious old soul of his? Hunched over his messy desk, squinting through his glasses as he appeared to be reading over a letter. His marble contours were more sunken each night. His thumbs twitched and fiddled with a fountain pen as if they couldn’t bear to do anything but work. The top buttons of his white blouse (that you were always sure to iron the night before) pealed back to reveal a sliver of skin that you would stare at some nights to ensure he didn’t die working himself to death.

You loved him. God, you loved him. You loved him in a way that certainly would disgust the wives from the country houses down the lane. They loved their husbands in a plain and simple way. Margaret had gushed to you about her marriage and how she had fallen into a timely routine with her husband, dancing around the clock until they fell asleep on a wonderfully fluffy mattress. You stuck your tongue in your cheek. That wasn’t love; that was what men told women love was—a choreographed routine. Tommy was different. He loved you hard. Not just because he was a man and that’s what men were supposed to do, but because he lived and breathed everything he did, even if it killed him.

“I need to write something down." Tommy cleared his throat, too distracted to look up from the letter.

If you were any other woman, you would mistake his tone for annoyance. Not you. The hollow under his eyes spoke for him. Your poor husband never knew when to rest. Even when the moonlight poured in from the window and his hands were stained with ink, that mind of his clicked away into a world only accessible to him. It must be a burden, you think, to have the intellect Tommy had—to be three steps in front of everyone else. Talking to the ladies at the country club exhausted you sometimes because all they seemed to care about was the latest silks and décor from an exotic country or babies with chubby cheeks. It had to feel something like that, like sugar rotting your teeth.

“You’ll have time in the morning,” you insisted, leaning against the doorframe and pushing a strand of hair behind your ear.

The candlelight began to flicker as it neared the end of its wick.

Tommy wet his lips. “I have an early meeting out of town.”

Your shoulders fell. You knew who Tommy was and the priorities he had to balance. His work was important to him, and he did it for his family. That included you, too. But at hours like these, when your nightgown wasn’t enough to keep you warm, you craved the comfort of his arms.

“Come back to sleep,” you whispered, crossing the threshold of the office to stand behind him, where he was hunched over on his chair, writing something down.

Tommy relaxed as you began to massage his shoulders. Those eyes that painted you blue on winter nights fell closed for a moment. His hand itched for his whiskey, resting on the icy glass but never raising it to his lips. Several cigarette butts were discarded on his ash tray, some still puffing smoke. He smelled like a mixture of the two. You remember when you were younger how your nose would scrunch up at the scent of his cigarettes. Now, it was oddly comforting.

“I need to finish writing this letter,” Tommy drawled, reaching for the cigarette case that was buried under a file of papers.

As he pinched one out, you grabbed the match box that had been sitting on the windowsill and struck a match to light it as he perched it between his lips. When the end of it lit up, Tommy took a deep drag.

“You’re a man, Tommy, not a god. You need sleep,” you sighed, squeezing his tensed shoulders.

“Not yet." Smoke escaped his mouth in light puffs as he spoke.

You blinked slowly. “Well, I’m going back to sleep.” It was a half-truth. You were never able to fall asleep after waking up in the middle of the night, especially without Tommy by your side.

Tommy’s rough palm covered your hand, which was resting on his shoulder. He cleared his throat.

“I’ll be back before you know I’m gone.”

That was never true. Every time Tommy was gone, the room stank of it. His presence consumed Arrow House; it was as if the walls were made from his flesh and bone. And when he was away, it felt like you were living in a stranger’s home. The paintings on the wall were of a random family, and his office sat as if it were abandoned in a hurry. It was only when he returned that the colors bled back into the walls and you realized you were home.

You leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss on his sharp jaw. He inhaled sharply through his nose. You noticed his attention had drifted from the letter and was now focused on the chandelier.

“Where’s that husband of mine? Hm?”

Tommy continued to take large drags from the cigarette while the both of you bathed in the crackling of the dying candlelight. Eventually, it burned out, and Tommy tapped the butt of his cigarette into the ash tray before setting it down to lean back on his chair. Now dark, he let you slip your hand from beneath his as you straightened your back and ran your nails through his scalp.

He groaned deep and nasally, fluttering his eyes closed. The tip of his tongue wet his bottom lip, and when your pupils adjusted to the dark, you saw the cogs in his head shutting off.

“Come back to sleep.”

“Alright,” he nodded with a grunt.

Most women would have said it was a miracle, not your Tommy. There was no holy spirit that possessed him to say yes. He chose to do so on his own account.

You rode that thought with a smile, turning his head to the side so you could lay a kiss on his forehead.

God, you loved him, you loved him, you loved him.

He sighed deeply, blinking lazily at his hands, which rested on his knees, before standing up. Both Tommy and his chair groaned at the movement. You hushed him and walked him to your shared bedroom, hand in hand. There, you carefully unbuttoned his blouse and slid his suspenders down his broad shoulders. Slowly but surely, you undressed him while his tired eyes watched you.

When you were younger, those eyes terrified you the same way a duck feared a rifle. What you never saw was the love they held behind glaciers of blue. Tommy made sure you saw it ever since. The ink on his hands was dry by the time they came to cup your face. His affectionate touch made more than your heart throb, but the both of you were too exhausted to do anything about it.

You settled for a kiss that he pressed against your lips. It wasn’t passionate or hungry like it usually was, but tender and firm. You loved it all the same.

“I love you." His breath settled on your skin like a warm blanket.

You closed your eyes and leaned forward, letting Tommy carry the weight of your head between his hands. You hummed when he brushed his knuckles gingerly across your cheekbones.

“I love you, too. Now, let’s get to bed before the sun rises,” you smiled, blinking up at him.

He kissed the top of your head, winding his tired arms around your frame to hold you against his chest. He hummed agreeably into your hair, letting his eyes flutter shut. Your arms wrapped themselves around his waist as he held you. You treasured small, fleeting moments like this. It wasn’t often that Thomas Shelby left his boots on the office floor and melted into a puddle. You think that made it all the more special. Your Thomas Shelby, the decorated soldier, the family businessman, and the hardened gangster could step away and become your favorite thing—a loving husband.

By the time you had both settled into the bed, the sheets were still warm, and the moon was still out. Tommy was resting on his side, with his arm draped around your waist as he snored lightly into your neck. Outside the window, the wind howled and crashed against the pane like winter waves. You felt none of it. Tommy’s body acted as a heater, protecting you from the numbing chill that waited at the edge of the covers, threatening to nip at your skin. You smiled, nuzzling deeper into his embrace. Here in the cradle of his arms, nothing could touch you.

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awritesthings1 · 6 months

Text

How to Disappear (Epilogue)

Anakin Skywalker x Reader

Word Count: 2.4k

Summary: Anakin says goodbye to you on Naboo.

ao3 link

Anakin never thought he would have to bury another body.

Yet here he was, on Naboo, staring at the foot of a white marble statue beside the lake where he had found you. It was of a woman posing with her hands laced at her stomach, gazing mournfully in the distance. She stood at least a few feet taller than him and didn’t seem bothered by his presence. He wondered how long she stood there. By the discoloration, cracks, and vines that snaked around her body, he assumed a while.

Anakin liked that about statues; they never died. They remained frozen in time, unable to leave, unable to understand, and immortalized into precious stone. Maybe that was what charmed him about Naboo. Life is vividly captured in its foundations, unlike Tatooine, where it drained like grains of sand down the dunes, or Coruscant, where the sun only reached the towering skyscrapers.

Green fields speckled with unusually colorful flowers painted the hills of Naboo. Not one leaf, twig, or rock felt out of place. The warmth on his skin is welcomed, and the dark robe he usually wore is forgotten in the cockpit of the small ship he had stolen on that fateful night.

The halls of the Imperial Palace follow him in his dreams. Marble pillars line that never-ending rug, which reached in either direction with no end in sight. This dream isn’t like any other he had. No amount of pinching or prodding is enough to keep them at bay. The bloody shoe prints return, staining the never-ending rug, and the hairs on Anakin’s neck shiver violently. The sharp tug of a taut string vibrates in his ear; it’s the blood rushing to his face. You call his name from somewhere far away. And then, and only then, will he wake up in a sweat.

