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red-riding-wood · 4 months

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Lost in the Rhythm

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x F!Reader

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Summary: You convince Tommy to go swing dancing.

Warnings: brief mention of panties, Tommy being a little down bad, slightly suggestive content, other than that just fluff! Or at least my attempt at writing fluff!

WC: 1522

Written for @runnning-outof-time's Caught in 4k Follower Celebration. The idea came to me one night listening to some swing and I thought... shit, I am gonna need to write this. Sorry if it seems a little rushed, kind of smashed this one out when I wasn't feeling like I could write anything.

Tommy’s hand weighed heavy on yours, nearly pulling your arm from its socket as you dragged him onto the dance floor. But you were almost too hopped up on adrenaline to notice, still humming with barely-contained energy you were eager to release from your body, still drunk off his acceptance of your invitation that nothing else really seemed to matter other than that you were going to dance with Thomas Shelby.

Brilliant yellow-white lights seemed to bleed against the dark ceiling as you spun to face him, a cherry blush flushing your cheeks and the breath stripped from your lungs. He was watching you with the hint of a smile on his face, the glint of something warm – dare you say, affectionate – in his piercing blue eyes.

Tommy still couldn’t believe your boldness, the way you had shimmied over to his desk in that little sequined dress, how you’d made him set aside the paperwork and the bottle of whiskey and had more or less told him that you were going dancing. How he couldn’t help but have smiled at the time, only when you turned your back to go fix up your makeup, because God forbid you know he might enjoy the notion of such ridiculous things like dancing. He’d been able to hide the slight heat that had crept to his cheeks, in a way that you weren’t now that was so endearing to him, your whole being seeming to glow, skin shivering under his touch and your eyes gleaming brightly in the lights.

“You sure you don’t want to just go for drinks, eh?” he said, having to raise his voice slightly over the loud crash of cymbals and the yearning cries of the trombones. But you knew from the look in his eyes that he was already sold, if only to watch you all giddy and elated like this in a way he’d never seen of you at the betting shop or even the Garrison.

“C’mon, Tommy, you’ve danced before. Surely,” you said as you pulled him in, fingers lacing through his own and your arm drawing round his back. He began to lead naturally, though his pace was slower than the music and the mad tapping of shoes around you. He pulled you in real close, so close that you could smell the faint trace of the cologne he wore past his usual musk of whiskey and cigarettes and earth, your chest brushing his and your nose nearly pressed to the heat of his neck. Your heart pounded wildly against your ribs, and for a moment you caught your breath.

“Move your feet a little faster,” you instructed him, allowing more space between the two of you with a slight reluctance. You wondered only briefly if people were looking at you, the thought crawling its way beneath your skin like an insect, but such a cruel feeling was banished with a glimpse of those piercing blue eyes, always cold yet so warm for you whenever you caught him looking.

You guided Tommy into more appropriate steps, knocking a few shoulders with other couples that spun and twirled around one another. You noticed his gaze leave yours only to take notice of them for a few moments.

“Good, now just – “ A squeal burst from your lungs with your remaining breath as his hands dug firmly into your lower back, and he dipped you, blood rushing to your skull and lurid lights undulating across your vision. Your bare thigh came up to brush along his waist, attempting to ground yourself, the hem of your dress pooling over the lace of a garter that he couldn’t help but sneak a peek at.

When he brought you back up, his eyes were glittering with mischief.

“That works, too,” you breathed, and Tommy was nearly lost for a moment in the frizzy ringlets of hair that fell across your forehead, in the shock that passed through your bright eyes and the curve of your mouth before you grinned again, beaming.

Your fingers loosened from his as he brought your arm up, and the world spun as you twirled on your heel, nearly tripping over yourself in your own excitement but caught by a warm, sturdy hand against your spine.

“Show-off,” you teased, smacking him lightly against the chest. Of course he was trying to best you in this.

“I’m sorry, you were trying to tell me something?” he jested, a smugness laced thick into his tone and a quirk in his lip that made a competitiveness flare to life inside you.

