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#tommy fluff
asmutwriter · 1 month
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The Gangsta's Wife (Part 8)
DESCRIPTION: Whilst you're husband is away for business reasons you have an unexpected (and unwelcome) guest.
WORD COUNT: 2865
From Beginning / Previous / Next / Master List  
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WARNINGS: pregnancy, knife, knife violence, injury, injury detail, fight, blood, Thomas calls reader 'love', drinking, drinking whilst pregnant (brief), swearing
DISCLAIMERS
This is fiction. Please always talk to your partner before doing anything and make sure they are ok with what you are doing beforehand
This story does not follow the timeline of the show
It had been a couple of weeks since that night. Your husband was near London on business matters. He'd recently purchased a race horse so he was minding that over the past few days. You were taking this time of bliss to have a small nap. Your fatigue having increased over the past few days. Knowing you had caught up on the housework you decided to allow yourself a restful afternoon. You were going to read however sleep soon had other ideas.
You jump awake as you hear a gentle knock on the front door. You let out a soft grumble as you wipe your eyes. Pushing yourself up. Your hand instinctively going to your belly as you walk over to the door. Unlocking it. Assuming it was one of your in-laws, or one of your sisters who'd forgotten their key. Possibly even your husband. Your wide smile to greet your guest being stunned as you see a man waiting outside.
"Mrs Shelby?". Your scan over their frame. The smile fading completely when you see the knife hidden in his coat. You go and shut the door on him. His hand coming out and stopping it. You turn quickly. Making your way upstairs. Just as the door swings open.
Someone grabbing the lower half of you leg. Tripping you. The air from your lungs being forced out. You turn your body. You bring your free leg up. Kicking him. He grabs at the flesh of your lower leg. Yanking you down a few stairs. Able to straddle you. You struggle as he grabs the knife out. Holding the knife up to go in for a swipe. Bringing your hands up as a means to protect yourself. One over your face, the other near your stomach.
It goes through your palm. You scream out as he removes the item. Going in for another swing. Bringing your knee up and kicking them in the crotch. He grunts out. Hand going to his injury. You clench your good hand. Bringing it back and hitting it into his face. Hearing his nose crunch under your fist. He fumbles on the stairs. Nearly falling down them. Him moving off from over you. You bring your foot up, placing it onto his chest as you shove him. Him falling down the length of the stairs. Giving you enough time to turn back around. Scrambling up the stairs as you regain your footing.
Pain going through your body as you get upstairs. Running to your bedroom and shutting the door. Holding your wounded hand by your torso. Heavy breathing as you run over to the window. Lifting the glass panel up. You weigh up the option of climbing out. But the fall being too high. Plus you weren't overly agile or slim in the best of times. Especially not with a 6 month pregnancy belly. You bite at your bottom lip as you go to plan B.
You look for a place to hide. Noticing small blood spots on the floor from your injury. You take your hand. Then rubbing it over the edge of the window frame. Biting your lip to dull any sounds of pain as silent tears stain your face. Hearing the bedroom door start to open. You drop to the floor. Hiding behind the full length mirror you have standing in the room.
The door opens. Seeing two feet walk into your room. You bite at your lips. Shutting your eyes, every ounce of you willing yourself to not make any noise. You hold your wounded hand near your chest. Your other hand coming up and covering your mouth as you become aware of how heavily you are breathing.
The attacker goes over to the window. Presumably looking out of it. You watch as he carefully and quietly wonders around the room. Obviously having the same thoughts of you of your practicality of getting out the small space in such a rush. You see him look under the bed. In the wardrobe. Then he comes over to the mirror. You stay as silent as you can. Practically holding your breath.
Watching as his feet walk out of the room. Hearing them make their way downstairs. You look at your hand. Trying not to gag as you see the wound. You go to the bottom of your skirt. Hand shaking as you tear the end of it. Using it as you wrap it around your injury. Gritting your teeth as you finish. Holding it close to you.
Resting against the wall as your eyes remain fixed on the door. You will yourself to not pass out. Trying to focus on something. Anything. You sit for what must've been a few hours. Waiting behind the mirror. Scared that if you move you'll pass out. Or get found. So you stay still. As much as you can given that your entire body is shaking. Tears still falling down your cheeks as you watch the doorway. You become alert again as you hear noise downstairs.
Looking around you for anything that could be used as a weapon. Biting your lip as you're met with nothing of use to you. Then an idea. You bring your good hand down. Taking off your high healed shoe. Unbuckling the straps of them both. Quietly resting one down onto the floor as you bring the other one up. Holding the top of it. Heal outwards. Gripping around the sole. You move out from behind the mirror. Over to the doorway. Just around the corner so you can remain hidden. Giving you the advantage. Your hand slowly bleeding onto your shirt as you keep it close to your chest. Holding the shoe up. Getting ready to attack.
Your whole body shaking as they cautiously step into the room. You bring the shoe up. Aiming for their head. They turn quickly. Grabbing your wrist to prevent you from harming them. Going to reach for his gun but stopping as he meets your eyes.
"Tommy" you say his name. A small sob coming out. Dropping the shoe you held as you wrap your arm around him. Your wounded hand still clutched to yourself. Fresh tears falling as you hide your head into his shoulder. His arms coming up and holding you. Your entire body shaking.
He unwraps his arms. Moving away slightly as he holds your face. "Florence are you hurt?". So much adrenaline coursing through your body that you forget to answer him. His eyes going to your injured hand. He goes to take it. But you keep it clutched to yourself. "Let me look". He takes your reluctant hand in his. Gently holding the wrist of it as he unwraps the cloth you used. You grip at your skirt. Looking away as you clench your teeth. Body still intensely shaking.
"You're ok love. I've got you" he gently moves you to sit on the bed. Shutting your eyes as you feel queasy. You're hand going to your stomach as you take in a few deep breaths. John and Esme coming up the stairs.
"Thomas?"
"She's been stabbed. She has a sewing kit somewhere in here" you hear them fumbling about. Unable to work out which one announces they've found it. Your husband sits next to you on the bed. Gripping your good hand with his. His arm going around to hold you close to him. You feel someone grabbing your arm. Holding it out. Opening your eyes you see John is sat beside you. Gripping your lower arm and wrist.
Esme using a match, putting the needle into it before placing it into a drink of you presume alcohol or water. You go to move away. Shaking your head as she kneels in front of you. Tommy and Johns grip tightening around you. "The wound needs stitches. Its going to hurt but I'll be quick, ok?".
She takes your hand. Starting to sew your hand up. You cry out. Tommy holding your good hand as you go to push her away. John holding your arm out so you can't retract it. Your husband shushing you comfortingly as you cry. His arms keeping your body pressed against his as both the Shelby men keep you still.
She kept her word. Although it seemed like hours, the procedure was done in less then a minute. Taking the glass she had used for the needle and pouring it over the wound. Causing you to cry out again. Scrunching your eyes shut as you grip the hand of your husband. Fresh tears falling down your cheeks as you feel John lets go of you. Thomas kisses your temple, stroking your hair.
"Well done love. It's over". Moving the hand from your hair. Feeling him move from behind you. Your body weight resting against him. Feeling something cold hit your lips. Jumping as you open your eyes. A whiskey bottle. "Drink. It'll help dull the pain". You shake your head.
"Liz. Mary..." you whsiper. Going to stand up, Thomas's arm still wrapped around you. Keeping you sat on the bed. Esme speaks next to you.
"Both safe and next door" you nod. Letting Thomas lift the bottle. Letting your drink a large quantity of it before removing it. Placing it back on the side. You breath heavily. Shutting your eyes again as you try and focus on your husband. His warmth. Scent.
"They got Arthur and Michael too" John says. Tommy nodding in response. "I thought you said that we were safe"
"I thought we were too..." he says. Voice quiet as he holds you close to him. Your eyes remaining shut as your breathing becomes steady. You hear commotion from downstairs. You flinch. Eyes widening as you go closer to your husband. Body must still be on high alert from the chaos as you back away slightly. Thomas grips your hand slightly tighter as you watch the doorway. John cautiously going and seeing what the noise was.
"They took my son" you hear Polly say as she storms into the room. The Shelby boys and Esme relaxing slightly. "Thomas they took my fucking son" she says again. "You promised that he'd be safe. You said-"
"Polly" he tries to calm her.
"No. They took Michael. They took my boy" she shakes her head. Obviously trying not to break down fully. "You need to get my son back. Thomas get my so-"
"Enough." He cuts her off. The tone sharp and precise. Sending chills down your spine. "Family meeting next door. Now. John get Finn" he nods. Going out, shortly followed by his wife. You see Polly's eyes frantic as they look at her nephew.
"Thomas" she says. Sternness in her voice that you can only put down as a Shelby tone.
"I said go next door. I will talk to you there" she clenches her jaw. Borderline stropping out the room as she leaves. Hearing her footsteps loud on the stairs. He moves from behind you. Kneeling in front of you as he rests a hand on your cheek. His other hand still holding onto yours.
"I'm sorry Mr Shelby... I tried keeping the baby safe..." you shut your eyes. Tears swelling in them again. He nods. Lips slightly parted as he watches you.
"I'm going to change your out of these clothes, ok?" he speaks softly to you. You nod your head. Feeling him start to undo the buttons of your shirt. You wince as he pulls the sleeve over your arm and hand. More ease on the other one, less injured one. Throwing your blood soaked garment onto the floor. You hear him stand up. Opening your eyes you watch as he gets a damp cloth. Coming over he cleans up some of the dried blood on your arm and torso.
Where you'd been holding it so tightly against yourself you'd managed to bleed through your shirt. Tossing the cloth aside he gently places a new shirt over your frame. He kneels in front of you. Holding your good hand. Watching his eyes scanning your features. As you look down at him.
"I'm going to call the midwife and get her to come and check you and the baby over. I can't see any wounds near the child but I think its best if we check, ey?" you nod. "I need to go next door and have this meeting. Find out exactly what happened and why" You shake your head.
"Please don't leave me..." a feeble whisper comes past your lips. He looks at you. Nodding slightly before standing. You keep your eyes on his as he pulls you up by your good hand. One arm holding your hand still as the other goes to the lower part of your back. Letting you gain your balance. Your body still shaking.
"I'm going to find the man that did this to you" he speaks in a low, hushed voice. "I'm going to make him pay. For harming you. For harming our child". You meet his eyes again. Cold. The stare making your breath hitch. You look downwards. Keeping a hold of his hand as he leads you next door. Sitting you down onto a chair before the family meeting ensues.
The midwife came round less then 24 hours later. Checking over you and the baby and confirming that you were both fine. Although your body had gone into shock it doesn't seem to have affected the pregnancy. Once Thomas had heard this news you didn't see him for a long time. Not that he'd left you unprotected. You made note of the various Blinders patrolling outside your house.
It was midday during the weekend. You were playing a game with your sisters when you hear the front door open. You turn quickly. Standing up - mind you a little wobbly - but quickly to see your husband walk into the living room.
Your eyes scanning over his features as you look at him. Lifting his head up to look at you. "I need you and your sisters to come with me"
"Why?"
"Go pack a bag each. I'll wait here" he says. Eyes drifting to your sisters who look at him then at you. "Go" he says. Sterner this time. Your sisters having better judgement then you stand up. Scurrying past you and Thomas. Hearing their footsteps on the wooden flooring upstairs. Your eyes dart between his two blue orbs. His stay steady and fixated on yours. "Go" he repeats. You shake your head
"I want you to answer my question"
"I'll answer your questions when we get in the car and start driving"
"No. No you can't do that. You can't just expect to leave us alone for days. With no contact. No say as to where you've gone. Then turn up expecting me to get into a car with you without asking any questions. No". Reaching up he takes his cap off. Your eyes glancing at the small piece of metal that glints in the light of the room. Watching as he puts it onto the cabinet near the door.
You try to read him. His posture. Placing his hands in front of him as his eyes become steady on yours once again. You keep your ground under his menacing stare. Making a point by folding your arms over your torso. Feeling your hands shaking as you clench them against you.
"I want answers". Your voice a whisper. He takes in a breath through his nose. Exhaling as he speaks.
"Did Detective Campbell try and fuck you?". The sudden question shocking you. Taking you a while to come up with a response.
"Excuse me?"
"Did he try and fuck you?". You flit your eyes between his.
"He may have... suggested such notions... But I refused him"
"You should've told me"
"I didn't see it being necessary"
"I'd like to know when my enemy tries to fuck my wife. I believe that is the reason he hired that man to attack you"
"Because I refused to have sex with him?".
"And to enforce his argument of how dangerous this life is. That this world is filled with blood and violence". You bring your hand to your stomach. Holding it, rubbing a thumb over the swell of your belly.
"Why do you want me to pack a bag?"
"I'm going to move you and your sisters to a safe house. One that only I and a handful of my most trusted men know about"
"How long will we be there for?"
"Until I have dealt with the current threat and it is safe for you to come back home"
"Who will be with us at the safe house?"
"It'll be you and your sisters. I'll have a man guarding the perimeter who will change periodically. Plus someone else to deliver you food. The midwife will see you when she is needed but she is to come alone and be searched every time she comes". Your hands rest under your stomach. Breaking eye contact with him as you look down. He stays quiet as you process his answers. Nodding slightly before looking back up at him. "Good. Go pack a bag"
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@whorecrux-of-slytherin @kkrenae @ireallydontcareanymorebrooo
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ax-y10 · 3 months
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black out love
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in which; you faint, and tommy doesn't mind
about; fainting, descriptions of fainting, medical conditions, good tommy, mention of yelling, mention of emergency line, mention of loosening tight clothing (nothing too bad), happy fluff good feels, tommy is supportive dude
word count; 305
taglist; @phxntomsdusk, @pheliiaa (ask to be added)
- he’s not judgemental at all about it and he’ll gladly yell at someone if they make a comment about it.
- he’ll joke around with you and if you’re fine with it, he’ll make silly little jokes about you fainting that he knows won’t hurt your feelings.
- he’d notice fairly quickly that you’d get a lazy, droopy face just as you’re about to faint, and he’d be there in an instant.
- he’d brought up the topic of saying something if you knew you were about to faint, and you’d both agreed for you to say “tom, faint” or something along those lines.
- when you first fainted, he didnt know you fainted so he searched up so many different things to see what happened
- he is always there to catch you or let you lay on him when you faint.
- if you get up too fast after fainting, he holds you head to steady you and lays you back down.
- knows you’re about to faint when you start breathing heavily randomly or you start sweating randomly
- will sit down with you and figure out why you faint if it randomly starts happening.
- you’ll realise it’s probably because it runs in your family or a health condition like low blood sugar, irregular heartbeat etc.
- if you have low blood sugar, he always has lollies in his pocket for you and himself because he has the same thing.
- but you have POTS, he will make sure that you sit down if you have been on your feet for a long time
- he always makes sure to loosen any tight clothing (without being too intrusive), keep your legs up with a pillow, and call 999 if you don’t regain consciousness after one minute
- all in all, your safety and health is his number one priority, and he sticks by that.
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peakyscillian · 1 year
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Falling | One Shot.
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Summary: Tommy & Reader are close friends, but what if they could be more? Warnings: Hinted $A & Fluff! Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Fem!Reader Part: 1/1 Requested: Yes - Anon Notes: I had two similar requests so I combined them into one!
Falling.
Masterlist
Falling.
Your heart was hammering against your chest, the full weight of his body had you pinned against the wall, you were planing your next move, knee to the crotch or your teeth sinking into the thin skin of his exposed neck.
Either way you were getting out of here without him touching you.
You'd left The Garrison to get some air, it was rowdy, filled to the rafters with people and the thick fog of smoke. Not that the streets of Small Heath were much better.
You hadn't realised you'd been followed to the back alley, until you were pushed against the wall and the smell of rum hit your senses.
"Get the fuck off me" you spat, body thrashing against his grasp.
Some stranger from out of town trying their luck, someone who didn't know how it worked around here. His grip on your wrist tightening.
"I think the lady asked you to get the fuck off" the unmistakeable voice of a Shelby.
In seconds he was ripped from your body, you didn't even look back as you bundled up the hem of your skirt and ran expertly down the cobbled alleyway.
His screams were enough to know, that he hadn't just been discarded against the neighbouring wall but dealt with in a more serious way.
You spotted Finn leaning against the side of his car, you stumbled in not uttering a word as he started the engine, whisking you out to the Countryside.
-
"Where is she?" Tommy's voice filled the halls of his house, echoing off the walls.
You sighed as Polly finished cleaning the cut just under your eye, downing the whiskey as she patted your knee "He cares about you, that's all"
You nodded, as she left the room, replaced moments later by Tommy, your childhood friend, always your knight in not so shining armour.
"What were you doing out there, eh?" he was discarding his coat and hat, "Went out for a breather, The Garrison was packed tonight" you stood to pour two more glasses of whiskey.
"Could have let one of us know" Tommy was already sat on the couch, cigarette poised between his lips.
"You were too busy" you rolled your eyes handing him the glass, "with business" he stated simply as you took your seat next to him.
You didn't respond, you never won with him.
"Was worried about you" he whispered, nudging you with his elbow. He turned to you, cigrette poised between his fingers as he examined your face, holding your chin with his thumb and forefinger.
"No you weren't, you were just looking for a fight" you smirked, eyes flicking up to look at him. You swallowed slowly, leaning forward, Tommy still holding your chin, you brushed your lips against his.
You were unsure, nervous, were your feelings reciprocated?.
_
You pulled away, tongue running across your lips to settle the buzzing through them.
Tommy was watching you carefully moving his hand round to cradle the back of your neck.
He slowly pulled you forward, lips pecking at yours, your hand curled round his bicep, pressing your lips harder against his.
Tommy pulled away first, forehead pressed to yours, he smiled slowly before licking at his lips.
You returned his smile, lips back on his in seconds.
Tommy wasted no time, his tongue pushing into your mouth, curling against your own, moving you back against the arm of the sofa.
"Well fucking finally" John's voice boomed from the doorway.
Tommy reluctantly pulled from your lips, turning to look at John "do none of you have your own homes to go too?"
John shrugged as he walked further into the room, grabbing the bottle of whiskey "just saying its about time" he called over his shoulder.
-
Tommy rolled his eyes, turning back to you, holding out his hand "lets go somewhere more private, eh?"
You let him pull you up, into his chest, his fingers brushing your hair from your cheeks "We're actually doing this?" you asked, watching his face for any signs of regret.
His face softened, smiling big enough to make the corners of his eyes crinkle, a sight that was very rare after the war "Of course" he kissed you again.
"About time, Brother" Arthur was the next one of the family to wander past, Tommy once again rolled his eyes earning a small laugh from you.
"Thank you Arthur" Tommy sighed, as he lead you from the room up the stairs to the master bedroom, you stopped at the top of the stairs.
"They're right, it is about time" You gave him a shy smile, Tommy nodded taking a few steps towards you "Should have kissed me sooner then, eh?"
"Why do I have to do all the kissing round here" you laughed, hands on his chest.
"I can think of more than kissing, if you'd just follow me" he stated taking your hand again, you didn't move he turned round a confused look on his face "just one more kiss so I know this is real" you pouted.
Tommy obliged, lips catching yours hands on your hips pushing you against the wall, hips pressed into yours "definitely real, darling" he rasped.
"Finally" Ada's voice filled the hall as she left one of the bedrooms
Tommy didn't give her a response, pulling you into his room After falling for you when you were just teenagers, he had a lot of time to make up.
