#clementinesjourney

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 14

THE FINAL CHAPTER

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summary: torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: smut, cocaine usage, infidelity, angst, brief mention of prostitution...if you’ve made it this far you’re probably not going to be surprised by anything in this chapter

word count: 5.6k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23@smailaway @cedricscoffin @buckysjuicyplums @belledawnidk @wandering-poetess @bobafett-tea​ @esposadomd​ 

a/n: holy shit, where do i even start??? it’s hard to believe that a one-shot turned fic series i only wrote as a distraction because i was mad that my movie date got cancelled got here today. thank you all for the support since september 2021, because the amount of people who have enjoyed this series and keysmashed over it and dmed me to say that they stayed up all night reading it is crazy, you guys blew me tf away. i’m kissing you all five times and doing the Hand Squeeze™ with everyone who has supported me over the past five hundred something days TGR has existed. i would gladly make plans to run away to paris with you. :)

//////

“Are you running away? Because it really looks like you’re running away.”

Your suitcase shut with a sharp SNAP. “It’s only temporary. And you keep your mouth shut about this, you hear me?”

Esme held up her hands like you were pointing a gun at her. “Okay, okay, I just really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“It’s only temporary,” you muttered to yourself, preoccupied again as you shoved another cigarette into your mouth, your fifth of the evening. You were refusing to voice your thoughts aloud: you were already thinking about finding a new place to be from. “London’s not that far away from here, is it?”

“You have no family in London, and no friends,” Esme replied. “Y/N, just stop packing the goddamn suitcase.”

You snorted as you lit your cigarette. “It’s funny how no one around here gets that there’s a whole world outside of Small Heath.”

“Yeah, and there’s a whole world of rock bottoms outside of Small Heath,” Esme shot back, flat and unconvinced. “You gravitate towards shitholes, y’know. You’re only just gonna make life worse for yourself all over again.”

“I need to get out of here,” you repeated stubbornly, exhaling a thin plume of smoke. “For just a week.”

“Jesus Christ, Y/N, this is going to go terribly,” Esme muttered under her breath, absently pouring a miniscule amount of the powdery white substance she had in a tiny vial onto her knuckle. “How are you not thinkin’ of the kids? Fuckin’ four of them and John still doesn’t know how to take care of them.”

You barely heard her; you were staring at the vial of cocaine.

You almost hesitated, but pointed at the table. “Bring it over here.”

Esme gave you a weird look, and there was a tense beat that made you think she wasn’t going to do it, but she pressed her knuckle to her nostril and sniffed with barely a flinch, then poured out a jagged line for you on the table behind her.

“Y/N, I…”

“It’s fine.”

You were already searching your back pockets for a bill, or some kind of thin object that could be rolled into a cylinder.

It didn’t feel good to do it, but one last time couldn’t hurt, right? You were a changed woman now, and you could control yourself - no matter how badly you wanted just another line, like you already knew you would.

Your freshly lit cigarette still burning between your two fingers, you rolled up the bill into a tight cylinder with the precision of someone who had done it hundreds of times before, leaned over the desk, and sniffed up a thin line of cocaine.

Like always, it hit you all at once, like a bolt of lightning. Oh, God.

And then everything became clear.

If there was one think you knew, it was that you were getting out of Small Heath tonight.

“Barely hit,” you muttered, looking up at Esme with dilated eyes. “Can I see the vial, please?”

//////

John was deep in the forest again, his bare feet caked in mud and moss and leaves, and he was going out of his mind with want.

“I miss you,” Martha purred like some long-lost, ethereal creature, and her cold, dainty hand glided around his shoulder. She had been circling him for the past ten minutes and yet her footsteps made no noise - she was pure magic, that woman was, and she smelled something sweet, like pound cake. Dizzy in her presence, John blinked hard as something in the depths of his mind purred happily, something primal and hidden blossoming to life, making him feel everything.

She was in her dress that she had worn to her wedding, the brilliant purple-pink wildflowers were braided into her hair like not a day had gone by, and John forgot that those flowers were actually dried and pressed into some obsolete book in the betting shop in the Parlour.