“I was actually going to demonstrate.” You changed course, your nimble legs pirouetting across the floor to establish distance between the two of you, the crowd spilling around you like a tide peeling back from the shore. You became lost in the music, feeling every snarl of the drums and whinny of the trombones through the deepest fibres of yourself; you twirled and kicked your feet, swaying to the beat of the music and locking your eyes on your blue-eyed partner whenever you could.

You were an image of glorious, unabated joy, grinning so wide and moving with such energy that it was almost infectious. The sequins of your dress caught the light as they swished at your hips, begging for attention, and every so often, he was rewarded by a flash of your panties as you came into a graceful twirl, but the real show was how you moved, how you commanded each limb with such ease and intensity at the same time. Like you loved every second of this, like you were born to dance, and he was born to watch, that despite all the cruelties of this bleak and ruthless life, you were both made special for this moment of cheerful innocence and pure exultation.

And he accepted you, willing, into his arms, as you came tapping and spinning over to him, putting on your little show that he drank in with darkening eyes, hypnotised by every shake of your shoulders and sway of your hips. Almost unable to find his breath, he inhaled the scent of your sweet, honeysuckle perfume and the invigorating trace of your sweat.

And he had no choice but to fall into stride with you now, the two of you side-stepping across the floor as the music halted only to come crashing down around you, the crowd beginning to move as one uniform shape.

Your blood pounded in your veins like hot fire, burning brighter than the thrill of alcohol would ever do for you. Still not entirely believing that this was real, thinking that at one moment maybe you might wake to find it was all a dream, you tried to focus on Tommy; he struggled slightly with some of the footwork, but he made up for it with his usual, normally insufferable confidence that tonight you found endearing, and your careful, gentle guidance that you ensured wasn’t swallowed by your excitement. Each touch placed or pressure applied to his body was a signal to move one way or another, and once you’d fallen into a rhythm both of you could keep up with, it was like you had become one being, that you shared each limb and fervid breath and fierce beat of your heart.

Your body lost to the music but your mind lost to his eyes, the world seemed to melt around you, the lights glittering like stars in the background and the movements of the crowd becoming nothing but a rolling tide. A few wisps of dark brown hair had sprung awry from his usually-tailored cut, clinging to the sheen of his forehead. The baby blue of his eyes twinkled at you with equal parts adoration and joy and lust, and his smile…

You hadn’t seen him smile like that since France.

And you thought, maybe you’d be so privileged to see it again. That maybe this was the beginning to many more nights of unadulterated happiness, an escape from the blood and bullets and smoke and soot of your usual life.

You were unsure of who drew closer to who, but your nose ended up brushing against his shoulder, and as his fingers bunched the fabric of your dress at the base of your hip, you tried to hide your sudden blush by burying your face in the crook of his neck.

A giggle that put the most talented musicians in the room to shame chimed against his skin, and wild strands of your hair brushed his lips as he lowered his head to murmur against your ear,

“If you tell anyone about this, Y/N, I swear I’ll have you fired, yeah?”

Laughing again, you shook your head. “You’re enjoying this too much to make those kind of threats.”

His eyes widened slightly, and you smirked at him, leaning in to place a hastened kiss against a freckled cheek. A smear of red lipstick remained, and you giggled again, your glittering eyes mirroring the mischief of his, your voice lowering as if to whisper something scandalous,

“It’ll be our little secret. I promise.”

MASTERLIST • REQUEST

Please let me know if you would like to be added/removed to any of my taglists and notified of new works!

