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flysafepapi · 2 years

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siren song 4/?

masterlist

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Warnings: Mentions of death, fire.

Summary: He remembers the scent of her perfume, something that smelled strongly of rose, as she carefully closed the small window in the bedroom and crossed herself, whispering words under her breath that were too soft and quick for him to hear. His mother had turned and smiled at him, and even at that age he could see that she was trying to hide something behind it. Her voice had been shaky, whether with fear or anger he still doesn’t know, when she told him that he was going to be safe. The thought of asking what he was safe from hadn’t occurred to him at the time but he thinks he knows, now.

Tagging: @the-makingsofgreatness @zablife @lyarr24 (just let me know if you want to be added on or taken off)

(A flashback of sorts happens after the first ~~~)

The last thing he expects to see when he steps out of the office is Tobias standing outside, just out of reach from the steady drizzle of rain, waiting with an umbrella in one hand and a bottle in the other. For a second, Tommy debates just going back inside and closing the door, especially when Ada leaves the house at the same moment that Tobias steps towards him. A blind man would’ve been able to see the amused and borderline smug look she sends his way. By the slight curve of Tobias’ smile, he’s seen Ada as well.

“Evening, Mr Shelby. I wasn’t sure if I caught you before you went home for the night.”

“Shouldn’t you be at the Garrison by now?”

“Normally I would, but I thought we could talk more about this job you have for me.”

“Does this mean you’re going to take the offer?”

“Perhaps. That depends on you.”

There’s a long, tense moment where the two of them just stare at each other. Thankfully, there’s enough distance between them so that he doesn’t need to look up, unlike the last time. Tommy looks down at the bottle in the other man’s hand, studying the label, then back up at his face. The wine he’s holding is expensive, in the hundreds if the date stamped into the paper label is true, not something cheap he’s picked up on the way.

“What do you want?”

There are a million things Tobias could say to that question. He wants a lot of things: to see his father and brothers again just one last time, whole and alive and unharmed, to feel the warmth of the sun on his skin without the risk of death, to be able to relive the pleasure of eating his mother’s cooking again. He doesn’t give a voice to any of them.

“A drink with you would be a good start.”

The offices are dark, and he’s walked through the space a thousand times before, but it feels different with Tobias behind him, as if the shadows have grown darker than they were five minutes ago when Tommy left. It leaves him feeling slightly unsettled, even after he turns on enough lights to completely illuminate the entire room. The lightbulbs seem duller than they usually would be, and the light they give off is dim, but it’s more than enough to see by.

“Glasses?”

“In my office.”

“Lead the way.”

In the silence, he can practically hear the way Tommy’s heart speeds up slightly, but he’s not sure if it’s from the fact that the two of them are alone or from the fear that he can’t quite explain lingering on the edges of his mind. Maybe both. The sound makes him remember the night in the tunnels, after the supports had given in. Taking any blood hadn’t been in the plan, the entire reason he was there had been because they were. It hadn’t been an accident, that Tobias was the one that the older Arthur Shelby had owed money to. Feeding had been an impulsive decision, and one that could’ve backfired on him spectacularly, but fortunately it hadn’t. He can practically taste it with every pump of the man’s heart.

“-talk about?”

“Sorry?”

“What did you want to talk about?”

There’s a moment, just a second, where Tommy can see the way Tobias’ hands tighten around the bottle of obscenely expensive wine, and the movement draws his attention to the minute difference in texture there that he hadn’t noticed before. It wouldn’t have been noticeable if it wasn’t for the way the skin seemed to shine slightly in the light thrown by the lamps. Tobias follows his line of sight and grimaces for a second when he sees what Tommy’s looking at.

“I’ve tried everything I can to get rid of them. Nothing ever works.”

“What are they?”

“Reminders of the past. Some scars never fade, do they?”

Tommy turns away, changing the conversation away from the memories of the war into something that feels less like he’s walking precariously across a minefield, and Tobias doesn’t call him out on it even though he could. He pours them both a drink instead and raises his own glass in a toast.