- @missymurphy1985 @heidimoreton @queenshelby @janelongxox @being-worthy @cloudofdisney @elenavampire21 @datewithgianni @magicalpieex @uchihacumdump @inkandpen22 @pocket-of-possibilities @vhscillian @radioheadgirl @lovemissyhoneybee @ysmmsy @alreadybroken-ts @anotherhitandrun @lyarr24 @blyanyan @gypsy-girl-08 @thomasshelbee @look-at-the-soul @runnning-outof-time @cillmequick @forgottenpeakywriter @seleneshelby @allie131313 @flyingjosephine-blog @camilleholland89
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drcranessweetestdoe · 3 months
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heyyyyy
could you do a Tommy shelby fic?
in which he fucks Ada's bestfriend when she is 18!
hii, love this idea xx I have been writing this all day, time to celebrate with a jam sandwich:) xx
Finally mine
warning: agegap!, Thomas lusts after her while she is underage, grooming, virginity loss, virginity kink, innocence kink, unprotected sex, Tommy being a softie, possessiveness
pairing: Thomas Shelby x Innocent!Reader
summary: ever since he came back from the war, Tommy found himself wanting his sister’s lovely and sweet best friend, too bad he has to wait until she is 18
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(Y/N) was the sweetest girl in the whole of Birmingham, always polite and kind. Thomas was smitten with her from day one. She and Ada met in school, she felt sorry that Ada was always alone, because everyone told their kids to stay away from the filthy Shelby’s. So, one day she gathered the courage and sat beside the sad girl, who was very excited to finally have a friend.
It was the age of war, so everyone was always on the edge of a meltdown. And money wasn’t exactly falling from the sky. While (Y/N)’s family weren’t considered aristocrats by any chance, she never had to worry about not getting fed, or not having a warm bed to sleep in. That was something that the Shelby’s couldn’t exactly relate to, there was little money and quite a few mouths to feed. Aunt Polly tried her best to feed the hungry children at the table, but she was failing more and succeeding less. Her sister-in-law’s three big boys were away at war, but they were always talked about.
One day, the thirteen year old (Y/N) plopped down beside her best friend Ada with a full lunch box in hand. She always had lunch packed with her, but Ada never did. For a long time, she just assumed that the malnourished girl was not hungry in school. While she was munching on her apple, she heard the growl of a hungry belly and Ada turned her head down in shame. While a girl is naive at 13, (Y/N) immediately knew that her friend was hungry, and that she probably didn’t get as much food at home as she did. When Ada looked back at her, she reacted with a wide smile to the outstretched hand towards her, holding a big red apple.
For the rest of the break, they just sat under their tree, silently chewing on their apples, with a smile on both faces.
That is how Ada knew that (Y/N) was going to be her lifelong best friend. She opened up to her when they were sharing a cigarette on the edge of the forest.
“We had more money before the war, if Tommy was here he would make sure that we have food.” Ada explained.
(Y/N) just blinked at her friend. “Who’s Tommy?”
———-
Three years later, the girls were now sixteen and the war was finally over. Because (Y/N) herself didn’t have any brothers, or sisters, she didn’t know how many families waited for this day to come.
It was a pretty summer day, and she made her way to the Shelby household, where she was always welcomed by Aunt Polly. Except, when she walked into the house, there was only one man sitting at the table. Her breath got stuck in her throat and she blushed heavily, he was very handsome. For a moment she believed that she walked into the wrong house, but the photographs on the walls proved otherwise. He was smoking a cigarette and staring at the wall blankly, he was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn’t even hear her come in.
Thomas just wanted a moment to himself in his childhood house before going back to the Garrison, he was not the same man anymore. Suddenly, he saw a figure in the corner of his eye. A second later, the two pairs of eyes met. His previously sad eyes lit up at the sight of her, but he tried to conceal it. She was so beautiful… Slender and weakish frame, something that made him eager to protect her. Her long and soft looking hair. And that face, oh god, that pretty face.
“H-Hi… I’m (Y/N).” She walked closer to him and stuck her hand out for him, she recognized him from the pictures, he was one of Ada’s brothers.
He heard about her, Aunt Pol always told him what was happening on Watery Lane in the letters she sent to Tommy. She had mentioned Ada’s lovely friend, multiple times. She told him that the girl was pretty, very kind, and that she went with her to church on Sundays when no one else wanted to, just so Polly didn’t have to go alone.
Tommy smiled at her, and she felt herself get lost in those bright blue gems of eyes. Instead of shaking her hand, he brought it to his lips and planted a little kiss on it. Her hand was soft and warm, it was a while since he felt the touch of a gentle female. He smiled when she blushed more at his kiss. “Thomas Shelby.”
—----
From that day on, Miss (Y/L/N) was under the protection of the Peaky Blinders. Thomas always had one of his men following her and Ada to school, and then back home. It killed him knowing that he couldn’t touch her, make her his, not yet anyway. That would have been immoral and awful, and he knew that aunt Pol would have broken his hand in two and cut off his cock. That didn’t mean he hadn’t spent too many night fucking his fist to the thought of her. Everyone in the Shelby clan could see how soft he was towards her, always making sure that she stays out of the bad things, and whenever she came over and he was working, his eyes basically formed into hearts and followed her everywhere. The family loved her, she enjoyed baking and she always made sure that at least once a week she turned up to the office with home-baked treats. Those kinds of sweet treats calmed everyone down, business was blooming after all.
Ever since Tommy came back from the war, he only let himself be pleasured by whores, the one girl he wanted was the one he had to wait for. He always hired prostitutes that resembled her even the slightest bit. He imagined that he was burying himself inside her wet and warm walls, he overheard her and Ada and he was very well aware that she was untouched, a sweet little virgin. In Small Heath, the girls started sleeping around in their teens, but she, at 17, didn’t care about the boys her age. She wanted a certain gangster, who was nearing his thirties.
He didn’t even claim her yet, but wherever she walked, everyone knew she was Tommy Shelby’s girl. He sent her gifts, and always a handwritten note. Her heart never failed to warm up when she saw the little T.S on the bottom of the cards. Flowers, chocolates, exotic spices that she could put in her sweet treats, jewellery, dresses, everything a 17 year old girl loves. She was spoiled by him. When she wore one of the dresses that he got for her, she always sent him a shy smile and a little nod.
—-----
Tomorrow was going to be the day when she would finally become 18 years old, a young lady. She felt so antsy getting to bed, knowing that she would wake up as an adult. She also deeply hoped that Tommy would do something, after 2 years of gifts, protection and lustful gazes from distance. It was safe to say that her standards were very much heightened.
When she woke up, she noticed a big box on the chair of her vanity, tied up in one of those big ribbons. Her mother must have brought it up for her, as she always did when her daughter’s name was on the box, written by the familiar handwriting.
She was smiling widely when she opened the box up, it had a beautiful silky dress and a gold locket necklace. She marvelled at the divine fabric, but quickly blushed when she looked into the box again. There was a set of white lingerie and a note.
Tonight, I’ll send a car to pick you up at 7pm, be ready.
~T.S
She melted at that, and she felt her lower tummy warm up. This evening, she will finally be claimed.
——-
By the time 7pm rolled around, she did everything she could to make herself look pretty for him. She took a long hot bath, made sure she smelled good everywhere. She washed her hair and tied up half of it with a bow. She put lotion all over herself, sprayed herself with perfume and put the lovely dress on. Sitting in her vanity, she put on some makeup. She felt beautiful.
She got her light coat on, along with kitten heels and she was waiting for his car to come. When it did, she sat in the backseat and greeted the driver.
She got driven to Arrow house, which she only heard about before. It was so huge, and overwhelming, but very nice.
A maid took her coat and escorted her to the dining roomom. Just like the rest of the house, it was quite big, both the room itself and the table. It was decorated elegantly, the candlelight flooded the room. Just as she stepped in, Thomas walked in the room on the other door. He looked so handsome as always, with his muscular frame and his tailored suit.
His heart nearly jumped out of his chest, she looked like an angel, and she was standing in his house, wearing his gift. The maid left, now there were only two of them in the room, he walked up to her. With a gentle hand on her waist, he pulled her closer so he could plant a kiss on her cheek and whisper in her ear. “You look absolutely gorgeous.” He got even closer, her head was spinning with him so close, his masculine scent sent her hormones into overdrive. “I hope the dress isn’t the only gift of mine on you.”
He felt his dick twitch when she looked up at him like that, a gentle glint in her eyes. She shaked her head, too lost in his eyes to answer with words. To shake her out of her trance, he guided her to her seat, with his hand still on her slender waist.
He sat next to her, the maids kept on serving the finest of foods. Thomas also brought out a bottle of red wine. Both of them were surprised how easy it was for them to talk. They talked and ate, and Tommy even found himself laughing. He also found out how innocent she was, she wasn’t stupid, just inexperienced, and he was more than happy to give her experience. She also had a big heart, and a gentle soul, she was everything he needed.
While everyone in Small Heath tried to warn her about Thomas Shelby, she never understood why. He was just trying to protect his family and give them a chance at a better life, he was also an absolute softie for her. She could see that he had a lot of love to give, he enjoyed being the leader and defeating other gang leaders, but he must have been craving someone who could take care of him for once, she knew that she wanted to be that person.
When they finished dessert, he pulled her chair closer to his and cradled one of her blushing cheek into his palm.
“Are you aware of my intentions towards you?” He asked in a serious tone, she knew that he wasn’t fooling around. Now or never. She nodded as much as she could with the gentle hold on her face, but he wasn’t having it. “Answer me with words, I want to see if you really want this.” She felt dizzy by hearing his dominating tone.
“Yes, I know your intentions with me.” She replied shyly.
“What are they?” His fingers started to move her hair out of her face, caressing her in the process.
“Y-You want to make me yours.” She spoke lowly, it was hard to speak when he was looking at her as if he was seconds away from ravaging her.
“Yes, and do you want that, (Y/N)? Do you want me to make you mine?” He was even closer now, he whispered seductively in her ear, his full lips were nearly touching the shell of her ear. “Just say the word, sweetheart, and I will give you everything you crave. Please, let me give you the world.” Thomas Shelby barely used the word ‘please’, but he was nearly begging for her. She almost giggled, as if she really needed much convincing.
“I want it, I want it so bad, Tommy…” She was getting impatient, and he saw it on her.
“Shh, sweetheart… Don’t let your pretty head worry, I’m going to take care of you so nicely.” He stood up and stuck his hand out for her to take. “Come.”
He walked with her to his bedroom, she was walking behind him so she couldn’t see the wicked grin on his lips. When they stepped in the door, he just kept on walking, which caused her to walk backwards, until her knees hit the bed and she had fallen down on it.
He didn’t waste a second and crawled on top of her, his lips slowly finding hers. Their kiss started out slow, he guided her lips with his own. After a few minutes, noticing that she was starting to become more and more confident, he slipped his tongue into her open mouth. His hand wandered to her back, where the zipper was, his head pulled away so he could ask for silent permission. Once he got it, he helped her sit up and he removed the dress. Sitting back on his heels, he admired the sight in front of him, her young body was just begging to be ruined. She was wearing the lace, she looked exactly like an angel. His lips glued themselves to her neck and they sucked and bit, her noises were proof that she was enjoying his touch. He made sure to really mark her up, she wasn’t going to leave his mansion for a while, he needed his time with his new prize. She bit down on her lips to hide her moans, something he growled at.
“Don’t you dare. I want to hear you, don’t hold back, sweetheart.”
He went down to her breasts, he also reached under her arched back and unclasped her bra. She tried to cover herself, but he was having none of it. He slowly unpeeled her arms from her chest and kissed all around her breasts. “How beautiful! Such a nice pair of tits you have, the best I’ve seen.” He sucked a nipple into his mouth and she mewled loudly, she didn’t expect to feel so aroused while getting her nipples sucked at. He made sure that he gave both of her tits the same treatment before going lower.
Before he could do more, he stood up to remove his shirt and pants, her presence was making him hotter by the minute. He hooked his fingers into her panties and his cock nearly tore his underwear when he saw how the crotch was stuck to her entrance. She was already so ready for him. He yanked harder and they finally parted, he brought her panties up to his nose and inhaled deeply. “Mhm, so sweet… But, I think I need to feel this from the source.” Tommy dropped to his knees in front of her spread legs, her mind was making her doubt herself. What if she looked ugly down there? What if it smelled or tasted b—
“OH— Tommy!” She moaned loudly when his tongue licked a long stripe up her slit. He just chuckled into her pussy darkly, then he moved on to her pleasure. His mouth was sucking her throbbing clit, his fingers slowly circled her entrance, teasing her.
“Fuck… Your cunt tastes divine, and it’s only for my mouth to taste.” It wasn’t even a question. She was unable to form a coherent sentence, she could only moan and thrash on his tongue. He took one finger and he slowly eased it into her, she was so wet that it slipped right into her, he didn’t hesitate to add another one. “You’re going so good, I cannot wait to feel this tight virgin pussy on my cock.” He curled his fingers and rubbed them right into her spongy spot, her fingers grabbed his hair and tried to push his face more into her heat. He felt her clenching more and more, so he sped up his movements and grinned proudly when she came undone with a whiny moan and a desperate call of his name.
He kissed his way back up to her heaving chest and looked up at her flushed face. He talked her through it, until her breathing evened out again. He slowly slipped his underwear off, his back straightened out for her to see his big cock. It was veiny and thick and it made her nervous. He kept her legs spread, while he kneeled between them, one of his hand smoothing her face and the other one gripped himself at his base. “Want to give a little touch? Don’t be scared, I’m going to make this very pleasurable for you, my sweet girl.” He hissed when her fingertips made contact with his dripping tip, he was so pent up and her soft touch nearly made him blow his load all over her juicy tits, but he had to stay patient. “Are you ready? Ready to become mine?”
“Yes, Tommy, please, I want to feel you. I-I waited for you.” This caused him to grin and give her a deep kiss.
“I know you did, little one.” He positioned himself at her entrance and he slowly began pushing in, he felt a bit of resistance, but with a sharp thrust, he managed to break through it. He wrapped her up in his arms and whispered sweet nothings into her ear soothingly. “I know, I know. It will feel better in a minute, your pussy just has to adjust to my cock. Relax.” It didn’t hurt as much as she thought it would, but it still did, the girls in her class made it sound worse, or maybe their boyfriends didn’t take the time to prep them properly. That made her so proud, her Tommy made sure she was ready. She tried her best to relax her muscles and she felt the pain lessen. She planted a shy kiss on Tommy’s neck at which he chuckled at. “Good girl. You’re mine now, only mine.” He slowly began moving in and out of her.
Her walls gripped on him like a vice, he didn’t need any whores anymore, he had her now. His hands lifted her hips up a bit, so his cock was hitting her spot at every thrust. He went more and more faster, his fingers also began rubbing on her swollen clitoris.
“AH— Tommy, I’m going to—do that thing again.” His innocent little girl, so good for him.
“Good… I can feel you squeeze me, come on, sweet girl, come for me. Come on my cock. Let me fill you up. Let me make you mine.” With a shout of his name and a cry, she came around him. When he felt her walls pulsing around him, he let go too. His warm cum painted her walls, and it was such a delicious sensation. He stayed inside her for a few minutes, both of them trying to catch their breaths.
When he pulled out, he sat back so he could watch his cum leak out of her spent hole. He looked down proudly at his softening cock, which had some of her blood on it. Shit, he really filled her up with his load, there was so much of it. And the whiteness of him and the dark crimson of her virginity made such a lovely contrast together.
He took a rag from his bedside table and cleaned her up, making sure that he was gentle with her, the girl just got fucked and she was sensitive both physically and mentally, he had to be gentle.
After he made sure they were both clean, he once again brought her into his embrace. He smiled at her lovingly, which caused her to do the same. Her hair was all puffy from his touch, but he loved it.
“Are you okay? Does it hurt?” He cradled her cheek, and caressed her under eye area with his fingertip.
“I’m good, I feel a bit sore, but it’s okay.” She nuzzled into his neck and left little kisses. “I’m so happy to be here with you.”
He smiled in a way he didn’t for a long time, and he felt his heartbeat quicken. He wanted to give the world to the girl in his arms, and he felt the primal urge to protect her and keep her away from all the bad. “Me too. I’m happy to know that you’re finally mine.”
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willsdreamgirl · 9 months
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“morning mr. shelby.” — tommy shelby x reader ⋆。˚
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tommy shelby x fem!reader
you meet tommy as a nurse during the war, but happens when he realizes that he’s known you all along? (loosely based around some s1 plot points, but all set before the war)
18+ minors dni please! angst, fluff and smut
cw: mentions of war, shooting, stabbing, suturing, ptsd, friends to lovers, eventual smut, p in v sex, unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it!!), slight breeding kink
word count: 5.4k+ (sorry lmao)
a/n: ahh first fic alert!! i’m so excited for you guys to read this! don’t be a ghost reader and lmk if you want to be added to my tag list for future tommy/cillian stuff!! 💌
you met tommy shelby during the war. he was a soldier, you were a wartime nurse. before the war, you had obviously heard of him. tommy shelby, leader of the fucking peaky blinders. arrogant bastards.
you lived in small heath, and everyday you’d pass him on the street. and everyday, you’d smile and say, “morning, mr. shelby.” and everyday, he would barely look up at you. you were sure he wasn’t even aware of your existence. prick.
your parents had always told you to stay away from the shelby boys. your dad would say that “they’re dangerous and make whores out of innocent girls” and your mum would make some comment about “the shelby men and their stupid cocks and their stupid judgements”.
they were the most intimidating people in all of small heath, possibly in all of birmingham. truth be told, there was a certain charm to them that you couldn’t shake off. well, to one of them. tommy shelby. you couldn’t tell if it was because he was your age, or because he was powerful and strong, or simply because he was strictly off limits. or because of his piercing blue eyes.
everyone in small heath knew tommy. but you knew tommy. he didn’t know you, though. you could tell if was him by the way he exhaled or by the sound of his footsteps or by the way he held a cigarette in his hand, the peaked cap on his head, a hand in his coat pocket. you despised tommy shelby, but god, was he fucking irresistible.
when men were drafted for the war in france, it was common sense that they’d need someone to tend to their cuts and bruises. you’d decided to volunteer, and after a couple weeks of training, you were right there, in the field. practicing on dolls and bags of rice and flour was nothing compared to what you saw. what you heard.
your first day in france was… eventful, to say the least. some commander had led you to the medical tent, and you were welcomed by the screams of hurt soldiers, blood and panic. you were immediately assigned to a patient, who’d been shot in the chest. you tried your best, did everything you could have, but ultimately, he had just lost too much blood. you didn’t sleep that night, haunted by the bloodshed, by the pleas of the soldier to keep him alive, by the feeling of someone else’s blood on your hands. over time, however, you grew accustomed to having your pristine white uniform soiled with blood and mud.
a month or so after you’d started, you heard shouts outside the tent. “help! someone HELP, for FUCK’s SAKE!” this was a regular occurrence, but the voice the shouts came from didn’t sound wounded. you felt an instinctual need to go see what it was.
what you saw, though, was something you never expected to see. tommy shelby, with a comrade’s head in his lap, putting pressure on a wound in his shoulder. without hesitating, you helped tommy drag the soldier to a vacant bed in the tent. “what happened?” you asked, hurriedly. tommy was visibly panicked. “i- he- um, he got st-stabbed by… one of the germans… his name’s danny- daniel.” you looked in tommy’s eyes, trying to give him some semblance of comfort. “he’ll be okay.” you applied pressure on the wound, and luckily, the blood stopped flowing soon. you cleaned the wound up and looked to tommy. “i’m gonna have to disinfect the wound with alcohol, you might want to hold daniel down for this.” daniel was still delirious from the blood loss, but the pain would be excruciating. tommy braced himself. his hands firmly holding down daniel’s. you nodded before tipping the bottle over on the wound. danny thrashed around on the bed, screaming and cursing, struggling against tommy’s hold. you heard his voice over danny’s. “you’re alright, lad! y’er gonna be fine!”
tommy sat by his friend’s bedside as he came to. you tended to other patients in the meantime but eventually went over to talk to him. “i want to keep him here for the night, mr. shelby. make sure there’s no infection.” he looked at you, surprised you knew him. “you know who i am?” “of course i do, all of small heath knows you. what i didn’t expect was to have a run-in with you, here in france.” he scoffed at his own misery and spoke. “you don’t belong here. you should be home.” you rolled your eyes, even in his state, he managed to be cocky. “if i wasn’t here today, mr. shelby, who would save danny?” that seemed to shut him up. he was about to speak, before you heard your name from the other side of the tent. “y/n, we need you!” after having helped a soldier who looked like he had been mauled, you looked out to see it was nightfall, and tommy had left.