Taglist: @emotionalcadaver @zablife @shelbydelrey @call-sign-shark @look-at-the-soul @fiercelittlemouse @ohwellthatslifesstuff @brummiereader @mrkdvidal1989 @minaethrym @purplesnorlaxplush @henrywintersdearestgirl @goblinjnr @mizzbel @forgottenpeakywriter @chris-seb-marvel @muhahaha303 @thatonesinglefriend @s0urmarvel @onasmoko @elenavampire21 @aurorag98

#peaky blinders #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby #thomas shelby #thomas shelby x reader #cillian murphy #fluff #peaky blinders fanfiction #peaky blinders fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #oneshot #peaky blinders imagine #tommy shelby fluff #x reader #s: lost in the rhythm

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stillinracooncity · 1 year

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rosemauled · 6 days

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Get sprayed, idiots

#theyve been Finishing sprayed #itll dry matte but their current Glossiness is making me question my life choices #theyre STILL not entirely done so #wip #homemade furby shelby #custom furby #s verdigris #s V O I D #rosemauled falls further down the custom furby rabbit hole

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d3lta-2005 · 8 months

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Please do one with the shelby brothers [plus other characters if you want] with a underground boxer bf? Like the bf is a bixer who participates illegal street fights, earns hella cash? Thank u :3

Shelby brothers with a s/o That's a underground boxer

▲Cannon typical violence, not proof read▲

Male reader Specified

☆Thomas Shelby☆

-he probably met you when he went to tell Arthur off for fighting again

- noticed you as you were fighting, you probably had a bit of blood on you and most likely no shirt

- as he was sorting Arthur out he was giving you side looks and gave you one last good look as h left

- a cupple of days later you were in the garrison having a drink when someone came up behind you, "your the lad I saw fighting a cupple days back" Thomas said as he took a seat next to you

- he handed you a drink and drank his own drink

- you 2 started talking and the night got a little carried away

- you and Thomas met more and more, as you met up you 2 got closer and closer, you then started dating

- although he gets worried about you getting hurt he doesn't mind that you fight

- he would help you patch up after fights

- I feel like he would kiss your wounds better like the gentleman he is

- he does like the fact he doesn't have to look after you money wise although he is a little worried about you being found out

☆Arthur Shelby☆

- he met you becuse you where the one he was gonna fight (I think it was boxing he did, it was that time he beat the kid to up)

- you did fight it was a close call but he won

- you both end it with a handshake of appreciation

- he offered you a drink afterwards

- he would offer you a drink after every time you finished fighting

- you bond over the time you get drunk

- sometimes you would end up in a random place in the morning like a bath tub

- after you start dating you 2 end up sparing more and if you got hurt he would help you patch up.

- he isn't really shocked at how much money you make but his is still proud of you non the less

☆John Shelby☆

- he met you becuse he was drunk and walked over to you and tried to start a fight with you

- you won being the 1 that wasn't drunk

- he tried to find you the next day as Tommy told him to apologise to you for causing the fight

- he got curious after he apologised and started asking a bunch of questions

- he invited you to hang out with him and after a while the invites were more and more regular

- once you started dating you told him that you did underground boxing

- he was fully supportive of you

- unlike Tommy and Arthur he wasn't too worried about you getting hurt

- he was extremely shocked at how much money you make though

#mlm #gender neutral s/o #nblm #arthur shelby x male reader #thomas shelby x reader #arthur shelby #arthur shelby x reader #john shelby #john shelby x male reader #john shelby x reader #thomas shelby x male reader #thomas shelby #peaky blinders x male reader #peaky blinders x reader #peaky blinders #gay #gay headcanon