“To all the people we lost.”

~~~

Almost as soon as he closes his eyes, securely in the space he’d created beneath the bed for himself though it’s not particularly comfortable, the memories come rushing back like they tended to do around this time of year. He doesn’t dream so much as he relives all the old memories, and though he could list a dozen downsides to eternal life, remembering everything with near perfect clarity has to be at the top of the list. It feels like he’s back there.

The room was small, far too small to comfortably fit them all, and the only noise in the dark were the soft sounds of crying from his brothers and the soothing noises coming from their father, trying to calm them down. At twenty, he’d been the oldest of six, all boys. Before her passing, she often joked that the lord had done her the favour of sparing her from the ordeal of making her daughter’s wedding dress. She hadn’t made it more than a few days past the birth of the twins and while he’d been sitting in the small room, Tobias had been thankful for it. His mother would never have to be subjected to this horror.

His youngest two brothers, the twins, had just celebrated their seventh birthdays. Though the payments he received for doing small jobs around the village had been few and hadn’t amounted to much, he’d been saving since their birthday the year before to get them that horse they’d been wanting for years. Just the week before, he’d given the money to the farmer on the farm next to theirs and arranged to have the animal delivered the morning of their birthday.

“How long are they going to keep us here, father?”

“I’m scared.”

“Shh. Let's not speak of it. Dry your eyes, Ferenc, Tamás, neither I nor your brother will let anything happen to you.”

He had no idea how he was supposed to do that when he wasn’t even sure where the men had taken Miklós, György, or Emeric. They’d been separated not long after the men had dragged them from their home, accused of all manner of foul things he knew none of them would ever have done.

The memory shifts, then, to the part he dreads the most. Even without these nights where it seemed like he was projected right back to the worst time of his considerably long life, he would remember what that night had been like. The smell of the freshly cut pine mixed with something thick and pungent that his frazzled mind hadn’t realised was the smell of tar.

“Please. We haven’t done anything wrong,” he pulled against the ropes binding his wrists behind his back, futilely, they’d been tied far too tight for the movement to make any difference. Even when the rough weave had rubbed his wrists raw and soaked through with blood, he had pleaded for their captors to stop this and let them go. “They’re just boys, they’re innocents!”

“None of you are innocents. Don’t lie to me.”

Later, killing the man that spits down at his feet now will be the first human life Tobias takes, but in the memories the cruel man just laughs at him and walks along the row, down towards his father.

“We deserve to know what our charges are. If this is what you call a trial, then it’s a poor one.”

His father had looked at him, warning him to keep quiet, but he had ignored it. He made eye contact with Emeric and saw the same bruises on his own face reflected back at him, proof that his headstrong brother hadn’t given their captors whatever it was that they wanted. Foolishly, he’d felt proud of that.

By the time the so-called charges had been read out, utterly ridiculous things that they either hadn’t done or things that had been taken out of context, a sizable crowd had grown. People Tobias had known all his life, people that he’d trusted. The joke he’d pulled on the preacher’s son had been harmless, just a few frogs tipped in through the boy’s open window, it was only supposed to startle him for a few moments. Alright he could’ve been nicer to the boy, that much is true, but he doesn’t see how any of that led to this.

“No! Please, I did it, I’ll do whatever you want! Let them go!”

“Don’t listen to him, the devil comes in all forms, if you let him tempt you for a second then he will own you for life. Do it.”

The pitch caught like a spark on dry grass, he remembers that the clearest, and the rope had held through his renewed struggles to get away, digging further into the soft skin of his wrists. The pain from the friction had been sharp and cutting, but hearing the screams of his brothers had been far worse. Some sort of flammable material had been tied around their legs, most likely to speed up the burning, and it did its job effectively. By the time Louise had arrived, he’d already listened as, one by one, his father and his brothers took their last breaths, each of them making sounds of pain until the last.

It’s at that time that Tobias always wakes, gasping in the small space, the thick smell of smoke and burning flesh almost enough to choke him. Every year, it played out the same way, forcing him to remember that it was his foolish actions that had gotten his family killed. Taking his revenge in blood from the ones that had done the accusing, and the ones that had lit the fires, had been satisfying at the time but it was never going to bring them back to him.

“I’m sorry. Please, forgive me.��

~~~

“Tommy!”

“What?”

Already there’s a headache starting in his temples, and Ada shouting up the stairs to him doesn’t do a thing to alleviate the throbbing pain. He’d slept a little more last night but not much more than usual, and he’s already exhausted and done by the day.

“Delivery for you!” Ada sounds amused, which is never a good sign. “You should probably get down here!”

With a sigh, Tommy closes the drawer beside the bed and stands up, already dressed though he hadn’t left his bedroom yet. A glance at his watch tells him it’s just past 8 in the morning.

The last thing he’s expecting to see when he gets down to the kitchen is a bouquet of flowers sitting on the table. Dark red roses and orchids, all held together by a ribbon of green and sitting in a clear crystal vase.

“I thought you said this was a delivery for me.”

“It is.”

“If this is a joke-”

“They were addressed to you, just like I told you. As if anyone could send me flowers without the three of you finding them and putting the fear into them. Plus, no one I know could afford anything like this. Look, there’s even a card for you.”