a couple days later, at about noon, john shelby, the youngest of the shelby brothers walked in, clutching his arm tightly. “do you need help, mr. shelby?” you called out. “yes, i-i’ve been shot.” he all but whispered. you rushed over with a tray of distilled alcohol, forceps and bandages. after an afternoon of agony and pain, you had finally managed to pull out the bullet form his arm, john’s face a clear representation of his relief. “oh my god love, if we were home, i’d marry you right now.” you laughed at the proposition. “mr. shelby, i think you’re still a bit delirious from the anaesthesia. besides, i’m your brother’s age.” he looked shocked. “what, you’re arthur’s age? really?? you look nothing like that old prick.” you couldn’t help but laugh yet again. “i’m not that old, jesus. i’m tommy’s age.” he sighed. “marry him then. lord knows he needs a girl.” you giggled as you gathered your things and walked away. “you amuse me far too much, mr. shelby.”
it felt like ages had passed before you saw tommy again. your back was towards the tent entrance but you knew who had walked in. his breath trembled and his footsteps felt a bit unsteady, but it was undoubtedly him. you waited to turn until he called out your name. “y/n, is it?” you turned around, to find his face and shirt covered in blood. “mr. shelby! what happened?” you rushed over to him, taking his hand and sitting his down on a bed. “i- i… killed a man today, y/n.” he looked down, he couldn’t bring himself to look at you. you didn’t respond, simply got up and grabbed a stitching kit and a bowl of warm water. “is all this blood yours?” was your first question. “no. most of it is his.” you sighed and searched his face to find a cut on his cheekbone, the source of his own bleeding. “i’m wiping away the blood now, okay?” tommy gulped and nodded, his eyes still trained on the ground. “mr. shelby, i want you to look at me.” it was as if he didn’t hear you. you spoke again, softer yet more authoritative this time. “tommy. look at me.” he finally brought himself to look into your eyes. in his eyes, you saw guilt, regret and fear. in yours, he saw compassion, love and a warmth that could engulf all his pain. “good.” you whispered. you wrung out a washcloth and began wiping the blood away from his face, using your other hand to hold his chin in place. his arms found themselves wrapped around your waist, in an attempt to ground himself. you didn’t say anything, but your eyes told him that you didn’t mind. in that moment, you saw a different version of tommy shelby. you didn’t see ‘tommy, the criminal’, ‘tommy, the gangster’ or ‘tommy, the womanizer’. you saw tommy, a good man, an honest man. you felt his arms tighten around your waist as you pulled your hands away from his face, as if he was afraid you would dissipate into thin air. “tommy.” you whispered. “i’m gonna have to stich that wound up. it might hurt.” but he didn’t mind pain, not if you were the one inflicting it. “okay.” he spoke, his voice deep. he rubbed circles into your skin with his thumbs, the pain making him hum. “sorry, almost done.” you finished the last stitch. “there. you’re all fixed.” tommy held you like that, his hands around your waist, icy blue eyes staring into yours. your arms rested on his shoulders and you leaned down to whisper to him. “tommy. people are staring.” “so? let them.” eventually, he reluctantly pulled away from you. “it’s time for dinner, and then lights out.” he smiled as he spoke, and slowly exited the tent, catching a glimpse of you as he left.
needless to say, you only grew closer over the next few weeks. you were inseparable. whenever tommy had free time, he’d make his way to the familiar tent, and talk to you. it was wartime. you were left hurt and traumatized and so was he, but you both found solace in each other’s company. you told him how you knew him, and how you’d wish him good morning every day, only to receive complete silence from him each time. he chuckled and apologized. he told you about the peaky blinders, what they did, how they ran their business. you bonded over your shared hunger for knowledge and stories. you told him everything you knew about art, history and literature; and he told you stories of fighting gangs in the streets and stealing contraband. his stories were always more thrilling than yours. you’d try to set each other up with people for fun. you’d introduce him to every nurse, telling them how he was fighting for his country, and of course, they fell prey to his charming eyes and dashing smile. they’d ask what he did back home, and as soon as you said the words ‘gangster’, they’d run in the opposite direction. he’d done the same for you. introduced you to other soldiers, and when you spoke to them, about art and literature, they’d call you ‘unladylike’ or ‘too ambitious for a man’. you both secretly liked it this way, it was like you were his and he was yours.
when he became sergeant major, you both celebrated together. he’d brought you a bottle of whiskey, and you spent the night, talking and giggling drunkenly. but soon, he was assigned to be a sapper and dig tunnels. you both knew that the germans were going to dig their own tunnels, and at some unfortunate point, the tunnels would converge. both of you realized the danger it held, but he had to do it. you tried to talk him out of it, though. “tommy, please!” “y/n, calm down.” “goddamn it tommy, think! you’re gonna get yourself killed! what the fuck are you doing?” “i’ll be alright.” “no, you won’t! what if you get hurt? what if they shoot at you, huh? i won’t be there underground to make sure you’re okay!” “y/n, i have to serve my country. i have to do this.” “tommy. i’m begging you, don’t do this.” he simply sighed and kissed your forehead and held your face in his hands. you held tightly onto his wrists as tears threatened to spill from your eyes. “shhh, i’ll be alright. in fact, i’ll write you.” you seemed to calm down at the idea of him writing you. at least you’d be updated on his condition.
the morning he went down to the tunnels, he came to see you. you were sorting gauze and bandages when you felt his presence near you. you turned around and ran to hug him. he buried his face in your neck and breathed you in. you could feel tears brimming your eyes. neither of you knew why you felt like this. you were just friends, right? “tommy michael shelby, i swear to god if you die, i’ll kill you myself.” you heard him chuckle. he took a step back and caressed your cheek. “you take care, darling.” you wished he wouldn’t leave, but in your heart, you knew he had to. a few hours after, you found a letter tucked under a book on your desk. you curiously pulled it out and opened it.
dearest y/n,
i know how much you hate that i’m going to be a sapper now. i want you to know, no matter what happens down there, i care for you, and i love you, unconditionally. i’ve loved you since the day i first met you. i can’t believe i was looking for love in whores and prostitutes when the love of my fucking life was saying the sweetest good morning to me every morning. i’ll protect myself, and i want you to protect yourself too since i can’t do that for the time being. if we survive this wretched war, i want to take you home, ask your father for your hand and marry you, sweetheart. you take care of yourself, alright?
all my love,
tommy shelby.
you couldn’t help but gasp at what you read. he loved you. tommy shelby loved you. the same tommy shelby that was too arrogant to say a word to you, the same tommy shelby that your parents told you to stay away from, the same tommy shelby was head over heels for you. you immediately looked for a piece of paper, a pen and some ink. you wrote a letter back and sent it with one of the workers heading down to the tunnels. you didn’t know what it was like down there, but you hoped your letters would keep him sane. meanwhile, tommy received your letter and opened it with the same enthusiasm you showed his letter. however, he was also filled with nervous energy. he had confessed his love for you, which was so incredibly out of character for him, but with shaky hands, he proceeded to open the letter.
dearest tommy,
to say that your letter was shocking would be an understatement. i never knew you felt this way for me. like i’ve told you on several occasions, my parents always told me to stay away from ‘your kind’ and as a good catholic girl, i obeyed them. but tommy, in these few months, i’ve seen a side of you i can’t ever forget. i love you too tommy, the real you. the honest, raw, genuine tommy that i get to see on late nights and in random moments on busy days. i’d love to marry you, just make it out alive of that damn tunnel, you prick.
only yours,
y/n.
tommy felt his eyes welling up as he read the words you had penned on the paper. it had been so long since he’d seen you, or heard your voice. he wanted you. he needed you. to keep him stable and sane. as the days passed, your and tommy’s letter exchange became more and more frequent, and you felt like even if you were in this goddamned lawless land of blood and chaos, you had tommy. and he was all you needed.
that was, until the letters slowed down. you kept writing him, but to no avail. he hadn’t sent you a letter in days, or weeks, you weren’t sure anymore. you’d almost lost hope, and spent entire nights grieving him. trying to remember the sound of his voice, the feeling of his hands on your waist, the smell of his cologne. you hadn’t heard his breath or felt his footsteps in a long time. the pain was almost unbearable, and some days felt like decades. but the only thought that kept you going was that you saw tommy in all the wounded soldiers you treated. they were someone’s tommy. and they needed to get home alive.
4 months. 4 whole months since you heard from tommy. you were convinced he was dead now. you spent your days bandaging and stitching wounds, yet you could never fix the wound tommy left in your heart. it was one of the hottest afternoons, the french sun blazing unmercifully. you were insanely busy with patients today, the war was almost ending, and the soldiers needed to be fixed up before they could go home. yet, no sign of tommy. you sighed, cursing yourself for holding out hope now for someone who would not return.
“can i have a nurse here?” you could recognize that damn voice anywhere. the deep voice that filled your ears, smooth like honey, you’d recognize that voice at the end of the world. you turned around. tommy. “hi, love.” he smiled. but his smile quickly changed into a frown when he saw your sobs. you took him to a quieter corner of the tent. you stepped closer to him. he went to put his arms around you. you slapped him across the face. “where. the FUCK were you, thomas michael shelby?!” he was incredibly confused. “l- love, what?” “i thought YOU DIED, YOU BASTARD. where were you?” the time you spent apart had changed you, and from his response, you could tell it clearly changed him. “i was TRYING to fucking STAY ALIVE for YOU.” he raised his voice at you. he never raised his voice. neither of you spoke for a while and tension filled the air between the two of you. “i should leave.” he spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. he left, and you let him.
after a few weeks, news broke that britain had won the war, and everyone went home. five years had passed since you last saw the familiar streets of small heath, and you were no longer a girl, but a woman. a woman who needed to get a job to survive in this city. you walked around and saw a flyer on the doors of the garrison. ‘BARMAID NEEDED.’ you walked in to find harry. he looked up pleasantly surprised. “y/n! haven’t seen you in a while, eh? what can i do you for?” “i’m here to get the barmaid job, harry.” he sighed.” y/n, this job isn’t suitable for a girl like you. these men, they’ve just come back from war, they haven’t seen a girl, let alone a pretty one like yourself, in ages. they’ll have you up against a wall within the first hour of your shift.” you looked at him desperately. “harry, please. i need this job, otherwise i’ll be out on the streets, which are surely worse than this pub. i was a nurse in france, i’ve dealt with these men. please?” he sighed again before nodding. “alright then, you start tomorrow.”
your first shift consisted of the usual alcoholics, men with ptsd, everything that was to be expected after a war. you hear the bells at the door ring as the familiar footsteps walk closer to the bar. without turning around, you ask, “what do you want?” he replies, “whiskey, scotc- y/n?” you finally turn around at the sound of your name falling from his lips. “yes, mr. shelby. so, scotch? on the house right?” he leans over so that just the two of you can hear. “don’t mr. shelby me. come on, love, talk to me.” “i have nothing to talk to you about.” as you poured him a glass of whiskey, he held your wrist assertively. “y/n. come.” you rolled your eyes and went to the shelby’s private booth. “what is it that you want, tommy?” “what the fuck do you mean ‘what do i want’? you, i want YOU. i need you. did ya lose your fucking mind in france like danny whiz-bang?” you felt your bottom lip trembling and your throat choking up. “i… i thought y- you were fucking dead. i mourned you. for MONTHS. i grieved over the death of the love of my life. of my future husband. of my future children that i’d have with him. and then, just as i’m making my peace with it, YOU have the fucking audacity to show up? you have some bloody nerve, tommy shelby.” the look in his eyes softened as he took a step closer to you. “no. don’t you dare come any closer to me, tommy, i’ll kill you.” you said, holding up the bottle of whiskey as a weapon. he embraced you, holding you tightly, his fingers stroking your hair. you resisted the hug and tried to push him away, only to find his grip on you getting tighter. “g- get away… from me, p- please… i- just” your voice came out muffled between sobs. tommy felt hot tears rolling down his own cheeks. “shhh, sweetheart. i’m okay, eh? i’m fine. i’m here, with you.” you dropped the bottle you were holding and it shattered into a million pieces on the ground. you stood there in his arms, crying for what felt like an eternity. you finally pulled away from him, and he wiped your tears with his thumbs. you laughed, but then lightly slapped his arm. “you scare me like that again, tommy, i swear i’ll kill ya.” “i’ll hold you to it, sweetheart.” he kissed your forehead, and you rested your forehead against his. he tentatively closed the gap between your lips and his, and you pulled him by the collar and kissed him with enough force to make him trip and fall. he managed to stay steady and kissed you back with equal fervour. he spoke between kisses. “i *kiss* spent *kiss* every *kiss* second *kiss* thinking *kiss* of you.” you giggled. “i missed you too, tommy.”
he told harry that you’d be leaving the bar early that day, and dragged you out the bar while holding your hand, a smile on his face for the first time in a long time. “the great thomas shelby isn’t embarrassed to have a barmaid as his girlfriend?” you giggled. “never. and those who think i should be embarrassed can suck me cock.” he spoke proudly. he opened the car door for you, and you sat inside and waited for him to turn the ignition on. “where are we going, tommy?” “i want you to meet my family, love.” during the countless hours you spent together chatting, he told you about his family’s idiosyncrasies and stories about them. how arthur needed to be protected the most during fights because he was just as likely to hurt himself as he was to hurt someone else, how aunty pol’s instincts about love were never wrong, how john once fell in love with a prostitute and everyone laughed at him, how ada was the most rebellious and married a communist (who happened to be in of his best mates), and how finn always pretended to act like tommy, doing whatever his big brother did. you were excited to meet them of course, but anxious. they would be your family one day too.
he held your hand as he brought you in, everyone sitting around a table waiting for him. “does everyone just sit together like this?” you asked. “uh, no i called a family meeting for 3 pm.” tommy replied simply. “how did you know you’d be able to have me here by 3?” he winked at you. “i have my ways. and i know how much you love me.” he spoke in a singsong voice. you rolled your eyes at his schoolboy behaviour and waited for him to speak. “shelby’s, this is my girlfriend and soon to be fiancé, y/n.” he held his arm around your waist proudly, and you leaned up to kiss his cheek. you recognized arthur and john immediately from your time in the war. you assumed that the older woman was aunt polly, and the younger with the baby in her arms would be ada, leaving the youngest member of the family, finn. john came up to talk to you first, while tommy spoke with polly. “you know i didn’t really mean the ‘marry tommy’ thing?” you laughed as you replied, “i didn’t either, but fate works in weird ways, eh?” he agreed with you before talking to tommy. arthur was the next one to see you. “you and tommy, eh? if it wasn’t for the war, you two would probably never have met. i s’pose war isn’t all bad then.” “perhaps you’re right. i did find your brother to be arrogant before the war.” “that he is, y/n. that he is.” both of you looked over at him, engaged in conversation with everyone else. you fussed over the baby in ada’s arms. “awww, he’s precious! what’s his name?” “karl, after karl marx.” you shot her a look. “it’s unconventional, i know. but freddie really wanted it.” “it’s lovely.” finn rushed over to you and kissed your hand. you gushed exaggeratedly. “what a gentleman you are, finn!” “if tommy wasn’t here, you’d be my girlfriend, miss y/n.” you laughed at his childishness and ruffled his hair. “sure i would, finn.” the only person you hadn’t spoken to yet was aunt polly, arguably the most intimidating person of the family. “i have one question for you, y/n. how you answer it will determine if you’re fit for being a shelby. how do you think i kept this business up and running during the war?” you felt put on the spot but tried your best to answer. “um, well, to be quite frank, i’ve believed that women are better at business anyway. we know how to settle deals with whiskey and not fists or guns. and you seem like twice the man than most men i know anyway.” her lips twitched up into a smile as she looked to tommy. “oh, i like her already.” he held your hand in hers, and addressed tommy. “she seems like a lovely girl, do not fuck this up tommy.” tommy shook his head and laughed. “i’ll try, pol. i’ll try.”
you ate dinner with the shelby’s before you headed up to his house. “you sure you don’t want me to walk you home?” he asked for the hundredth time that night. “no tommy, i’m perfectly content spending the night with you. unless you’d like me to leave?” you questioned. “no no, stay, please!” he said, almost pleadingly. you looked around his bedroom when you reached his home. it was obviously a house, but it didn’t feel like a home. you frowned at your observation. “what’s wrong, y/n?” “this house isn’t a home yet, tommy.” “that’s because i want my first home to be with you. with our children. and as far as i’m concerned, you are my home.”
“care to dance?” he asked, holding out his hand. you looked at the gramophone in the corner. “that doesn’t look like it works, love.” you placed your hand in his. “so what? we can dance without music.” he said, holding your waist close to him, your hand on his shoulder. you leaned your head on his shoulder, both of you dancing in the silence, listening to the sound of each other’s breathing. “kiss me, tommy.” you whispered. he obeyed probably for the first time in his life and kissed your soft lips.
things escalated and you were now on tommy’s bed, tracing the sun tattoo on his chest, with him on top of you. “fuck me, tommy, please.” “your cunt wants this cock?” he growled. you moaned in his ear. “fuck, yes tommy, make me yours.” he stretched you out in the most blissful way. of course, you had used your fingers before, but nothing could replace the feeling of his cock. “god, please!” you moaned out, words slowly turning into incoherent sounds. tommy chuckled. “god can’t hear you now, sweetheart. not here.” he pistoned his hips into you just right and it wasn’t long before he found the spot inside you that made you scream. “t- tommy fuck! right there, please don’t stop!” “i wouldn’t dream of stopping, darling. my girl, so pretty all spread out for me. take it, love. take that cock.” the feeling of your impending orgasm coursed through your entire body, making you writhe in pleasure. “god, i’m so close tommy!” “good fucking girl.” his hand reached down to rub circles on your clit while he fucked you so good. “oh god, tommy, i’m not gonna be able to walk tomorrow…” “that’s the plan, sweetheart.” he spoke as he kissed hickeys on your neck, matching the ones you’d given him earlier. “come on love, make a mess on my cock.” as soon as he said that, you felt yourself falling apart, the tight band in your stomach snapping, uncontrollable moans of his name falling from your lips. “thank you tommy, thank you so much.” you moaned, drunk on the feeling of his cock inside you. “such an angel. who do you belong to, sweets?” he said, still pounding your cunt. “y- you, tommy. i belong to you!” “that’s right, sweetheart.” he whispered in your ear, “i love you, darling.” you moaned as you felt your second orgasm approaching. “tommy, fuck! i- i love you too!” “god i’m gonna cum inside you! you’d like that, eh? me getting you pregnant, all nice and round with my baby?” you felt your orgasm pulsing through you at his words. “yes, tommy! fill my womb up, please! i need it!” you heard tommy’s loud moans as he came inside you. “oh, such a good girl. took my cock so well, love.” tommy stayed on top of you for a while, his cock still inside you. “i’ve wanted to do that for five fucking years.” he spoke, voice muffled since his head was buried between your tits. you laughed, but the laughs quickly turned to moans as your sensitive cunt felt friction from tommy’s cock rubbing up against its walls. he pulled out of you slowly, watching his seed spill out of you. he eventually got up to get a warm washcloth and a glass of water for you. you drank the water as he cleaned you and himself up and pulled you into his chest. you pulled the covers over both of you, feeling your body flush against his. “that was amazing tommy, thank you.” “the pleasure is all mine, sweetheart.” he kissed your forehead.
ever since tommy came back from france, he had these recurring nightmares every night. of his time in the tunnels. the germans. his comrades. how he had to kill people with his bare hands. he could still hear the shovels digging the tunnels when he closed his eyes. when he was with you though, he could finally fall asleep. or so he thought.
you were awoken in the middle of the night by the sounds of a gasping tommy, suddenly sitting up. you felt groggy for a moment, having just woken up, but quickly sprung into action. you sat next to him, rubbing his back. “tommy, what’s wrong?” he didn’t speak. but he didn’t need to. you’d seen enough cases of ptsd from your time in the war to know what was happening to him. “you still see it, eh?” he only nodded. you laid back down and pulled him into your chest. he protested. “what are y-” “shut up.” you could tell, he was still a bit frantic, his breath still heavy. you spoke to him in a soft tone and you played with his fingers, his head on your chest. “listen to me. listen to the sound of my voice. feel my body against yours. you are home. you are safe. the war is over. the nightmares are just parts of your mind trying to scare you. but you’re stronger than that, eh? i’m here with you, and you don’t need to be scared. alright? i’m here with you, always.” he hummed, heavy eyelids slowly closing shut. being able to smell the scent of your perfume helped ground him. “good job, tommy. now sleep. i’ll be here with you when you wake up.” you managed to get him to go to sleep, but somehow convinced your mind to let you sleep light enough that if tommy were to have another nightmare, you’d be up immediately. fortunately, he didn’t wake up during the night.
he woke up to the sight of a sleeping you, the sun rays hitting you just right. he swore he could look at you forever. you felt his gaze on you and slowly opened your eyes. “how’d you sleep?” you asked. “like i hadn’t slept in years.” he replied.