“Do you miss me?” she whispered, her cold hand on his other shoulder now, and John felt the skin there erupt into gooseflesh.

Martha sidestepped quickly, mystically as ever, and suddenly she was in front of him again. She had asked him a question, and he hadn’t answered.

Her hazel eyes glowed so brilliantly and ethereally that he was sure she made his blue Shelby eyes look hazel too, and he had to pause for a moment to take in her glittering beauty, her fair and freckled skin, her thin lips that had somehow been an insecurity of hers when she’d been alive, like they somehow hadn’t fit perfectly on her face and John hadn’t wanted to kiss them whenever he stared at them for too long.

John knew that he had opened his mouth to say something, but he wasn’t quite sure what had happened: either the words had come out as though he was underwater, a distorted, gibberish mess, or he had simply opened his mouth and not said anything at all.

He was suddenly aware of his heart pounding harder in his chest, and he tried to say, I do, I do, I do, but for some reason, the words couldn’t force their way past his lips.

“Clearly not, since you’re with that rat bitch,” Martha snarled, and it suddenly dawned on him that this wasn’t reality at all, not a lovely dream but a nightmare, and he started breathing hard until he was nearly hyperventilating, something like a panic attack settling in.

“No,” John tried to say, but his throat had closed off and he felt like he was screaming underwater. No. No. No.

This wasn’t the first time he’d felt something like this because he suffered from the soldier’s disease, but just because it was the hundredth time he’d experienced it didn’t mean it got any less terrifying. There was a whirlwind in his brain, a headrush so powerful like everything was incoherent, unreal, and he couldn’t– fucking– breathe—

“Kitchen towels!” Polly shouted from somewhere afar, scaring him awake. “For fuck’s sake, John, where are the bloody kitchen towels?”

John launched himself out of his chair and looked around: Polly wasn’t in his office, where he’d been sleeping for the past several weeks, but she was still shouting loud enough to be heard in the betting shop, so he straightened his cap and smoothed his rumpled suit like he hadn’t been asleep at all and hurried out of the door.

It’s too bloody early for this, he thought angrily.

When John got to the kitchen with the roll of kitchen towels from the betting shop, the first thing he noticed wasn’t Polly hurrying around with a broom, clearly agitated, or a cup of tea overturned everywhere on the kitchen’s pristine tile, but Esme standing in the open doorway of the Parlour, breathing hard, looking pale and panicked. He checked his watch. 6 AM. It was the middle of February; the sun hadn’t even risen yet. What the hell was going on?

He took another look at Polly, the cup of tea shattered on the floor, and Esme, his head swiveling back and forth between them like he was watching a ping-pong match. “Fucking hell, you lot, what’s the matter?”

His voice was groggy and dehydrated, but he blinked hard and tried to ignore it.

You’re awake. You’re awake. You’re awake.

“Y/N is fuckin’ missing, that’s the matter,” Polly snapped, venom seeping through her voice as she snatched the kitchen roll from his hands to clean up the mess of liquid and ceramic shards on the floor, “Esme here storms in at six o’clock in the bloody morning, tellin’ me all fuckin’ panicked that she woke up at the Lee house down the street and Y/N wasn’t there when she was spendin’ the night, and she was goin’ on about how she wanted to leave Small Heath before she fell asleep…”

A fresh round of cold, unsettling panic doused John, and seeing the darkening look on his face, Esme grimaced sympathetically at him. “A part of me thought she was joking, I tried to talk her out of it. I’m sorry, John.”

“Well, what’s done is done,” Polly snapped with the air that she was only becoming more pissed with every word Esme spoke, and straightening, she slammed the roll of towels on the counter and chucked the shards of ceramic into the garbage. “Gather Arthur and Tommy, we need to have the Blinders looking for her. The earlier we can find her, the better.”

He nodded.

“Arthur!” he bellowed down the hallway, without a care in the world for his kids or anyone else. “Get the fuck up!”