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kjmalfoy · 11 months

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Masterlist

🌹- Smut/NSFW 🌺- Fluff/SFW 🥀- Angst/SFW 🌸- Not Done

Marvel Series <3

Bucky Barnes ->

Sugar Daddy!Bucky Barnes

Sugar Daddy - 🌹

Million Dollar Baby - 🌹🌸

Mafia Boss!Bucky Barnes

Filthy Criminal - 🌹

Vanilla Bourbon - 🌹

HouseWife!Reader

Polka Dotted Dress - 🌹

Cherry Pie - 🌹🌸

MW2 Series <3

John Price ->

Daddy Issues!Asshole Price

Fatherly Love - 🥀

Fatherly Love Pt2- 🥀

Abuse of Power!Commanders

Superiors- 🌹🌸

Barracks Bunny Reader

Barracks Bunni- 🌹🌸

Price!Headcannons

Being in a relationship w/ Price- 🌺

Dirty dancing w/ Price- 🌹

Resident Evil Series <3

Leon S. Kennedy ->

Therapist Leon Kennedy Series

Melancholy Love; Prologue- 🌺🥀

Melancholy Love; First Session- 🌺🥀🌸

Peaky Blinders Series <3

Thomas Shelby ->

Boss!Thomas Shelby

The Bar Maid- 🌹🌸

Five Nights at Freddy’s Series <3

Mike Schmidt ->

Submissive!Mike Schmidt

Sweet Nothings- 🌹🌸

Overworked!Mike Schmidt

Fuzzy Pajamas- 🌺🌸

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kah-way-loh · 11 months

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What if we sat by the pond to feed the fish...

... and we were both bivalves?

[Image description: Erie is a silver and blue 2001 Blue Moon Shelby, sitting next to an unnamed 2001 Lilac Shelby with a sun-damaged yellowing shell. They're sitting on a wooden dock. Ahead of them is a pond, with several small fish eating in front of them. A few reeds border the pond. End ID.]

#tj taulks #furby #furby fandom #furby community #furblr #allfurby #safefurby #shelby #s: erie #s: unnamed #i have been having a Time. i'm overworked. i'm grieving the loss of a pet. i'm fixating on isopods #legitimately considering starting a viviarium sometime and stocking it with isopods. funky dudes #i got the second shelby to see if i could fix the sun damage and i haven't gotten around to it yet #that. and the contrast is growing on me. it's unique #they both work and i've had a blast with them!#i also fixed erie's pet sensor. now he feels when i push his shell down (he wouldn't react before)

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furb-burps · 11 days

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Been a few years since I updated.

Still furbin here and there, Kermit & Mango have joined my home office desk 💚💛🧡

#all furby #furby community #safe furby #custom furby #1998 furby #furby 1998 #f: kermit #s: mango #Shelby #furby

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snowflakeanimelover · 10 days

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Imagine this man:

Thomas Shelby….

Falling in love with a woman who doesnt wear skirts and dresses, but wears these:

Fucking love suits on women, they look so good. Also, these pictures were found on Pinterest. These pictures belong to their rightful owners, not me.

That, or Thomas falling in love with a farmer girl who works hard on her family’s farm.

#kates blabs #x reader #peaky blinders #thomas shelby #writing trope #tropes #suits for women #1900’s suits #for women #boy clothes #cute #fluff #I need this trope so bad rn #too lazy to right it myself

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basimsenkidu · 10 months

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Serpent & Dove series | Shelby Mahurin

“Ask me no questions, mon amour , and I shall tell you no lies.”

#myedits #litedit #s&dedit #bookedit #serpent & dove series #serpent and dove series #booksociety #litsociety #storyseekers #serpents & dove #serpent and dove #blood & honey #blood and honey #gods & monsters #gods and monsters #shelby mahurin #louise le blanc #reid diggory #litloversnetwork #litloverswork #fantasysociety #fantasysource #fictionnet #not my favorite #2nd and 3rd book was so slow and could have been easily become one book if she weren't repeat every story again and agian #one looses her mind to a witch and then other gave up his mind because oh he loves her so much bullshit #half of the books were empty mumbling about some bullshit of a half minded witch #reid is total asshole when he gave up his memories until he thinks that he loves louise #the way he started to remember things were so fast and lame #1st book had something but that was because of Lou

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voiceless-people · 3 months

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Soo... spiral won the oc poll,,,,,,,

Meet Shelby Green! (Tumblr ate my post so I'm rewriting this god forsaken thing) they do live modeling in college art classes for their professor-friend Raphael. They're mute, and generally pretty chill. Art and maths freak.

Alt and more info below the cut!

/it's just some shading that you can't rlly see lol.

