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pacifymebby · 6 months

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Afraid of Everyone / Alfie Solomons

Hurt/comfort tw kinda violence against women/misogyny, mostly just soft protective Alfie. Based on that PTSD episode I had a few weeks ago.

You looked petrified. That was the only way he could describe you and the look you'd unintentionally shot in his direction. Even from across the crowded bar he could tell that you were trembling. That you'd done your best to be stubborn and brave in the face of the cunt who'd just gotten a little nasty with you at the bar because you'd rejected his advances, but that now the moment of conflict had passed you were frozen to the spot, scared that any sudden movement would see you spiral and burst into tears.

He hadn't ever really seen you like this before. You were always the suffer in silence, the indignant, stubborn and self defensive type. But he recognised the look in your eyes from the faces of other women he'd known. That teetering on the edge of tears look. The thin line of your lips pressed together, tight and unsmiling. The stubborn stare, the determination not to cry giving your upset and terror away. A real tragedy because you were doing so well to stand your ground and had you not inadvertently shot him that "help me" look just then you'd have had everyone in the room fooled.

But you couldn't fool him and he knew exactly what you needed in that moment when the dread was squeezing your chest too tightly. When your legs and hands were shaking. When you were struggling to breath steady. You needed him, your Alfie to come sweeping in. To steal you away from that overcrowded, shit hole he didn't even understand why you'd come to anyway. Pretty little sweetheart such as yourself, trying to stand her ground in the arse end of London Town.

He'd made his mind up about cutting in before he saw one of those lary fuckers raise his hand to you, before he heard the vile thing he said to you too. But when the half cut man staggered forward into you and spat his scorned vitriol in your face Alfie couldn't stop himself.

"Alright then..." he announced his presence with his hands on your shoulders, the warmth of his body behind yours sending a little quiver of relief through you. The sound of his voice giving you the strength to remain standing tall in the face of the cunt who stood leering at you across the table. "Alright then my little cherub you gonna introduce me to your new friends? They don't look very friendly mind you, nah... Specially not this cunt... Nah ziskeit, this cunt in particular looks like a right miserable... Well..." he flexed his tone, taking one hand from your shoulder to caress your cheek with the back of his knuckles.

"Well... He looks like a cunt don't he..."

The cool metal of his rings soothed the blush burning your skin and when his fingers lingered near your mouth you understood exactly what he was doing.

Saving you.

Promising to take you home and take care of you just as soon as he'd scared these poor bastards out of town.

"Now then," started Alfie, his eyes narrowing as he looked between the two men who had stood so proudly only moments before but who were already cowering away under Alfie's cruel glare. They'd certainly sobered up in the seconds it had taken him to cut between you. Pick them out. Get their measure. "Now then boys... Got a little favour to ask you haven't I eh my sweets.. got a teensy tiny little favour to ask you right?" he said stroking his hand down your arm, his tender little acts uncanny when compared to the tone in which he spoke.

His fingers found yours and entwined with them for a moment, locking and then unlocking, dancing lightly over your palm as he carried on drawing out his threats.

"Y'see boys," he said, "I'm gettin on a bit now me and well my hearin' just ain't what it used to be yeah... And I miss things sometimes right...things I'd quite like to hear... And just now yeah, when you were talking to my lovely, frankly 'too pure to share the same fuckin breathin space as you' girl yeah, well I was all the way over there right..." He said eyes going wide as he gestured with his hand to the other side of the room, walking his fingers through the air just before you so that neither you nor the men in question could take their eyes of his menacing hand. "See it's quite far ain't it that... Quite far away wouldn't you agree?"

You watched the two men nodding, saw how they tried to hide their shaking. Saw how they tried to inch away. They must have known they couldn't really run. Must have known they were trapped and at Alfies mercy.

So now they knew exactly how they'd made you feel. As Alfie opened his long coat and subtly wrapped it around your shoulder, letting you press yourself against his chest, letting you hide behind the thick black material and quiver into his side, you couldn't help but smile at that; the knowledge that those two men were feeling small. Just as small as they had made you feel only moments before.

"So yeah, this favour what I want you two boys to do for me, Alfie Solomons the king of Camden fuckin Town, therefore by extension the king of this here fuckin shithole of a public house... Yeah... What I want right... Is for you to repeat exactly what you just said to my girl yeah? Cause I was pretty far away right and I'm not entirely sure I heard you right yeah.. and before you say anything yeah..." He held his finger to his lips to shush them, his eyes wide and theatrical, that eccentricity leaving the two men with unsteady knees, "before you say another word right I want you to think very fuckin carefully about what you're gonna say alright... Cause the thing is yeah, what I reckon is that you'd better fuckin hope I didn't hear you right.. cause if I did yeah, if you did in fact say the terrible, frankly horrifying unrepeatable things I thought I heard you say just now yeah... I'm gonna take your fuckin billiards yeah, and I'm gonna make you swallow em one by fuckin one until your ugly cuntin face caves in..."

You watched their faces pale, watched the blue tinge of fear taint their skin as they froze, mouths opening and closing, panic setting in. But Alfie didn't do anything. Didn't carry out a single one of his threats because with you wrapped up within the confines of his coat he could feel your little body trembling against his and he knew he needed to take you home. Needed to get you somewhere quiet where it could be just the two of you. Where he could sit you in his lap and take care of you the way you needed him in that moment with your big sad eyes looking up at him all watery and scared.

"Nah," he sighed, his sudden softness uncanny when matched with the glare he'd fixed on those men. The way his hand lingered in the air between him and them, accusatory finger still extended towards them as he changed his mind. Lowered his voice and grew tender instead, focussing on you.

"Nah," he shook his head, pulled his coat tighter around you and squeezed you to his chest with one arm holding you to his warm body. The other still aimed at his new enemies. "Reckon I'll make em wait eh? Give em a little while to ruminate on all their sins before they see their comeuppance yeah? What do you think eh my little ziskeit? You reckon we should make em wait it out?" He asked looking down at you, his hand cupping your cheek, thumb brushing a tear which had slipped from your lashes despite your best efforts not to cry.

"Yeah," you tried to say, though your voice never made it beyond your lips he still knew what you'd meant to say to him.

"Alright then," he grinned snapping his fingers towards the bar, pointing out the two cunts he couldn't wait to get his hands on in the morning, "Alright mate... You see these two miserable cunts there yeah... See em? Can't miss em really ugliest fucks for a country mile... I mean look at em, cunts should be livin in the dungeons at the opera Garnier, phantom of the operas a prettier sight than them two... It's like the fuckin elephant man gôr disentry right.. and shat himself... Fuckin disentry mate."

"Uh... Yes Mr Solomon's..." The poor lad behind the bar stood watching Alfie with a timid, uncertainty in his eyes, wringing his towel between his hands. Worrying, you imagined, about what was about to be asked of him.

"Right well y'see these poor bastards right... And I say "poor" but don't you go feeling sorry for them now alright, don't you feel sorry for em cause theyve fuckin earned their right to be "poor" haven't they..." Alfie let his voice wander up an octave as he spoke, that familiar meandering madness leaving the whole room in silence as they watched the scene unfold.