In a strange way, he haunted that place as much as you did.

But here, on Naboo, there was life. Life lived on, and so he would too, even if you weren’t here to experience it with him. Which is why he chose to bury you here, at the foot of a Nabooian statue, to protect you wherever you were. It helped that the statue looked somewhat like you. If he really wanted to, he could close his eyes and imagine that the shadow cast on his face was you. Maybe he would fall for the ruse, but ultimately, no matter how hard he tried, he would open his eyes, and the stone-cold woman would still be staring off into the distance.

His shoulders fall.

Anakin never found your body. After Palpatine’s death, he left half alive, stumbling through the halls of Coruscant, shivering with a throbbing headache and a gaping hole in his stomach. The only evidence he had been there were the bloody footprints after he limped through the pool of Palpatine’s blood and down the never-ending rug that he sees in his dreams. He stole a small ship to escape—the smallest one he could find—while bleeding out in order to make his departure as discreet as possible. The next days were a fever dream, where he relied on his botched memory of Obi-Wan teaching him how to administer first aid to himself. He had only been a Padawan then, and he thought Obi-Wan was only trying to waste his time because why would Anakin need to learn something so trivial when there were always medical droids and ships nearby?

Weeks passed until Anakin could stand without the feeling of fainting or the urge to vomit. He had been extremely lucky to survive the attack and have half a mind to set his new cramped ship to autopilot before he lost too much blood. It was when he was starting to come around that he grabbed his dark robe, which had been tossed aside carelessly, and found your lightsaber buried in the pocket. He cried that night and popped a few stitches from his effort.

Anakin returned to the Imperial Palace when his wound was healed enough. He planned to recover your body so he could bury it on Naboo with your mother. But when his small ship rattled into the Coruscanti atmosphere, all that was left of the Imperial Palace were ashes. Rioters and rebels alike mobbed the place, trashing the ancient marble foundations and setting fire to the remains of the Empire, taking what was left of you with it.

So he figured if he couldn’t bury your body, he would do the next best thing and bury your lightsaber at the foot of the marble statue on your home planet. Anakin didn’t necessarily believe in trivial things like an afterlife. Neither the Jedi nor the Sith believed in it. But he would be damned if he didn’t honor you in some way. Later, he would try to find your mother so he could give her the respect she deserved in her death since he never gave it to her that day when she was alive.

On Naboo, the wind whistled through the trees and water lapped at the sandy shores, but Anakin could not hear a thing. The silence, he realized, was his own. A great, big, loud silence deafened the rustling of leaves and the howling air.

The thundering rhythm of his heart beat inside his chest, roaring into his ears. The more he listened to it, the louder it grew. Live, live, live, it told him. But how could he, when his heart was trapped in a prison others call a ribcage and its true home belonged to a body that was lost in the ashes of Coruscant?

When the ringing in Anakin’s ears settled, he heard the crunch of a twig behind him. He must really have gone mad, he thought to himself, because his gut twisted in an eager way as if somehow your ghost would be approaching him. He could feel it now, your hand reaching out to rest on his shoulder, squeezing it in that reassuring way that was so uniquely you. As if you had the power to fight away all his monsters with one gentle action.

And it all came down to one thing: Anakin couldn’t move on. Even during his time as Vader, he haunted the remains of the Jedi Temple as a clothed, dark figure—a ghost of who he once was. And while he didn’t have a glowing blue figure, he floated through the halls as one, haunting the late hours of the night like one. Some people whispered his name as if he were one. Death followed him like that.

“Anakin.”

He could hear her voice whistle his name in the wind. If he weren’t straining his ears, he would have missed it like he missed most things in his life. Palpatine, you, even the Jedi Council. And how about those untold stories that unfolded behind closed doors, distant whispers, and Obi-Wans tired eyes? Flames consumed them when the Jedi Temple burned. The hungry fires would devour all those unsaid words, leaving behind ashes scattered across the galaxy. It would be fruitless to attempt to stitch those brittle grains back together.

The wind whistled again, beating violently at his robe that flapped in its path. There was that sound again, and that airy ghost that climbed his spine like a ladder. The wind was his new ghost.

The wind causes his robe to flap so violently that he mistakes the feeling for a hand on his shoulder. Of course, this was the wind’s new way of haunting him.

“Will you turn around?”

His blood runs cold. The weight on his shoulder was a hand made out of skin—the flesh and bone kind. It was too good to be true. It couldn't be.

The wind, his new ghost, strangled the air out of his windpipe, sucking all the oxygen out of his lungs for itself. Which was fine; Anakin didn’t have a use for his breath anyway. But suddenly you were standing before him as you did many years ago, and it took everything in him to not lunge forward and trap you in his arms out of fear that you might slip away.

“How?” Anakin felt like he was floating outside his own body.

“The Force?” You shrugged.

You stood in front of the white marble statue, facing him as if it were perfectly normal to rise from the dead and stand on the soil that was supposed to be your memorial. Anakin doesn’t understand it, and he never thinks he will.

“Do you remember that night I nearly died?”

Anakin’s eyebrows furrowed. No, Anakin wasn't there when you died. Palpatine told him that you crashed on your mission to the Outer Rim.

As if you could read his mind, you add, “no, the night I nearly died. When I was trapped in that cave with all those people?”

Anakin nods, still confused about how this was supposed to make any sense.

“I think I did die that night. I was bleeding out in that cave, and then the next thing I knew, I was at the top of a cliff, watching that village burn..." You trailed off. “But I wasn’t alone. I could feel the Force, it was there with me. I think the Force took half of me that day; I never felt whole after that.”

Anakin tried his best to listen, but he was too overwhelmed and had to fight the sickness that quelled in his stomach. “Then how are you here? Am I imagining you?”

Your hand reached to cup his jaw with a small smile.

“No,” you laughed, a buttery sound that melted his muscles. “What I meant was that I think I’ve been split between two worlds. The living and the dead. Half of me was with the Force, and the other half of me was with you.”

Anakin’s head was too full to process the information. All he could think of was you, you, you…

Your flushed cheeks burn against the back of his eyes in a hauntingly delightful way. He refused to blink until it was engraved in his mind.

Alive, alive, alive…

“I saw your body on Coruscant,” Anakin tried to breathe.

“I know…” You stepped closer, holding his head more firmly between both your hands. “I was—”

The look in his eyes stopped you. You could see frozen lakes beginning to crack under the pressure.

“It doesn’t matter,” you said, pressing your forehead to his. “It’s all over now.”

You could feel Anakin’s heartbeat thundering against your chest, and with a shuddering realization, he could feel yours too.

Anakin licked his dry lips. "So... this is only half of you?” His arms held you firmly to his chest, afraid to let go.

“With you, Anakin?” You brushed the scar across his eye. “With you, I am whole.”

And after spending what felt like eons adrift in the Force and feverish nights spent fighting off nightmares, you closed the distance and pressed a kiss of life against his lips.

It took Anakin a month to tell you about your mother. Not that you ever asked him, but he knew he would have to break it to you eventually. You were cuddled against his bare chest with his metal arm draped comfortably around your waist when he told you.

The Nabooian wind that blew through the cottage window sent a shiver down your spine. Anakin had forgotten to close it the other night, being too absorbed in the summer heat of the countryside, only to forget how the temperature dropped once the sun sank beneath the horizon. It was a strange but welcome feeling to awaken like this, wrapped in his arms. Anakin had developed a summer tan and the habit of hogging the sheets, the latter of which you summed up being because he kept forgetting to shut the window.

It had been a month of this routine. Shiver, roll over, pry the sheets from Anakin’s grip, and snuggle into his body for warmth. Usually, you both stayed like this for a while until you begrudgingly retreated away from your nest to begin your day with the window still ajar. It was either the rattling of the plants at the open window or Anakin’s own tossing and turning that would rouse him.

Today, it was neither. It was your ice-cold nose poking into his collarbone and the tickle of your hair against his skin. He watched you sleep, slowly running his metal fingers up and down your arm as tenderly as he could. You shiver in response, and the hairs on your arm stand up.

Guilt consumes him immediately.

