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pacifymebby · 8 months

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Cinnamon Girl / Bonnie Gold

Okay so this is a little one shot I wrote for @jomarch-wannabe and her follower celebration writing challenge!!!! Congratulations lovely, thank u for being such a bright little light in our writing community and also for being such a lovely friend to me!!! You were one of the first people to message me about my work and to become my friend on here <3 <3 <3

TW: cheating and vague reference to domestic violence. I went for my classics, hurt comfort and bonnie gold hehe.

🌜🍀🌛 🌜🍀🌛

You were kissing, it was secret, early evening. He held your cheek in the cupped palm of his hand and as his tongue pushed against yours he could taste cinnamon between your teeth.

You'd snuck away from your work mending holes in trousers and socks with the other girls your age to meet Bonnie in the woodlands when he was returning from his own work in the city. You didn't really know what it was the older lad did these days, it wasn't like your families to spend too long in the city doing business with gorjas and when he came home covered in scrapes and bruises, sometimes worse, you couldn't help but worry that he was getting himself involved in more than just a couple of boxing matches and a little horse trading.

Still, you didn't ask questions. That was part of the deal you shared. This unspoken pact, a set of rules which all tied into this secret love you shared. If you didn't ask questions about the city, Bonnie wouldn't ask you any difficult questions either.

Like when you were going to leave your boyfriend.

Or what you were doing sneaking around with him when you already had a man who loved you. A man who had recently begun hovering around you, standing over you like a shadow whenever he so much as caught you looking at Bonnie across the fire in the evenings.

No, it was better not to ask questions. Lately you'd developed an almost obsessive superstition over your secrets, convinced that the only reason you still had this slither of happiness to hold onto was that you were good at keeping secrets. That if either of you ever broke your unspoken rule and asked a difficult question of the other it would all fall apart. You would be discovered holding hands by one of the girls. Your mother would catch you kissing in the shade of the willow when she was walking with your younger brothers and sisters down by the river. Your father would follow you when you snuck out of the vardo in the early morning to meet Bonnie down where the wild herbs grew.

Someone would find you out. Something terrible would happen and you would lose everything you loved.

It was only a shame then that Bonnie didn't agree. A shame that the longer this unaddressed silence dragged on between you the further from you he felt. The more concerned he grew when you flinched away from his touch or got that fearful look in your eyes when you saw him with bruised and bloodied knuckles after a fight. When he found a new bruise on your wrist or arm, one which looked eerily like the bruises he returned with when he'd been in the ring.

No, the only reason Bonnie hadn't asked you any difficult questions yet was that he didn't know which difficult question to start with. He had a feeling you were keeping so many dark secrets hidden away behind those sad eyes, so many more than he wanted to imagine.

But the longer he stayed quiet, the longer he kept his questions swallowed down, the more scared of your answers he became and the further away from him you drifted. If things carried on like this one of these days you were going to flinch away from his kiss and never return to him. He felt as though you were slipping through his fingers and he'd never forgive himself if he let you get lost.

So that morning he'd made a vow to himself, a vow of honesty. He was going to tell you the truth about his work and then he was going to ask you to be just as honest with him. He couldn't keep watching you drift downstream further and further from his reach. So he was going to be honest, he was going to throw you a bit of driftwood truth to hold onto.

Only its easier to make vows to yourself in the hope of the morning, than it is to keep them in the evening when the sun is setting and your time is running out.

So you were kissing. He held your face in both hands, calloused palms holding you firm but gentle, as though you were the most precious girl in the world. Because to him you were.

He'd brought you a cinnamon bun back from the city as a gift and the two of you had shared it like children, sitting side by side under the willow tree that had become your favourite hiding place recently. You'd had a little blob of icing on your chin and he'd felt king of the whole world - never mind the boxing ring - when he'd brushed it up with his thumb and you'd sucked it clean, shyly taking his thumb between your lips and swirling your tongue around the sweet icing.