You hidden away in the folds of Alfie's long black coat, him with one arm wrapped around his girl, the other gesticulating between the two men who stood still trying to beg forgiveness. Their voices trembling and meek, going ignored by everyone else in favour of Alfie's theatrics. The poor lad behind the bar wringing his towel in his hands, doing his best to follow Alfie's request.

"Where was I? Oh right yeah... You ain't got a naughty step in here have you?"

"A naughty step?" The boy stuttered looking between Alfie and another bar man, begging his friend to help him.

"Yeah, y'know... somewhere they can sit nice and quiet yeah, have a good long think about what they've done?"

"Uh.." the lad hesitated, his frightened eyes meeting yours for a moment, fleeing almost the second he'd seen the whites of your eyes, not wanting to look at you when it was clear Alfie was doing his best to keep you protected and hidden away. He didn't want to find himself on the receiving end of that infamous, sociopathic temper.

"Here," Alfie clicked his fingers, pointed to a stool by the back door which was being used to prop it open, "what about this one yeah? Nice and low to the ground an all... Right where you belong.." he narrowed his eyes at the men quivering before him, flashed them a malicious grin, "fuckin sit down both of you yeah... Nah there's not much room so you'll have to share yeah... Both of you right, I want both of you to fuckin sit yourselves down there right, nice and quiet yeah... You fuckin sit there and you don't move a muscle till I come back for you yeah?" He asked waiting for a response, chuckling when the two men backed away nodding frantically as they did exactly as they were told.

You felt Alfie's chest vibrate with his low chuckle and tried to smile yourself. It was hard however because you hadn't yet managed to shake the panic that those men had sparked in you. You hadn't been able to calm down. All this time you'd been using every fibre of strength you had in you to hold it together until you were safe and sound and out of sight but you were beginning to run out of energy. Any minute now you were sure you were going to break.

"Alfie," you mouthed, tugging on his shirt to get his attention. To make him look down at you so that he'd see the paleness in your frightened face and understand. You needed him to take you home.

"Right," he nodded, his eyes locked with yours, trying to comfort you without words or affections so as not to give your vulnerability away. "Right Ollie my boy... where are ya treacle... Ollie my lad keep an eye on these two right... If they so much as blink yeah... If they so much as blink you have my explicit permission to perform whichever act of exquisite violence you so wish..."

And with that Alfie had swept you away, the crowd parting for the pair of you as you left.

The air outside was cold and a fine rain dusted over you both as you walked but you didn't feel the cold because Alfie kept you tucked up inside his coat with him, his arm wrapped around your waist to keep you close.

He knew that that was what you needed above everything else just then. Some kind of physical connection, something to hold onto. Someone to feel close to.

And there was no one who could make you feel as loved or as safe as him.

You stopped beneath a streetlight and he turned you around in his arms, squeezed you tight to his chest all wrapped up in his embrace, your face buried in his shirt, breathing in his soft rum and woodland scent. You nuzzled into him and he stroked his fingers through your hair, cradling your head to him as he bowed his toward you and kissed you tenderly. Let his lips linger in your hair as he listened to your shivered breaths.

"Alright littlen," he sighed softly, "s'alright my little ziskeit, you're with me now yeah, just you an me and your Alfs gonna take care of you now right, Papas gonna get you home right, gonna make you feel all better yeah?"

You smiled into his shirt, holding onto him a little tighter, arms wrapped around his waist, his still holding you snug and tight so that you knew he meant every word he'd just said.

For a minute he let you stay there, holding onto him, face buried in his shirt, your frame tucked away inside his big coat, the heavy wool going some way to making you feel safe too. He stroked your hair down your back and rocked you from side to side, his eyes narrowed on the quiet street as he surveyed the shadows. He wouldn't relax until he'd gotten you home but he didn't want to make you worry so he did his best to relax his body, did his best to put the anger he felt to one side. To box it away until the morning when he planned to return to that pub and exact his revenge.

For now however the rain was beginning to soak into his coat and your dress and your sad expression was beginning to pinch with cold.

"Alright my girl," he said stroking his thumb over your cheek, letting it rest on your lips as he spoke, "alright poppet time to go home..."

🐻💌🐻

Until you'd met Alfie you'd done a lot of fending for yourself. Faced a lot of things alone. You weren't necessarily built for it, hadn't particularly excelled at it, but for the most part you'd survived well enough on your own. You'd been doing it so long that even after the older man had made it his new life's passion to take you under his wing and dote on your every need, you never quite got used to having someone else worry about you or take care of you.

That's why you'd been so determined not to cry in front of anyone else. That's why when Alfie got you home and closed the front door behind you both, giving you strict instructions to go and get warm by the fire you ignored him. Took yourself straight up to the bedroom and began to undress.

To you the evening was a write off, a night of total humiliation and weakness that you would rather forget. You just wanted to climb into bed, curl up foetal position small and snug, and hopefully fall asleep before you started crying on Alfie.

He'd seen you cry before, naturally, but that wasn't the point. The less the better as far as you were concerned. You weren't a little girl, you weren't weak, you were stronger than most women and you were determined to show Alfie that. Because of everyone Alfie was the one who appeared to have the hardest time believing that you could look after yourself.

You didn't even notice his shadow in the doorway or the sound of his footsteps as he came to a halt in the frame, his gaze fixed on you. You were too busy trying to take your shoes off and slip out of your skirts to realise he was watching you. Wondering why you weren't doing as he'd told you to.

"Now then poppet..." he said softly, his gaze warm but stern as he watched and waited for you to turn around. When you looked up at him you felt a nervous flutter in your tummy, a shiver running through you as your glossy eyes shone with tears and blinked up at him. If he kept looking at you like that, with all the gentleness of a father, you were going to break down. You were already so close to falling apart and the tender way his attentions were fixed on you then was leaving you struggling.

But Alfie didn't want you to struggle. He didn't want you to hold back.

"Ziskeit," he said with a gentle tsk tsk, "come 'ere girl," he said, a gentle warning tone to his low voice as he held your gaze and waited for you to do as you were told.

You hesitated, wanting to shake your head and argue with him, wanting to tell him to leave you alone... But you didn't argue back with your Alfie and you knew that if you told him to leave you now he wouldn't listen. Still, you tried.

"I'm fine Alf don't look at me like that... I'm alright really I just wanna go to bed..."

But as you argued your voice weakened because he held your gaze, looked at you with knowing eyes and remained stable and stubborn, waiting for you in the doorway.

"Now don't start with all that ziskeit, cause me an you both know it ain't true and you ain't the kind of girl who tells lies... Come on now darlin, come give your old man a cuddle yeah? You wouldn't deprive your devoted old Alfie of that would you ziskeit?" He asked offering you a tender, teasing little smirk. One which despite its humour you knew you couldn't deny.

So when he opened his arms out for you to fall into you gave in, slipped from the edge of the bed into his warm embrace, nuzzling into his shoulder as he closed his arms tight around your frame.