You were still fast asleep, but Anakin hated disturbing you in any shape or form. Which is why he lay there that morning staring up at the ceiling while ignoring the growls of his stomach. A month of selfish bliss he spent catching up on lost time. A month spent putting off all the ugly truths that would shatter their blanket of happiness.

Your mother was the largest shadow that hung over him. He knew he had to break the news eventually. Since living in Naboo with you, it would only be a matter of time before curiosity got the better of you and you went out in search of your mother. It burdened him greatly that he would have to be the one to break the news to you, but he supposed it would burden you more if he never told you.

The truth left his lips that morning while you were tangled with him in bed.

“I know.”

You said it so plainly that his blood ran cold.

“You knew?”

“Yes, I saw her when I was dead. We hugged and talked. She forgives you.”

Anakin inhaled sharply. Forgiveness was the last thing he deserved. His mouth opened to try to make sense of it, but he was at a loss for words. Your mother had no reason to forgive him. He wondered if you only said it to appease him before pushing away the thought, knowing you better than that. Anakin’s flesh hand grabbed one of yours, which was resting on his chest, giving it a squeeze.

“Do you forgive me?” Anakin’s voice was only a crack above a whisper.

You blinked up at him blankly, the same way you did when you were a Force ghost. It was somewhere between curious and confused.

In that moment, you saw him for all he is, for all his shades of blue refracting off him and into your light.

It was quiet, then:

“Yes.”

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awritesthings1 · 7 months

Text

The Midas Effect (Part 2)

Anakin Skywalker x Royal Reader

Pairing: Anakin Skywalker x Royal Reader

Summary: After the King dies, the Dark Ones invade the Capital and burn your palace to the ground. You plan an escape, which ultimately fails and seemingly crash lands you back in time. Will the help of a familiar Jedi be able to save you from your fate?

Word Count: 2.8k+

Note: This is the final part! :)

AO3 link

Previous part

Sometime in the night, you lose yourself to the rhythm of the rain. Its presence swallowed your thoughts away into distant lands where the howl of the clouds drew tears from the sky. Where the valleys drowned themselves in waterfalls pouring down from mountain cliffs. Where mud swallowed earthly greens out of greed and where the creaking of floorboards disappeared under the roaring of the storm.

It was all the same.

Yet you still felt like a stranger in your own home.

The scar across Anakin’s eye remained as memorable as it did the day you last saw him. And the heat of the mug in your hands thawed your hands the same way. Because you couldn’t mistake any of this for anything but real. So it had to be true just the same way you were a girl and he was a Jedi.

For lack of a better term, you missed Anakin Skywalker.

You realize all of this after you position yourself in front of the fireplace. Anakin had gone to gather thicker blankets and fluffier cushions to make your spot on the floor comfier.

The universe had sent you a second chance. You just need to figure out why.

“Anakin.” His name sounds like a prayer on your lips.

Anakin, who was crossing the threshold of the room, stops still in his tracks. “Yes?”

You turn your face away from the fire, fighting away the wobble in your voice with a teary-eyed smile. “Come sit with me?”

He thinks you look like a precious vase on the verge of cracking. Without another word, he scrambles to your side, careful not to make too much noise with the weight of his boots. Anakin is afraid to make any sudden movements and cut the thinly disguised pain on your face.

The truth is, you hated being alone. When you were alone, your thoughts got too loud. It was like being stuffed in an overcrowded room with no door. And no matter how many people you elbowed out of the way, two more would rear their ugly heads. Sometimes you think you might be better off letting them grab your shoulders and press you into the crowd until you wilt away and become a dot among thousands of bodies. At least then you wouldn’t need to worry about where you place your hands.

Anakin must see the slouch in your shoulder when he brushes the back of his knuckles down your arm. You shiver because it’s the flesh hand. If only he knew his mistake before he touched you. Didn’t he know everything you touched turned to stone?

Your father once told you about a king named Midas. Everything he touched turned to gold. What a heavenly gift, you thought. You could have a gold hairbrush, gold slippers, and a large golden mirror. How could that be a curse? The ending never made sense. You would never be so dumb as to touch your family and make the mistake of turning them into gold.

You tense at your naivety. How stupid you had been. Because wasn’t that exactly what you had done? But instead of gold statues, you turned them into chiseled headstones perched in the meticulously groomed family graveyard.

The thoughts cluster together like a star ready to burst.

Bigger and bigger, they swell, burning your toes until it’s large enough that the fireplace disappears and then the room. It’s just you and the taunting ball of light.

“…in your head?” Anakin’s husky voice rasps like the burning sphere. It explodes then, pricking the soles of your feet with shards of debris.

“Huh?” You reply absentmindedly, albeit not all there.

He exhales through his nose slowly, fixing you with an intense stare. Or at least it felt that way. It was easy to feel small next to the Jedi. He was the kind of man your dad would approve of— someone strong and ambitious to rule the kingdom by your side one day. He’d give you one of those sly looks fathers gave their daughters after a joke they told fell flat. You scrunch your nose at that.

“You were fine before you went to bed. Did you have a nightmare?” Anakin asks.

You are almost certain that’s not what he said originally, but you don’t have an ounce left in your frail body to argue.

You shake your head, hoping he will let it go. How would you explain that you almost died in a crash and accidentally traveled back in time into your younger body? It wasn’t like Anakin had any reason to trust you. You had never been close, and you mostly avoided everyone after your father’s passing.

His lips part as if to say something, but he presses them closed shortly after to embrace the silence. You would thank him if you didn’t feel like a ghost trapped in a stranger’s place. What use are your hands when they tremble and cramp? Anakin would be wise to cut one off to replace his metal hand so at least then one of your hands would be able to save people.

He shuffles closer until you feel the tickle of his golden locks. “Did I ever tell you the story of how I lost my hand?”

Your teeth gnaw on the flesh of your bottom lip. You think if he opens his mouth one more time in that silky, soft rasp of his, you will burst into tears. Just one more sweet ounce of affection, and you would throw up at his feet and effectively soak his robes with your pathetic tears.

“Obi-Wan and I were on Genosis—”

It all comes out. All the muffled noise that had been prowling through your head comes crashing out.

“Come here,” Anakin abandons the story, shuffling closer until his whole body is pressed into your side.

The leather material of his glove combs through your head. You almost purr like a lothcat at the sensation. But instead, you just cry into the cusp of his neck where you can feel the pulse of an artery. His fingers brush loose strands out of your mouth and behind your ear. Anakin’s chin rests on your head, mumbling something unintelligible under his breath. It’s probably something like, you’re alright, or it’ll all be fine, that people say when they don’t know how to comfort anyone. You’ve heard them a million times, and it never makes you feel any better.

Intertwining your hand with Anakin’s leather one, you pull it to your lap where you fiddle with the notches.

“Can I see it?” You sniff.

His brows furrow as you watch the cogs turn in his head. After a moment, he lets out a sigh, releasing your hair to unlatch the leather glove. Before he removes it, you place your hand over his and tug away the glove yourself. What you see next makes you bite down hard on your tongue.

It’s gold. His metal arm is gold.

The Midas effect: everything you touch turns to gold.

Anakin mistakes your delirious laughter for tears, shushing you and trying to rock you gently. “The Midas effect! The Midas effect,” you babble mindlessly, batting his attentive touch away. When Anakin pauses to hold your shoulders, you continue. “The Midas effect, Anakin,” you laugh while a tear slips out.

“What’s that?” He questions.

“The King whose touch turns everything to gold. I’m cursed like him.”

Puzzled, he looks at his golden arm. Even through your weary-eyed mess, you catch the faintest smirk on his face. By now, your maniacal laughter had died down enough to hear a gentle chuckle from the Jedi. Maybe your state of mind has brushed off on him. If anyone saw the two of you, they would surely think you were both patients who escaped a ward.

Anakin smiles at you. “Who told you that?”

“You haven’t heard the story of King Midas?” You match his grin.

He bites his lip, shaking his head. “It’s not a story the Jedi have ever told me.”

You swallow a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. It would be too easy to shamelessly sink into the Jedi’s arms and bury your head in his chest forever. Of course, if he hugged you back, it would be out of pity because it was his job to look out for you. Regardless, you don’t really care at this point.