When you'd looked up you'd blushed to see him smiling at you and he'd cupped your cheek with his hand and leant in for a kiss you'd not pulled away from since. The two of you leaning further into one another, your hands gripping the collar of his shirt and then the hair at the back of his neck. His body was moving with yours, neither of you able to get as close to the other as you'd have liked, even when your teeth met his, clumsy and teenage, the kind of kiss of naive, first loves. And neither of you were naive. You were beginning to think that perhaps you were really in love for the first time. That is to say, in real love for the first time.

With your eyes shut, your nose pressed against his, his fingers gripping your cheeks as he held you close, you felt all thoughts blur, your mind soft white and daydreamy. It was bliss, the most comfortable you'd ever felt, your legs only untangling with his so that you could wrap them around his waist, so that he could lay your head down gently on the moss as he hovered above you on the downy woodland floor.

You opened your eyes for a moment, just to catch a glimpse of him, just to smile at the sight of his.

And then it happened again. His teeth grazed your bottom lip dragging you in closer to him, drawing a little whimper of pleasure from you, your desire running away with you for a second, snapping you out of the pleasant haze. Reminding you who you were and what would happen if the man you belonged to ever found out about this. The man your heart belonged to.

You went stiff in his arms, pulling away from him and pushing him away. Your lips left his and clamped tight shut, your eyes no longer flowing with love but with something like regret, something distant and sad and no matter how many times Bonnie tried to coax your gaze back to his, you wouldn't look him in the eyes.

So he fell away from you and leant against the thick roots of the willow, his head resting on one beside you which jutted out of the ground. You pulled your knees up to your chest and looked away from him, out at the river, the little drops of rain which disturbed the surface. His dark curls fell into his eyes as he pushed himself up on his elbows and looked up at you, silently willing you to turn around, to look at him and realise how desperate he was beginning to get.

"Alright," he said with a sigh, looking up at you, watching your hair move like a sigh around your shoulders when the breeze stirred between you. "Alright little dove this has gone on long enough," he said, his voice dark and tired but still gentle. It was that soft tone, almost sad, that made you turn around. You were trying to feign confusion, brows knitted, and because he could tell that things were pretty delicate, hanging by a thread, he let you get away with it. Pretended to believe in your feigned naivety.

"Don't like keeping secrets from you," he said with a small shrug, his own expression so serious then, so shadowed.

You remained quiet, your heartbeat quivering with anxiety as you chewed your bottom lip and tried to concentrate on breathing steady. On not crying. This was it, you could tell. He was going to ask you something difficult. You were going to lose him.

"The work I've been doin in the city..."

"Bonnie you don't have to tell me that," you said quickly, one last attempt at saving the two of you.

"I'm not tellin you cause I think I have to love," he said with a little chuckle laced with despair, "I'm tellin you cause I want to!' He said. His own final attempt at saving the two of you.

"But..."

"No," he said sitting up, one hand leant on in the dirt, the other daring to reach for yours which was lingering by your nervous mouth. "I don't like keepin secrets from you..." He said again, his voice lower, quieter, softer than it had been the last time he'd said those words to you. His eyes held yours and you were scared to find you couldn't look away, didn't want to tear yours from his.

"The work I've been doin in the city with me da, it's dangerous... Been workin for a gang dove, they're called the Peaky blinders they're..."

"Fuck Bonnie they're...they're..." You lost your words, the words which sprung to mind and set your heart beating too hard too fast in your chest too cruel for you to say out loud. Bonnie smirked bitterly.

"Criminals, thieves...murderers? Believe me I know dove... I ain't exactly proud of it y'know? I know it ain't right trust me... it's just the only way..." He said hollowing his cheek as he turned away and looked up at the trees mournfully, when he looked back at you you couldn't find any words for him. You were quickly realising now that you didn't know how to be honest with him - the most honest lad in the world.