"There we go, good girl, good girl..." He cooed softly, his husky voice gentle and tickling your ear as he pressed a kiss to your cheek bone and whispered to you. Gentle things which left tears prickling in your eyes. "There we go my little ziskeit, back where you belong yeah? Back where you belong in your Alfie's arms..." he said every tender sentence like a sigh, his words caressing you so that you finally felt safe enough to let go of all that fear, all that hurt which had been building and rotting away inside you.

The first few tears escaping terrified you. You didn't want to let them fall but you couldn't control them. You tried to snatch at your cheek with your hand to wipe them away, you tried to blink and stare at the ceiling until your eyes dried out and stung but it was already too late and besides, Alfie was determined that you were going to cry. You needed to cry, even if you didn't seem to realise that yet he knew it.

"S'alright my little ziskeit, go on poppet have a big old cry yeah, never mind tryin to be brave ziskeit, papa don't want you to be brave now alright..." He murmured stroking your cheek with his thumb and pressing a lingering kiss to your forhead.

He closed his eyes as he bowed his head to yours and wrapped his arms around you tightly. He could feel you shaking as you tried to control your sobbing, he could tell you were still trying to hold back.

"Don't do that my little love," he warned tenderly stroking your hair, cradling your head in the palm of his hair, "remember who knows best yeah ziskeit, me yeah, your Alfie... An I'm tellin you not to be brave yeah... World's had enough of brave now alright, needs a little gentleness yeah, a little feeling right... Now I've got you ain't I, it's just you an me, you an your Alfie... You don't have to be brave for me little ziskeit, you don't have to be brave for me..."

And as he spoke you felt it all finally catching up to you, all the adrenaline of the evening hitting you like a freight train. Leaving you shaking and distraught, barely able to hold yourself up, your legs trembling as you shook and collapsed against Alfie's chest, your knees buckling so that he had to catch you and scoop you up into a steadier hold.

"Oh my little ziskeit," he sighed, his heart aching for you and all the sorrow and fear he could hear in your sobbing. You'd broken down just like a little girl, lost control of your emotions completely and though he knew it was good for you to get it all out, he wished you didn't have to. Wished he could snap his fingers and make all that pain go away.

He was supposed to be your great protector and yet he hadn't been able to protect you from all this.

He let out a sigh and let his own knees give in sinking slowly to the floor with you in his arms, leaning against the wall and relaxing his legs out in front of him.

"There there my darlin, there there my little ziskeit, 'salright poppet I've got you yeah, you're safe with me little ziskeit, ain't gonna let a soul hurt you ever again..." he murmured to you kissing your temple and bundling you up into his arms so that he could cradle you in his lap.

He felt your body shaking with convulsive sorrow and rested one hand in your hair. He knew that all there was to do was wait it out, wait there with you stroking your hair whilst you cried yourself into exhaustion.

"Why are people always so fuckin cruel Alfie, why are men so fucking cruel..." You sobbed, your voice anguished and shrill and breaking his heart as he stroked his fingers across your cheek and shushed you gently.

"I know ziskeit," he said swallowing a lump in his throat, feeling that familiar cold determination grio him, his mind already beginning to turn to plans of revenge. The things he was going to do to make those evil bastards regret causing you this pain. "This time tomorrow though my darlin, this time tomorrow the world will be down two fuckin cruel men though yeah, promise you that my poppet..." he said pushing a lock of hair from your face, looking down at your tear stained cheeks with such tenderness as you tried to speak again, working yourself up into even more of a state.

"But... But even if you kill them there'll still be... M...more.." you sobbed trying to swat his hand away when he cupped your cheek in his palm and pushed his thumb to your lips gently.

"Hush now ziskeit, shh," he hummed pushing his thumb between your lips, ignoring your hand on his wrist which tried to argue back. He waited patiently until he felt your mouth close around his thumb, until he felt your tongue brush over him and you began to suck. "There we are poppet," he said with a soft smile, watching your eyes flutter shut, your lashes heavy and dewy with tears. "That's better ziskeit, settle down yeah, don't you worry about anymore of them cruel bastards now, you don't need to worry about any of them no more, I'm here now ziskeit and I ain't gonna let no one touch you no more, not a soul... Only hands you're ever gonna feel on you again yeah, the only fuckin hands ever gonna touch this angelic little face right, are these two hands right here... You're mine my little ziskeit, all mine yeah... An am gonna look after you right... Gonna start by puttin them two sorry cunts in the ground..."

You opened your eyes then, lying with your head in his lap, looking up at him with teary doe eyes. He looked down at you, let you drag your lips over and away from his thumb for long enough to ask one more question.

"Promise?"

Your voice was but a sweet little whisper. Your lips hovering by the tip of this thumb and he cupped your cheek in his palm and let you nuzzle into the heart of his hand.

"Promise."

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#alfie solomons x reader #pealy blinders imagine #hurt/comfort #peaky blinders imagines #alfie solomons fanfic #alfie solomons fluff

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angelaiswriting · 5 years

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Good Luck | Tommy Shelby x Romani!fem!reader

[Photo by Andreea Ch from Pexels]

✏️ Pairing: kind of platonic Tommy Shelby x Romani!fem!reader

✏️ Summary: Sabini thinks he’s smart, but she’s smarter. All Tommy needs to do when the Italian kidnaps her is wish him good luck. (Requested by @kind-wolf)

✏️ A/N: I’m trying to work on a writing schedule that could fit me and my uni life, so hopefully I’ll be back with content soon!

✏️ Beta-read by @sweetvengeancee

✏️ Warnings: none I can think of

✏️ Word-count: 3,620

It’s almost comical, the horrified look on Polly’s face as Tommy absentmindedly listens to what Darby Sabini in person is telling him on the phone. She’s standing there, as still as a statue in the frame of the door of his office, right hand covering her mouth and left hand clutching onto her right wrist for dear life.

So un-Polly-like, Tommy thinks as he tries his hardest not to chuckle.

She has a slightly-more-than vague idea in her mind and the thought is fleshing out before her eyes as she torments herself about Y/N’s possible conditions. She’s heard enough – she’s probably heard more than Sabini would like to know, but this is still Polly and she has her ways.

“The situation doesn’t look as golden anymore, Mr Shelby.” Sabini’s voice is unctuous and even through the phone, Tommy can see that smirk tugging the left corner of his lips upward.

He’s proud of that – Sabini. He’s proud his men managed to get their hands on one of the most important friends the Shelbys have – or so they think. He can now use her however he pleases, can send threats to the Peaky Blinders and exploit her to do it.

“Oh, about this, you’re right.” Tommy is smirking, too, but for a completely different reason than the one currently boiling and fluttering inside Sabini’s twisted mind.

Y/N is a wild horse – free and uncontrolled and untamed. Reckless, more reckless than the other gipsies back at her camp would like her to be. She stands her ground, bares her teeth, hisses with the same fearless energy of a stray cat cornered against the wall of a house.