Anakin clears his throat. “You should get to bed; it’s late.”

It’s been late for the past couple of hours, you think wryly. “I don’t want to go to sleep.”

He ignores you, reaching for his glove to refasten it on his arm. “Let’s go; all princesses need their beauty sleep,” but you don’t budge from your spot. Quietly, he slips out to the kitchen to fetch a bucket of water. When he returns, you watch him douse the fire until it sizzles out.

“Can you show me a Force trick?” You lean back onto the floor, stretching out like a star.

He sighs, turning around as if to check to see if anyone was hiding nearby before turning back to you. “Is there a reason you don’t want to go to bed?”

You blink up at him lazily. “What if I don’t wake up?” The words slip past your lips without a thought. God, look at you. How could anyone ever trust you with being Queen? Not when the filter keeping your deepest fears broke in a matter of hours within the presence of a Jedi.

Anakin inhales sharply. Perhaps you misjudged him. Maybe that was his Jedi trick— bringing the most unsettling thoughts to the surface.

“I’ll keep watch over you,” he nods.

“You promise?”

“I’ll be right next to you when you wake.”

You watch him as if he were a shooting star, burning so bright but gone in the blink of an eye. Your eyes burn, afraid to close them and snuff the light out. You don’t know what waits for you on the other side. Death, perhaps. Would it be dark? Would it be cold? You had heard tales of kings who buried everything they would take to the afterlife with them: their favorite wine, lavish furs, cutlery and furniture. Yet all you have is the servant’s dress you had put on earlier. If you were wiser, you would have stopped pulling at the loose thread at the hem so you wouldn’t have to worry about having one rag to your name in the afterlife. Huh. How ironic, you think, a queen with only a rag to her name. There’s something awfully fitting about that.

“Will you hold my hand?” You don’t want to go into the end alone.

Wordlessly, he lies down next to you on the floor, mimicking your position. His cheek presses into the floor, watching you as he slides his leather hand closer. Anakin’s hand is much larger than yours when he encompasses it gently and rubs his thumb up and down your knuckles.

Your skin is dry and stiff from where your tears have dried, but you still find it in you to smile out of gratitude.

“Goodnight, Anakin.”

And how lucky you must be to know that the tender caress of skin feels the same as slipping into a dream.

You find that death isn’t as scary as you expected. Its shrill cry rings like a bell in your ear, awakening you from a deep slumber. Death’s arms are wound tight across your chest in an unwanted hug. Instinctively, you claw at your chest to pull it away. It tightens then, and you jump at the sound of your own scream.

Your eyes fly open, just as the harness of your seat digs into your skin.

You survived.

Relief floods over your head and you sink beneath it. The moment is brief, enough to steal a burning gulp of air. It isn’t fresh or clean, and your lungs protest at the smoke, but it’s the fuel you need to keep pushing.

Shaking hands reach to undo your harness, and you think it’s a bit strange how one is concealed by a leather glove. Neither Vee nor the Alderaan pilot were wearing one when you boarded. You spare a look up.

“Getting yourself into more trouble, princess?”

I’ll be right next to you when you wake.

Anakin had never been a liar.

When the harness clicks open, you throw yourself at him despite, your legs giving out halfway there. He catches you in the rush, the hood of his robe falling back to reveal those tender curls you always loved. Anakin laughs a boyishly. It reminds you of timber crackling in the fireplace.

“Good to see you too,” he smiles, brushing away the dirt and sweat you felt sticking to your face.

You don’t even consider the repercussions of your actions as you sling both arms around his neck and pull him into a kiss. It must be the shock, you think, or perhaps part of you still thought you were dreaming. Either way, he doesn’t pull back and it makes your stomach twist into knots.

When you pull back, you push him away and scream joyously at the sky, stretching your arms as far as they will go. You forget about it all, letting the hairs on your arms stand tall and shiver in a satisfying way.

And then it hits you.

“Vee!” You cry, hissing at the throbbing sensation in your head as you must have whipped your head around too quickly.

She comes running around a large piece of debris from the ship with her hands gathered in her skirt. Behind her is the Alderaan pilot, who cradles his arm carefully across his chest. “Are you hurt?” She asks.

“I’m fine. How about you?” You answer, although your words are muffled into her shoulder as you embrace.

“I was lucky. Only a broken arm over there,” she says, looking back at the pilot, a small smile ghosting her lips before turning back. She stills.

You follow her gaze over your shoulder to Anakin. He looks just as unnerved. Your eyebrows furrow. “Vee, you remember Anakin. The Jedi that guarded me after my…” The words die on your tongue. After my father died.

She clears her throat. “Forgive me, Jedi Skywalker. I am just surprised, that is all. I thought the Jedi were a thing of the past.” Her words are curt.

You flinch at her formal address. It probably wasn’t appropriate for you to refer to Anakin by his first name, but it also couldn’t have been appropriate to kiss him either.

Anakin sneaks a glance at you, catching his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment before looking back at Vee. “We may not have a temple anymore,” he says, holding your gaze, “but we do have our responsibilities.”

“What happened to you?” You don’t mean for it to come out so suddenly, but like most things in your life, it passed you by.

He swallows and forgets to blink. “Your ship won’t make it past their lines in the sky. I suggest we take mine; it should have landed just past that hill.” He gestures somewhere in the distance. “And then we will get that cut cleaned, my lady.”

Your mouth sours at the formality before reaching above your eyebrow. When you pull your fingers away, they are covered in fresh blood. Oh.

Anakin brushes past you, swiping the faintest touch across your arm as he does. You study Vee and the Alderaan pilot to see if they caught it, but they appear unphased. Quietly, you follow behind him.

After a minute of walking in silence, you speak up. “Why did you come back?”

“I heard about the invasion of Caridaan and figured a little princess may need my help.”

“Queen.”

“What?”

“I’m Queen now.”

Anakin grins, still focused on his ship in the distance. His smile hasn’t changed.

“You remember that story you told me? About the King who turned everything to gold?” Anakin begins. You nod, confused about where he was going with this. Regardless, you watch as he fumbles beneath his robe to reveal his silver lightsaber. He stops in his tracks, grabbing your arm gently to draw your attention closer. “Put your hand out.”

You gape at him. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” he sighs, putting the metal hilt into your hand anyway. It’s heavier than you expected, larger too. You wonder how he is able to wrap his hand around the whole thing. “Press the button.” He shifts to your side to stay clear of the direction you are holding his weapon.

When you do, a single beam of blue light ignites. It hums beneath your grip. “I don’t understand,” you gulp. You never really knew much about the Jedi. Anakin had told you about the different colors briefly, how the good guys were blue and green, and the bad guys were red. Still, you failed to understand what point he was trying to prove.

By your side, Anakin inhales deeply before exhaling. “Doesn’t look cursed to me.”

The King whose touch turns everything to gold. I’m cursed like him.

You see a silly reflection of yourself in the silver hilt.

The silver metal feels just right in your hand.

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129 notes · View notes

awritesthings1 · 8 months

Text

How to Disappear (Chapter 7)

Anakin Skywalker x Reader

Word Count: 3.5k

Summary: The finale. Vader must choose where his loyalties lie.

ao3 link

Your skin itches. His true name sits under there, marked into your bones. Separated by two different worlds yet tied together by an invisible string. You tried outrunning it, hiding behind mountain peaks and the blinding light of stars. But he always found you in the end, whether he meant to or not. Resisting was futile. You knew your next confrontation was inevitable.

Guilt, your new companion, shadowed your journey. You hadn’t seen Anakin—Vader in a while. So much has happened since then. On Lothal, you felt so close yet so far away from him. He was different—hollower. And yet you let yourself believe that your Anakin was fighting somewhere inside the shell of his body because you couldn’t let him go. Selfish, maybe, but you never got to say goodbye. How could you do it now?

You pondered those thoughts adrift in the galaxy, allowing yourself to be swept away in the Force and guide you to wherever and whenever it needed. The silence breathes life into nearby systems, inhaling the darkness and allowing light to diffuse. It works together as one body, balancing the good and the bad like a mastered routine. And for a moment, you were able to catch a breath, close your eyes, and drift away. Where would you appear next? You would ask. The Force never replied; it only pulsed, sending electrical signals across the galaxy. Your head whipped back as it took hold of you, relaying various flashes of images, scents, and sounds until it formed one picture.