//////

Understandably, there were no trains running at three in the morning, the time you’d left a sleeping Esme at the Lee house on Watery Lane, so you simply shifted your bag higher on your shoulder and decided to find another place in Small Heath to camp out until the sunrise.

Still on your cocaine high, you refused to look at your reflection in the windows of the shopfronts you passed. You already felt disheveled and bloodshot, you didn’t need to see it.

Eventually, you settled on an alleyway some three blocks away from the station. You pressed your back against the wall and slid down it until you were sitting on the damp stretch of dirt, dead grass, and litter.

You moved your bag from your shoulder to your lap and inhaled sharply: if you were aware of your body for too long, the cocaine pain in your ribs made you feel like your entire body was on fire. You had a small bottle of vodka in your suitcase to ration, and you’d feel even better after a few burning gulps from the bottle, but you resolved not to start drinking at least until you got on the train.

The cocaine high would have to be enough for now, you decided.

You sighed as your head suddenly spun, and the hazy feeling of unreality settled deep into your chest, making your heart pound harder and harder until sweat was dampening the back of your neck. Your brain was throbbing hard, but euphoria pulsed through your entire body, and for that feeling alone, it was worth it.

God, cocaine was terrible, but simultaneously beautiful. You’d almost missed it.

Sure, you definitely hadn’t missed always feeling like you were on the verge of fainting, nor the aching and the itchiness and the cold liquid that seemed to bubble in your veins after you came down from your high, indicating that you were sober again, but whatever, it was three in the morning in a shitty corner of England, you were alone and staring up at the glinting stars in the sky, inhaling the ever-present scent of manure and cigarette smoke, and your cocaine-fucked brain promptly decided that nothing else mattered but this moment.

The year is 1920, you thought dumbly, in that same blearily existential way only someone who was extremely high could. Will people still appreciate the Earth’s beauty a hundred years from now?

You probably wouldn’t be around to see it, but you hoped they did, and you squinted up at the sky to scope out any possible constellations. You’d never had a chance to notice it before, but this was a Nevada kind of view, which made you think of a moment five years earlier where you were lying in the great expanse of desert beneath the stars, watching Sam’s chest slowly rise and fall as he slept, swiping at the mosquitos whenever they got too close.

You weren’t all that aware of it, but your entire face stretched into a tired smile, making your cheeks ache. Goddamn, I love cocaine.

The next moments passed in a blink: suddenly the sun was rising, and you were at the station again, and you couldn’t remember how you’d gotten a ticket in your hands but you were already carrying your things onto the train, and vaguely acting sober, you stumbled into the first empty carriage you saw, all while your body didn’t feel like your own and you were simply a spectator to your own activities.

Which, honestly, you preferred. You had no fucking time to regret any of this.

//////

“Y/N?” John shouted, shining a flashlight down the long, empty hallway of the old Lee house. He’d stomped in there the minute the car had rolled into the field, so fast and panicked that he hadn’t even bothered to turn on the lights, meaning the house was shrouded in darkness. “Y/N!”

“Are you absolutely sure you didn’t see her at the train station?” he heard Esme snap at some Blinder waiting outside.

“Why would I lie for the fuckin’ Garrison rat?” John heard him reply before he stepped out of range, and scowling, he burst into the bedroom Esme had said you’d slept in days ago.

It was stripped bare, not even your scent had been left behind, like you’d never been inside the room in the first place, which only made the dread crawling down his back worse.

You’re a fucking knobhead, John scolded himself, pivoting on his heel to exit the room. A fucking knobhead, you know that? What kind of husband has their wife walk out on them?

Regretting his excessive drinking and smoking, sleeping in his office, booking his favourite whore at Zhang’s, and avoiding his wife like the plague, John ran back onto the field with his knuckles aching to kill something.

He took his cap off to smooth his hair back. “She’s not there.”

“‘Course she’s not,” Esme said resignedly.

“Where the fuck would she had gone?” John shouted at her, resisting the urge to grab her and violently shake her, purely to keep the peace between the families. “Esme, did she tell you any place that she was wanting to go?”

Esme opened her mouth and closed it.