"Ain't anythin else I can do..." He said looking at you with those dark and serious eyes, looking as though he were begging your forgiveness. Your mistake was in thinking he was asking your forgiveness for working with Birminghams most notorious criminals and not for what he was about to say to you...

"Bit like this..."

"What?" Your voice hardly sounded, the word lost to the space between you. But Bonnie could read your lips. Could see them trembling.

"This..." He said pointing his finger down into the dirt between the two of you. For a second he watched the soil he displaced and then he looked up at you. This time he didn't look away. "Me and you."

"Bon..." You started to say, a choked sob in your throat, your breath caught on the sorrowful lump. Even if he hadn't interrupted you you wouldn't have been able to speak.

"No," he said sitting forward a little, eyes locked with yours, voice still ever so gentle, so laden with care, "no don't say anythin little dove, not if you're gonna deny it... This between me an you you know it ain't right, you're an honest girl y/n I know you are so you know this ain't right, all this sneakin around, all these secrets we're keepin... I don't like it and neither do you I know you don't but... How can you be honest with everyone else if you ain't even honest with me..." he trailed off. He didn't look bitter, didn't look as though he were angry with you but his words had been. Bitter, angry. The kind of words which almost always lead to goodbye.

You tried hard to fight back a sob, your eyes brimming with tears you were determined not to cry. You opened your mouth to speak but when a sob escaped you clasped your hand to your mouth starring back at Bonnie in hurt and in shock.

He looked back, his own lips pressed tightly together, his own eyes a little watery, a little too emotional.

"Why are we doin this dove?" He asked, "you ain't engaged to him, you ain't even promised to him... You could leave him, could be with me the way two people are meant to be together..."

His eyes held something like hope holding on by a very thin thread.

You just shook your head. Longed to tell him how much you wished he was right. How desperately you wished you could just leave.

"Why?" He asked, his voice raised, teeth gritted in frustration for a moment before he realised and settled back down, forced himself to relax. "Why dove?" He asked softer then, those dark eyes a swell of emotion, troubled water eyes watching you, searching yours desperately for the truth.

You shook your head and placed your hands down in the dirt, fingers spread in the soil as you moved to push yourself up on your shaking legs. You were going to runaway again, you were going to put that final distance between you so that you would never be able to find your way back to one another.

Bonnie felt his chest tighten as you wobbled, his hand shooting out to rest on top of yours, his gaze holding yours imploring you to stay still. To sit back down in the dirt. You hesitated, couldn't drag your eyes from his. Couldn't ignore how much you wanted to tell him everything.

"Don't do that..." He warned, "don't go little dove, I didn't start this to lose you so don't runaway from me now..."

You bit your lip, pressed your palm to your eye to try and catch your tears unable now to stop them falling thick and fast.

"There's..." you started voice catching on a sob which took over and left you shaking your head. It was no good, you couldn't tell him...

"What love?"

"There's..." Again your voice caught in your throat, your heart racing, your mind racing too.

There's things I'd like to say to you but I'll just let you live...

That was what you wanted to say to him, that was what you wanted to tell him so that he'd give in, let you go. Go and find himself a good girl, a happy girl who didn't keep so many troublesome secrets.

But you couldn't bring yourself to say it, couldn't bring yourself to push him away because you loved him. Because his hand resting on your hand in the dirt was the only thing keeping you grounded. He was the only person who could look you in the eyes and see past all the lies, all the faked smiles.

You thought you'd been doing so well to keep your secrets for so long and yet now here you were, realising that Bonnie Gold had known all along. Seen through your little act. That he was the only one who really saw you at all.

"There's..." You tried again but you couldn't find the words and bonnie was beginning to lose hope. You were so close to him, so close to telling him the truth. He couldn't let you go now.

"C'mon little dove, talk to me sweetheart... I know you're trying to hide from me y/n, can feel it, you're always tryna keep me at arms length, always holdin somet back... But I don't wanna love you like that..."