Coruscant.

Dark, gloomy, lifeless Coruscant. Once a home, now a graveyard. The once mesmerizing skyline had diminished. Sharp skyscrapers that used to reflect the sun now stand as bleak overcrowded blocks. Even the Temple sits quietly in the absence of the Jedi, as it is afraid to make a sound. The marble floors no longer gleamed, and the pillars were singed from lightsaber strikes.

A shiver cascades down your spine.

Under your feet, a metal grate hides a room under the floor. For a faint moment, you see yourself looking back up at you from beneath it. Anakin is beside you with his Padawan braid, sulking at his new metal arm. Your eyes widen as you reach down towards them, but you slip through the floor into the room. When you look up, your younger self is gone along with Anakin. All that remains is a collection of Master Yoda’s candles that are spilled in a pile on the floor. You hope Yoda made it out of this mess.

The next time you blink, you are in a corridor. It stretched from one shadow to the next. Rust grew on a leaking pipe above your head, dripping dangerously close to loose hanging wires. Air evaporated over a heated air duct, emitting a foul stench. The Force buzzes inside you like static. You didn’t feel welcome here, so why had it sent you? Further down the corridor, a red light pulses like an alarm that had been set off. Yet it remained airily quiet, luring you deeper. Tension swelled despite the stillness.

There was a sinking feeling in the Force as if you were plummeting into an open chasm, only you didn’t have the pumping blood or adrenaline in your ears. Instead, you were left with the unsettling prick of pins up your spine. Something lived deep within the hollow walls—something that was itching to get its claws on you.

You almost call his name. Maybe it was instinctual or maybe the feeling in the air knew something you didn’t. Either way, you found your legs moving against your will. You couldn’t help it. The red light at the end of the corridor held your gaze.

Your eyes strain and stare off into the distance. Within a blink, you were at the end, standing before a heavy metal door. It called you. It snuffed out your surroundings and it breathed you into the coldest room where even sound vaporized.

When you stepped through the door, it all connected.

Your dead body laid flat on an examination table in the middle of the morgue.

It wasn’t evil; it was scared. You were scared.

A wretched choke greedily swallows the frigid air, but your last breath left you long ago. With a chilling realization, you carefully turn around to face him. Anakin—Vader, sits behind you in the corner of the morgue, rocking his body back and forth and mumbling incoherent thoughts aloud. His cheeks are hollow and his eyes are sunken, carelessly letting a stream of tears dampen a dirty dark robe. He doesn’t appear to notice the twitch in your eye, much less your appearance.

"GET UP!" You seethe. You don’t have the strength to look at your deceased body anyway. "GET UP!" You wail, running over to him on the floor and beating your fists into the wall next to his head. "GET UP!" You don’t think you just scream and wail.

"I’M—I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! I’M SO SORRY!" He cries back. It’s not enough for you. Not even his exhales visibly vaporizing in the air are enough. You died. YOU DIED. YOUR BODY WAS JUST LYING THERE AND ALL HE COULD DO WAS CRY? "I’M SORRY MASTER, I DIDN’T MEAN TO."

You freeze. Vader’s hyperventilating had stopped. Now, he is looking right between your eyes. For a fleeting minute you think he had noticed you until you heard the other voice. Because Vader wasn’t looking at you—no, he was looking through you at his master. Darth Sidious.

That persistent itch returns. It clicks then. You weren’t really here. No, you were witnessing it like an outsider. An outsider of your own body. A ghost haunting their own body; a ghost protecting their own body.

"You understand what you must do now?" Sidious beckons.

"…Don’t send me back," Vader hiccups.

You never find out where. The Force nudges you away just in time, beckoning you to bleed back into the corners of the room. You spend the last second glimpsing remorsefully at your body. It disturbs you greatly, like teeth growing under your skin. Why had the Force shown you this? What was it trying to tell you?

Somewhere deep down, you can’t misplace the feeling of this all being so wrong. You were given another chance to live, to see Anakin again, and this was how it always ended. Always the martyr, but never the savior. Was this your new life?

"I feel I’ve gone wrong somewhere." You whisper to no one but yourself.

The other souls weren’t good company. They were wiser than you and quieter than you.

How could it be that the Force had ascended you into this ghost torn between two worlds when you never got to accept your death?

Invisible hands link together around your neck. You blink. The touch grows steadier. Your eyes roll to the back of your head, feeling the Force whisk you away.

"Haunting my dreams too?"

At whiplash speed, Vader is standing in front of you with his hands wrapped around your neck. Sweat sticks a stray curl to his forehead. His chest rises and falls as if he had been overexerting himself. To your surprise, the corners of his lips are pulled into a faint smirk. But it doesn’t reach his eyes; only the reflection of your blue glow does. Your back stiffens. You stand there still as porcelain, afraid to crack under the pressure. Your thinly veiled anger is held together by a string.

The pressure on his fingers loosens one by one, sliding them across your shoulders and down your arms before falling to his sides.

His lie hangs in the air. That hadn’t been a dream.

Venom rips through your stomach and into your mouth. You feel sick.

"This needs to stop," is all you manage.

Vader runs his hands over his face, stopping to press the heels of them into his eyes. "I don’t know what to do," he hisses, sounding more human than Sith. You had seen him deflated on the shores of Mustafar, defeated on Tatooine, merciful on Lothal, and a prisoner on Coruscant. Something had changed since then. Despite all these ill-fated meetings, only one question continued to plague you.

"What was it all for?" Your teeth grind.

Vader is taken aback, his bare feet stumbling back a step. "What?"

"All this pain, all this suffering. What is it that you want?" His time as a Jedi Knight was the happiest time of your life. When had it all gone so wrong?

"Power," he breathes, "power…" The scar across his eye throbs.

You take a step closer. "And when will it be enough?" Your voice is devoid of emotion. One more ounce of energy and you might just disappear forever.

His lips part as if to answer you, but nothing comes out.

Vader’s back slumps against the wall until it slides to the bottom. A panel in the wall catches on his robes. He muffles his cries of pain by biting into the bottom of his lip. At the top of the stairs looms his shadow: Darth Sidious. Only one has blood pooling beneath their body, and Vader had used up his luck a long time ago.

So much red. Lakes of it decorate the Imperial Palace, creating rivers of his sins down the stairs. From the red lightsaber clutched in Sidious’ hand to the spots in his vision. It caked beneath his nails too, from where he was hopelessly trying to ease his wound. Vader had lost his own lightsaber after tumbling backwards down the very stairs Sidious stood atop.

"You are foolish…" Sidious rasps, "perhaps not the Chosen One we all thought."

Vader had been foolish enough to try to kill his Master before the break of dawn because of a fever dream. And when will it be enough? Your words intoxicated his thoughts.

And when will it be enough? Vader recalled kicking away the thin bedsheets that had pooled at his feet sometime during the night. The question seared through to the bone, irritating the mechanisms of his metal arm. He spent hours lying awake like that, staring at the shadows, partly waiting for them to come and take him away.

His breath vaporized like the smoke forming in his head. In the haze of his frenzied state, he tried to recall your face, but that too slipped out of reach. Everything kept slipping, peeling away, and disappearing.

What was it all for?

Power.

A feverish shudder strikes.

Killing Darth Sidious would have been the end of it. If only he hadn’t given into his frenzied thoughts, he might have done just that. But no, Vader didn’t act on thought; he acted on feeling. His lust for power took him to the edge of the cliff each time.

Palpatine had seen him coming. Vader had only spent a few moments shrugging on a dark robe; he hadn’t even bothered with a shirt. And when Vader prowled only a few steps outside his bunker, a shining beam of red pierced his back through to his abdomen.

Which is how he ended up here, slumped against a wall, fighting to keep his eyes open. Another cough sets his lungs alight.

Darth Sidious’ breath washes over him as the man reaches out to trace the scar across his eye. "Pity."

Vader doesn’t have the strength to fight back, so he grits his teeth in response while heaving for air. His skin is growing paler by the second.