They're the older sibling of Bella Danielewski and wife of a (very much not porcelain doll) girl named Marie! Shelby is in their mid 20's?

Her heart pattern scarf was a gift from her stepdad :3

#tmaposting #shelby s #tma oc #tma ocs #tma #the magnus archives ocs #the magnus archives oc #art

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coquettexnightz · 7 months

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- 𝑲𝒊𝒏𝒌𝒕𝒐𝒃𝒆𝒓 𝑳𝒊𝒔𝒕 -

• Day 12; Somnophilia: Stalker Season, Norman Reedus.

• Day 13; Menophilia: Smell It A Mile Away, Marko ( The Lost Boys )

• Day 14; Incest: Bossy Big Brother, Michael Gray ( Peaky Blinders )

• Day 15; Noncon: Babysitter Terror, Billy Hargrove ( Stranger Things )

• Day 16; Public: Concert Special, Slash ( Guns N’ Roses )

• Day 17; Vore: Virgins Taste Best, Marko ( The Lost Boys )

• Day 18; Spanking: Specifically Told, Alfie Solomons ( The Peaky Blinders )

• Day 19; Uniform: Short Skirt, Tall Socks, John Shelby ( The Peaky Blinders )

• Day 20; Step Siblings: Deceiving Big Brother, Henry Bowers ( IT Chap. 1 )

• Day 21; Tickling: “Now, Go To Bed.”, Alfie Solomon’s ( The Peaky Blinders )

• Day 22; Masturbation: Morning Welcome, Aemond Targaryen ( The House Of The Dragon )

• Day 23; Deep Throating: To The Wall, Dave Mustaine ( Megadeth )

• Day 24; Taking Advantage: The Stupid Cheerleader, Axl Rose ( Guns N’ Roses )

• Day 25; Pregnancy: Growing Inside Right Now, Tom Riddle ( Harry Potter Franchise )

• Day 26; Grooming: Stolen Child, Alfie Solomons ( The Peaky Blinders )

• Day 27; S&M: Corruption From The Dirty Boy, Joaquin Phoenix

• Day 28; Cockbulge: Best Friends Little Sister, Sebastian Bach ( Skid Row )

• Day 29; Incest: Just Real Close S’all, Eyeball Chambers ( Stand By Me )

• Day 30; Free Use: Wake Up At Dark, Billy Idol

• Day 31; Incest & Breeding: Nighttime Lullaby, Arthur Shelby ( The Peaky Blinders )

A/n; I changed maybe two or three of the topics because I had no idea what to do with them and they also weren’t very appealing per-say.

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red-riding-wood · 5 months

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Hi darling, I have a request for a drabble if you feel inspired. ❛ people like us don’t get to decide when we’re done. ❜ from the prompt list with Arthur Shelby.

People Like Us

Pairing: Arthur Shelby x F!Reader

Fandom: Peaky Blinders

Warnings: graphic depiction of suicide attempts, blood and cutting, angst, comfort

WC: 1848

Definitely not just a drabble, got a bit carried away with this one. I'm sorry this is so late, Lee! Getting back on track with writing.

You’d thought everyone had left. But Arthur had remained; he always did, for at least a few minutes after, to make sure you were safe. He stood outside your door, watching the coppers stationed in the darkened alleys, occasionally knocking one’s teeth out when he didn’t think they were taking their watch over you seriously. Sometimes, when the night was most quiet, and the voices of those he’d damned did not plague his mind, he thought about admitting things to you – feelings, that you likely did not reciprocate.

Tonight, your bathroom light had been on, and your screeching pierced the walls of the residence and filled the night air of Birmingham like some sort of banshee.

Your eyes were foggy when the door swung open and the man nearly slipped making his way to you, a bruised hand clasping around the porcelain of the tub and a few locks of hair wisping over his eyes before the same hand was wrapping around you, pulling you up. Crimson streaked your vision as it dribbled down your wrist, pooling around you, staining the bathwater a pale, sickening shade of red. For one dreadful moment, you feared you might never escape it, that you would drown with the tang of bitter iron on your tongue and the blood-water would swallow your eyes, your throat, your ears.