Ada rolls her eyes, something she's been doing more and more of lately, and waves a small card around in the air in front of his face. For a second she tightens her grip on it like she’s reluctant to let it go without reading what’s on it herself, but then the moment passes and she drops her hand with a sigh. The seal on the card breaks easily under his thumbnail and he backs up a step and opens it carefully.

“Well? What does it say? Who are they from?”

“Shouldn’t you be helping Polly?”

He leaves the room before she can answer and walks back up the stairs, leaving the flowers sitting where they were on the table, determined to ignore them completely. In his hand, the hard edges of the card dig into his fingers, and he glances back down at the surprisingly clear loops and swirls of the handwriting in black ink.

‘To the ones we found along the way.’

#peaky blinders #siren song #you can just follow that tag if you don't want to bother with my masterlist #okay so #this chapter was originally going to have bonnie in it but i wanted to spend some time establishing some things #the first part was pure indulgence on my part and i'm not apologising #how long do you think it'll take tommy to realise that that was 100% a date #because the man is pretty oblivious lmao he hasn't been picking up on any of the little hints that tobias has been throwing around #ada has though #ada knows exactly what's going on here #tobias' backstory is fleshed out a bit more #and boy if you think this part was sad just you wait #ive got plans for what happened to him both before and after his turning #it's gonna be so fun for me and not so much fun for you guys #i'm not apologising for that either #anyway yeah this is my humble offering #flirting through flowers #feat: tobias flirting through extravagant gifts #tommy shelby #ada shelby #tobias (oc)

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adelheidvonschicksal · 3 months

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The Love and Deepspace Boys Trying to Get You to Sleep ⋆｡°✩

Tags: Fluff, teasing, needy boys, mild sexual content, gender neutral reader (I had to re-write so please let me know if I messed up.)

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

Xavier is surprisingly softer than you expected when you first met him on your mission together. He’s an incredibly powerful hunter but possesses a quiet and gentle, almost oblivious, aura when navigating everyday life, like a ghost floating through the space he takes up. It should also be understood that this very nature of his makes him affectionate, so much so, that he won’t unwrap his arms around your waist and stop pressing his head to your shoulder as you sit at the kitchen bar, typing on your laptop.

“Are you planning on staying up later than the stars?” he mumbles.

There’s a gentle yawn against your skin from the sluggish man, highlighting just how long he’s been trying to coax you into going to bed.

“I wanted to finish this report for work.”

“The report will be there tomorrow,” he says. You swat away his hand that reaches for the power button on the laptop causing him to pout. He grumbles. “You should go to bed. Otherwise, I can’t sleep.”

Smiling to yourself, you decide to tease him. “Oh, so you’re really trying to get me to go to bed for your own benefit?”

“Well, you can’t very well expect me to do it by myself anymore.” Xavier nuzzles his head into the slope of your neck, cuddling you. “It’s your responsibility since you ruined my sleeping habits.”

“Ruined?”

“Ramshackled,” he repeats quietly, causing you to giggle. With an airy sigh, he presses his weight into you more. “How do you expect me to sleep when I can’t hold you?”

Defeated, you save your work and close the laptop. You swivel in your chair, enough to meet his eye, and cup a hand to his cheek. It never stops being endearing to you how he cutely closes his eyes and angles his head to snuggle your palm.

“Alright, alright, you don’t have to beg.”

His eyes flutter open, and the smile on his face grows as he wraps his fingers around yours. Carefully, he pulls on your hand to bring it up enough to begin to lace your wrist with affectionate kisses, tracing your pulse.

“I thought you enjoyed my begging.”

“That’s different.”

“It isn’t,” Xavier mutters into your skin, pressing another light kiss.

“It is.”

“So, you're resolute about that position?” he questions “innocently”. There’s something mischievous about the glint in those arctic eyes, which makes your face warm. You find yourself breaking eye contact, or else you’d lose it.

“Yes.”

Xavier chuckles then begins to lead his kisses down your arm. “In that case, care to explain the difference in detail, love?”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

“Sleep.”

“But—”

“Sleep.”

Zayne narrows his eyes at you from his side of the bed. You can’t blame him for being a little annoyed right now but the movie you put on to fall asleep was much better than you expected; and instead of falling asleep, you were more awake than ever at a very late one in the morning.

“I’m almost done with the movie,” you tell him, hoping he’ll cut you a little slack this one time.

“Everyone dies at the end of their own stupidity,” he bluntly states and grabs the remote. The television turns off with an overly loud click, and you pout. “Now, sleep.”

Crossing your arms over your chest, you huff. “You’re the worst.”