“I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” He’s slow, unhurried, and Polly is horrified by it. She’s seen Y/N grow up, she’s seen her blossom from stray kid into tempestuous woman, and the last thing she wants is for that girl to end up in danger’s claws – or to be the dangerous claws that could fuck them all up. “I’m going to hang up the phone,” and he exhales smoke from his mouth as the cigarette dances between his fingers, “and give you one day, two at most.” His voice is rough, beaten by cigarettes and alcohol as he stretches his legs under his desk. “More than enough to realise the extents of your mistake. When she’s done, we will meet and discuss whatever topic you’re trying to use her to threaten me for. I’m sure my brothers will enjoy hearing it straight out of your rotten mouth.”

Sabini doesn’t have time to answer: true to his word, Tommy cuts the call to its end.

Polly is silent – for now. He sees the storm raging behind her eyes, sees the frown on her face, even the set line of her lips when she lets her arms fall to her sides. She’s desperate to yell at him what kind of a dick he is, but she’s refraining herself from doing it. It’s already as bad as it is that someone like her is in Sabini’s basement possibly getting beaten up for intel she doesn’t have; she doesn’t want to add more petrol to the fire.

“Yes, Pol?” Tommy is relaxed against the seatback of his chair and as peacefully as ever, he’s finishing his cigarette. In his mind, he’s thinking about the evening slowly approaching and the meeting he’ll hold at The Garrison to inform his brothers about the new turn of events.

She’s stern, as stern as she had been that day many years ago when he had been seven and had come home from the market with stolen apples in his pockets. She’s the stern mother he’s never had, but it doesn’t bother him – he doesn’t fear her, not for this. “You could have done something.”

And Johnny, too, he scolds himself. He has to inform someone from the Lee camp about the reason why Y/N is missing and Dogs is the only one he doesn’t have some sort of trouble going on with.

“I did something.”

Sure, he will probably have to face Zilpha again, tell her that the Shelbys and the Lees are facing yet another obstacle, but that there’s no need to reopen the wound John’s wedding to Esme has closed. Zilpha will spit in his face, of that much he’s sure, but she won’t curse him – she knows Y/N just as well as he does, probably even better. Both of them know she is more than capable of keeping herself safe.

“Leave her in that bastard’s hands? Is this your grand plan?” Polly is dismayed. Her shoulders hang lower, almost heavied down by Tommy’s stupidity, and her eyes are open wide as incredulity slowly paints a thick layer on the canvas of her face. “Are you insane?”

It’s a luck Ada isn’t present – this is what both of them are thinking. Tommy considers not telling her about tonight’s meeting at the pub, Polly contemplates not meeting up with her and Karl the following day. Both of them wish she’d just leave for a day or two – or seven, enough for them all to fix the situation before she’s back so that they can never speak about it again.

“She’s more than capable of getting out of this situation on her own,” he replies, voice flat and steady as he reaches out for the bottle of whiskey standing forgotten on his desk. “She’ll be back before we even know she’s escaped.”

He doesn’t say her name and while Polly wants to fight him on this, wants to force him to pronounce it, she keeps her tongue between gritted teeth.

“You will lead us all to our demise, Thomas Shelby.” It’s a stab to his stomach, that full name of his coming out of his aunt’s angry mouth, but it doesn’t sting as much as it used to before the war. He’s been desensitised to it and now it’s just an inconvenience he can almost completely ignore. “You wouldn’t be doing this if you had listened to me ten years ago.”

She’s referring to the past prospect of a union between him and Y/N. Again. Tommy hates it when Pol goes back there, hates the fact that he didn’t want her back then but does want her now – now that he can’t have her.

“That’s dead and gone, Pol.” His voice remains as flat as before, but there’s now a hint of annoyance lingering on the tip of his tongue that makes Polly square her shoulders as she stares at her gone-mad nephew. “And even if she were my wife now, this would still be my reaction.”

No, it wouldn’t. Polly doesn’t say it out loud, but both of them feel those three words pricking the skin of their faces. Tommy would be angrier, for starters – angrier and thirstier for blood.

“She can’t be tamed,” he says, putting out the cigarette in the glass ashtray with a little more harsh strength than he intended to. “You know this. I know this. Everybody in this fucking town knows it. Zilpha and the clan will understand and when she’s back, this will all be forgotten.”

Polly doesn’t forgive him. She also never forgets, so Tommy will probably still feel the consequences of his reaction ten years from now – just like the turned-down marriage proposal that soured the shared soil under his family and the Lees’ feet.

Zilpha won’t forgive him, either, he’s sure of this.

The late-September sun shines palely behind the thin clouds blocking out the blue of the sky. It’s an unforgiving sky – as unforgiving as the women in-between which he’s standing and as unforgiving as the cutting breeze sending shiver after shiver down his spine.

He’s glad Johnny Dogs is there, too, or as glad as he could be when his best friend is selling Y/N off to his god-son. That’s his one and only possibility of making Zilpha come back to her senses if things were to go downhill. Again.

He would have loved to have Esme to wait in the car, just so that in case of need and emergency, she’d be by his side as the new addition to the Shelby family she is, to help him calm the waters back down to a state of placid tranquillity. She’s not there, though – she won’t be standing in the eye of the storm when gipsy blood and curses will be spilt. She knows all too well not to go against her own people.

“If I understand this correctly,” the Lee matriarch starts, voice measured and eyes squinting through the fog of anger clouding her sight, “you chose to do nothing.” There’s a sense of condemnation to her words as they bite the air between them like rabid dogs tied to a much-too-short chain.

She’s holding back – and even Polly is holding her breath, next to him.

“You chose to leave a member of my family in your enemy’s hands to prove what? Your untouchability?”

“Tommy knows what he’s doing.” It’s weird to have his aunt on his side after the twelve hours she’s spent avoiding him like the plague. But it’s also comforting to know that, after all, she still has his back.

Even though Tommy needs no one to speak for him.

“I wouldn’t have gone for it if I weren’t completely sure Y/N would manage to muddle through it.” He’s staring straight into the snake’s eyes and he’s hoping it won’t bite him back in the ass.

Zilpha is calm – or so she poses. There’s turmoil boiling in her veins like acid and he can see traces of it in the steely gaze of her eyes. There’s no denying it’s scaring him – not enough to truly be afraid, but definitely more than he’d like to admit.

He’s walking on a fine thread, not on thin ice. This is way more dangerous than crossing the freshly-frozen river at the shy beginnings of winter. He can sense the void under his feet, can feel the knotting in his stomach churning him alive – and everything is giving him vertigo.

Fuck Sabini and fuck his men. Fuck Solomons, too. Fuck London and fuck rum, fuck cocaine, fuck expanding his business. Tommy wants to go back to horses and races, to fixing them, to strolling through the doors of a pub he doesn’t legally own yet.

Fuck Y/N, too – and not in the way he’d like to help her with.

Fuck Pol, who doesn’t want to fully stand by his side, and fuck Ada, who’s given him the headache of a lifetime just this morning, when she learnt of the news.

Fuck Arthur for being by his side and fuck Johnny for the man he proposed to Y/N with.

Fuck everything and anything, and fuck himself for putting himself through this.

Avoidable. That’s the one word he doesn’t like, not at this moment, and that’s the word he so stupidly decided to avoid. But if there’s one thing he wants to avoid the most right now, that’s the possibility of fucking his expansion up in a whim.