“London,” she whispered back, her eyes wide. “She told me she wanted to go to London.”

“London!” he yelled in disbelief, whipping around. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“The trains start early in the morning,” she bit out, twisting her hands together. The Blinder beside her was staring at her, wide-eyed, as though trying to find a way to insert himself into the conversation, but both she and John ignored him. “John, if we can’t find her, that means she already went.”

Unadulterated rage swept through him, bitter and blinding, but John choked it down. “Fuck.”

Ducking out of the way so they wouldn’t see his glossy eyes, he started to stomp away. “Get back in the fucking car.”

//////

London was sprawling and gleaming when the train noisily rolled into the station, and in your threadbare, dirt-stained skirt and cardigan, you felt like you weren’t expensive-looking enough to fit in.

No matter, you told yourself, but the voice in your head was much too pleasant and lacking the predisposed anxiety and misery to truly sound like yourself. You can simply buy new clothes.

Plus, you already knew you weren’t planning on staying in London for long anyway.

You hummed a quiet but hopeful folk song you’d first heard at the Garrison to yourself as you retrieved your things from the compartment, your heart already pounding hard with excitement at the thought of leaving the train. As you hummed out what little lyrics you could remember, a pang of sadness hit your gut for the first time since you’d snorted cocaine: you’d miss Grace, but you were happy her beautiful voice had become engraved in your memory.

Her voice was yours to keep forever.

Smiling, you carried your bags through the narrow hallway and descended the train.

And sweet Jesus, the air of London smelled like the most refreshing summer breeze simply because of the absence of manure and furnace smoke. The station was still overcrowded with people, which normally would have alarmed you had you been sober, but this time you didn’t even care, it almost felt like you had snorted another few lines of cocaine as you waded through the onslaught of people, a dumb grin plastered on your face.

Girl, you are high as balls.

You caught sight of a husband waiting at the gate with a bouquet of flowers for his approaching wife, and quickly glanced away. You didn’t need anything like that to bother you right now.

“Airport?” you asked aimlessly to the people around you. “Does anyone know how to get to the airport from here?”

After a minute or two of wandering around and shouting among the onslaught of people, a man not much older than Tommy Shelby finally turned around.

“Airport?” he asked, squinting down at you. “You’ll need to go to Croydon.”

“Where is that?” you asked sweetly, layering on the Americana glitter in your charming Garrison rat voice, batting your eyelids at him. “It’s my first time in London, you see.”

The man smiled and extended his hand. “I can take you there, miss, for a fee. I’ll carry your things for you.”

“How much quid?” you asked absent-mindedly, peering down into your bag to find your change. “I can give you, uh, maybe twenty-”

“I’m not talking about money,” he cut in, and your head snapped up like a deer in headlights. How dare he, knowing that you had a very expensive wedding ring glistening on your fing–

You stopped yourself.

You weren’t wearing your wedding ring.

It was rolling around somewhere in the depths of your bag.

Time seemed to slow down and your heart pounded even faster, cocaine influence or not, but what shocked you the most was the odd sense of relief, making the ugly scar stretching across the length of your abdomen tingle.

Men still desired you.

With your head slightly spinning and the residue feeling of your body not being your own anymore, it was the most chilling reminder that you weren’t sober: you suspected that in any other state of mind, you would feel differently about this, but right now you didn’t care.

Wasn’t the whole point of coming to London that you didn’t want to feel chained by the Shelbys anymore?

“Take me there,” you heard yourself say after what felt like a century, and the man’s grin widened. “Of course, ma’am.”

Please protect me, God, a voice whispered in the depths of your mind, and accepting his outstretched hand, you let him guide you out of your train station.

//////

Tommy Shelby pushed the heavy mahogany doors of the Garrison open with a flourish, stepped into the pub, and promptly bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Everybody out!”

It had been bad enough losing his own love to a mind-boggingly similar situation two months ago, but Christ, how likely was it for John boy to go through the same goddamned thing? He wasn’t sure if he was impressed or annoyed. What had gotten into the women of today? Was this something he seriously had to be worried about?