“morning, mr. shelby.” you wished him, as you did, every day before the war. except this time, you were in his arms, in his bed. you kissed his lips softly. except this time, he finally wished you back.
“mornin’, sweetheart.”
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princessofmarvel · 9 months
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Business and dates
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summary | when grace leaves, it leaves the shelbys with a heartbroken thomas. polly takes this as an opportunity to get him with the girl she's always wanted him with
pairing | thomas shelby x fem!reader
word count | 2.30k
genre | fluff! with just a tad of angst! 
requested? | yes! thank you so much for your request! i had so much writing it, and i am kind of proud of this one, lol.
warnings! | mentions of bullying, and the reader not eating from being worried! and, i have not proof read this yet!
author’s note! | Hi! Thank you all for being so patient as I worked on this! Requests are open for drabbles, and headcanons only at the moment for these characters! And as always, I do I have really bad OCD that causes me to write in some random capitalization, and punctuation, But I think that we don't have to worry about that in this fic lol. And let me know if there are any mistakes, but please be kind!
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No one knew what had happened that day. All anyone knew was that Grace was suddenly gone, and that she had left the Shelby family with a heartbroken Thomas. And the person left to pick up the pieces was his lifelong best friend, who has been in love with Thomas since the day they met back when they were just small kids. 
Thomas was having a decent day, school had just let out and he was walking back home (alone because his older brother Aurther thought that it would be funny to run off before Thomas got out of class) when he saw a young girl getting picked on. 
“Stop it! This is my favorite skirt!” Thomas heard her yell to the kids that had her on the ground, kicking dirt onto her clothes while laughing and taunting her. Thomas knew that these kids were practically afraid of him, so he knew he could get them to leave the girl alone.  He also knew that his mother would scold him if she found out that he didn’t do anything to help her. 
“Oi! Leave her alone, or I'll put a curse on you!” Thomas called out as he made his way up to the group, and pulled a razor blade out of his pocket. The kids practically scattered the moment they heard Thomas’ voice. Leaving just him, and the girl with dirt on her clothes. 
“Thank you” He heard the girl say in a quiet voice as he put his hand out to help her back up. 
“What caused that?” He asked, curious as to what the girl could have done to anger the other kids so much. 
“I-I told them that I wouldn’t do their homework.” She said back to him, as she tried to get the dirt off of her skirt.  Thomas told himself that he should have known it was something like that. There wasn’t anything serious that this girl could have done to upset them so much. 
“Come on, I’ll walk you home, you live on Watery lane, right?” He said as he started walking, with the girl running a bit to catch up with him. He knew her name, he recognized her from school. She lived right across from him, but they never said anything to each other. She had been over to play with Ada sometimes, but they never spoke. 
Neither one of them said anything as they walked, it wasn’t until they got to her home that Thomas spoke up. 
“They shouldn’t bother you again, no one should.” He said as he stood outside her doorstep, seeming almost sorry since he knew his reputation, and how kids would stay away from him in fear of getting cursed. 
“It’s alright, I don’t really have any friends anyways.” The small girl said, while rocking back and forth on her heels. 
“Why don’t you come play at my house? I know my family won’t mind.” He said to her with a small smile. Truth be told, Thomas didn’t really have many friends either, and he saw an opportunity to make one. 
Ever since then, the two were inseparable. They did everything together, they were even each other's first kiss. Her family was weary at first, but soon saw how protective the Shelby boys (and the rest of the Shelby family) were over her, and grew to like them. The two were like this up until Thomas was called to war
“Tommy, this has to be a mistake.” The girl cried into Thomas’ shoulder as he held her. “All three of you at the same time? What kind of cruel joke is this” 
“The universe has a funny way of doing things.” He mumbled into her hair, his hand resting on the back of her head. “I’ll come back, sweetheart.” 
“You don’t know that, Tommy” The girl said as she pulled her head out of his shoulder, and looked up at him, eyes red and puffy. 
“You really think I'm leaving you yet? You think I'm going to leave you before you get married? Please, your future husband doesn’t get off that easily.” He said with a small laugh while trying to lighten the mood as he held her face with his hand. “Nothings taking me from you, not yet.” 
“You better come back, Shelby.” She said as she looked up at him with glossy eyes. “Or, I’ll bring you back just to kill you myself.” 
Thomas laughed and kissed her head, as the air in the room changed. He didn’t know why, but he leaned down and kissed her lips softly, all he knew was that he couldn’t leave without giving her a kiss, even just a light one. “You’ve got nothing to worry about” He said as he pulled away. 
She believed him, she tried not to worry. She didn’t worry until his letters stopped coming. After a month of not hearing from him she worried so much she got sick. She wrote him everyday, sent him a letter at least once a week, if not twice. No word of his death ever came. 
The day Thomas arrived home, she was sitting at the kitchen table with Polly. His heart broke when he saw her, she was paler, and her face was skinny, all signs to her not eating properly. Neither one of them said a word to each other for a week. It wasn’t until (Y/n) decided that she had enough, and stormed into his room. 
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” she shouted, growing red in the face. 
“What are you talking about?” He asked, not meeting her eyes, already knowing what she was talking about,
“You! You come back, and are completely different! You’re cold, and mean to everyone, which maybe you were that way to some people before, but never to me! Never to your family!” As she yelled at him, she started to sway as if she was about to faint. Before she could hit the floor, Thomas grabbed her and set her down on the bed beside him. 
“You need to eat something.” He mumbled, not looking at her which infuriated her more. 
“I thought you were dead.” This caught his attention as he heard her start to cry. He finally turned to her. “You stopped writing.” 
“I didn’t know how to write to you, you would ask me how I was, and I couldn’t find it in myself to tell you about how I had just watched a man die. I thought it better to not write.” He said, pulling her into his chest. “Why are you not eating?” 
“You worried me, anything I ate just came back up.” She mumbled into his chest. 
“I told you not to worry.” He said with a small laugh coming from his chest, the first in a long time. 
“Tough shit, Shelby.” She mumbled back, while pulling her head out of his chest. 
They sat in silence for a few minutes, just staring at the other, until Thomas finally spoke up. “I’m trying to get back to normal.” He mumbled, barely loud enough for her to hear, she wouldn’t have if they hadn’t been so close. 
“I know, it will just take some time.” She said while she caressed his cheek. “And, I’ll be here to help you heal.” 
After that day, nothing ever really went back to how it was before the war. But it was like that for everyone. Thomas had gone back to normal as much as he could. He had his moments, but everyone did. And, (Y/n) didn’t lie, she was there every step of the way, even in the bad times she never left. 
The two never fought again until the day Grace left. She had tried telling Thomas before that something was up with her, but he just wouldn’t listen. The only other person that seemed to notice it was Polly. 
“He’ll never go for it.” John pipped into the conversation. Polly was currently trying to figure out a way to cheer Thomas up, and the idea she had was to put Thomas with (Y/n). She already considered the girl a daughter, and she always wanted her with Thomas. To her, it was the perfect plan. 
“That's why we don’t tell him! All we tell him is that he has a business meeting at the new restaurant, he’ll show up, expecting some business man to be there, but instead (Y/n) will come in wearing the most beautiful thing I can find, that he’ll just have to stay.” Polly explained to the boys and Ada. 
“Alright, but how are you going to get (Y/n) there, dressed up, without suspecting anything?” Ada chimed in. 
“We’ll tell her a boy stopped by and asked to take her out.” Polly said, as if it was obvious. 
“Please, she’s not going to just agree to go out with someone, especially if she doesn’t even know who it is.” Arthur muttered. 
"Actually she might.” John announced to everyone. “Just to make Thomas jealous, she mentioned it back when Grace was around.” 
The Shelby’s set everything into motion that night. Polly told Thomas he had a meeting, then she told (Y/n) about the secret man that wanted to take her out. 
So Thomas sat in his suit, waiting for this man to show, when he saw (Y/n) walk through the door, dressed like a vision in her red, drop waist, beaded dress, with an old pearl necklace to match. She looked around the room, until her eyes landed on Thomas. 
“What are you doing here?” She asked him, as she walked up to his table.
“Business meeting, what are you doing here?” He asked, suddenly growing jealous at the thought of her being here for another man. 
“A date, and what business meeting? I know your schedule, there wasn’t one planned, did you make one?” She asked, wondering who on earth Thomas could be meeting for business at this hour. 
“No, Polly told me I had one, who’s the date?” He asked, his jealousy rising. 
“Not sure, Polly told me-” A look of realization crossed both their faces “Polly” The two said in unison. 
She decided to sit down, now laughing to herself. “You’re the date.”
“You’re the business.” Thomas responded, a small smile growing to his face. 
The two sat there for a minute, before Thomas spoke up. “You do look stunning.” 
“Polly picked it.” She said, with a small laugh.
“I bet she did.” Thomas said with a laugh, and a sigh. “She’s wanted us together for ages.” He mumbled. 
“And what do you want?” The girl asked. Thomas had always had a feeling that (Y/n) liked him, he was just never sure how much, until he looked up and met her eyes that were filled with nothing but love and want.
“You in my life.” He said, keeping his eyes on her. “I thought a relationship between us would mess everything up. I couldn’t risk losing you.” 
“Thomas.” The girl said, grabbing his hand across the table. “You could never lose me, even if we did have a relationship and it failed, I would still love you. But, I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this.” 
“I have distracted myself from you for as long as I can remember. I wouldn’t let myself fall for you.” Thomas said, standing up from the table, (Y/n) following. 
“It’s okay to fall, Thomas, who knows, maybe it won’t hurt.” She said, as she placed a hand to his face. Without thinking, Thomas leaned in and kissed her with everything in him, causing her to hit the table, his hands on the side of her face being the only thing to keep them from falling. The pair kissed until they needed air. When they pulled away, he rested his forehead on hers. 
“Let’s give this a try.” He whispered, looking into her eyes. 
The girl smiled and gave Thomas a quick peck, before they left the restaurant, her holding his arm. The walk back to the Shelby home was mostly quiet, until she spoke up. “Thank god for Polly.” 
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merz-8 · 6 months
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when I say I'm bi I mean I like women and fictional dilfs
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awritesthings1 · 6 months
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Midnight Interlude
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Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Wife Reader
Summary: You try to convince Tommy, your husband, to come back to sleep.
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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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alwaysmicado · 2 months
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idiots in love • slow burn but they’re fucking the entire time • the angst • filthy smut • sickening cuteness • menace of a reader • Tommy • lots of sarcasm • trauma • no outbreak • heartbreak • realizing you do deserve love and happiness 1 You wanted this 2 Wet 3 Don’t ruin the sofa 4 What you need 5 Trouble 6 No broken hearts 7 Sunshine 8 Sink or swim 9 coming soon
prequel: we shouldn’t
Joel masterlist • main masterlist • AO3
Thank you all so much for loving this series! Your support, kind words, and enthusiasm mean the world to me! I love you 🤍
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hunnylagoon · 2 months
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The Girl That Time Forgot
Ellie Williams x Reader
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Find me in one thousand years, I will always be waiting here.
Premise: Ellie is the only time traveller who uses her uncommon gift to rewind time and constantly pester you-the only immortal who made a deal with death in 412 BC and is cursed to walk the earth for all eternity. Forever was promised but you never knew the price.
Warnings: death / murder / mentions of suicide / self-harm / toxic relationship /sickness / violence / angst / war / mentions of drugs / lovers?friends(ish)?enemies? it’s complicated / mild gore / things get nuts
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ONE-SHOT | WC 18k (so you know what you’re getting into)
AID PALESTINE!
Athens, Greece- October- 412 BC
Come back in one hundred years, you'll always find me here.
Rain splashes against the skin of your face in lands of ancient Greece, where the winds themselves whispered stories of gods and heroes, neither of which you were. You were nothing more than a frightened woman running away from an unforgiving husband in the dead of night where your quickened heartbeat falls in rhythm to the ocean which is almost as angry as the storm that roars above.
Carefully you dodge the jagged rocks sticking out from the sand, you had memorized each and every one after days of burning your skin on the shores. Water surged against the rocks near your feet, white froth sizzling in the waves retreating like it was trying to drag you in and take you for its own.
Your heavy breathing was devoured by the heavy rain and cracks of lighting, the sounds of thunder so deep it was like Zeus himself was stomping in the clouds. Despite the night being dark you trusted the moonlight that glimmered off of the ocean to guide you. You have nothing more than the soaking wet clothes on your back, jewelry to sell, and the drachmas you had stolen from your husband tucked away safely in a wool tagari purse.
Someone grabbed your wrist, stopping you in your tracks "Hey!" They say, though you can't quite make out the figure in the dark you know it's a woman from the voice alone. "You need to go home." Fear pushes adrenaline to course through your veins at the sound of an unheard tongue babbling in your ears.
Your eyebrows furrow, clutching the bag even harder in your free hand. "Φύγε από μένα!" You scream, trying to force your voice to be louder than the malicious storm that brews over your head. You try to pull your hand away but the woman stands firm hardly even moving.
"Fuck," She mutters, you don't understand a word. In this moment you feel like a rabbit preparing to get devoured by a wolf, whoever this woman was you were shaken to your core like you had just uncovered a dead body. "I forgot that you can't speak English yet."
You struggle under the grip of the woman, using the hand which was holding tightly onto the tagari and begin to hit the woman before you to pry her off your wrist "Δεν θα πάω πίσω, τον μισώ μέχρι θανάτου!" You shout voice loud as thunder.
"Ow!" She said wrinkling her nose and trying to apprehend the hand that was hitting her "Can you stop?" She asks, even though you can't understand her it's worth a shot in her mind.
This does nothing to stop your protest, you only hit her harder hammering your purse against her head until she finally lets go of your wrist to block your swinging. Lighting cracks and just for a moment you catch a glimpse of her. Short brown hair that falls at her shoulders, and freckles across her face, something you had never seen before. What frightened you wasn't the sharpness of her green eyes but her clothes, an alien concept to you. She didn't wear a tunic but a scratchy blue fabric tight on her legs and what to you resembled a baggy grey burlap sack with a piece of cloth hanging off the back. In recent years it has come to be known as jeans and a hoodie.
"Δαίμονα, μάγισσα, φύγε!" You smack her once more for good measure and turn quickly on your sandal-covered heel to get away from her. You were as wild and untamed as the ocean itself, with eyes that sparkled with a craving for more than honey dripping down your tongue and salt smeared across your lips.
"Remember I tried to help you this time!" She shouts, her voice is so far off in the distance that you barely heard it through the storm. Even if her words were clear it made no difference, you didn't speak her tongue, and any warning fell unheard upon your ears "Have fun being twenty forever!"
You ran even faster than you had before, you didn't even turn around to see if the woman was still on your tail.
The salty spray stung your cheeks as you ran, your breath ragged and steps unsteady. The wind howled in protest, whipping at the wet hair that stuck to your face and neck, tearing at your white peplos, turned translucent on your body by the water. But you paid no heed to the fury of the elements, for you were driven by a desperate need to escape.
As you reached the edge of a rocky outcrop, your leather sandal caught on a slick stone, sending you tumbling to the ground. With a sickening thud, your head struck against the unforgiving rock, and the world around you spun into darkness.
You were dead. Body limp on the plethora of rocks, the tide slowly lulling over your body until it swallowed you whole and sucked you in deeper. Ropes of hair twist before your dull eyes, unmoving into the deep.
You sink further in and open your eyes though you are still deceased, your body still falling cold. Selene stands before you in the form of midnight. Her body was ebony and deep blue, half woman, half moon. Long black hair like ink tipped with moonlight spills down her breasts and her hips, she watches you with her pale eyes imploring.
The goddess before you turns to lead the way, enticing you to follow. Each step sends knives through your limbs. Your mouth tastes like blood and your lungs burn red hot though every time you try to breathe you choke and sputter of nothing, still, you follow Selene into the nothingness ahead.
Finally, she turns, one finger pressed to her lips, signalling you to be quiet. Beside her, a pale soldier appears in fine silver armour chiselled against his muscular body. The areas that the armour does not cover, his arms and an area of his legs between the middle of his thighs to just below his knees, tattered bandages hang around his limbs, They sway in the nothingness and shed by themselves. You see open wounds deep and red, beginning to bleed but his pasty skin sews itself up, leaving no scar behind, nothing but smooth flesh. Wings larger than the man himself sprout from his back. Thanatos.
Thanatos bows his head, hiding his deep sunken eyes beneath a Corinthian helmet. You should be afraid that you face the god of death but you aren't. This is a better fate than being hauled back to your husband.
He takes his helmet off, long dark hair falls onto his shoulders and he regards you. Thanatos is wordless as he stares at you, taking in every of your face, every curve of your body. He doesn't speak but you understand him well, too much beauty to go to waste.
Selene has left you to take her place back in the night sky, she watches you were she hangs on a beam of moonlight. In one hand Thanatos holds a silver knife. Your voice betrays you, for once your loud screeching voice is lost.
He holds out his hand, pitch black at the fingertips. You can tell he is trying to strike a deal as if he had put his words into your mind without ever even moving his lips.
You look at his hand and then at his face, death was less frightening than you had imagined, handsome for a god who took so many lives. He lets his offer sit and settle within you, he doesn't try to sweeten the deal, he offers you another chance and that is that.
The second you shake Death's hand, he pulls away from your grip and takes the silver dagger to your heart. With ease, he slices back layers of flesh in one swoop leaving your bones exposed before him. Using what seemed to be little effort for the god of death, he breaks your ribs and pulls out your heart.
You watch it beat in his hand, the blood drifting out of it like ribbons that hook around your limbs, you know you have made a mistake. For the first time, Thanatos smiles. Oh, how the wolf wore the sheep as a wicked disguise. he squeezes the heart and at the crush of his hand, you feel ice shoot through your veins.
Your eyes open, properly open. You were alone. You wake up in nothing more than a metre of water and immediately cry out in pure terror at the horrifying images that your mind has conjured up. You run through the salty ocean and back to the shore.
The storm hadn't subsided which helped to camouflage your sobs as you frantically felt around your body with shaking hands to be sure that the god of death hadn't ripped out your heart. Surely enough, your rib cage was intact. You fall onto your hands and knees heaving up all of the ocean water you had swallowed.
The purse that held your resources for escaping had either been devoured by the ocean or stolen off your body. Your wirey hands touch the back of your hand, you expect to shudder under the pain of the open wound that knocked you unconscious. Instead of pain shooting from a gash in your head, you are perfectly intact.
You look down at your hands, no trace of blood.
Maybe it was time to start believing in myths because you were in one.
Rome - July- 116 AD
Don't they know it's the end of the world?
At the center of the world, you had been buried alive for three years after switching places with a Vestal Virgin who looked remarkably identical to you in exchange you gained a large sum for your alleged death. When you were buried you hadn't thought much about how you would get out, you just knew that you wouldn't suffocate or starve.
After the second year passed you were beginning to think that offering to get enclosed in a stone tomb with bread, water, oil, a candle, and a bed wasn't a great way to live your abnormally long life. The air grew stale, and the silence of the tomb echoed with the whispers of the dead that surrounded you on all four walls.
Before sleeping every single night, you prayed to the gods to take your life but they never listened. What you once thought to be a blessing had turned out to be a curse, no blessing would make you crave death the same way you craved sunlight and cream. You had given away the gift of aging for a sweet pleasure that quickly became bitter on your tongue.
The first few moons after you had slipped into unconsciousness you truly believed it at all been some strange hallucination caused by smacking your dead until you took a steep tumble and fell on your husband's hunting knife only to pull it out of your body and watch the skin over your stomach fix itself up, leaving no evidence behind that it had ever happened aside from the blood on the knife.