“If anything happens to her, Esme won’t be able to save you all.”

She’s closer now, Zilpha, standing toe-to-toe with him like the fearless chief she is. Unafraid and unable to be scared. Unbending. Dominating, with those dark eyes and straight posture of hers. She doesn’t care about who he is nor about who the Peaky Blinders are – she doesn’t give a single fuck. She only wants her daughter-like girl back in one piece and she’s going to fight like a lioness to make that happen.

“There will be no need for Esme to save anybody.” Or so Tommy hopes. He’s more than capable to save himself but he doesn’t want to have to protect his clan from two fronts – the Lees on the left and Sabini on the right, both slowly closing in on him to take him down.

“There better not be.”

On the early afternoon of the fourth day, Tommy gets word that Y/N has left London thirteen hours before. He doesn’t divulge it – he knows better than to trust rumours just as he knows better than to make known something of this reach. Ada would cause a scene and as a reaction, Polly would probably do the same; Zilpha would be sucking the blood from his neck and he’d have to deal with more trouble than he likes to take on.

So, he resolves on waiting – and the wait is excruciating. It seems to burn the outer layer of his skin as he sits around his office first and The Garrison later. He drinks, he smokes, he chats with John as though nothing was.

The need for opium slowly crawls its way up his neck, makes him tick like the clock of a bomb ready to go off and he feels as delicate as a bar of dynamite. Handle-with-caution Tommy Shelby sits in the private room at the pub and stares off into the void without seeing Arthur sitting in front of him trying – and failing – to teach Finn how to write his name.

He’s on the brink of the abyss he himself has dug and there’s no stepping away from it, not until she is back – safe and sound and all in one piece, without a single hair missing.

Presumption – that’s his sin. Back on the phone with Sabini, he had been sure she’d be out of his grasp in a matter of hours. It’s been four days. The fear that something – something he gives no name to – might have happened to her has already started to crawl its way to the very base of his mind, munching away pieces of grey matter and neurons and blood vessels. He can almost feel those seeds, fat and heavy inside his skull, pulsing in his temples as though they wanted to bloom into worms of their own.

Maybe he’s thought too high of her – or too low. Maybe he’s miscalculated what she’s capable of. He wished Sabini good-luck with her but he didn’t wish her good-luck with Sabini. Maybe that is the mistake, he reasons. He thought she could do it effortlessly and he got his maths wrong.

But she’s out of London, he has to remind himself. And if she’s out of London, then it means she’s alive.

He finds himself hoping for the rumours he did his best to silence to be true.

She’s on her way to Birmingham and she’ll surely be here come morning. Maybe she’s had a little more trouble than he had estimated her to have, maybe that’s it.

She doesn’t walk through the door of the pub like he thought she would, though. It irks him – it probably annoys him more because he knows he’ll have to face Polly sooner rather than later. His aunt is probably already waiting for him in his living room, nursing some spiked tea as she makes herself at home on his couch.

This is what he thinks about as he walks back home. Each step is heavy, almost as though his shoes were filled with lead. He doesn’t fight it, though: he wants to postpone his return for as long as he can. It’s stupid and childish, but he has better and more pressing things to do than to put up with his aunt’s rebuke. He’s no child anymore. He knows what he does – or so he likes to think.

The entrance of his apartment is nestled in the darkness of the night. He can vaguely make out the greyish light of the moon through the tiny window at the other end of the corridor, but it’s not enough to shed light into the pokey space.

The lack of artificial light is a good sign, though. It means Polly is not there. She’s back home, doing whatever it is that she always does at this hour of the night, but with one more worry than usual today.

It’s a good thing. It’s a great thing. He’ll come up with something to tell her on the dawn of Y/N’s fifth day missing – he’ll have eight more hours to conjure up some lie in waiting of Y/N’s return.

He can put that off a little longer, though. He’s still thirsty, of a thirst that’s not for water nor opium nor pussy. It’s a call for some more whiskey, the bottle he keeps hidden away from his brother Arthur under the sink in the corner of the cramped kitchen-mixed-with-living-room. He’ll grab the alcohol, skip the tumbler and go sit on the old and worn-out couch for five minutes, ten at most. Then, he’ll go to sleep.

It sounds like a plan to him and it’s what keeps him going as he takes off his coat and shoes and abandons them next to the door as he locks it closed.

There’s no need to switch on the lights: he knows his way around his own place. He knows where he’ll find a stray chair, remembers where he’s left the case with the firewood he brought up from the cellar. He also knows how to reach the bottle of whiskey without problems and as he kneels down in front of the cabinet, the dim red light of his burning cigarette is just an added bonus to the wonder his memory is.

But just as he stands back up on his feet, his head slightly dizzier than usual thanks to the drinks he’s had at The Garrison with his brothers and Jeremiah, the light turns on and the bottle almost slips from his grasp. He’s quick to turn around, revolver in his right hand and whiskey in his left, but he’s not quick enough – he’s not as quick as he usually is.

“It was about time you made your appearance, Mr Shelby.” The cackling voice feels as though it’s scratching his eardrums, a nail screeching against a window.

“For fuck’s sake,” is all he manages to mutter as his wrist trembles for a second too long before he can put the gun down on the table. “I could have shot you.” And I’m not sure I would have minded.

“You were free to try. I’m like a cat, I have nine lives, so you would have had to be careful. I would have bitten your ass.”

“What took you so long?”

She doesn’t even move from her spot next to the light switch. A closer look at her and he notices her clean clothes, her clean shoes, even her clean hair. He wonders whether she’s stopped somewhere to get cleaned up, or if the rumours were lies and she left the capital for longer than people said.

“I had never been in London before,” she shrugs, hand still on the switch almost as though she was contemplating turning the lights off again. “I thought I could as well seize the opportunity to see some of it.”

“We were worried,” he groans, “and you were sightseeing?”

“And shopping,” she adds with a smile. “I bought this dress there, if so one could say. And who was worried? You? Zilpha? Pol?” She chuckles at the thought, laughs at the sheer absurdity of her own words. “I sent word to Zilpha three days ago, when I left your Italian friend’s care, and I’m sure she told Polly since we share a past.”

Tommy doesn’t like the look she gives him – accusatory, almost venomous. It’s almost as though he’s fifteen again, when a marriage with her had been brought up for the first time. She hadn’t been as pretty as Greta, that girl he was trying to court at the time, and he had called her a ‘filthy witch’ as he threw the possibility of a union between them straight into the flames of the campfire. At the time, she had been in love with him, Y/N – or maybe it hadn’t been love, maybe it had just been a crush, but he knows he broke her heart that night.

What a turn-around, he thinks, to find himself in the opposite situation he had been in that night. To now stand here, in his house, craving for someone he can’t have, pining for someone who has feelings for someone else. She’s Tommy, chasing her own Greta while he stands there, unable to push her away from the man she now has feelings for.

It has taken them long enough.

“Why didn’t I know?”