Ghosts linger in the hall.

Shmi, his mother, sits next to him. She soothes her hand down his shoulder. Vader sniffles. It had been so long since he had seen her. Although the sensation in his lips is fleeting, he opens it to say something, but she smiles and whisks away all the worries in the universe like mothers do. He realizes in that moment that she never saw him as Vader, only as Anakin Skywalker, the son who couldn’t save her. Yet she came and sat with him as blood continued to flood the floor of the old Jedi Temple. That must be love, he thinks.

On the other side, you wait there, careful not to make a noise. But he notices you. Feels you. His blue ghost, his guardian angel. You weave and entangle into him through the Force, saturating the pain away. You are like gravity, holding him there until it’s his time to ascend. His breath is shallow as he turns to you. He never meets your eyes, too ashamed of the man he will see in them.

And then, only then, on the brink of death, it all falls away.

He sees you. Void of your blue gleam and replaced with the radiant glow of your flesh—the skin and bone kind. With crimson blood pulsing your heart to life like hallowed memories breaking free from their cage and unraveling at his feet. Pieces fell back into place. The lingering weight of a palm between his, the brush of a smaller shoulder, and a smile pressed against his own. When he thought you were dead. We will be alright. Then words fall into place. Candles beneath the grate still burn. The wick dies. All alone. Grieving.

Vader’s flesh hand wraps around Palpatine’s neck in seconds. They both stare at each other, collectively gasping for breath. The darkness is suffocating sweet on Vader’s tongue. He draws on it like a man thirsty for water, sipping it out of Palpatine like it were his last meal. Before him, Palpatine’s face falls deathly ill, cheeks hollowing and eyes bulging. Vader tastes his life Force; it’s bitter and metallic.

More shields fall, gifting him even more special moments with you.

Sunshine on Hoth.

You blinked at it, removing your goggles. "I can see the sun."

Holding hands away from prying eyes. A smirk pulls at his lips. "Can you?" He asks, oblivious to the view, too focused on the snowflakes catching in your lashes.

He remembers how your thermal suit malfunctioned shortly after and the way he kept your hands warm on the journey back. He even remembers the time he sulked in your hiding place after he got his new mental arm and your patience to sit with him.

Memories jostle back to life, and Vader breathes them in like the soup you inhaled after your Jedi trials. They churn a fire in his belly and create a stream of ever-growing energy through his body.

And as he catches his breath, he feels a power so peculiar lacing itself into his veins. Behind his weary eyelids, a soft blue glow trails up his arm and around his flesh hand that was choking Palpatine. It occurs to him that he’s no longer alone. You are there with him, covering him with a blanket of blue.

And then it all clicks together. This deep, dark pain that fueled his every move was blind. It fed on his flesh and bones like a parasite. And it would only eat and eat and eat until he was no more. But you; you would feed and feed and feed him until he stood taller than the steepest mountains. There was no home here behind these fortified walls. Not when you lived in his very soul.

Your ghostly face reveals itself, passing through Vader’s like a ghost through a wall.

Yes, he thinks, this pain won’t last forever.

And so he lets his muscles relax and relish in the essence of you. Let the Force carry out its plan and use whatever scraps of Anakin Skywalker are left. Because he knew where he belonged now, where he always belonged. As Anakin, your Anakin.

Resigning into the wall, he waits for the darkness to swallow him whole. He isn’t afraid anymore.

Palpatine breath rasps against Anakin’s cheek. The blood gurgles at his wound, but he doesn’t feel the pain. He tries to blink away the spots in his vision, but he is blinded by a piercing light. Then he hears what can only be a thunk of a body collapsing to the floor. Between the ringing in his ears and his squinted vision, the light forms a narrow beam.

Your other hand had plunged a lightsaber right through Palpatine’s stomach.

Not any lightsaber—your old lightsaber.

Palpatine’s chest rises a final time with a choked gasp.

And when will it all be enough?

He knows the answer now.

They were all right. Love did lead to the dark side. His devotion to you left him a shell to be remade in the Emperor’s eyes. But love was not all evil, and it did not solely exist to tempt. It also had the power to save, the power to redeem, and the power to defy the odds. And that power is enough for him.

Neither of you move. Anakin thinks he might be dead already, given how much blood he must have lost. He doesn’t spend a moment longer because he notices how your hands are still trembling on the hilt, as if you couldn’t let go.

Your pupils are blown wide, and if he looked any closer, he might have been able to see your teeth chattering.

With a drunken smile, he cups your cheek to draw your attention to him. Wordlessly, you turn, your face still frozen in shock. His metal hand reaches to rest atop where your hands are gripped on the hilt. You drop the lightsaber, letting it pierce the silence with its echoing bang on the floor.

Inhaling through his nose, Anakin tries to clear his dry throat with a cough. "So, this is it, huh?" Although it comes out more slurred.

Your eyes flicker back and forth between his. "Anakin," you say his name as if it were a vase on the edge of a counter.

Your blue light flickers like a flame being fanned out.

His eyebrows furrow. "What? No, you can’t go." He wants to say so much more, but fatigue looms closer to him.

You glance down at the wound in his stomach before glancing back into his eyes in a poor attempt at hiding your panic.

In all odd sense of the idea, you never learned how to disappear. It wasn’t something you could control. Like many things in your life, it just happened on its own terms. You felt foolish that it had come down to this: Anakin lying in the spot where you died with Palpatine dead by your lightsaber. The irony was palpable.

But there were things you were wise enough to learn. Fore ghosts only existed as parities of the light side. And what you had just done was an act of pure darkness. No matter how pure your intentions may have been, killing was still killing.

Yes, you knew exactly what you were doing. You had to kill him. If Anakin had, Vader would have consumed him.

Your light flickers again.

…You would be the one to pay the price.

"Anakin," you repeat, resting a hand over his heart. You needed him to know. "I’ll always be right here."

"No! No…" His teeth grit out a hiss as he tries to sit up.

You know he can see the pain in your eyes, maybe even the wobble of your bottom lip. His wound is deep, and the blood terrifies you. But you feel him. You can feel his strangled breaths and his beating heart. It claps like thunder against his ribcage. He would live to see another day.

You are lulled by the rhythm of his heartbeat. You lean into his presence, touching your forehead to his with your eyes closed. Tears track down his cheek. You feel the scalding pain each time his chest is wracked by a sob.

"I just got you back… I can’t let you go now." His voice is coarse and wavers the same way his flesh hand trembles against your cheek.

Your eyes flutter open to a sea of blue. Waves crash at the shores of his eyes, creating rivers down his cheeks. You understood him. You didn’t have the strength to say goodbye, either. Especially after all this time you spent fighting for this. To have it brush against your fingertips only to be ripped away hurts.

It feels bitter to call this a happy ending, so you wouldn’t. This was a fresh beginning, a second chance for Anakin. Your time had run out long ago—Anakin's was only starting.

You admire his pools of blue one last time before allowing yourself to be swept beneath the waves and carried out to sea.

Anakin inhales sharply as you fade gently into the night. Your silhouette singes the air where it once was. His stomach still ached, but the bleeding had stopped.

Palpatine’s body lays motionless in a pool of blood on the marble floor.

Anakin swallows. It burns his throat.

Where to now? He thinks.

Home, a voice echoes in his head.

With a grunt, he stands, leaning his weight onto the wall.

He leaves the old Jedi Temple without saying a word.

He leaves Palpatine’s body to rot.

He leaves it all behind.

Except, of course, one thing.

Palpatine’s blood was printed onto the sole of his boot. He had stepped on it as he left.

No, Anakin doesn’t think he will ever forget the way it marked the marble behind each step.

A/N: THERE WILL BE AN EPILOGUE AND I PROMISE A HAPPY ENDING!!