The few number of patrons at 11 AM on a Wednesday morning quickly made themselves scarce with a frightened look on their faces, and for the first time that morning, Tommy had a chance to sigh before he approached the confused and frightened barmaids behind the bar.

After Grace, he felt a deep inner hatred more intensely than he had before her, and this morning was no exception.

“Have you seen Y/N Lee around these parts in the past few weeks, ladies? Y/N Shelby? The Garrison rat?”

The two barmaids looked at each other, puzzled, and one opened her mouth but promptly closed it.

“You,” Tommy said, pouncing on her. “Did you see the Garrison rat at all?”

“I…uh….” she stuttered, and Tommy cocked his head in anticipation for her words. Where was the easy grace that all of the barmaids seemed to have whenever a Blinder visited? “I…”

The barmaid gulped and stared at the floor. “She came in here once, lookin’ like a mess, and said she was getting out of here that night.”

“What kind of mess was she?” he pressed, leaning forward. “Drunk? Sniffing snow?”

“She - she was covered in blood,” the barmaid choked out, and he recognized the telltale signs of an anxiety attack as she started shaking. “Covered in blood. And vomit. And dirt. And twigs. And she had this…crazed look in her eyes. None of the drunks have it, so I knew she wasn’t drunk. She meant what she was saying with a burning passion. She wanted somebody dead.”

Tommy thought back to the night that pathetic boy was killed, the way he’d wailed and screamed and cried as John pummelled him. It had been a real mess when you’d ran off like that, and there was no signs that you’d even been bothered until before then.

He eyed the other barmaid, who was pale as a ghost.

“Go make a drink for your friend,” he told her. “Ma’am, what’s your name?”

“Edith,” the sniffling barmaid replied, staring at the floor.

“Edith,” Tommy repeated. “Well, Edith, thank you for your time, but I’m afraid that the Garrison rat has fulfilled her promise as of this morning.”

With a haunting sort of finality, he replaced his cap and turned on his heel to exit the Garrison.

//////

“Fuck!”

Before John could stop it, a long, frustrated, angry scream ripped out of his throat, and it was so loud within the confined space of his office that it made his own ears ring. He was the only one here now, and it had been that way for an hour: the rest of the family had gone out looking for his wife.

His vision suddenly blurry with tears, he punched his desk over and over again, screaming at the top of his lungs, his hands stinging, his heart pounding, everything spiralling out of control at once. All of his emotions had been pushed as far as they could possibly go ever since he woke up, and at 4 PM in the afternoon, this was the only opportunity he’d had to let them out.

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

John felt blood trickling down his knuckles and he finally stopped, cursing, hating himself. Why did he have to be like this? He would feel nothing but indifference for weeks on end until it all came rushing out of him like an avalanche.

Well, some part of him knew this explosion was warranted. It was forever frustrating being back to square one: without a wife, without a stepmother to take care of his kids, without love and painfully aware that he was without Martha. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d felt it, but it was the first time the feeling seared through his chest like a volcano erupting: he’d wished he’d never had kids.

“Why am I so stupid?” John shouted at himself in the thick silence. “Fucking hell, why am I so fucking stupid?”

Get it out, some type of comforting voice told him in the back of his head. Get it all fucking out.

His knuckles were pouring blood now, screaming for bandages, but John leapt from his chair and shoved everything off his desk in a giant sweep.

He picked up an empty vase behind him and threw it as hard as he could at the wall, where it exploded in a shower of glass.

He ripped open all the cabinets of his desk and yanked out all of the files, lobbing them at the wall, throwing them on the ground, tearing them in half, and when that wasn’t enough, he lifted his office chair and pounded it into the ground as violently as he could.

“Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!”

He couldn’t even remember when he’d started screaming anymore, but his throat was raw as he lobbed the splintered, broken pieces of the chair at the wall.

His hands were covered in blood, and he had a sobering feeling that maybe he should stop now, but no matter how self-destructive he was being, the rage was addicting, and he was throwing various detritus from the wreckage as hard as he could at the wall. The rush of pain flooding to his knuckles was almost gratifying— thank God, he could still feel things. Even if he was feeling too much, he was feeling, and that was good.