“It would have been too easy, eh, Tom?” She winks at him and the grudge for the past disappears into thin air. “You left me there, told your friend ‘Good luck with her’ in your own way… I wanted you to worry about me, at least a little bit.”

He can’t hate her for that, can’t bring himself to, not even when he’s spent the last twenty-four hours with worry churning his stomach, digesting it, even. “Well done, then, you’ve succeeded.”

“So, are you going to offer me a drink for playing you just right or not?”

If the situation were different, he would tell her this was the time he took her against the wall, fucked her arrogance out of her in the only way he knows of, but they aren’t fifteen anymore. Instead, he swallows his pride – that one thing that is trying to push him to teach her a lesson – and points a chair with his forefinger. “Be my guest.”

I apologize to @kind-wolf for the mega-long wait haha wow, I’m terrible.

How was this fic, though? Did you like it? Let me know!

TAGS (to be added to or to be removed from any list, shoot me an ask)

Everything: @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892 @mblaqgi @becs-bunker

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People that might be interested: @kellydixon01

#tommy shelby #tommy shelby imagine #tommy shelby fanfic #tommy shelby fanfiction #peaky blinders #peaky blinders imagine #pealy blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #tommy shelby x reader #angelaiswriting

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pacifymebby · 7 months

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t r o u b l e/ chapter twenty six

Sonya

"She made a me a flask?" I smirked through my surprise, wondering if perhaps she was trying harder than I'd expected to bring us back into the fold. To mother us again.

I took the little flask from him and unscrewed the lid. When I held it up to my lips I felt the steam warm my nose, a soft gingery sweetness gracing my senses.

"Aye," he said, "told me to make sure ye drink up... It's ginger or somethin, good for..."

"My health, I know," I said with a small smirk, an eye roll that didn't stop me raising the flask to my lips and taking a sip. Didn't stop me smiling softly when I breathed in the sweet honey scent on the steam, when I swallowed and felt it warm me through. Soften me up.

"See," he said then, a cheekier smile when he spoke and caught my arm with his, "you're not so different from us after all..."

"Because I'm drinking milk?" I screwed my face up, my nose wrinkling, brow knitting when I asked him cynically, not really expecting the answer he gave me.

"Still trust your aunt Pol..."

"Well it's not like I can trust the rest of them is it?" I shrugged taking another sip of my drink. Trying not to let my mind circle around the point he'd just made. That I trusted Polly. That I didn't trust the rest of them. That I didn't want to trust Polly. That if I did then I had to believe what she'd told me that morning, that I'd have to believe in those cards which had frightened me since I was only a little girl.

"You don't trust your sister?"

"She doesn't trust me..." I bit my lip, looked down into the dark flask at the milk and the steam, watched it slosh around when I shook the flask in a small circle to stir it up a little.

"You think?"

"She didn't tell me where she was going."

I sat up a little stiffer then, watching the lake, starring out at the still water determined not to let Bonnie read the uncertainty in my eyes. His knack for reading people hadn't passed me by and I wasn't the kind of girl who was used to, nor wanted to be understood as carefully as he threatened to try and know me. So I didn't want to tell him anymore than he already knew. I just didn't realise that in saying what I had I'd already told him so much more about myself than I realised.

"Don't you have to train?" I asked after swallowing another sip of milk, changing the subject with a brighter tone, "for your fight?"

"Nahh..." He leant back in the grass, hands behind his head, eyes closed, a smirk tugging on his lips, "could go into that ring with a broken arm and still knock the sorry bastard out in the first round..."

I bit back a laugh at that, enjoying the bright mischievous light dancing in his eyes when he opened them and shot me a wink.

"You've got a lot of confidence..." I smirked, glancing back at him over my shoulder, watching him as he lay still and calm, like there wasn't a worry in the world that could get him down. It couldn't have been true, there must have been doubts in his mind somewhere but he played it off so well. Like he was the most carefree lad in the world.

"Never lost a fight I didn't mean to," he shrugged, "as long as I weigh in just under the limit I'll be sound... Maybe if you've got doubts Miss Gray, you should come cheer me on eh?" He asked with a cheeky smile.

"Don't sound like you need much cheerin on peaky boy..." I bit back my smile, trying to ignore the strange shy feeling he'd sparked in me. "Unless your fights happening in my living room though I doubt my brother will let me..."

"Sure he will," he shrugged, "not like your bodyguard won't be there is it?"

"I guess," I smiled wanting to laugh at him and his relentless optimism, he had an answer for everything and though usually it was infuriating that morning it was good to be met with so many positive contradictions. Good to have someone shoot down every one of my doubts.

"Y'know lass," he said then, pushing himself up, "you could come and train with me if you like..."

"Why?" I frowned, "don't think I'm heavyweight champion material somehow Mr Gold..." I said, watching as his face lit up with a laugh, his curls falling a little messy across his forehead when he shook off his amusement.

"I meant for your dancin little miss raincloud," he grinned, "your brother's gym is class an you know he says he built it for his fighters but we all know he really built it for you an Sylvia..."

I really screwed my face up when he said that, looked at him all cynical and disbelieving. My frown and the words which followed leaving his smirk to linger, like he understood something I didn't.

"Why would Tommy build a gym for us when were never home..." I said blankly. Perhaps a little part of me hoped I already knew the answer but I wasn't going to let myself believe it, even when Bonnie shrugged his shoulders and all but confirmed something Id always secretly hoped.

"Maybe he was hoping you'd come visit..."

"Never invited us..."

"Don't need an invitation to come home love..." He matched my sullen shrug with a soft smile, those eyes that told me to warm up to him just a little more.

I chewed my cheek, sucked in on it and shook my head.

"Doesn't feel like home," I said quietly, thinking back to the place that was home. The long ornate hallways of my school, the hidden rooms backstage at the opera house, the flat I'd shared with Sylvie, the bed I'd shared with Freddie in his apartment in Little Italy. Where I'd felt at home for a brief moment before he'd turned the TV on and I'd seen the news.

"Give it time," he said quietly, his fingers startling mine when they skimmed over them in the grass, "you've been away so long, perhaps you've just forgotten what it feels like..."

I bit my bottom lip, ran my tongue along the ridges of my dry skin. Saw another flickering image of Freddie lying on his back in his bed, the sheets a mess and barely covering him, the little black heart tattooed over his, the wink he'd shot me as he lay there letting his finger trace an S on the spot.

And as I thought about him my hand wandered to my belly and lingered there. There was a lump in my throat and it was hard to swallow. There was a low lying panic struggling inside me and I couldn't think for all the fuzz it left in my head.

"Who knows," I shrugged hugging my knees up to my chest and resting my chin on them glumly.

I heard Bonnie move beside me, heard him push himself up and shuffle closer.

Felt his hand on my back rub slowly up and down.

"You're dead tense you," he said letting his fingertips trace over the knots in my muscles, "you always like this?" He asked shuffling back to sit behind me, his hands running smoothly up my back, resting on my shoulders. I couldn't see the frown knitting his brows together. I could however feel the warm chill which his actions had sent radiating through me. The blush he was leaving on my cheeks as I stared stubbornly out at the lake. I couldn't turn to look at him now, I felt too shy, too self conscious.