All you know to do is survive.
It's not like you hadn't tried to find a way out of it, some loophole that would shatter the deal and set you free. You had 527 years to try and make some sense of it, but you had given up and resorted to trying to find a way to end your life. Every time you did that, Ellie always showed up to help but you were back together.
You didn't understand the words that came from her mouth, all you knew was that her name was Ellie and she was cursed like you. What was she cursed with? You weren't sure but she seemed a little less miserable with you.
Ellie would come into your life now and then, usually an unwelcome surprise, she always knew where to find you. The only consistent face that you've seen for 527 years. She seemed to know more about you than you knew about her.
Overhead of the tomb, you see a crack of light slip through one of the stones that sealed you in. A tremor shook the earth, and the ancient stones of the tomb began to crumble. Light spilled into the darkness as the walls collapsed around you.
Surely enough Ellie's head looked down at you. She smiles and extends a hand to help you out "Sorry I took so long, I had to time it right with the earthquake, you picked poor timing to get buried alive." She hauled you up, and you stepped over the rubble with bare feet, careless of whether you gut them on the freshly shattered stone or not, you knew that they would heal over regardless.
Despite still not understanding her tongue you were for a change, glad to see her. As you suspected, your feet had been sliced up, leading a little trickle of blood in your wake. The moment you reached the surface, you collapsed to the ground. The city was crumbling around you but they were the ones who locked you away in the first place. You ignored Ellie's unknown words and felt the lush grass for the first time in three years, the heat of the sun resting on your skin.
Beside you, Ellie wrinkles her nose. "You've definitely smelled better," This is one of the times when she dresses appropriately for the era, a toga slung around her toned figure. "Oh, I thought you might be hungry so I brought this, I know you don't have to eat but I figured it would be nice," She unfolded a piece of cloth beside her revealing a small stack of round pastries that had little brown dark spots in it, nothing you had seen before.
You furrow your eyebrows, partly in confusion, partly because your eyes were still adjusting to the light after being enclosed in darkness for three years. "Τι κοιτάζω;"
"They aren't bad I promise," She says, she had made an effort to learn Greek for you but it proved too difficult, all she knew was the odd word. "They're cookies and don't tell anyone because I'm pretty sure they don't get invented for six hundred years."
Ellie speaks freely like you comprehend every word that she says. You make a face that almost resembles a snarl as you eye her and the cookies suspiciously.
"In a few more centuries we're cool with each other," She eats one of the cookies, slowly taking a bite to show you that they were edible. The cookies are a little too good however and she eats the entire thing in mere seconds, speaking through a mouth full of crumbs "Maybe more than a few centuries," She corrects herself "It's like a thousand years and then some but you come around."
She looks once more at the confusion on your face and gives up on trying to verbally communicate, instead she just holds the cloth holding the chocolate chip cookies towards you and looking into her eyes as sharp as a wolf, you hesitantly take one.
Norwich, England- November- 1327
I can't take my eyes of you.
In the dimly lit streets of the town, where the stench of death hung heavy in the air and fear gripped the hearts of its inhabitants. People no longer walked freely around town, they were either sick and on the trek to become puss-filled corpses or they locked themselves away and observed the demise of friends and foes from their windows.
You had seen civilizations rise and fall and witnessed the ebb and flow of history itself, but nothing could have prepared you for the horror that awaited you in the plague-ridden streets of the town. As the death toll rose with each passing day, you donned the garb of a plague doctor, your face concealed behind a grotesque mask adorned with beak-like protrusions filled with aromatic herbs that helped to cover the sickly sweet smell of rotten corpses.
Armed with little more than your knowledge of ancient remedies and a desperate desire to ease the suffering of the afflicted, you ventured into the heart of the epidemic, where the sick lay writhing in agony and the cries of the dying echoed through the night like they were eating themselves alive.
"Jeez, this isn't good," Ellie appears beside you, out of thin air like she tended to do. Now she was wearing a green dress, long bell sleeves and a golden trim around the dress, she wore a white vale pushing her hair back. Though she was dressed for the time period she looked out of place in the garb of a noblewoman, surrounded by the sick and dying peasants. "I can't stick around too long because an official vaccine for the bubonic plague isn't developed until 2072."
"How many people will die from this?" You ask, voice somewhat muffled from the leather mask, stuffed with herbs.
"About fifty," She trails off "Million."
You were not a god's chosen but a god's cursed. You had already suspected her to say something along those lines. Your voice failed as you watched the searchers who had been employed by the city, dragging dead bodies off into a pit to be buried in a mass grave.
"Look on the bright side-
"There is no bright side," You turn to walk away from her, shoving Ellie into the back of your mind.
With each patient you tended to, you felt the weight of your immortality pressing down upon her—a burden too heavy to carry, yet one you could not escape. You watched as the plague consumed the bodies and souls of those around you, leaving nothing but death and apathy in its wake, a dream that this would be over soon.
Immortality was a mockery, you thought yourself to be a spectacle to the gods above, nothing more than cruel entertainment. As much as you run, you get nowhere, you always end up in the same place, watching those you developed bonds and memories with die.
As the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months, you fought tirelessly against the tide of death, your resolve unyielding even in the face of overwhelming odds. But with each passing day, her heart grew heavier, burdened by the weight of countless lives lost and the knowledge that she alone would bear witness to their suffering for eternity.
A boy on his porch cries for his mom and dad who will never be coming home, his sobs echo through the narrow streets like a wolf's howl.
As the moon cast its ghostly glow upon the desolate streets, you stood amidst a sea of bodies, your gloved hands stained with the blood of the fallen. The plague had taken its toll, claiming the lives of all those you had sworn to protect, leaving you alone in a world consumed by darkness.
Henry, a stonemason who had no family aside from his little brother now cries over his body. Sam, the young boy had been hit hard with the disease, the sores covered almost every inch of his body and turned black upon his ebony skin. You had watched every stage of his sickness, there was no cure other than comfort, the only thing you couldn't offer to Henry at that moment.
You could turn the brothers into poetry but you couldn't offer up the immortality that you carried like a cross you had to bear.
He held Sam's corpse in his arms, hugging him close and sobbing. Henry was freshly infected there was no way he would make it out alive though you weren't sure that he even wanted to after watching his baby brother's hands turn pitch black and seize up.
How strange that you, someone who was not deserving of eternal life, was the one burdened with it. People are dying and you can't get a grip.
With a heavy heart and tear-streaked face, you cast aside her mask, the symbol of your futile efforts to defy the inevitable. For in that moment, you realized that no amount of healing could undo the damage wrought by the plague, and no amount of compassion could ease the pain of those who had been lost.
You turned your back on the town that had become your prison, the echoes of its suffering fading into the night. For though you were immortal, you were not invincible—bound by the chains of your own existence, condemned to wander the earth as a silent witness to the fleeting moments of life and the relentless march of death.
Salem, America- April- 1692
Immortal she, return to me.
The paranoid colonial Massachusetts was not the place for a woman who never ages. You grew careless of covering up your secret and lived on the outskirts of Salem, seen by few but that didn't aid the treacherous rumours whispered about you.
You had been there when they settled in 1626 and hadn't aged a day from the time you settled. This had spread into rumours of you dancing with the devil, practicing witchcraft, and bewitching townspeople.
Though many denied your existence, all fingers pointed towards you when two young cousins began acting erratically and were given the diagnosis of being under an evil hand.
The courtroom was a hallowed chamber of unjust judgment, where the accused stood trial before the watchful eyes of the magistrate and the hushed voices of the gathered crowd. You stood, with your hands bound and your head held high, faced your accusers with a steely resolve, eyes burning with a fire that refused to be extinguished.
As the trial unfolded, it became clear that justice was but a mere facade—a thin veil masking the insidious machinations of those who sought to rid the town of its perceived evils. Witnesses were coerced, evidence fabricated, and lies spun like silk until the truth became little more than a distant memory lost to paranoia and skepticism. In the crowd, mixed in with the townspeople, you saw Ellie.
Her steady gaze on you was unmoving and ever-focused, a small smile played on her lips while she watched you face the accusations, anger simmering deep inside you like a curse.
Despite protestations of innocence, you were found guilty of witchcraft—a verdict as unjust as it was inevitable. With a silent prayer upon your lips, you were led to the gallows, where the noose awaited you like a taunt.
You had still been bound by your hands in front of your grime-covered dress from being imprisoned in a dark cellar for a month which felt like mere hours in your lifespan.
A man named David, one of the wealthiest residents of Salem and the first to seek warrants against the accused innocent aided you into stepping onto the back of a cart. The crowd surrounding you cheered while a church member slipped the noose tied to a tree around your neck.
"Hang the witch!" Ellie shouts and you lock eyes with her, feeling nothing more than bitterness and resentment. She still seems unfazed and somewhat amused like she's seen this a thousand times, she likely has. You know she had already watched you 'die' over and over again, Ellie was desensitized to it.
"Hang her!" Another man yells, following Ellie's act in tow. They scream all around you, jeering for your death which would never come. David and the churchman step off the wagon and the crowd gets even louder, anticipating a broken neck and lifeless eyes. David gave a command and the horses pulling the wagon were off, leaving your feet to flail helplessly over nothing.
Even as the rope tightened around your neck and the crowd jeered and spat their curses. Though you couldn't die the pain of the rope restricting your breathing still ran you ragged. For just a brief moment you pretend to die, and those around you cheer. There is so little hesitation in their voices, they were glad to see you dead.
You begin to thrash around, kicking your feet. When the townspeople realized you weren't deceased their cheers of victory fell into silence as you coughed and sputtered on the build-up of saliva and blood choking you. An eery silence falls upon the land while they watch in horror, waiting for you to die. Ellie bites back a smile from where she watches you. You bring your hands, bound together by the wrist to reach up and grab the rope that you hung by. Gathering all the force you can you yank it harshly, over and over again until it finally snaps and you fall to the ground.
David's face falls completely. You had known him to not truly believe in witchcraft but the murder of innocents and threatening women. The look in his eyes when he saw you stumble to your feet. "Witch!"
"Ay, I am the witch!" You shout, the townfolk backing away. You slip your hand where the rope strangled your bent neck, the moment the noose comes loose you pull it off over your head, holding it in one hand. In only seconds the broken bones in your neck heal and you bring your head up, chain raised tall, the wound where the rope dug into your neck disappearing "I am older than your oldest god, I am more ancient than the winds, and more sacred than your cross." You say, only to frighten them.
"Kill her!" David shouts to which no one answers, they are either running or frozen in terror, saving themselves before anyone else.
David isn't fast enough to run, you grab him by his hair and drag his struggling body back beneath the tree where he had hung you. In the blue hour of the day, you hooked the severed noose around his neck and began to walk, dragging his trashing body back to your home on the outskirts of the town. David's body eventually fell limp, still, you dragged it over the rocks and lumps of cobblestone. You had succeeded in making him as afraid of you as you were of him.
You were the first woman who hung in the trials, far from the last. "Headed west now?" Ellie asks, walking beside you, utterly unfazed by what she just witnessed.
Boston, America- March- 1770
In the darkness I will meet my creators, they will all agree that I'm a suffocator.
In the cobblestone streets of colonial Boston, where the talks of revolution were murmured, propaganda poured. There you resided, someone once worshipped as a god whose true name had long been forgotten by history.
But amidst the fervour of the American colonies on the brink of rebellion, you found yourself drawn to the heart of the struggle after the church bells had been rung sending confused people onto the streets covered with snow and out of their homes.
It was on the night of March 5, 1770, that tragedy struck with a swift and merciless hand where a pull of a trigger would be written into history textbooks—the night of the Boston Massacre. As tensions between the colonists and the British soldiers reached a boiling point, you stood amidst the thronging crowd.
The air crackled with tension as the soldiers, emboldened by their orders to maintain order at all costs, faced off against the angry mob, assaulting them with snowballs, chunks of ice and oyster shells for hours on end. With shouts and hollers ringing through the night, protesting the raise of tax brought by King George.
Before the rage-filled crowd stand nine English soldiers holding their ground while the mob grows more and more impatient. This had started when a wig maker apprentice got in a spat with a private stationed outside of the customs house who in turn clobbered the boy with his musket.
The eight soldiers and the captain endure the jeers of the crowd led by Crispus Attucks. The Captain, Preston, refused to fire upon the crowd though as he commanded them from the front, in the line of fire.
You push your way up through the crowd, interweaving through hundreds of people. You watch the nine men stand tall against the sea of angry colonials. One of the men is hit hard in the head with a jagged rock, he falls back to the ground his musket clattering neck to him, just then, behind them in the darkness shouts a voice "Fire!"
With little to no hesitation, the man who fell over quickly scuttles to his feet, firing into the darkness of the evening. Then, in an instant that seemed to stretch into eternity, the first shot rang out—a deafening explosion that shattered the silence of the night and sent shockwaves rippling through the crowd. The other men follow, firing a volley one at a time. Beside you, you hear the thuds of heavy bodies hitting the ground, you don't have much time to process it before a bullet lands right in your head, the bullet finds its mark, striking you down with a force that seems to rend your immortal body asunder.
For a moment, time stood still—the world around you spinning in a dizzying blur of pain and confusion. "Hault!" Preston the captain orders, the soldiers cease fire at his command, confused as they believed him to be the one who ordered fire.
You used the rising surge of anger and fear emanating from the people around you to disappear into the crowd. Men grew even more angry at this, some dispersed but many stayed put. There were only a few women in a horde of hundred, it was difficult to go unnoticed with a bleeding gash on your head, you looked more monster than human, skin on your face replaced by a mass of flesh and blood. You brought your hands up to rest on the top of your head, arms out in front of you to cover what was once your face so your already scared neighbours wouldn't see a breathing corpse.
You stumbled around on your feet, pushing yourself through the mass of people, all moving in your opposite direction, making it harder for you to keep your head down. "Is something wrong?" A woman asks, you disregard her, shoving her away from you to keep moving. Your head rang with a high-pitched whistling, echoing through your brain, and you could hardly see straight with the one eye you now had, eyesight fuzzy. Each person ahead of you blurred into the next, blood gushing down your face, so much that it trickled into your eye and tinted your vision.
The wound wasn't clean by any means, not a neat through and through. The gunshot had got you right up the cheek and into your forehead, half of your face entirely blown off. The close impact of the shot caused your right eye to burst, you were scrambling away with no face and one eye.
Already you could feel your body working to put itself back together, still blood flowed down from the horror that was your face, down your neck to soak into your stay and your once grey skirts. You leave a trail of blood in your wake, dripping into the snow that is sure to be found my morning.
At last, you finally pass the crowd, though you don't stop. You stumble into the dark streets, running until you tumble on cobblestones slick with snow and slush, eyesight heavily impaired. "You've seen prettier deaths," Ellie sucks a breath through her teeth, she isn't in the dress that a woman would wear in that decade, instead, she's clad in a red coat, the uniform of a British soldier, her hair tied up and tucked beneath a black cap that all of the soldiers adorned.
She stretches her hand out to help, you take it. Instead of being gracious that she came around to help you off the ground, you take a swing at her face, and when your face makes contact with her cheek you hear a crack. Ellie takes a step back, shocked as you haven't hit her since the night you first met, 2181 years prior to that moment. "Why would you scream fire?" You cry. The second you heard the voice, you knew it was Ellie though you hadn't had time to process it before your face was blown off. "Those men are dead, Ellie, they will never go home to their families or take another breath!"
"They die anyway," She retorts, one hand hovering over her now broken cheekbone. You look at her now, your skull re-intact, eyeball sewn itself up and found its place back in your socket, flesh weaves and stretches over your bones to its rightful place. "Fuck," Ellie mutters, wincing as she touches to fingers to her newfound injury "The second that soldier gets hit with that rock, he gets back up and starts shooting, every single time."
You freeze "Every single time?" The very moment the words fall from your lips, Ellie curses herself "How many times have you been here, on this day?"
"Maybe like," She raises an arm in defence the other still cradling her cheek as she winces"Thirty-seven times give or take."
"You've never stopped it?"
"I have," She says, eyebrows furrowing with a certain longing "It ruins everything, if those men don't die, the American revolution never takes place." Ellie's gaze softens "I know that it's awful but it happens whether you're here or not, it was meant to happen."
Ellie reaches out to hold one of your blood-covered hands, but you are quick to retract it, pulling it away. Your eyes move from where her hand waits for yours to intertwine with it to her freckled face. "How many lives have we lived together?"
Her outstretched hand falls to her side. "I don't want to answer that."
"I want to know."
She shakes her head "You'd hate me."
"I already hate you," Your mouth acting faster than your head.
Ellie doesn't seem shocked by this statement, just a little hurt. "We've had good lives together, you don't hate me every time."
"Who have I been to you?" You ask, new questions surging through your scrambled mind, questions you were sure you wouldn't like the answer to. You knew Ellie had the ability to jump between time periods, though you hadn't known that she'd met you in other timelines.
Looking deep into her downturned eyes your mind runs rampant with who you could've been to her in other timelines that defined what you meant to her now. It was like trying to recall memories that didn't belong to you, but another version of yourself- what could've been.
The hushed silence finally dissipates when Ellie opens her mouth again "I'll see you in a hundred years." With that, she turns and walks away into the darkness, her body shrouded by the cold night where screams of the freshly dead hang in the winds like sickening howls.
Nebraska, America - June - 1883
I'll be seeing you.
"Not a bad place to camp, huh?" Tommy smiles at us while the sun blazes overhead, the group disregards him as they set up camp in a grassy clearing with just enough trees to offer shade to the overworked horses. Few pitched tents while the majority prepared for a night of sleeping under the clear sky, unprotected from the elements.
His question falls upon deaf ears "What's in Montana?" Another man, Issac asks. "We're going all this way and I want to know what I've uprooted my life for."
"Untouched land, you'll be a rich man." Tommy takes the cowboy hat off the top of his head, using it to fan himself off, protesting the sweltering heat that devoured him whole beneath layers.
You eye him, unsaddling your horse, Shimmer. You were in a group of people headed to settle in Montana, many of whom you had never spoken to and didn't necessarily want to. The only ones who you had properly known were the Miller family, Maria had been the one who told you about the trip initially, telling you they needed more gunslingers. With a face that doesn't age, a decade was getting a little too long to stay in Cody and here was your offer to get away.
Joel was speaking in hushed tones to his daughter, Sarah. She was nodding along to each word her father said, you had guessed it was a set of rules, him telling her not to run off or chase down wild animals.
You shower your sweaty chestnut horse with little pats and scratches, and she gives you a snort in response as you begin to wipe away the grime she's accumulated over the day's journey. Your entire life was packed away into two saddle bags, there wasn't much room for luxury in the Wild West. Times were harsh and lands were rugged, more commonly violent than anything you'd ever seen.
As you move in front of Shimmer to pet her soft face, she sneezes on you, reverberating on the rubber lips. You scrunch up your nose, and bring your sleeve to wipe your face "You're lucky you're cute," You mutter, hearing the sound of giggling and looking to find Sarah "Hey little lady."
"Hi," Her accent was thick, she came straight from the heart of Texas. Sarah was still young, the things you knew about her dad were only what she had told you, oversharing their personal life.
"Leave her alone now," Joel walks up behind Sarah, her wide eyes looking up at him.
"I don't mind, Joel," You answer. "I saw some sour cherries by the river if you care to come pick 'em with me," You say looking at Sarah whose head immediately shoots to her dad "As long as your father says it's okay."
Sarah silently pleads with her daughter, his gaze is still cold like steel. "Maybe tomorrow," He answers and Sarah's face drops. Despite knowing the Millers for months, Joel was always iffy about letting Sarah out of his sight. He knew almost as well as you how vile the world was, especially to young girls.
"Maybe tomorrow," You repeat Joel's words, digging around in your saddlebags for a small wicker basket and cloth to spread out at the bottom "I'll see y'all around," You give the pair a nod before heading down the bank.
The walk was quick and scenic if you ignored the overwhelming heat and the entirely too many layers you were sweltering beneath. You closed your eyes and let your spirit lift with the sounds of rustly grass and the flowing river nearby. The air was thick with the sweet smell of wildflowers mixed with an earthy bitterness from the ground beneath your feet.