But Arthur’s palm in yours was strong, and warm; it pumped a new life in your veins and sent shivers along your numb, tingling flesh, and heaved you from the waters of death in one dizzying sweep. Head rolling back, long fingers caught you, cradling you against the heat of his chest, the palpitations of his wild heart coming to you in shockwaves. Yours were frighteningly faint in comparison to his.

You shivered in his arms – cold, suddenly, past the heat of the adrenaline – as your bare flesh met the biting air, curling in on yourself like a child. Everything took a second or two to register, maybe more – did time even exist? It must have; it must have, because you were fading fast. And Arthur was holding you, and your wet, metallic lips buried themselves in the soft fabric of his chest, desperate to hear the sound of his heartbeat drown out yours. Desperate to cling to the living.

“D – don’t let it take me,” you mumbled into his chest. He smelled like blood, bullets and sweat. He smelled like aftershave and cigarettes. He smelled like the lavender oil you’d given him to help him sleep among his demons. He smelled like home.

A thumb stroked lovingly over your drenched scalp. How could the same hands that had strangled a poor man to death last week be so gentle to you?

“No one’s takin’ you, love.” His hot breath sent another shiver through you, down the nape of your neck. But his words quivered. “Not as long as there is breath in me goddamn breast.”

The remnants of the red tide clung to your bare skin, ringlets of drenched hair clinging to your neck, threatening to choke the life from you. In the pitch black of your mind, it frothed at the seams, spilling into the void that seemed to span wider, and wider, until you were lost in the middle of an ocean.

“Arth… Ar…” Delirious, spinning – everything was spinning. Your nails dug into his skin, fabric bunching in your shaking fist, and you gasped, aftershave and blood and lavender all flooding your senses before blackness came to you in a staccato rhythm, once and twice and once and twice and twice and once and thrice…

---

Your blood was starting to dry on Arthur’s shirt when he came inside to see you. He’d injured two men when they tried taking you from him during your blood transfusion, and he’d nearly killed another as he’d been dragged to the alleyway behind the hospital. There, he kicked at brick walls ‘til the leather of shoes peeled, and punched ‘til his shoulders screamed in their sockets and his knuckles split open. Cursed that damned god of his for letting this happen to you, threatened that if he did not return you to him, he would bring Hell down on the heavens.

His neck still burned with an inflamed red mark where he’d torn the chain of the cross from his neck, the metal now stained with your blood, too. Everything, everything was painted in it, everywhere he looked, and his own bloodied knuckles clenched around the cross tightly.

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Shelby. I didn’t know – “

“Just lemme see ‘er,” Arthur told the nurse, the gruff of his voice nearly cracking from his wailing and screaming in the alley. The only reason they had let him in was because of the name he bore, and once he knew you were okay he’d personally see to it that each one of them understood the repercussions of denying a Shelby.

Like a mouse under the stare of a mad dog, the nurse scurried off, doors shutting and leaving the room quiet save for the steady beeping, and the creak of the floor beneath Arthur’s torn shoes.

Watery eyes took in your half-conscious form, curled up in the hospital bed just as you’d been curled in his arms, a light gown draped over you. You were still shivering.

While relief settled in the pit of his twisting stomach, grief still knotted his throat, and as much as he tried to hold the tears back, he tasted both salt and blood on his tongue as he lowered himself beside you, bloodied and ringed fingers ghosting across your arms, as if fearful that he would hurt you.

A sliver of white light tore along the blackness, and your eyes squinted shut, a pain throbbing in your skull. Every thread of sinew and marrow seemed to ache, deep inside your body where you didn’t even know pain could exist, and the red tide lapped at the blurred edges of your mind as you lay flat on your little island in the middle of the sea. The rock beneath you was soft as you rolled your head over, a clean, unfamiliar scent seeming to send your mind into turmoil, shifting your reality between the light and dark, like a pendulum that swung across the white of the heavens, an eclipse that brought you pain and light one moment, darkness and cold the next.