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awritesthings1 · 9 months

Text

How to Disappear (Chapter 3)

Anakin Skywalker x Reader

Word Count: 3.6k

Summary: You can only find peace for so long before truths reveal.

ao3 link

With each appearance, you were beginning to remember more. Still, that familiar haze of confusion lingered, becoming a routine that your body grew to know. First would be a buzzing sensation trailing down your back. Then came the dropping sensation as if you were falling from the sky. Eventually, you would kneel over to balance yourself on the ground to shake the feeling of falling. It was then you would find the blue glow, lighting up whatever you were near. Pieces fell into place, and you figured out you were a fragment of the Force without too much surprise. Places were sometimes hard to figure out, although you seemed to have a vague memory of planet names and their environments.

You weren’t sure why it was randoms bits of information or the beginning of your apparition that you could remember. Except one sign. The hope you clung to was found in a silhouette of a person who was always imprinted at the back of your eyes. Never had you forgotten that silhouette. You could never be sure if it was a figure from your past or perhaps a vision.

This morning you had appeared by a beautiful lake. Trees lined the edges, their colorful leaves teasing past your cheek. In the shade there was a marble statue of a women bowing beneath the sun. You think she looks like a guardian by the way she watches over the wildflowers, protecting all the little lives that lived in the overgrown grass. Her hair was braided into flowers and you can’t help but think of how radiant she looked. The sound of a waterfall draws your eyes to a cliff that hung over the water. It breathed life into the earth, humming through the sand on the shore up into the dirt beneath your toes.

A smile crept onto your lips. In the distance lay towering mountains, concealed in rolling clouds. Velvety blues and vibrant greens painted the landscape. You hoped the seam of your memory would peel open just to remember the hypnotic colors. Trees danced in harmony to the tender ballads swelling over your head. They hung like words at the tip of a tongue.

Nearing the shore, your feet dip beneath the crisp lap of water. Above, the sun caressed the surface leaving a blinding reflection. A shine so delectable it was calling you to bury your shoulders beneath and feel its charming touch. Without another thought, you are splashing deeper into its clutches, lifting your robes as you laugh.

Twirling around the lake, you imagined yourself as a real girl. With a beating heart, the warmth of a kiss pressed against a cheek, and hopes of a future.

Through the ripples of the water, there is a girl. Her beaming smile melts your thoughts to sand. As your eyes widen, hers follows. She mirrors you, reaching for your hand as yours reach for hers. They meet at the surface, a ghost of a touch. A laugh slips past your lips. You were alive. If only for a fleeting moment, it was the evidence you needed to know that in this lake you were real.

With hair stuck to your face, your legs kicked through the weight of your robes. Water dripped down your jaw, leaving an invisible kiss at the end. You could laugh here. And so you did, letting it trail through the trees, down the valley, and up to the highest cliffside. The world could do with some laughter.

Although all dreams must come to an end. Your blue flush stains the water, the color contrasts against the natural tint. It was a twisted hoax. Damned to be a blue light for all eternity, it wasn’t fair. The Force was cruel in the way it would show you desires like this only to take it away.

Vader had seen you in a dream. It was a nice contrast from the nightmares. You lay on your back, floating around a lake. There was something about the scene that looked like it had been touched by an angel. Everything was perfect. Flowers beautifully woven into vines that hung from old wise trees. What caught his breath was how you didn’t look like a ghost. Under the water your glow blended into the sapphire depths. Almost like a real girl.

Your body belonged in that image, stitched into the back of his eyelids to see when sleep overcame him. Vader sat with that picture seared into his mind all day. He kept you there in a shield between the bones of his ribs. It was there he could protect you.

As the days passed, his body felt more like a shell. A ghost that roamed the halls of his ship, wandering in search of something. The Emperor had noticed too, reminding him of his place in the galaxy: a living machine built to serve the Empire. After that, Vader became more careful putting his suit on, accounting for the growing red lashes on his back. He thinks you probably look more alive than he did.

Vader lives like that for a while. Awaiting your next visit becomes a fantasy he clings to. Maybe you were out there appearing to others. His gut twisted at that. He hoped he was the only one. Had you interfered in any of his endeavors? Were you mediating with the rebels?

His thoughts hungered for answers. With each venture across the galaxy, he kept his eyes open for glimpse of you. Every shade of blue sent his blood ablaze, thinking maybe this time it will be your face. It never is.

On Naboo, he walks through the streets, the Emperor trailing behind. Stormtroopers formed a line to their sides as they march toward the palace. It’s different than how he remembered it. The peoples’ expressions are set into a solemn stare, moving mechanically. Gone is the bubbling chatter that roamed the streets long ago. They are dressed in expensive gowns and shiny jewels, repelling like magnets as Vader nears. Naboo had flourished under The New Order, mostly because it was the Emperor’s homeland. It came at a cost though. The people were slaves to power and gifted riches for their compliance.

Shadowing Vader is the Emperor who holds a smile to his face. The march was meant to strengthen ties with the people until eventually they made it to the palace to meet with the royals. Not that they had any power either. Anything to keep up an illusion.

A cry startles the crowd. Vader pauses the march as the stormtroopers point their blasters in the direction of the sound. Furious hands part amid the crowd, scratching to the front of the clearing. It is a woman, wearing a shaggy dress that is torn at the hem. Her grey hair is tangled in sweat with a thin layer of dirt covering her arms and legs. There are bruises under her eye swelling from damage.

“Have you seen my daughter?” She pants, wide eyes staring up at him through the line of troopers.

Beaming from a little device clutched in her hands is a hologram of a girl. She looked young with a smile across her lips and warm eyes as if she had been caught mid laugh. On her shoulders hung Jedi robes that looked too big for her body. What catches his attention is the Padawan braid sat behind her ear. Vader walks closer to get a better look but before he has a chance, the troopers are clutching her arms, dragging her away. She fights against them, and he calls out for them to wait. They stop for a moment, just enough time for him to get a good look. The Emperor shouts over the crowd and then the woman is being carried away. Tears leak down her cheeks as she screams into the helpless crowd. Her feet dig into the ground but it is no use.

Vader wants to shout out and demand they stop but he knows he cannot overrule the command of his Master. They kneel her against a wall and one shoves a blaster into her head. Her figure gets buried away in the crowd who push and shove to get out of the way. His feet are already moving when he hears the shot fire. Cries of children carry down the street, wailing into their mother’s arms.

Vader guards his Force presence for the rest of the walk, holding a defensive shield over lurking thoughts. Who was the girl in the hologram? She appeared to be a Padawan, but he could not recall seeing her around the Temple. He would remember a face like that, especially those eyes. They tied around a knot in his head, never quite fitting into place. Perhaps she was a relative of someone he had met a long time ago.

When they reach the steps of the palace, Vader looks up from the ground to the towering domed roof. Behind it, he sees the vibrant blue sky.

His heart stops.

It was your eyes.

The stormtroopers had confiscated the device with your hologram after the death of your mother. Luckily for Vader, he had managed to intercept the ordered destruction. He suspected his Master had wanted to destroy any evidence of the Jedi. Sleuthing through records proved to not be an option either, after they had all been destroyed with the rise of the New Order. And so he kept the little piece of you buried in his pocket as he traveled the galaxy.

The dreams came back shortly after. The meadow with the lake, your laughter, the wildflowers. You haunted him and he loved every second because for just a moment, he could imagine a sense of freedom. On the rocks he would sit, watching you float around the glistening water. He could imagine the pulsing heartbeat of the lake causing ripples in the wind. Those eyes watch him from afar, embracing him through the Force. You drew him in with that smile. Always so inviting, he would trudge his boots into the water until the forgiving blues lull him to sleep.

He could not dare to dream about you any longer, it wasn’t enough. A few days pass and before he knows it, his ship is landing on the fields of Naboo. Dressed in his dark robes, Vader lets the Force guide him to the lake. Spring breaks lose as he trudges past the trees. Light air wedges through the holes of his Force, breathing hope into old scars. And a wave of untouched laughter breaks through that final barrier once he reaches the clearing.

There you are, just like in his dreams. Arms gliding through the water, robes clinging to your body, a smile to your face. From where Vader stood, you looked alive, happy. A scene so surreal it deserved to be worshipped in secret on the tallest mountain with the highest praise. He feels unwelcome, an ugly blood stain soaking into the roots. Nothing in comparison to you, no power could bring him close.

The sound of trickling water breaks the tension. You are standing waist deep watching him, a gasp hanging from your lips. He blinks the sun out of his eyes, swiping a tongue over chapped lips. Breathing you in is the only think he knows how to do.