You walked towards the tree, carefully plucking ripe cherries. They reminded you of the same ones you once picked back in Greece, as you ate them the juice smeared down your lips you laughed with your sibling, pretending that you had been blood drinkers or angry gods drinking the wine that was poured for them.
You often find solace in reminiscing over all of the people you have been in the span of one lifetime. You've been a wife, doctor, witch, god, poet, farmer, handmaiden, dressmaker, priestess, and now you were just a woman picking cherries and planning out her next facade. What awaited you in Montana? Hopefully somewhere peaceful, a cabin by a stream where you could live alone and lay outside in a grassy meadow, waiting for the sun to swallow you whole.
After filling the wicker basket, almost to the brim with small sour cherries, a little larger than the end of your thumb. You turn to walk back to the campsite, though you pause at the incline of the riverbank and decide against it, instead, you find yourself sitting under the shade of the cherry tree, staring to the other side of the riverbank.
You thought that you could've spent the rest of eternity under that cherry tree where you listen to the songs the earth sings for you. Here, the air is clean. The river itself was a sight to behold, a ribbon of shimmering blue that wound its way through the landscape, its waters sparkling in the sunlight like a thousand diamonds. Here and there, small ripples danced across the surface, creating patterns of light and shadow that played upon the sandy riverbed below.
Someone sits next to you, you can sense them awkwardly shuffling around to try and get comfy, from that alone you knew it was Ellie. "Hi, it's been a while," You say, voice quiet.
"Hey," She takes a cherry out of the wicker basket beside you, she bites into it, juice dribbling down her chin, nose scrunches when the sour taste hits her tongue. "Fuck, that's sour."
"They're supposed to be, they're sour cherries," You look at her face to see a large dark bruise engulfing one of her cheekbones, it spreads under her puffy eye bag, giving her a real shiner over her eyelid. "What happened to your face?"
"You," She says, pressing her lips together "After the Boston massacre you hit me pretty hard, remember?"
Your eyebrows furrow "That was more than a hundred years ago."
"For you," She corrects "It's been a little under a week for me."
Your gaze shifts to the glimmering river in front of you "That must be nice," That familiar sense of bitterness set in once again, the reason why you could never stomach being around Ellie for too long. She could blip in and out of your life as she wanted but you were the one forced to sit through thousands of years of torment and longing for the sweet release of death that taunted you in mirrors and the eyes of those who thought they knew you well.
She falls short of words to say. In your eyes it was nice, in her eyes, she faced the woman whom she had married in another life who held nothing more than a little resentment for her now.
"I am sorry that I hit you," You mutter, spitting out the pit of a cherry beside you. "You did cheer for the colonials to hang me though."
"And I am sorry about that," Ellie rolls the stem of a cherry between her fingers, more focused on it than any of her beautiful surroundings. She had seen every bit of scenery that there was to see, her favourite was seeing the dinosaurs, they were much more scary in person than they had been "At least you're an urban legend now."
"What's it matter to be an urban legend when you've already been a god?" You say "It just does not get more interesting than that."
"Yeah, watching you eat your own heart in front of terrified ancestors was pretty cool." Ellie flicks the cherry stem into the river, watching it get swallowed and pulled away by the currents "I'm glad you aren't still mad at me, if I were you I'd probably have a knife to my throat by now."
"I think I'm finally getting wise after two thousand three hundred four years," You joke, digging your teeth into the flesh of another cherry.
"What? You don't look a day over one thousand," She teases, a smile ever so slightly playing on her face.
"Thanks, I was worried."
"Don't be, you look great for your age."
She was joking, her tone light-hearted but something inside you breaks just a little more. You look at your hands, not a wrinkle or callous, no sign of the exciting and extremely terrifying life you had lived, just smooth young skin stretched over ancient bones.
You should've been nothing more than a skeleton buried beneath centuries-old rubble and flora by now. "Yup."
Ellie fiddled with her hands, trying to think of something else to say, she didn't want the conversation to be over just yet. She clung to every word you spoke like it was scripture and she was the most devoted follower. "What are you gonna do in Montana?"
"I think you know better than me," You answer, eyes focused on the water glittering in the blistering sunlight, beads of sweat resting on your brow. "Care to share?"
"Can't say."
"How come?"
She shrugs "I don't think you want to know."
"Well, how many times have I travelled with this bunch?"
"I've lost count," Ellie lies through her teeth, she knew every statistic, she had turned back time to the ancient cities 872 times to be with you. It slowly got easier to face you every time though it never replicated the love you had that first time, a high Ellie was forever chasing.
"Oh," You respond, leaning against the trunk of the cherry tree, sinking into yourself.
The silence stretches between you two. You had actually missed Ellie in the century that she disappeared completely; you found yourself waiting for her to show up around a corner and say something to annoy you.
After swallowing back another cherry in silence you open your mouth to speak "Ellie, whatever I meant to you, whoever I was, I need you to know that I'm not that girl-
"I know-
"I don't think you do," You say, discarding the stem of the cherry beside you "I need you to forget about any life we had together, at least until you get bored of this one."
"I don't get bored of it, I could never get bored of you," She answers.
"Then why start all the way from the beginning over and over again?" You ask "Just to watch me beg for death?"
Ellie shakes her head "I just can't let go of you." She listens to herself "I guess you're right, I'm holding onto someone who doesn't exist anymore." You watch the realization strike Ellie, with each rapid blink her eyes get more and more watery "I'm sorry, I know it's selfish."
"It is," You answer, feeling no urge to coddle "I'm not her, I know that you loved me but I don't remember what you used to be to me. I'm sure I loved you a lot, but I doubt that I do every single time."
Ellie nodded, using the heel of her palm to wipe at the tears that threatened to spill "Okay," Her voice hardly above a whisper "Just see this life through and I promise I'll fix everything, you live a good life, I promise." You stare at her blankly for a moment before nodding. She must know what waits for you in the future, something sweet perhaps, like sugar resting on the tip of your tongue. "I'll always hold you close but I'm learning you let you go."
"I appreciate it," You say, the ghost of a melancholy smile on your face.
The heat of the day finally disappears into the coolness of night and with that, Ellie disappears too, likely to be seen in another year.
The night was draped in the thick, velvety darkness that you only got in the west, where the only illumination came from the crackling flames of a campfire. Around it sat your sorry crew of companions, their weary faces highlighted by the flickering light, casting shadows that danced across the rugged landscape. They had ridden hard all day, herding cattle across vast plains and navigating treacherous terrain, but now, as they rested under the vast expanse of the starry sky, they sought solace in camaraderie and laughter.
"Y'all hear the one about the preacher who walked into a saloon?" Tommy began, his voice gravelly from years of dust and tobacco. Several others in the group had already called it a night, resting their heads beneath the stars that hung in the ink black sky.
The others leaned in, eager for the punchline.
"He says, 'I'm lookin' for the man who's been sleeping with my wife!' And a fella at the bar stands up and says, 'You'll have to narrow it down, preacher!'" The group erupts into bellowing laughter at his words and you can't help but smile at the pure joy written on these gruff men's faces.
"Alright, alright, I got one more for ya," Wyatt announced, his voice carrying a hint of challenge. He was an unnerving man from the looks of it, tall and intimidating but after the first day you had spent with him, he treated you like a baby sister, ready to go to war for you at the drop of a hat. The others perked up, their interest piqued by the promise of one last ribald tale."So there's this rancher," the cowboy began, "and he's got himself a problem with his bull. See, this here bull is getting up there in years, and he just ain't performin' like he used to."
A ripple of knowing laughter spread through the group, anticipation building for the punchline. Joel sat beside you, he had no interest in the jokes nor did he find them funny, all he got from it was a small detox from his life of overworking himself into exhaustion.
"Now, this rancher, he's heard all kinds of remedies for puttin' a little pep back in a bull's step," the cowboy continued. "But none of 'em seem to do the trick. So he finally decides to consult the local veterinarian."
The rest leaned in, hanging on every word.
"The vet takes one look at the old bull and says, 'I got just the thing for him. There's this new experimental treatment I've been workin' on. It involves a little bit of whiskey.'"
The campfire erupted with uproarious laughter, the group hooting and hollering at the unexpected twist, it ws far from the funniest joke you had ever heard, still, you laugh. Some slapped their thighs, others doubled over with mirth, and a few wiped tears of amusement from their eyes.
"And you know what?" the cowboy concluded with a grin. "After that little glass bottle was emptied, that ol' bull was buckin' like a bronco."
As the laughter at last subsided, the fire crackled softly as men began to say their goodnights and lull for the night. They sat in comfortable silence, their thoughts drifting to the vast expanse of the frontier and the challenges that awaited them come dawn and dreams of the promised land of Montana.
"Y'know, fellas- and madams," Wyatt addresses you and Maria, "We've been tellin' jokes and carryin' on like a pack of fools, but there's somethin' to be said 'bout the bonds we share out here on the range," he began, his husky voice tinged with sincerity.
The others nodded, aside from Joel who was studying the fire in front of him, tuned out from the conversation.
"I reckon there ain't nothin' quite like the brotherhood of the trail," he continued. "We ride together, we work together, and when the chips are down, we stand together. Through thick and thin, come hell or high water, we got each other until death takes us all." Wyatt takes another swig of his moonshine "We may come from different walks of life, but out here, under these stars, we're all just cowboys," the cowboy mused. "And there ain't no bond stronger than that."
"That ain't true," Issac poked up "I know that not one of us will see each other once we get to Montana, we're all goin' our separate ways."
"Don't mean there's no bond," You peep up.
"How's that?"
You shrug "Your heart is just too young to realize."
The group stops for a moment before erupting into ragged laughter, Tommy almost has tears in his eyes at the fact that you had called the man seemingly 15 years older than you young "Kid, you're too young to realize how bad life gets."
"Sounds about right."
Cape Cod, America - May - 1937
To say the things he truly feels and not the words of one who kneels.
In the hazed ambiance of the club, the air reverberated with the lively tunes of Duke Ellington, and the floor pulsed with the infectious rhythm of swing. Amidst the whirl of dancers, there you were, dancing so exuberantly that others backed away in fear of you swinging on them; though that was the nature of swing dancing, almost a fight to keep your nose unbroken.
But even the most seasoned dancers could only keep up for so long. As the night wore on and the music continued to play, you found yourself in need of a moment's reprieve. With a smile still lingering on your lips, you tapped your partner, Richard's shoulder, signalling your desire to take a break. You hadn't known him well by any means but he was a good dancer.
Leaning against the cool plaster of the club's wall, you breathed deeply, chest rising and falling in time with the music. You closed her eyes, savouring the lingering sensations of the dance. Little did you know, your moment of respite was about to be interrupted in the most unexpected yet delightful manner.
A voice, smooth and warm, broke through the cacophony of sound around you. "Mind if I join you?" the voice asked, accompanied by a gentle tap on your shoulder. Opening your eyes, you found yourself face to face with a strikingly handsome man, his eyes twinkling with a hint of mischief. His black hair parted to the side and slicked over as well as his dark eyes soft as snow added to his undeniable charm.
A bemused smile tugged at your lips as you nodded, welcoming the interruption. "Not at all," you replied, voice carrying a hint of amusement.
With a casual elegance, the man leaned against the wall beside you, his gaze drifting out across the dance floor. "You're quite the dancer," he remarked, his tone tinged with admiration. He was wearing a white button-up tucked into pinstripe trousers being held up by black suspenders.
"Thank you. I've had a good bit of practice." You smile softly "Your name is?"
"Jesse," He answered "Care to tell me who I'm talking to?"
"Midge," you lie, it was the name you had picked up for your residence in Cape Cod.
"Midge," he repeats smiling as the name rolls off his tongue "You might just have the prettiest smile in Cape Cod."
You can't help but grin "And I thought I had already met all of the gentlemen around these parts."
"Must've been wrong," He said with his crooked smile. Then, after a moment's pause, he extended a courteous offer. "Can I buy you a Coke? It's the least I can do for such a captivating dancer."
You couldn't help but be charmed by his sincerity and manners. With a twinkle in your eye, you nodded in agreement. "I would like that very much."
Your conversation flowed effortlessly as you sipped on your cokes, exchanging stories and sharing laughter amidst the ringing of the club and chatter of individuals all around. With each passing moment, the two of you scrambled for things to talk about, desperate to keep the spark of conversation alive. You had just prayed that you could pull yourself away from his magnetic charisma.
As the night wore on, the music gradually began to fade, signalling the end of another unforgettable evening. Reluctantly, you rose from your seat, a sense of disappointment tugging at your heart while you watched Jesse lean back in his chair studying you like a textbook.
"Well, it looks like the night's coming to an end," you remarked, a wistful smile gracing your lips.
Jesse nodded, his expression mirroring her sentiment. "Indeed it has," he replied, his voice tinged with a hint of hopefulness. "But perhaps it's just the beginning of something new?"
"Perhaps," You agreed, gaze lingering on his handsome face.
That was when you had broken the only rule you created for yourself 'Don't fall in love'. One year later you were so head over heels for Jesse that you were getting married. Dressed in your floor-length wedding dress, hair carefully curated after spending hours trying to perfect it.
You hadn't any family to fill up your side of the aisle, so instead you had asked your friends from work and the jazz club to take their places. After telling Jesse you were orphaned, he didn't bat an eye at this. You had frantically searched for someone to fill the shoes of your father who walked the earth centuries prior on the shores of Greece, it was a relief when Jesse's father stepped up.
Walking down the aisle of the church, arms hooked with Jesse's father you see him then, standing at the end waiting for you and he looks like the rest of your life. "You clean up nice," You mutter to Jesse quietly to be sure no one else can hear your little remark.
"I try my best," He smiles, hands in front of him as he waits patiently for the pastor to speak up. He looks handsome as the day you met as you look remarkably the same, not a new scratch or wrinkle upon a single inch of your skin.
As you exchanged vows, the both of you unable to fight the wild smiles on your faces, the world seemed to stand still, as if holding its breath in anticipation. With each word spoken, you pledged your love and devotion to one another, promising to stand by each other's side through all the joys and challenges that life would bring and you meant every word.
The reception was nothing short of perfect in your eyes. Everyone gathered at Jesse's parents' home, flowing in and out as they pleased. You however preferred the outdoors aspect of it, where people chatted happily with a glass of champagne in hand.
"Congratulations," Ellie says "Little bummed that I didn't get an invite," There's an odd sense of bitterness in her voice. She's wearing a blue tulle dress at tea length, blending in perfectly around the other guests, long white gloves to cover the tattoo on her forearm, and she even had her shoulder-length hair pin-curled.
"I figured you would be coming around either way."
"You know me too well," She takes the champagne flute out of your hand and swallows it back.
"You're actually the one who knows me too well."
She nods, faces expressionless while she looks around at the scenery of the yard. "Good luck."
"I'm sorry?" You furrow your eyebrows trying to seek out some tell on Ellie's face that would give you any indicator of what's racing through her head. Still, she's unreadable.
"With your marriage."
"Okay?"
"What's the plan here anyways?" She asks picking up someone's glass of wine the second they place it down on the garden table and turn their head away. "In thirty years, you're still married to Jesse, he's sixty getting wrinkly and you're still young and beautiful?"
As Ellie goes to drink the wine you take it out of her hands, putting it back on the garden table. You think of something to say to her, anything, but the words die in your throat, shrivelling up, never to be said.
"I will say that you becoming a history teacher is very funny."
"Did you just come here to sulk?" You ask.
She shakes her head slightly "I've come here to celebrate your union," Ellie glances around the yard once more.
"Then celebrate," you throw your hands out "I don't see you doing anything other than slinking around."
"Honey, who's this?" Jesse strolls up beside you, putting one hand on the small of your back. He smiles brightly as he looks at Ellie, he has known all of your friends which wasn't a bountiful number to begin with, just other teachers you worked with and some people you danced with.
"Oh!" You force a smile onto your face "This is my old friend from New Orleans, we really have some catching up to do."
"Nice to meet you, I'm Jesse," He holds out his hand.
"Ellie," She says shaking it.
"When did you become friends?" He asks "Midge hasn't told me a whole lot about her school days."
Ellie looks at you, she doesn't say anything but you get the message being conveyed. 'What the hell are you doing?' she shifts her eyes to look at the groom "God this one was just wild, keep an eye on her," Ellie forces a fake laugh.
"Really?" He has that goofy lopsided smile painted on his face as he looks at you.
"Yup," Ellie says "So, when are you planning on having kids?"
"Oh," Jesse chuckles, somewhat nervously "We haven't discussed that much."
"It seems like something you should talk about before getting married-
"Thank you," You cut her off "Ellie," You couldn't stand the idea of outliving your child let alone your husband, though it was already an inevitable fate.
"Of course," She's wearing a smile that is bordering somewhere between penitence and condescension, Ellie's looking at you like you're in the gutter.
"Looks like rain," Ellie glances up at the increasingly greying sky before walking inside the cover of the house. "Bad idea," She whispered in your ear as she brushed past. In mere moments after she enters the house thunder cracks and rain dumps from the sky, heavy and harsh, beating against your skin.
Everyone rushes inside, covering their heads as rain showers and soaks them. You and Jesse are frozen, you watch Ellie's figure retreat into the group of people clamouring into the house while Jesse's eyes are trained on you, he can't hold back a laugh.
"Oh no," Jesse's eyebrows furrow as he takes one of your hands in his own and puts the other on the back of your head, staring at your face, makeup running from the rain, hair weighed down by fat droplets dribbling off your collarbone "You spent so long on your hair, what are you gonna do?"
You shake off Ellie's words, cryptic as usual. Your attention snaps back to Jesse once you can no longer see her. The gentleness of his touch, that is his beauty "I'm not sure but I've got half a mind to kiss you," You giggle.
"Yeah?" He takes a step forward "I like that half," Jesse plants a gentle kiss on your lips "The other half is great too."
"You're so odd."
-
It was a quiet Saturday evening in the summer of 1943, the echo of a fuzzy-sounding record player scraping a vinyl filled the room, enveloping you in a certain tenderness.
Jesse, in his crisp white shirt and neatly pressed trousers, held you close, his hand resting gently on the small of your back as they moved together in perfect harmony. Your hair cascaded softly around your face as you rested your head against Jesse's chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat matching the cadence of the music.
As you danced, the cares of the outside world didn't seem to exist, leaving only the intimate space you shared. The faint scent of your flowery perfume drowned out concerns. In the dim light, your shadows danced on the walls. Jesse had never been the better dancer between you though he was particularly tense on this night, his eyebrows were stuck furrowed like every thought running through his head was a worry.
The final notes of the song faded into the stillness of the night, Jesse hesitated, his embrace tightening around you as if reluctant to let you go. Sensing his unease, you looked up at him, concern etched in her features.
His unease wasn't difficult to sense, you pry yourself away from him to take him in completely. "Jesse, what's wrong?" You asked softly, voice barely above a whisper.
Jesse took a deep breath, steeling himself for what he knew he had to say. He held you at arm's length, his eyes searching over your features. "I've been drafted. I received my notice this morning." His voice trembled just the slightest as he took a shaky breath.
Your heart skipped a beat, breath catching in her throat and you thought that this must be what death feels like. For a moment, the world seemed to spin out of control as the weight of Jesse's words sank in. Six years with Jesse was not enough, you needed an eternity.
"We can find a doctor to exempt you-
"You know that's not right," He spoke so softly and you knew he was speaking the truth. You could never convince Jesse to do something as heinous as faking some disease or injury to get him out of the war.
"I know," You say and he steadies himself, staring deep into your eyes and through your soul "My whole life, all I've ever known is loss and I have never cared about anything the way I care about you-
He pulls you forward into his arms, rubbing that familiar calloused hand on the small of your back to soothe you "It's all gonna be alright, love, I'll be back before you know it and then it's smooth sailing for the rest of our lives."
You copied the crook of his neck, the warmth of his arms, the curve of his nose to memory. You caught all that you could before it slipped through the empty gaps of your mind. You hadn't realized that he had been doing the same, memorizing the smell of your perfume, the texture of your hair, the way your eyes caught the light.