And then his hand pressed down on a bruise which has been troubling me all week. Another from a tumble I'd taken during class.

I tried to swallow and breath through the sudden flash of pain, the heat building around the ache, but I couldn't hide my flinch. Not when his hands were on me to feel my every intake of breath.

"Shit sorry lass," he said his hands falling away from me.

"S'okay Bonnie it's nothing." I said quickly hoping he'd drop it, quietly hoping he'd put his hands back where they had been because the gentle pressure he'd been applying as he felt for knots had been more soothing than I'd expected.

"Nah I hurt you Sonya," he said, the look of concern in his eyes only darkening when I shook my head again.

"Honest Bonnie it's just a bruise... Someone uh..."

"Someone hurt you?" He asked, his voice quiet but quick and teetering on angry until I cut him off. Until my hand reached for his, my fingers skimming over his in the grass until I realised what I'd done, grew shy and drew them away. Back to my side.

"Not on purpose stupid," I smirked forcing myself to smile through the embarrassing memory. It had been humiliating in class but somehow it was more humiliating to admit it not. "My partner dropped me in class... We were leading on some steps and he uh, yeah... Dropped me..."

"Fuck," he smirked, "an I thought my job was dangerous..." I wondered which he was referring to then, being a fighter or being a blinder. "Here ain't they sposed to be talented at your school? What's he goin droppin you for?" His smile was cheeky, like he was trying to do just as I was and laugh it off but I knew what he must really have been thinking, the same as my partner had when they'd dropped me, the same as everyone in the class who had seen it. The same as I'd thought when I'd hit the floor with a thud and felt it echo through my bones, my muscles cramping with the shock as I lay there trying to breath through the pain so that I could get up and start the routine again.

"Reckoned its cause I'm too heavy..." I shrugged trying to pretend that it didn't bother me.

"Kind of excuse is that?" Sniggered Bonnie. It didn't escape my notice the way his eyes kept flickering back to my lower back where his hands had pressed a little too hard. "Sounds to me like someones been skippin arm day." He said with a small smile. "Can I see the bruise lass? Don't reckon it should be hurtin that much after a week like, even my worst never hurt that much for that long..."

"Maybe I'm more of a baby than you..." I tried to deter him, smirking, trying not to pout or show him how nervous it made me to let someone assess the damage.

At school you learnt to swallow down the pain, keep the injuries to a minimum and secret when you did wind up sore. Injuries meant falling behind and falling behind wasn't something girls like me could afford.

"I doubt that somehow sweetheart," said Bonnie, his voice quieter then, murmured as he pushed the back of my brothers pyjama top up and concentrated on the spread of ugly purple turning green at the base of my spine. I heard him breath out a hushed "shit," as his fingers grazed ever so lightly over it. Felt the burn of his eyes on my skin.

I tried to focus on my breathing, tried to concentrate on breathing slow and steady, concentrate on not shaking or shivering or letting the goosebumps show on my arms when he touched me. That was more difficult than I'd expected it to be.

"You didn't believe him did you lass?" He asked then pressing the back of his hand to the bruise, the cool of his touch soothing the ache a little.

"I don't know... He doesn't usually drop me... We've done those steps hundreds of times together so it's not like he didn't know the routine... Cas is the best dancer in our school, he's a really talented athlete..."

"Second to you of course," smirked Bonnie, his smirk only faltering when I didn't return it, "you don't believe me eh lass?" He asked pulling my top back down, rubbing a gentle circle over my back, "how many lassies have you dropped eh? Trust me love, the lad fucked up and blamed you cause he was embarrassed about it, pretty low if you ask me sweetpea..."

"You seem to know him pretty well considering you've never met him..."

"Don't need to lass," he said pushing himself up off the ground, offering his hand to me, "sounds like I've met ten of him in the ring before," he said tugging me closer into his side as we began walking back to the house, "an between me an you I'd gladly make sure he never made the mistake of droppin you again eh?" He said with a cheeky smile, a wink which warmed my cheeks and left me speechless. A small smile tugging at my lips. "I'd mind that bruise though sweetpea, no trainin for you this afternoon eh you need to rest that..."

"I've been resting for days now... I don't know if you've noticed but..."

"None of what you've done these last few days counts as rest Sonya," he said stopping just in front of me, holding my hand down by our hips, looking at me more seriously than I'd thought he was capable of, "What you need is good, proper rest... No staying up scared in a panic room or sobbin your wee heart out and shoutin at your brother yeah, proper rest... You need to relax lass... Hot bath, use that spa your Aunt Pol's always in an out of... Proper rest or it won't get better... Trust me sweetheart I've tried to train through less and it never works..."

"Boxings clearly a more forgiving profession," I mumbled not expecting him to catch my words, not expecting him to smile and shrug me off when I did.

"Probably..."

🌸🦢🌸

"Well," murmured Bonnie as we returned to the house, entering through the kitchen door to the smell of ginger and cinnamon, Ada and Esme with their hands burried in a bowl of flour sugar and butter. "I would invite you to watch me batter your big brother but..." Said bonnie nodding to Kitty who was hovering impatiently on the kitchen table, dressed like a prima ballerina, "I think someones been missin you."

That's how he had left me several hours ago, teasing Kitty on his way out, telling her she looked stunning in her little pink tutu. Told her she looked just as pretty as her aunty. Then he'd shot me another of those stupid winks from across the kitchen and left me at the hands of the little girl who'd been hopping from one foot to the other hardly able to contain her excitement.

She'd grabbed my hands and practically dragged me through to the sun room where I saw the focus of her delight. Four little rabbits idling on the carpet, one hopping slowly about sniffing at the pieces of carrot which had been dropped for them.

"Remember what I told you princess," yawned John from where he lay reclined on his back on the sofa basking in the sunlight which shone through the roof.

There was a door open and a big window letting in the cool from outside and with the television showing the moomins on for the youngens the room had a lazy, dreamy kind of atmosphere.

"Be gentle... Smaller than me..." Grinned Kitty, her fingers locking and unlocking, this mischievous little grin on her lips as she skipped to follow the most sprightly of the bunnies around the room.

"This one's named Buttons," she said picking him up as gently as she could, presenting him to me a little over zealously so that I had no choice but to rescue the little fluffball from her grasp.

"Careful sweetheart," I smiled cradling the little bunny in my hands, "you should listen to daddy Kitty, Buttons is shy see, look at him he's all shakey... You have to be super careful with him..." I said sitting down on the floor leaning against the sofa and holding him to my chest carefully, "here we are see, c'mere KitKat," I said whispering, taking her hand and placing it on the little rabbits soft fur.

She snuggled in close to me and rested her cheek against my arm so that she was nose to nose with Buttons. Her little smile still so mischievous I couldn't help but mirror it.

"See," I breathed looking down at the angelic little creature with tenderness, stroking between his ears and smiling at the way his nose twitched.

"What're the others called Kitty?"