The soft touch of the angel was warm along your arms as the light shattered the black sky, and you gasped. Its touch waned, and you arched your back to sit up, hand reaching feebly for it in the unknown. “Angel…” you thought you breathed. “Angel… don’t go. Don’t leave me here.”

Don’t leave me here to be swallowed by the red tide.

Your fingers grasped something tangible, something soft and warm, a fire burning beneath softness. Flesh, hot against your palms. Lavender and iron called to you, and finally, strong hands wrapped around you to pull you close.

“I ain’t no angel,” a familiar, lulling voice spoke as light cleaved the darkness in two and tore it, strip by strip, from your starry gaze. “But I ain’t goin’ anywhere, love.”

“Arthur.” You smiled around the name, lashes fluttering as you blinked against his blurry visage. Messy strands of hair flopped over his winter-blue eyes, and you clung to the collar of his shirt, dizzy but supported by his hands on your spine, rough and worn against your skin where the hospital gown split.

The pendulum swung against your skull, and your gut roiled with nausea. Your eyes wandered to the wrists that had been bandaged, the red tide seeping into the white. Something beside you beeped to the swing of the pendulum, but broke its rhythm suddenly. Your heart leapt to your throat.

“Shhh,” Arthur said, thumb making little circles over your spine. “We’re gonna get you home, love.”

The red tide began to seep into the corners of your vision as images hurtled towards you in the wide, never-ending ocean. The bullets strewn across your end table, each etched with a name that would haunt your dreams as those before them had. The porcelain of a bathtub, as pallid as the boy’s face who’d taken shrapnel to his chest not twenty feet before your eyes. The heat of the blood-water, like the heat of the fire that had devoured the Garrison the night your innocence had been lost.

“I don’t want to go back,” you pleaded with him, panicking as you found yourself attached to a thin, red tube.

Your fists pummeled his chest weakly and your knees kicked against his leg, and your frail body writhed beneath his grasp, but despite his heart breaking, he did not release you. The burn of the chain he’d snapped from his neck reminded him of the rope that he’d tied years ago, and he could feel a chasm opening beneath his boots as his legs had kicked from under him like yours did now.

And as you finally began to settle, wracked by soft sobs, he cupped your cheek in his bloodied hand, and he looked into the same eyes that had saved him, as he repeated your own words back to you, the words that still echoed in his mind whenever he thought of pulling the trigger on the trouble in his head or tying another noose,

“People like us don’t get to decide when we’re done.”

God damn him, damn his selfish soul for the look in those eyes that had once been so strong, for the way your jaw trembled against his hand. His lip curled, quivering, another tear streaking across his face as he tried desperately to keep the last, frayed threads of his sanity from snapping. Tried to hold himself together so that he could save you.

Because as much as it broke his heart to see you like this, and as much as he cursed his brother but mostly himself for dragging you into this life, he could not lose you.

“You hear me?” Arthur’s voice rose as his fingers dug into your jaw, his gentleness overcome by desperation as the noose tightened round his neck. The hinges of the bed creaked as the wooden stool had, and you watched as his face flushed red. He was going to break.

You shimmied forward, wading through the red tide, finding the water to be shallow here as you crawled onto his lap and buried your face in the crook of his neck. Hugging him so tight that you kept the shattered pieces of him together. That you snapped the rope on his noose and he gasped for air against the lavender and blood of your scalp.

“I hear you,” you murmured into the warmth of his neck, and when you shut your eyes, you stood ashore from the red tide. The sweat and tears against his flesh still smelled of the sea, and though these waters thrashed, they ran clear. And you knew that your angel would guide you through them.

MASTERLIST • REQUEST

Please let me know if you would like to be added/removed to any of my taglists and notified of new works!

Taglist: @emotionalcadaver @evita-shelby @minaethrym @shelbydelrey @zablife

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