He told you to look to the future when he finally walked back through that door and you could dance again but the only thing you could see was the end of the world, starting with you saying goodbye to him.
July 12, 1943
My Dearest Love,
I hope this letter finds you well and in high spirits. It's been quite some time since I last wrote to you, and I apologize for the delay. The days here in Europe seem to blend into one another, filled with moments of both intense action and serene contemplation.
As I write this letter, I find myself missing you more and more. You are what keeps me going through these harrowing and relentless days
Please know that you are always in my heart, my love. No matter where I may be, you remain my constant source of hope and inspiration. I dream of the day when this war is finally over, and we can be reunited once more, never to be parted again.
Until then, stay strong, my love. Know that I am fighting for you, for us, and for a better tomorrow. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers, as I do for you each and every day.
With all my love,
Jesse
December 18, 1943
My Dearest Love,
As Christmas draws near, my thoughts turn to you more than ever. I find myself reminiscing about the holidays we've shared together, specifically the weekend we spent at the cabin. How I long to be by your side once more, to hold you close and celebrate the season of peace and goodwill together.
But even amidst the turmoil of war, I see you in every good thing. Here in the trenches, my comrades and I have found solace in each other's company, we are united in our common humanity and our dreams for a home cooked meal.
I am reminded, now more than ever, of the importance of compassion in times of strife. It is love that sustains us, that gives us the strength to endure even the darkest of days. And though we may be separated by miles and oceans, our love remains as strong as ever.
As I write this letter, surrounded by the sounds of gunfire and the cries of my fellow soldiers, I find comfort in the knowledge that you are thinking of me, just as I am thinking of you. Your love is my guiding light,
This Christmas, as you gather with our loved ones know that you are in my thoughts and prayers. Though we may be apart in body, our spirits are forever intertwined, bound together by the enduring power of love.
Wishing you a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. May the coming year bring us closer to ending this war.
With all my love,
Jesse
March 19, 1944
My Dearest Love,
The world is now brighter than the sun because you're here, that is why I will remain giving you everything that I have.
I have been looking at the moon over and over again and wondered if you stare at it the same time as I do, please say yes. I think the battlefields are turning me into a poet, I would love some critique from a wordsmith such as yourself.
Everything here is frightening (redacted)
In light of the events I've just shared, I am looking forward more than ever to waking up and saying good morning to the sleepy woman lying next to me, that's you if you were curious. Here's to the future!
With all my love,
Jesse
August 8, 1944
My Dearest Love,
It is with a heavy heart that I write to you today, for the horrors of war have taken their toll on both body and soul. The past few months have been filled with unimaginable hardship as (Redacted)
The knowledge that our sacrifices are not in vain, that we are fighting for a better future for generations yet unborn keeps these weary bones standing straight.
But oh, how I long for the comforts of home, for the warmth of your embrace and the gentle touch of your hand. In the midst of so much death and destruction, it is your love that reminds me of all the beauty that still remains in the world.
I fear that I may never see you again, my love, that this cruel war may rob us of the future we had planned together. And yet I'm not ready to give up. For as long as I draw breath, I will continue to fight for a world where love triumphs over hate, where you and I can go back to life as it was.
All of the living are dead and I have noticed an oncoming silence.
With all my love,
Jesse
May 7, 1945
My Dearest Love,
I can scarcely believe it – the war is finally over, and victory belongs to the Allies!
We won! Or we think we did, a true win would likely have less bloodshed.
But amidst the celebrations and rejoicing, my thoughts turn to you. How unmanly to cry though I find myself doing so as I write this. The thought of being reunited with you fills my heart back up despite those who have emptied it, for you are my everything, my reason for living.
I cannot wait to return home to you, my love, to begin our lives anew in a world free from the shadow of war. Until then, know that you are always in my thoughts and prayers and that my love for you knows no bounds.
It looks like I'm coming home soon! I'm looking forward to some dance lessons with my one and only.
With all my love,
Jesse
Though you weren't the only one occupying the seemingly empty house, you lived with ghosts. Every step you took they lurked behind you as permanent reminders of everyone you've ever let down; months stretched into years and you clung onto each word in Jesse's letter like it was doctrine. The moment you received that final letter from Jesse you ran out into the streets and hugged the very first person you saw.
"Ellie now isn't a great time to be here," You tell her as she stands behind you in your vanity while you reapply your lipstick "Jesse's home today," You can't help the smile that stretches across your face. After years of hearing from your husband in nothing more than ink over paper, you would see him again and not just in the pictures that you had hung around every corner of the house.
"I'm here to celebrate," She says though she doesn't seem enthusiastic in the slightest. She wears black cigarette pants and a short-sleeved blouse tucked into them. You, on the other hand, had pressed your hair flat only to do it up in pin-curls, wearing your finest dress and most expensive jewelry for your husband's return home.
"If you're going to water down today, you could at the very least pretend to be happy." You were so ecstatic that you didn't even mind that Ellie had chosen today to bum around your house. For once it wouldn't be empty with nothing but your hollowed cries.
"I am happy," She answers "Are you going to wait here for him?"
You shake your head while you put in earrings that Jesse had gifted you on your third anniversary "I'm going down to the train station so I can hug him the second he sets foot back in Cape Cod."
"Nice," She nods "Have you thought about what you're going to do if it doesn't go as planned?"
You furrow your eyebrows, putting the other earring down on the vanity so you can turn back and look at her. "What do you know?" Your smile dropped at her words. Ellie isn't as unreadable as usual, she has traces of guilt across her features and that makes you all the more concerned. "Ellie, what happens?"
Before she can even open her mouth, you hear a firm knock at the front door. "That," Ellie says, you push yourself up from the vanity so fast the chair tips over. You snatch the other earring off of the vanity and awkwardly force it into your piercing as you rush down the hallway as fast as you can in your heels, clickity clack over the floorboards, Ellie trailing slowly behind you.
Your heart was pounding so fast that it reverberated in your head like an echo bouncing off the walls of your mind. A click. A slow creak and you open the door. Sun floods into the room and your heart pinches at the sight of the officer, clad in military excellence with baubles and an olive green jacket.
"Who are you?" Your stomach drops at the sight of the stranger who stands in the place where your husband should be.
The man stared at you, a certain solemn yet controlled grief lurking in his pale eyes. "Ma'am, I am Sergeant Reynolds of the 45th Infantry regiment. Are you Mrs. Midge Maisel, wife of Jesse Chang?"
Your throat went dry. "Yes," You curled your fingers inward, feeling nails push into the soft palm of your hand until the skin broke and you pushed even harder.
You didn't know who helped you sit down when you couldn't move. You only remembered fuzzy voices and the pace of your heart becoming too fast for your body to handle. There was not enough air in the world for you to swallow. The world felt so far away, as did anyone who tried to comfort you or explain the circumstances of Jesse's death.
"After Germany was concurred, he intercepted a grenade ambush from stragglers, saving the lives of many in his platoon."
Everything had stopped spinning, leaving you nauseous where Ellie sat beside you her face smeared in your vision blurry from tears.
Accept our sympathies
Funeral arrangements
The return of personal effects
Bits and pieces of Reynolds's words jumped out at you but you couldn't hear them. Restless nights for centuries were instead what clouded your mind. Outside you could hear families and friends celebrating the return of their loved ones, while you ushered the man out of your door screaming at him to leave. Music played, a celebration you would not take part in but watch bitterly from afar while you plan out the next life you will live.
Ellie begins to speak when the eery silence becomes unbearable "I know you don't want to hear it but this was inevitable-
"Leave," You mutter, resentment simmering inside of you.
"What-
"Leave," You repeat "You knew this was going to happen and you didn't tell me? You didn't stop it?"
"I can't turn the world upside down just to make you happy-
"Then why are you here?" You ask, rage carved in deep despite the tears across your face "I thought you were in love with me and that's why you won't leave me alone."
Her words fail her. She stares at you blankly, trying to scrounge up an answer that would put you both to rest. "We have a good life-
"Ellie, this is not a good life, for you maybe because you don't have to watch me suffer since you can keep skipping to the parts where I'm happy again," You correct her words, fat teardrops streaming down your face while you try to compose yourself the same way that you would a song or a speech. "I'm going to tell you now so you have to get it into your head- We are not friends, I certainly don't love you, I don't even like you and if I ever see your fucking face again, I'm bashing it in."
Bethel, America- August - 1969
If we were vampires and death was a joke, we'd still go out on the sidewalk and smoke.
They wandered through the makeshift villages that sprung up amidst the chaos, where hippies and freaks shared food and shelter, and strangers became friends in the blink of an eye. Your hand was clasped tightly with Dina's while your pupils went wide under the influence.
She refused to let go and lose you in the crowd of sweaty bodies, despite your states you understood well that you would easily lose each other in the sea of people at the music festival and wouldn't cross paths again till night time. She was wearing a turquoise bell-sleeved top paired with a skirt of all sorts of funky patterns and had on at least six beaded necklaces. You'd think that she'd be hard to miss but in this crowd, she blended in perfectly, looking a little bit like everyone else as everyone seemed to bleed together.
You were already high out of your mind the world warping around you, everything moved in frames like an old film. The ground was morphing and breathing under your feet, you giggled with each step, following behind Dina to find the rest of the little group you had come to Woodstock with.
The two of you were nowhere close to the stage, you had only partially come for the music. To you, it seemed like another historic event to add to your list. While most people sit on the ground swaying to Janis Joplin, your small circle of friends was dancing; it was something like them loosely waving their bodies around.
"No one asks me for dances because I only know how to flail!" Dina shouts, laughing so hard that she leans on you for support. You laugh too, head resting on top of Dina's. Her words weren't funny at all but everything seemed funny when fractals hoovered around your eyes. You lifted your head just slightly to see that same freckled face that had haunted you for centuries.
"Ellie!" You shouted, letting go of Dina's hand and making your way towards her, eyes half-lidded and hazy. Dina lulled in place watching you run away from her.
Ellie looked frightened that you had stuck true to your promise of bashing her face in the next time you saw her but instead, you wrapped your arms around her tightly and began to sway gingerly. It was just the beating of hearts like two drums in the rain.
"I'm sorry," You mutter into the crook of her neck. "I missed you, you should visit more."
Hesitantly, Ellie hugged you back, folding her arms around your torso and letting herself sink into you. In the past 2380 you had never hugged Ellie, you hardly touched her. She closed her eyes letting delusion flood her brain, thinking back to the first time she had seen you and then seventy years later when she realized you were immortal and every other timeline she had lived with you.
"I missed you too," She muttered, trying to ignore the fact that you were only saying this because you were high.
You pull back away from her and take her in, all dazed. You give her a boop on the nose with your index and erupt in giggles while Ellie furrows her eyebrows. An idea strikes you and it's apparent on your face as you light up, eyebrows shooting up. "You should come to tell my friends about all of your time-travelling stories!"
Ellie starts to shake her head but you pull her away despite that. She trails behind you as you refuse to let go of her hand, dragging her back to the grassy patch where your friends danced, some of them taking a quick break flat on their backs. "This is Ellie, we've been friends for a long time."
The group acknowledges her, mainly with waves and giggles but Jimmy goes the extra mile, standing up and extending a lanky arm "It's good to meet you."
"This is my best friend in the world forever!" You sling an arm around Dina, calling for Ellie's attention. Dina leaned into your touch, a drowsy smile on her face. "Ellie can actually travel through time."
You tell the group and they all look toward her, eyes squinted and bodies relaxed. Ellie didn't mind, knowing that they were too high to believe her by the time they sobered up even if they did she could go back and fix it. She nods along "It's true and she's immortal." Ellie points at you.
"No, you're not," Dina pokes you.
"I believe it," Weston speaks up from his spot on the ground where he lies with Patricia, her ash blonde hair strewn across the grass "I have never seen this woman so who am I to not believe her." As opposed to the majority of the group whose pupils were dilated from LSD, the whites of his eyes had turned red from the herbs he smoked.
Stevie is still dancing, her loose white dress rustly so slightly in the gentle breeze. Dawn dances with her, her hair the colour of fire tied neatly into two twin braids, she doesn't care about anything besides the way her feet carry her.
"One time I cut out my own heart and I ate it," You giggle, head resting on Dina. Her face was sunkissed, accentuating her freckles. She had let her dark hair run loose.
Jimmy looks at you, through his sunglasses. He has Ellie sitting next to him, his ebony skin a contrast to her paleness. "How does that work?"
"I slice my skin open and then I break my ribs, rip out my heart and shove it in my mouth.
He looks you up and down "Ribs look fine to me."
"I can show you," You look around to find something to cut you open, and you see a large rock with some smaller ones stacked around it. You walk over, all eyes on you as you put your wrist on top of the larger rock.
In your free hand, you pick up a smaller jagged rock that fits into the claw of your hand. You raise the jagged stone up and smash it into your wrist with little effort after the strength you have gathered over the years.
Dina lets out a scream watching your arm bend out of shape, wrist twisted so your hand doesn't sit where it's supposed to. You bring the rock up and slam it down again, making sure to dig into your skin, flesh mangled up on your arm and you brought it up to show everyone. Jimmy scrambled to his feet in a panic, racing through the crowd to find a medic.
"No, it's healing!" You shout after Jimmy. Weston looks at your mangled arm with wide eyes before buckling onto his knees and throwing up. Dawn and Stevie pause their dancing, Dawn froze in fear and Stevie backed away. "Do you see?" You shake your arm trying to show them that the wound was fixing itself.
-
"I can show you," You look around to find something to cut you open, and then your eyes settle on Ellie who shakes her head at you. You knew this meant she had seen the outcome and it wasn't good so you decide to drop the topic, plopping yourself onto the grass.
"Don't you wanna dance?" Dina asks.
You shake your head. You had reserved dancing for Jesse who you knew you wouldn't see again, not even in death since it would never come for you.
The day had eventually faded away into night, the concert still rang loud but you stayed far in the back of the crowd, lying on the ground with Ellie and looking at the stars. "I'm really sorry for everything you've been through," Ellie breaks the pure hum of music.
"I'm really sorry for everything you've seen," You answer. "I thought the war would finally be over," You murmur, thinking back to Jesse and the idea you conjured up of his corpse; you imagined him to be blown into a million pieces, a thought that never left your mind no matter how high you got or what you drank you knew it wouldn't end. You had thought World War two to be the last until the Vietnam War plagued the news and began to pluck men from neighbourhoods all around.
"It doesn't end, not ever," Ellie tells you.
"You should fix it."
"I've tried," There's a hint of sadness in her voice "If one ends, a new one will always spring up."
The two of you fall silent for a moment, heads side to side but you don't look at one another, only the stars. There's something so calming yet unnerving about the inky black sky; it reminded you of the nothingness that consumed you on the night you had given up your mortality.
"I don't want to live," The words fall from your lips so effortlessly. The LSD was wearing off, leaving you to be in control of your thoughts and your body all over again.
"I know."
"I've seen more men die than I can count."
"I know."
"I can't seem to hate you though."
Ellie turns her head to look at you and you do the same. Her green eyes are shining beneath the moonlight, just the shadow of her face illuminated. You lean forward just the slightest and connect your lips into a kiss, Ellie seems surprised but she doesn't fight it.
Once you pull away, you can only seem to make out one sentence "Don't leave this time."
Greenport Village, America - April - 2011
A handshake of carbon monoxide, no alarms and no surprises.
As the late afternoon sun cast its golden hues over the rolling hills of the Greenport, you made your way home planning a quick visit to the beach before doing so, arms laden with bags filled with groceries from the quaint village market, arms laden with provisions that you had no need for, save to fill the endless hours of your existence.
You walked with your timeless beauty that seemed to shimmer like a mirage in the fading light, you had called the Greenport Village home for six years now, finding a position there as a history teacher, your favourite job of the hundreds you had worked. Though the passing decades had left their mark on the landscape and its inhabitants, you remained unchanged, frozen in time like a moth preserved in amber.
You still struggled to come to terms with the fact that death would never take you though Ellie tried to make it easier. All these years and it never felt any better, it was still difficult to swallow the truth.
There was no solace to be found in the quiet beauty of the world around you. For two thousand years, you had walked the earth with Ellie, you, a solitary figure doomed to wander the endless expanse of time and her, the shadow that trailed behind and mocked your existence without intending to. You had seen kingdoms rise and fall, witnessed the birth and death of countless generations, and yet you remained unchanged, untouched by the ravages of time. All of the identification you had forged didn't make you into who you said you were.
Walking towards the beach, you could've sworn that you recognized every face you saw but that was just how long you had lived; everyone you've ever known slowly bleeding into everyone else like a suicide cleanup. You would outlive the kids playing on the seesaw and the toddlers scrambling around them, you would outlive their offspring too and every other generation after that.
Eventually, you found yourself in your usual spot in the park, an old beaten bench outlooking the sea where sunlight danced off of it like sparks.
After the seventies, you had accepted that the land was your only friend, ever-changing just like you, yet it remained miraculously intact. You had Ellie, on occasion, though calling her a friend would be a loose term. You weren't sure what she was but butterflies and maggots had a field in your intestines every time you thought of all of the things she knew about you and how little you know of her.
The lack of trust always lingered. You never knew if she had gone back in time and forced you to forget about something she said or something you asked. How many times had you begged her to go back to the beginning and let you ebb away with old age?
As you sat in silent contemplation, lost in the labyrinth of your centuries-old thoughts, a frail figure approached, leaning heavily on a gnarled cane. It was an old woman, her face etched with the lines of a life well-lived, her eyes twinkling with a spark of something you couldn't make out.
You shifted slightly on the bench, making room for her unexpected companion. The old woman, her steps slow and deliberate, lowered herself onto the seat beside you, exhaling a contented breath as she settled into place.
For a long moment, you sat in companionable silence, each lost in your own reverie. "You must be an old soul," The woman next to you speaks, covered in sunspots and wrinkles, grey and white streaks all through her black hair. "When you're old all you want to do is sit and stare at the scenery."
"Yeah," You give her a tight-lipped smile "I'm mature at heart."
The woman furrows her eyebrows for a moment, deep in thought as her brown eyes rake over every single one of your features, studying you like scripture. "I'm sorry," She shakes her head "You just look like a girl I used to know."
"Really?" You ask and then it strikes you like lightning. Despite the withering of her face, it's the same bump of her nose, the freckles across her skin, the curve of her jaw, it was your Dina.
She waves it off "She's long gone by now, haven't heard from her in years." Dina looks off to the ocean, the screech of kids is far off in the distance. Her face drops just the slightest at the mention of this.
"Who was she?" You press, just wanting to hear Dina's voice after decades of replaying memories and performing autopsies on expired conversations like you could somehow revive them and the people who came with.
"Oh, um," Dina hadn't expected you to carry on the conversation, people had stopped caring about what she had to say when time hit her and dragged her skin down. "A friend of mine, way back before you were born. If you could see her, gosh," Dina mutters, salt and pepper hair braided down her back "You could've been her twin."
Your heart was slamming against your ribcage like it wanted to be set free. "Uh, I'm sorry if this seems odd," You say with a shakey breath "But could you just keep talking? I don't want to have to think right now."
Her eyebrows knit together just the slightest, concern growing with your words "About what?"
"Just," You shrug "Reminisce maybe," Nearby there were birds on a wire chirping, it felt like every one of them was talking to you, beedy eyes prying into your veins "I just like stories."
Dina slips a small smile, her teeth not quite as white as they used to be but her smile holds all of the comforts nonetheless "My stories are no good, I'm sure you'll have better ones when you're my age."
You shake your head on impulse, grasping the pieces of her that you still held close to your ancient heart. "No, I don't think I'll get there," You aren't trying to ramble yet here you are, scrambling to reconnect the two of you like this is a film that ends well.
Her smile falters, trying to comprehend the odd woman beside her, beginning to contemplate that you're high on something, suspicion growing more solid with each shake of your hands and blink of your watery eyes. "Are you alright?" She lowers her voice.
"Yup," You nod, already feeling her slip through the space between your fingers all over again like she had years prior. At this point in your life, you should've been a better liar but you just sat there, tears rolling down silently while you forced your teeth to bear a smile. You wanted to tell her how nice it was to see her and remind her of all of the days and nights alike you had wasted on each other.