"Yeah go on princess tell aunty fen what you named em..." Chuckled John his lazy smile contagious. He was half asleep, one hand reaching down to ruffle Katie's hair. It was the most peaceful I'd seen anyone all week and I was beginning to wonder how they did it.

Bonnie and John alike. Lying back with their eyes closed, lazy smiles, letting peace wash over them even in the midst of tension and chaos. I couldn't help but envy them for that ability. Couldn't help but think it must be nice to quiet the mind and all its anxieties even if only for a minute or two.

"What did you name the other two Kitty?" I smirked curious now because John was still chuckling to himself behind me.

"This one's Sylvie!" She grinned pointing to a brown, lop-eared bunny stretched out and dozing in the sun. My eyes going wide as I struggled to hold back a giggle, knowing what was coming next, not exactly horrified but also not impressed.

"Oh no," I giggled, "what's this one called Kitty?" I asked a giggle escaping both of us when she crawled to pick the black and white one up and set it down in her lap. It immediately nuzzled into her and began trying to climb up onto her shoulder, eyes set on the sofa and John's head.

"S... Sunny! Like Sonya!" She grinned looking ever so proud of herself, her grin dissolving into laughter when John laughed chuckling away to himself half asleep.

"Atta girl," he grinned sleepily,his hand ruffling her hair once more, "howd ya like that Fen, she looks just like you don't she?"

"Was this your idea? Some twisted way of laughin at us whilst we were away..."

"Who me?" He laughed feigning innocence all hand on heart and false offence, "nah lass, just missed you that much..."

"No no no it's cause they're pretty n you're pretty too!" Cried Katie suddenly animated again, stretching up to her our attention, bouncing up and down where she sat, wriggling and repeating herself until she was greeted with John pushing himself up and scooping her up into his lap.

"Right y'little terror," he grinned threatening her with a tickling hand, wriggling his fingers over her tummy so that she squealed.

"No daddy won't!" She cried defiantly.

"Oh won't he?" He chuckled hanging her upsidedown over his knees so that her hair fell down and brushed the carpet. "What makes you think that eh miss?" He grinned unable to hold in his sniggering as he threatened her with the same game he used to play with me and Sylvie. I gasped jumping to the little girls defense when he threatened her with tickles again.

"John no!" I cried, "you wouldn't!"

"Daddy won't!" Giggled Katie trying to wriggle and squirm her way free but she wasn't going to escape unless John let her and right now his eyes were lit up with mischief and I knew he wouldn't back down.

"Why not Kitty Kat?" He grinned tickling her belly so that she couldn't speak for giggling too much. "Fishes in the water fishes in the sea..." He started teasing her...

"Daddy love me most!" She giggled still wriggling, her laughter so contagious it was impossible not to laugh along as I promised I'd get her free.

"That wasn't the question princess... Sorry!" Laughed John tormenting the poor girl with an onslaught of tickles.

In the end however it was her brother Liam who came to her rescue, clambering on his dads shoulders from round the back of the sofa, hitting him with a light saber until he promised to free his hostage. Kitty scrambling to safety in the arm chair, breathless and rosy cheeked from all her laughter.

"What the bloody 'ells goin on ere eh?" Smiled Ada, her eyes lit up when they rested on John who was still being tormented by Liam and his other eldest boy. "My god John I never thought I'd see the day karma came back to bite you..."

"Yeah..yeah Ada ain't like you didn't put up a fair fight is it!" He managed to spit out between laughs and wheezes of breath doing his best to fend of the two little boys.

But in the Shelby house no amount of peace can be allowed to last for long and when Arthur and Bonnie appeared in the doorway a few hours later the laughter stopped and a shadow crossed over the eyes of my brothers. They shared a silent conversation, eyes dark with understanding and I shivered noticing how in the hours we'd spent lying on the carpet playing with the littlens, the weather had changed and the day had darkened.

Outside the mist had crept in and surrounded the house, the sky was grey and threatening rain. Something heavy and looming hung over us all and I felt a fearful twist in my gut.

When I looked up at Arthur however it was Bonnie who caught my attention, the wink he shot me, the small smile. As if he could tell how my worries had all returned in that moment. As if it were me he wanted to settle and reassure.

"Right," coughed Arthur, "I'll be off then aye..."

"Where's uncle Arthur goin?" Asked Liam, his brother chipping in too.

"Can I come?"

"Nah lad," said Arthur shaking his head, his voice low and gravelly, a little doomed sounding, "not this time eh mate, maybe next time..."

"Aye mate maybe next time yeah, come on I'll teach you how to use that weapon proper eh?" Asked John picking the abandoned lightsaber back up leading them both away to play somewhere else.

I watched Arthur turn away too, watched Ada jump up to stop him, to ask him what was going on.

I saw the look in his eyes which told Ada to back down. Saw the look in hers when she forced a smile and came to sit on the floor with Katie, when she picked up bunny Sylvie and placed her in Katie's lap.

I watched Arthur murmur to Bonnie quietly before he left and when Bonnie turned back to us he had that knit of concentration on his brow tugging a small frown into the center of his expression. It didn't last however because the second he felt my gaze on him he broke into a grin and threw himself down beside me on the settee, his arm stretched out across the back so that I was conscious of the weight of it behind me. So that I felt a tinge of guilt when I found myself wondering what it would feel like to have his arm around me properly. To feel his fingers curling my hair around them subtly.

I tried to ignore the thought but the longer he remained still beside me watching the room with those quiet eyes the worse the feeling got. The desire to let myself sink further back into the cushions, into his side. To find myself tucked under his arm.

I told myself it was because I was missing Freddie, because my head was all cottony and full of anxiety. Because I'd been so scared all week, so upset... And because Bonnie had been there with me throughout it all, always offering me a kind smile. Always listening and nodding along in that calm thoughtful way. The way he just took everything in, the way he almost always seemed to say the right thing...

"So you've met your double I see?" He said leaning in to talk to me, "cute ain't she..."

"Yeah," I smirked, blushing at the fact that everyone seemed to be in on this joke except me.

"Reckon she does a mean pirouette too," he chuckled, "how's the restin going?" He asked his eyes flickering over my body, lingering on my lower back as if he thought looking hard enough would allow him to see through the t-shirt I was wearing to examine the damage.

"I feel like I'm wasting time..." I said chewing my cheek, smiling when he shrugged his shoulders.

"Lookin after yourself ain't wasting time lass," he said his hand skimming over my shoulder, unnoticed by the rest of the family though the sensation it left tingling on my skin and up my neck was impossible to ignore. "Anyway," he said, "you're like me... You don't need anymore practice eh, I reckon you're already perfect..." He said with a cheeky wink, not deterred when I giggled and tried to deny the fact.

"You've never seen me dance!"

"Seen you on YouTube," he smirked, "your brother showed me earlier... After I'd won our fight eh..."

"You didn't beat Arthur," I shook my head with a smile, "no way," I giggled laughing harder when he shook his head.

"Nah lass," he grinned, his cheeks flushed a sweet shade of scarlet, "but a lad can dream..."

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#peaky blinder fanfic #pealy blinders x oc #peaky blinders imagines #peaky blinders modern au #bonnie gold x oc

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