He trailed off again, watched as you crumpled before him, your knees digging into the dirt as you dropped back to the ground, no longer hovering between staying or running away.

You sat lookin down at your skirts all covered in dirt. Felt helpless. Sniffled and took a breath, knowing that you'd lose him forever if you didn't speak now.

"There's things I wanna say to you Bonnie..." You said, shaking your head, giving up. A flash of desperation shooting through your body. A flash of desperation he saw in your eyes when you snatched his hands up out of the soil and placed them to your cheeks, held them there a little too tightly for a little too long without saying a word.

All Bonnie could do was look back at you a little hesitant, a little nervous. You were shaking, your hands clutching his, pressing his to your flushed cheeks. Your tears gathered at his fingertips.

"When you hold me like this..." You started, "you're... You're always so..." You trailed off again, a lump in your throat as you thought of the man you had at home. The one you should have been with. The one you feared with all your heart.

You were scaring him but Bonnie didn't say a word. Just slipped one hand free from beneath yours,pressed your own palm to your cheek, stroking his fingers gently over your knuckles.

"You hold me without hurting me..." You confessed, your chest squeezing so tight that for a moment you couldn't breath and then, as the words left your lips you felt the air return to you, the squeeze released, the weight on your shoulders lift.

"You're the first who ever did..."

For a moment then there was quiet, just your hand holding his against your flushed cheeks, his hand holding yours there too. The two of you looking back at one another ragged and emotional. His heart aching just as yours had been aching now for so long because he finally understood you.

There were tears in his eyes and he tried to blink them away. His hand which was resting on top of yours squeezing you for a second, not to remind himself that you were still there but to prove to you that he was. Still there.

He drew in a breath, sharper than he'd have liked, shakier than he'd have liked. It hurt to look at you. Hurt to look and to see you in such obvious pain. The anguish in your eyes riddling him with his own.

"Fuck," he smirked sadly, his voice a little edgy, his eyes hardening a little, moody and stubborn as he moved to get closer to you, shifting himself to sit beside you, his hand smoothing down your neck, his other holding your head and drawing you into his embrace as he spoke with a quiet determination.

"Don't cry dove," he said, "don't cry now alright its alright, I'm your boy eh, I've got you and you're all alright..." He said it as though he were making a promise to you, watching the river flowing behind you, his eyes focussed on the water without seeing a thing because his mind was elsewhere. His mind was focussed on you, on keeping you safe, on taking revenge.

"No one's gonna hurt you no more little dove, I swear it..." He said pressing a firm kiss to your hair, his lips lingering in your parting. His eyes never breaking their stubborn glare at the water.

If it had been anyone else saying those words to you you wouldn't have believed it but as it was it was him, and you trusted him more than you'd ever trusted anyone before.

"I swear it love, no one's gonna touch you," he said his voice thick with emotion, gritty. He was struggling against tears, struggling against letting his feelings get the better of him. You were the most precious girl in the world and it hurt him deeply to know he hadn't been everything you'd needed. Hadn't saved you when you'd needed saving. "No one." He said again before a sniffle escaped him, his voice cracking as he let out a long shaky sigh, trying to laugh as he swiped the tears from his cheek.

With your hand on his heart you pushed yourself up, pulled away from his chest just enough to look up at him and see the upset flush in his rosy cheeks, the tears which trailed down them. His long lashes tried to blink them back. He tried to flash you that boyish smile. Tried to shake his crying off as nothing but you weren't having any of it.

You cupped his cheek in your hand and brushed his tears away with your thumb, kissing them away delicately, pressing your lips gently over each tear, collecting them. You held his head in your hands and climbed up into his lap so that you could rest your forehead against his, so that he could close his eyes and hold your face in his hands, his lips meeting yours again so that you could kiss in secret knowing that this would be last time you had to.

"No more secrets now eh little dove, think I've had enough..."

"Yeah," you sniffled through your smile, "me too."

#bonnie gold x reader #peaky blinders imagines #peaky blinders imagine

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