It was easy to see how she didn't believe you, from your trembling hands gripping your thighs in an attempt to steady them to the manufactured smile you wore on your face, sadness seeping from your pores. Unlike Dina, you felt that age had made you no wiser. Years you spent studying and chasing careers just to end up faking death and restarting all over again from scraps, losing a little piece of yourself every time.
She places one of her calloused and withered hands over yours where it grasps to the fabric over your thighs. She meets your gaze "Whatever it is, you'll be okay."
Something inside you shifts, then cracks, and crumbles completely. The agonizing pain accumulated by thousands of years spilled out of you in the form of tears as salty as the ocean spray that simmered on your skin. It was like every awful thing you had ever felt was going to burst through the gaps of your teeth.
There was entirely too much going on in your head when you inched forward and wrapped your arms around Dina, chin resting on her neck. It took a minute but you felt her bony hands rest on your back while she returned the gesture, albeit confused.
You were glad you got to see her again. Every time someone passes through your life you think of all of the things you would do to speak to them one more time. You had finally been given a blessing, something that balanced out the bitterness of eternity. "I'm sorry, Dina."
The second you spoke you regretted it. With what little grace you have left you manage to pry yourself up, sheepishly standing to your feet and trying not to wobble like a colt. Dina's bygone face held more confusion than ever, mouth slightly ajar as she watched you with wide eyes like a doe. "Honey, I think you have the wrong person."
Your feet move faster than your head, not leaving Dina behind a second time but a complete stranger. You had only been sick with nostolgia. Panic shot through your veins like box cutters trying to find their way to your heart, which they surely would.
Your day's shopping had been left behind at the bench along with all of the dreams you once etched into indigo skies and sandy shores, now all they did was rot at your feet, at least they had the pleasure of aging.
The feeling of screaming was creeping up your body in shivers, you hugged yourself all the way home, swivelling your head every minute to be sure that ghosts weren't following you but they always had a way of sneaking up on you.
What purpose did you serve? Anything mildly important you had ever done was lost to time, gone, forgotten. You didn't get the luxury of having children with the one you love, you didn't even have anyone to love. You drag your mud-covered heels all the way up the steps of your stoop slamming the door behind you.
With trembling hands and a mind consumed by anguish, you began to tear through her home with frenzied desperation, your movements fueled by a maelstrom of emotions too powerful to contain, the urge-no, the need to die. You ripped books from their shelves, their pages fluttering like wounded birds as they scattered across the floor in a flurry. You overturned furniture with reckless abandon, the sound of splintering wood and shattering glass echoing through the empty rooms like a orchestra of destruction.
You open your cabinets, dragging your hands behind all of the ceramic and glass, pushing it to the ground and watching them shatter at your feet. What need did you have for a fridge full of food when you don't have to eat? Or a feathered bed when you don't need to sleep, you can't even bring yourself to sleep these days.
Each crash and thud seemed to reverberate through your empty, a haunting reminder of the pain and turmoil that threatened to consume her from within. Memories, once cherished and dear, now lay shattered and broken like all of the ambition you should have forgotten, fragments of an overwhelming life that had slipped through your fingers like grains of sand.
With a guttural cry of anguish, you sank to your knees amidst the wreckage, body racked with sobs that seemed to tear at your very core. You clutched at your hair in despair, her fingers intertwined in the tangled strands like thorns in a bed of roses.
Your eyes snagged on the cabinet below your sink. You crawl over to it, shards of shattered glassware sticks into the soft palms of your hands, porcelain china cutting up your knees. It didn't even feel like anything, you just wanted to feel something.
You pull the cabinet open pushing the other cleaning supplies aside and grabbing the ammonia and bleach. Twisting the caps of and discarding them among the wreckage, you take a deep breath before raisng the bottle of bleach to your lips and drinking, the harsh and ancrid taste making you cringe but you kept swallowing until you could feel a burning in your throat, taking a quick shallow breath and then doing the same with the ammonia, tears brimming your eyes and hitting the few beams of sunlight that struck through your closed curtains like the glimmer from the ocean.
God, it tasted rancid but for a moment, a brief one it had felt like death or something similar. Mouth feeling like plastic throat burnt to rubber you drank until both bottles were empty. You pressed yourself as flat as you could on the floor, soaking in the last moments of feeling as your insides contorted before stillness.
All of the cells you killed were fixing themselves up and after a minute, you felt numb like you tended to. You hiccup, body jerking upwards just the slightest, a spat of vomit now dribbling at you chin.
Deep inside of you, you knew Ellie would be back to fix your wreckage and leave you oblivious to the destruction you not only caused but craved. She would just keep going back until you help something on the spectrum of happy.
Define happy.
Smiling?
Joking?
Laughing?
Not digging through the dictionary to find new ways to try to kill yourself?
That last one sounds right.
"Ellie, I can't do this anymore!" You screeched hoarsely to the empty room, despite the freckled girl being nowhere in sight. "Can you please let me die now!"
You call for her until your throat is as dry as sandpaper, hollow words scraping themselves dry before they can leave your mouth. Your voice is reduced to a pathetic rasp and you pray that she regrets stealing blood from your veins.
"Please!" You scream, fingers gripping onto the marble counter to haul yourself up. You stumble for a moment as you adjust to the jagged shards you stand on. "I know we've done this before but you'll just lie and make me sound like I'm fucking crazy," A sob falls from your mouth like a howl.
You pull a long kitchen knife from the knife block, and watch the silver blade glimmer, a warped reflection of yourself staring back at you. With little hesitation, you plummet it into your stomach, again and again until your midriff is a mangled fleshy mess. Blood pooling out of you like cherry wine. Nothing new.
"Asshole!" You cry out "I know you're hiding around here somewhere!" Your mind immediately went to how many times this situation had played out, on this same day. Maybe you had done something worse.
Lungs burning from screaming, cries throbbing inside of your throat, you have one last idea that had to have happened before. "Can you please stop?"
You turn to face the voice, hair matted, clothes torn and bloody, vomit from makeshift mustard gas sliding down your chin to your neck. You drop the knife, it clatters against the tiles "No," You approach her, each step more certain than the last. "You need to stop, this isn't right."
"I know," She says, face stone-cold a hint of irritation in her tone. She's back in her grey hoodie and jeans, finally, she fits into the time period.
"If you know then why have I been pleading with you to go back to the start and stop me from dying in the first place and making that deal?" You're inches away from her, voice carrying challenge if not bitterness. "Like I've asked you over and over again." Your voice is unsteady like it's being crushed beneath the weight of the world.
"Because I love you," She says, raising one hand to cup your face.
If it were for the chemicals flattering through the air making you nauseous, this act alone almost brought you to your knees with sickness. You don't bother to move her hand though, just shuddering under the touch. "Do you really?"
She nods, gaze softening "Yes."
"Then you'll go back and you'll fix all of this right?"
Her hand falls from its resting spot on your face. "You want to forget?"
"No, I want to die." Silence falls between you. Each rise and fall of your chest shaky and ragged "You keep forgetting that I'm a person, I'm not a concept you've curated in your head." It was hard to find yourself being gentle to her. It was hard to feel bad for her in general with how she treated your entire being as something for her to tune in and out of as she pleased.
Ellie takes a breath in, eyes unwavering from yours "Okay."
"Okay?" You don't believe her "You'll fix this and you'll leave me alone and let me live a regular life without knowing you?" You breathe the moment in, the hopes that this will be over soon. The taste of heartache and war could be washed away from your mouth, you wouldn't meet Joel and watch his daughter die in front of him or meet Jesse and fall in love. The humiliation to be made of rotting flesh then it hits you- how many times have you had this conversation? "I want you to promise-
Athens, Greece- October- 412 BC
I prayed for your breath right here in the shallows.
Rain splashes against the skin of your face in lands of ancient Greece, where the winds themselves whispered stories of gods and heroes, neither of which you were. You were nothing more than a frightened woman running away from an unforgiving husband in the dead of night where your quickened heartbeat falls in rhythm to the ocean which is almost as angry as the storm that roars above.
Carefully you dodge the jagged rocks sticking out from the sand, you had memorized each and every one after days of burning your skin on the shores. Water surged against the rocks near your feet, white froth sizzling in the waves retreating like it was trying to drag you in and take you for its own.
Your heavy breathing was devoured by the heavy rain and cracks of lighting, the sounds of thunder so deep it was like Zeus himself was stomping in the clouds. Despite the night being dark you trusted the moonlight that glimmered off of the ocean to guide you. You have nothing more than the soaking wet clothes on your back, jewelry to sell, and the drachmas you had stolen from your husband tucked away safely in a wool tagari purse.
This time around, Ellie doesn't intervene. She watched you, panic-stricken, fumble over wet sand and glide past slick rocks. Trying to outrun your fears of wasting your life.
As you reached the edge of a rocky outcrop, your leather sandal caught on a slick stone, sending you tumbling to the ground. With a sickening thud, your head struck against the unforgiving rock, and the world around you spun into darkness.
You were dead. Body limp on the plethora of rocks, the tide slowly lulling over your body until Ellie kneeled down next to your body and gingerly guided it into the ocean for it to take. The blood from the wound in the back of your head is sucked away into the sand. She watched your corpse drift out and get pulled down, all she needed was another lifetime with you. You didn't know how miserable you were with her anyway. 
This is not a story about love.
A/N: guys I’m breaking hiatus to post this bc I realised it’s been hanging in my drafts for a century (century haha) Anyways I actually hate this but it felt too long to scrap so thanks for reading.
Perm tag list: @ellslvr @gold-dustwomxn @bready101 @whenlostinthedarkness @veeveeisgay @vqxen
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darthannie · 8 months
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Hi! Can I request Tommy Shelby who loves to spoil his gf and she has a hard time accepting it all but he reassures her in a very loving and protective way (hope you get what I mean lol) thank you! :')
a/n: This is short but I hope I did your idea justice! I just want to see him smile 😭
grand gestures
Thomas Shelby x f!reader
Warnings: Tommy being happy and in love, Tommy’s love language is gift-giving I don’t make the rules, kissing
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You had been seeing Thomas Shelby for a while now and he was absolutely smitten. You have never met a man who doted on you as much as he did. Under his hardened exterior was a man longing to love and be loved.
On a particularly cold evening, you arrived home to a surprise. On your bed lay a beautiful new coat you had seen in the shops while out with Tommy. You must have stared at it in the window a little too long. He took that as a sign that you wanted it. You hadn’t even thought to go in and check the price tag, let alone purchase it. 
Tommy knew you weren’t used to receiving many gifts so he made it his personal mission to make you comfortable with it. He’d started with a gold bracelet. 
You had gasped when he took it out of the small box. “Tommy, you can’t. This is too much.”
“It’s not. Nothing is too much when it comes to you.” It was almost threatening. It sounded like a warning when he said it. It was foolish to underestimate how much you meant to him.
After the bracelet, he began giving you gifts periodically, even things you didn’t need or want. It was difficult for you to understand why he even bothered to give you all those things. Any other woman would welcome new dresses and jewels with open arms. Instead, you just felt like you didn’t deserve it. 
You stared at the coat on your bed. Its fur collar was sure to keep you warm, you thought. The gold buttons going down one side shone in the dim light of your bedroom. You held it up and gawked at it. You rubbed your face into the fur and smiled. You didn’t notice, but Tommy was standing in the doorway. 
“Why don’t you try it on?” His voice made you jump and you dropped the coat, putting your hands over your heart.
“Jesus, Tommy!” You sighed and laughed. He had been making a habit of being at your home before you were. He usually made himself known somehow, but tonight he decided to be a bit of a prankster. 
“Sorry, love, couldn’t help it.” He chuckled, walked towards you, and pulled you in for a kiss. He always kissed you like it was the last time he would be able to. 
He pulled away, “Do you like it?”
“I love it, Tommy, but” you looked down at the item of clothing, “you really didn’t have to. Really, you never have to.” You looked back at him and his arms were crossed, his head cocked to the right. He sighed and put his hands on your arms, caressing them. 
Looking into your eyes he asked, “Do you love me?”
You replied slightly irritated “I’ve never loved a man more, Tommy, and you know that. I just- I’m not used to you spoiling me like this.”
“If you’re gonna be my girl, you gonna have to get used to it, love. Now, are you my girl?” He was deadly serious. He was never controlling, but you were his and his alone. He wanted to make sure you understood that.
You looked him in the eye. “Yes. I am.”
His hands held your waist as he pulled you in closer. He kissed you passionately. A small moan escaped. It was intoxicating. After a few moments, you pulled away for air. He put his forehead against yours and gave you a chaste kiss. 
“You are worth more than anything I could ever give you. I wish I could give you the world,” he smirked, “the coat is the best I can do for now.”
You smiled softly at him. It would take some more work on your part but you knew that he did it because he cared.
“Thank you, Tommy. I love you.” You gave him a quick kiss. 
He pulled away with a smile and said, “I love you, too.”
He reached over to your bed and grabbed the new coat, holding it up for you. You quickly took off your old one and he helped you put your arms through the sleeves of the new one. The inside of the coat felt just as luxurious as the exterior. The fur brushing your neck was comforting and warmed your skin. You stood in front of a full-length mirror and took in your reflection. Tommy stood behind you and wrapped his arms around your body, holding you flush against him. You turned your head to make eye contact with him.
He whispered, “You look beautiful, my love.”
You had hearts in your eyes, “You make me beautiful, Tommy.”
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ax-y10 · 5 months
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oblivious
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in which; your worry wart of a bestfriend isn't aware of himself
requested by anonymous; a cappuccino order of "'you’re treating me a lot more differently these days, you know?' 'oh? am i? well, i haven’t really noticed.'” with tommy as character b, if you can?
about; nervousness, worrying, tommy being unaware, fluff, embarrassing situations, tommy being tommy
word count; 336
celebrate here;
"tommy. tommy, c'mere. tommy!" you whispered to your bestfriend. it was third period, and he was entranced in his digital technologies assessment. you couldn't blame the boy though, he loved anything to do with computers or technology.
"tommy! listen to me!" you whined. you didn't want his attention, you needed it.
"what do you want, y/n? can't you see i'm busy?" he joked, putting his pencil in his book and turning to face you. from another person's view, it probably looked like you were avoiding your work - you definitely were - but you were bringing him to your house this afternoon to work on it.
you made jokes, small talk and you completely disregarded your class until the teacher scolded you both.
---
you'd let tommy into your house about an hour ago, ignoring the weird looks from your parents. now, you were both sat on your bed, the assessment having been completed. more jokes were thrown around and you'd ended up sprawled over your chair, stuck in a fit of giggles at some point.
it feel silent over the both of you, and the was an awkward tension in the air. it was almost as if you both needed to let something off your chest but you couldn't bring yourselves to do it.
"you're treating me a lot differently these days, you know?" you spoke into the silence, gaining tommy's attention. his cheeks flushed, and he hid his face in his hoodie. it was really comical to see your - tall - bestfriend flustered.
"oh? am i? well, i haven't really noticed," poking his face out from his hoodie, he laughs at your shocked expression.
was he being serious?
"tommy. tell me you're not being serious."
"oh, i am. i never noticed," he laughed, and your face lifted. he felt the same as you, and now you could exist peacefully.
that night, tommy messaged his mum saying he would be back in the morning. he may or may have not had you asleep on his shoulder all night...
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peakyscillian · 1 year
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Under The Mistletoe | Modern!Tommy
Congratulations K! @runnning-outof-time
This is part of K's 2.5k challenge - The bingo squares I picked are under the cut!
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Under The Mistletoe.
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Masterlist | K's Challenge.
Under The Mistletoe
Arrow House was packed with anyone who knew the Shelby family, by the time you had arrived, pulling the faux fur shawl round your shoulders tighter as you made your way up the drive from your taxi.
You always cursed Tommy for having gravel whenever you ended up here in high heels, it was a mission to get to the house.
Tommy was stood by the fireplace as you entered the main dining room, a glass of whiskey in his hand, having a conversation with Ada, his gaze drifted to you as you entered.
The figure hugging dark blue dress complimented you so well, Tommy couldn't tear his eyes away, not noticing Ada leave him to greet you.
Ada had you in a tight hug as you said hello, you gave her a smile "how are you doing?" You asked gently, it was the first Christmas without Polly, everything still felt so raw.
"Good, I'm good" Ada nodded, "It's just strange" she added.
You nodded, everything seemed a little less bright without her around, Tommy was walking over as you spoke.
"Hello beautiful" he smiled, wrapping his arms around you for a hug, you loved how he always smelt like deep aftershave, smoke and a hint of whiskey.
You were just friends, you told yourself as you stepped out of his hug,"Lets get you a drink" he smiled, Ada nodded as she left you too it.
Tommy's hand was resting on your lower back, guiding you through the crowd "Gin?" Tommy asked, flashing a bottle of the family gin in front of you.
"Please" you smiled, reaching over for a glass. Tommy's hand slipped onto your waist "You look beautiful, can't stop staring" he whispered in your ear.
You looked up at him, a slight frown on your face trying to figure out if he was trying to joke with you, you took the glass from him fingers brushing over his, you took a slow sip "I wasn't sure about the dress" you finally spoke.
"It's perfect on you" Tommy smiled, brushing a stray curl behind your ear, you bit your lip "Tom, I -" "Dad!Dad" Charlie's voice stopped you before you could say anything else, Tommy turned to his son "What is it?" he smiled, you took a few more sips of your drink.
"Uncle Arthur helped me put the mistletoe up in the hall" Charlie took his hand, "Come look, Y/N come too please" he took your hand as well trying to drag you both to the hall.
Tommy turned to you, a smile on his face "Sorry" he mouthed you shook your head, you really didn't mind.
"Look up there" he pointed to the white berries and greenery hanging from the beam in the entrance hall, you knelt down to his level "Do you know what happens under the mistletoe?" you asked as he put his arm around your shoulders.
"No, what?" his eyes were shining in excitement "People kiss" you laughed pressing your lips to his cheek, he squealed in delight pressing his lips on your cheek.
"Dad, you should kiss y/n" he declared "we're just friends, Charlie" Tommy spoke, as you stood up, "Friends can kiss" Charlie shrugged before taking off down the hall.
Tommy smirked at you, eyes darting up to the mistletoe "We could definitely just have a peck" he shrugged, taking your hand.
"A friendly peck, would be rude not too" you suggested, linking your fingers with his "Just as friends" Tommy laughed, he pulled you into him.
You were both watching each other, eyes darting around each others faces, Tommy licked at his lips his hand moving up to cup at the back of your neck, you nodded slowly both of you moving towards each other.
Your arms wrapped round his neck, leaning your body into him as your lips pressed together a slow kiss, all the butterflies erupting in your stomach, he was kissing you finally.
Tommy pulled away first, taking in a deep breath forehead against yours "Merry Christmas, Y/N" he smiled nose nudging against yours, before he was kissing you again.
-
@cillmequick @gypsy-girl-08 @runnning-outof-time @look-at-the-soul @heidimoreton @queenshelby @being-worthy @missymurphy1985 @cloudofdisney @elenavampire21 @datewithgianni @magicalpieex @janelongxox @uchihacumdump @radioheadgirl @vhscillian @alreadybroken-ts @anotherhitandrun @inkandpen22 @pocket-of-possibilities @lovemissyhoneybee @ysmmsy @otterly-fey @peaky-cillian @lyarr24 @blyanyan @thomasshelbee @seleneshelby @forgottenpeakywriter @allie131313 @flyingjosephine-blog @camilleholland89 @chrisevansangel @lostgirl219 @zablife @lespendy @gotohellandbackforyou
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limerence4u · 9 months
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gabriel luna is so boyfriend coded <3
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look-at-the-soul · 2 months
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Every little thing you do- Master list
Tommy Shelby x reader (mini series)
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Summary: Y/N has been Tommy’s best friend since childhood. She had always been there for him when he needed her the most. Now as the Shelby family are in a better position, Y/N will need Tommy’s support when something she didn’t expect happens.
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Prologue
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
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Special thanks to @justrainandcoffee for the gorgeous moodboard and @lyarr24 for sending the request in and boosting my inspiration ✨
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this must’ve took forever, but it’s really well done.
luv edits.
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