“I’m fine with that title if it gets you to rest,” he explains with a smooth yawn. “Poor sleep habits lead to bad decision-making later. You’re more likely to develop high blood pressure, and with your heart in particular—”

“I get it. I get it,” you say, wanting to be spared the lecture. Zayne is a good person and a better doctor, but you wish he didn’t worry about you so much just because you might have a little big heart problem. Sighing, you squiggle onto your back and pull the sheets up to your collar, kicking them a little childishly in the process (totally not to let him know that you were not pleased with his spoiling). “I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

“Very.”

Zayne turns over onto his side, away from you, and you frown at the loneliness. Softly, you poke him in the back, once, then twice then a third time before you finally get a hum in response.

“Am I really not getting a good night kiss?”

“Do you need one to sleep?” he asks, his voice deeper from the lack of sleep, urging you to convince him to kiss you even more.

“Duh,” you explain. Slowly, he turns back over to look at you, propping himself up on one arm with a look that says “Is that so” as you continue to ramble. It makes you a little flustered when he watches you so intently. He’s always had this silent dominance that makes you obedient, but you could get what you want from him just as easily with the exact opposite strategy. Cutely, you puff your bottom lip out at him. “There has to be some health benefit to it. Kissing makes people all happy. Happy is good, right?”

It takes a second for him to take in what you say, those smokey eyes closing in on you with thought before he climbs over you. He places both hands at your sides and quickly boxes in your upper thighs with his knees.

“You’re thinking of dopamine,” he says.

“Huh?”

“That makes you “all happy”,” he explains and presses a deep kiss to your lips, leaving you thoughtless and breathless all at once. He moves to your jaw, and you begin to squirm from the pressure of his impassioned lips.

“And Serotonin.”

Another kiss, lower.

“Oxytocin.”

He’s at your shoulder when he starts to nip your skin, and one of his hands moves to ski up the back of your thigh.

“Reduced cortisol.”

Flustered, you grip his arms.

“Zayne, stop, it tickles,” you whine, but it’s the last thing you actually want as he readjusts his position and hovers above you.

His usually neat hair is messier and his breathing a little heavier judging by how his chest laboriously rises and falls. Groaning, you bite your bottom lip as he knowingly leans in and whispers,

“You need it to help you sleep, isn’t that what you said?”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

“Why don’t you just say you don’t love me anymore?”

You look up from your phone screen at the sudden accusation. You’re resting on the couch, your back propped up by the armrest and legs splayed out on the other cushion while Rafayel looks down at you with crossed arms and a less-than-pleased scowl on his face. You’re entirely confused as to what you could’ve done to make him think something like that.

“Huh?”

“You’ve been playing video games for what—the last two hours?” he says, uncrossing his arms to grab your phone. It’s too late to warn him as he glances at the screen, clicking a few times. “What are you playing anyway? An…otome? Sheesh, go ahead and say you want me gone. Come on, tell me you actually hate me.”

Holding in your smile, you shake your head and affectionately roll your eyes. It takes an enormous amount of effort to not laugh as he continues to rant. “So, it’s one of those things. I thought I was actually in trouble.”

And by those things, you mean his dramatics.

“Hush, my complaints are perfectly legitimate,” he demands as he pushes your legs aside and sits on the couch. Leaning over, he flashes the screen at you to show the evidence he has that you’re completely unfair, unfaithful, and downright mean. “What’s this game giving you that I’m not? Are my dashing good looks and even better personality not enough? Is that it?”

Gently, you take the phone from his hand and set it down on the end table. “You’re plenty, perfect even.”

He scoffs and refuses to look at you. “Apparently not. Don’t you ever think about anyone else? What if I want to cuddle with you one day but you’re too busy to notice because you’re playing silly games?”

Ah, there it is. His real want. You never know why he can never just come out and say it.

“Rafayel, do you want me to come to bed and cuddle with you?”

“Want is a strong word,” he remarks but you can see his resolve (can you call it that when he planned to give in all along?) crumbling as he slowly turns back to meet your gaze, “but I wouldn’t be opposed to it. Not that you deserve it or care.”

Humming, you sit up, wrap your arms around his shoulders, and pull him down onto you. Lovingly, you snuggle him, stopping to only take in how red his neck and ears start to get when you squeeze him and start to stroke through his hair. You’re not sure if Lumerians can blow happy bubbles like he claims, but he definitely hums and relaxes his entire body weight to lay on top of you like he wants to sink into your skin.

Teasingly, you coo at him. “You’re so needy.”

“I’d rather say you humans aren’t needy enough,” he fires back as he wraps an arm around your waist and kisses the corner of your lips. “Ah, the sweet taste of victory.”

Giving out a gentle and short laugh, you lightly tap his back. “Go to sleep.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ. ───

#zayne x reader #xavier x reader #rafayel x reader #love and deepspace #love and deepspace x reader #love and deepspace fluff #love and deepspace smut #adelssmut #notsfw

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