Your bare feet clamber up the slope of bank, holding the soaking robes in your fists.

“Have I met you before?”

Vader bites his lip.

Together you rest in the overgrown grass. A flower is between your fingers as you braid it into the stem of another. You wonder if the chain will undo when you disappear. To the side the boy sits, hunched over a bent knee. Vader was his name, although you were doubtful. He murmured it as if he was unsure himself.

“Last time I saw you… you were happy,” he swallows.

Vader can’t meet your eyes, staring down at the grass. The lump in his throat passes with a deep breath. It’s a lie. He had explained how you had appeared to him before and although it wasn’t under the best circumstances, he would sleep better if you thought it was. Because he knew how these moments always ended. In festering dark corners, tucked away from all light, forgotten by all life. Only for them to live through memories of his own. You were blessed in that sense.

Was it guilt? No. It was shame. Vader was a coward, hiding behind his mistakes. And he would keep letting you down until his last breath. It didn’t matter if he tried not to, because in the end he had failed you. Still a broken man, a reservoir running out of water. No matter how many pieces you collected off the ground, he would drop more. He had failed your mother the same way, a seemingly endless spout of errors.

You seemed to be that turning point for him. The tap twisting his gut further into conflict. He hated the way you did that. Your pitiful hands on him in need, your stolen breaths smothering his chest, and that lifeless glow you carried. All building those feelings he had long repressed: anguish, remorse, weakness.

Your mouth recoils at his silence. You want to know what happened, it was your existence that hung in the air, you had a right to know. Although he cuts you off before you could get a word in.

“You had a family that loved you,” he pursed his lips. Your eyes widen. Leaning closer to listen, you hang onto each word. “They never gave up their searches.”

He buries his face in his hands.

“They didn’t know I died?” your voice hitches, “Did you know them?”

His scar itches, an irritating pain that digs deeper into the skin. He shouldn’t be doing this. Maybe if you knew the truth you would finally leave and never come back.

“No, I…” he trails off, massaging the knots in his temple. “Your mother was roaming the streets with your hologram.”

Your jaw hangs, eyes wildly darting between his. “She’s here?”

“No.” The Force trembles from the weight of his words, wrapping around your shuddering shoulders. In a vice grip it holds you, a ricochet of his anger.

Although you couldn’t care because you had a mother. A mother that was looking for you. Would she have your hair? Would she recognize you? Was she the shadow in your dreams that called out to you?

You jump when Vader grabs your hand, fingers softly threading between yours. It’s his flesh one. Rubbing over your knuckles, you feel his callouses over your skin. Prominent veins web up his arm, concealed by the dark robes. Your hand squeezes in response as he shifts to kneel. You think he might pull you into a hug, but he closes his eyes as if he were meditating.

Around you the Force begins simmering, tapping gently along your skin. Confused, you try to pull away from his hold, but he tightens his grip. Alarmed, you try tugging again. Your ghostly hand doesn’t budge. Panicking, the Force builds, drumming through your body. Dark energy caresses the light in the pit of your chest.

“Vader!” you warn, still trying to wiggle away.

Your blue glow flickers. Sharp claws teasingly trail from around your neck up to your head, lighting your frame on fire as it goes. It rings around your neck, choking as if you could breathe. The pain insistently licks at the connection that tethers you to the mortal world. You cry out, flinching and jerking through the torture. Vader’s face is turned to the sky, eyes swallowed by a lurching darkness.

Behind the darkness, Vader focuses on his life Force. Palming a ball in his hand, he drains it like water. Flowing through his hold, ebbing at the shores of your spirit. Harnessing power from his very soul, he finds you there. Howling in his ear, thrashing at the fabric of his essence. You stand on a rocky plane, beaming with the same light of a moon, tears leaking gold. The surface looks like a flat asteroid floating around the depths of space without any light, only ghostly figures wandering. Souls cry out, pulling at his robes, but he was only here for one. Tearing at their grip, he grabs for you, missing by a finger. Your feet stumble back toward the edge where the void met rock. He panics, lunging for you before you could fall. It must be a cruel joke when a hand lurches at his shoulder preventing him from reaching you in time. He watches in horror as your body disappears into the void. Left alone to the mercy of the spirits, he is swallowed whole, crying out into darkness.

Vader’s body is thrown back against the grass when he is ripped out of the trance. The energy dissipates back into the Force as he gathers himself. To cheat death is a power reserved only for the most powerful. For you he would draw every drop within himself to achieve it.

It kills him too; never being able to understand why his feelings for you are so strong. He had run in circles trying to pinpoint when he started to care, but always found himself back at the start. What was it about you? Was it that you are his ghost? That you were the only one that ever came back for him? The one who never gave up? He couldn’t reason why you were such a high priority; you simply were.

Behind him, the radiant lake lays dull, the meadow seemingly growing void of energy. Once green healthy plants sink to the dirt lifelessly. The life Force that buries in the roots of the land are left empty, howling into still winds, crying in agony. They never giving up without a fight, leaving a putrid stench that burns at Vader’s throat. He is unforgiving in the way nothing disturbs him. Not even as the land dies beneath his feet because he sees a faint movement fade between the decomposing stems in the distance.

When Vader finds you, he sees the wilting wildflowers straight through your chest.

Forever a ghost.

His heart pumps shamefully, full of the life he could not give you. He had failed once again. Always the fool, never the wiser.

As he nears closer, your body recedes like the shores of the lake. Your hands are perched at the brittle grass, ready to run deep into what was left of the trees. It’s eerily quiet as you wait. Your body flickers through the silence, trembling because you feel darkness flowing under the dirt. Tears flood the meadow, decay greedily sipping at your sorrow. His manipulation of the Force had caused this.

Vader reaches for you but like in the trance, you flinch away. It’s his tipping point. Gritting his teeth as frustrated unveiled sobs wrack his shoulders. “I thought I could save you,” he cries.

He feels hopeless, crumpled up, discarded. Not the all-powerful Sith he thought he was. Never able to save anyone.

You fear him. His darkness is strong, a catalyst to all rash actions. This man had bent the will of the Force under his command to bring you back from the dead. “You have too much darkness,” you choke, suffocating under the pressure of his presence.

“I need it,” hostility laces in his voice. He notices a faraway sadness on your face. As if you were grieving him, as if he were the dead one.

You bite down on your tongue. The man is spiraling down a dark hole he can’t reach the top of. No one was there to reach out a helping hand. “No. You need balance. How could you expect to resurrect me with pure darkness,” you speak defiantly. You think he might rip your head off.

He seethes, the scar across his eye throbs the same searing pain he felt when he first got it. “I don’t have a choice. I am nothing without this power. I am nothing without my Master.”

You want to scream at him. Pound your fists to drum some sense of realization. If you could, you would will the lake to him, just so he could reflect on himself. His path was lined with nails, you hoped one day he would look down and notice his bleeding feet. “What master breeds the life out of their own apprentice? Festers power that only wills destruction? How could you ever help anyone?” You beg.

The words twist in his gut. He towers over you threateningly, “I tried to save you!”

“With the power of darkness. I am an embodiment of light, of balance.” You have to reach into the Force, calling for any drops of light as his darkness edges at your tone.

Vader scowls. You speak as if you knew anything. As if your memories were intact. His nose flares, anger coursing through his body with no escape. Nowhere to release. He has to turn around as his thoughts grow darker.

His cape rolls over dead wildflowers, wilting trees curl when he marches past. You watch him go, feeling some of the tainted energy trailing after him. It could have been a nightmare, but you knew too well to doubt the Force. Vader was very real. A man cut so deeply he was left blind, reaching in the dark for a sense of purpose.

Reaching into your pocket, you fish out the small metal ball that had fallen out of his robes during his trance. You had snatched it in your struggle hoping it would have the power to push him off. It hadn’t.

Pressing a small button, a hologram lights up. At that moment, you drop onto all fours, clutching at your head as it throbs. Memories flash and fade across your vision. Smiles, tears, pain, laughter. It all melts into a pool, tugging at your motionless heart.

You remembered.

Everything.

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