Tears were streaming down his face, and when he tried to inhale through his nose, his nostrils were blocked with snot, but he couldn’t stop. His entire face was red from overexertion and his hands were bleeding and he couldn’t stop shaking and he couldntfuckingbreathe, like he was a little kid throwing a tantrum, and—

If his throat was raw when he’d had the energy to destroy things, it was nothing like how it felt now. “Fuck!”

Maybe this is how Y/N felt when she saw me kill that monarchist fucker, John thought dumbly, and he sank to his knees in his demolished mess of an office, a tide of regret crashing through him unlike anything before.

This feeling hit him like it was trying to kill him.

//////

The car was parked in the parking lot of the airport, and it hadn’t moved for the past ten minutes.

It was cramped, uncomfortable, and questionably damp, but the man who’d driven you there-- Billy, you’d since learned his name was--  wouldn’t buy the plane ticket for you until you gave him your payment, and you had nothing left to lose. With Paris being a hefty cheque away, a daring trip that you could just barely afford, you had weighed your options and promptly decided fuck it, just get it over with.

Without breaking eye contact with him, you licked a thick stripe up the underside of his length before pulling back to suck the tip, darting your tongue around it, producing the filthiest slurping sounds he’d ever heard as you bobbed around him. He wasn’t longer than John, but a little thicker, and it was an interesting change to feel how his cock felt in your mouth.

“Fuck,” Billy murmured, weaving a hand through your hair as you swiped his cock over your wet lips, teasing it over your warm mouth, smearing your red lipstick further down your chin. “Fuck, just like that - gonna - fuck-”

He came fast with barely a warning, warm droplets of come spilling onto your tongue. Knowing you were almost done, you wrapped a hand around his length to jerk him off, gulping him down as best you could while he kept his hand tight in your hair, ensuring that you swallowed every last bit.

Saltier, you noted. Well, that’s a bit disgusting.

//////

He had her on her back so he wouldn’t have to look at her, but it was still so hard to pretend that she was someone else: the dark curly hair spilling over her shoulders that looked nothing like her hair, the breathy little moans that fell from her lips that sounded nothing like hers, even the way her pussy squeezed his cock, they were all dead giveaways that she wasn’t who John desperately wanted her to be. And no matter how hard he tried, she wouldn’t be.

“Oh, God,” Esme moaned, grabbing the headboard to keep herself from falling over as John fucked into her just a little bit harder, and his hand was wrapped around her neck before he even registered it being there.

“Shut up.”

She wasn’t listening.

“Fuck, John, I’m gonna-” –With one hand on the headboard, she was furiously rubbing her clit now– “I think I’m gonna - oh fuck -”

She collapsed from underneath him as her orgasm rushed through her body, but in a split-second he’d yanked her upright by her hair, back to her original position, except her arms were pinned behind her back.

This was about control.

Fucking her even harder now, his voice was furious in her ear as he whispered:

“Next time you come, you’re gonna ask for my permission, yeah?”

//////

Paris was golden.

Golden and full of pickpockets, that was for sure. The one drawback of such a fashionable, progressive city, you had to keep a tight hold on your purse as you made your way to the closest bar, or the bar à cocktails, as you frequently heard the locals call it.

Three months into living in Paris, you fit right in with the people born and raised here: they tended to go all out in comparison to Birmingham, their wardrobes were fashionable, flashy, and fancy to the point where a floor-length dress, your most expensive pearl necklace, and a glittery headband had become your drinking attire. You couldn’t imagine the stares had you worn the Garrison rat’s usual outfit of trousers and a blouse anywhere in Paris. 

So, when it came down to it, you didn’t mind being bold, not at all. It was the années folles, after all, and life was good.

The same way British slang had slowly seeped into your vocabulary when you were an American trapped in Birmingham, your accent was starting to change the longer you stayed in Paris. Words like “quid” and “fucking hell” were slowly starting to disappear in your internal monologue, instead being replaced with “franc” and “merde”. Eventually, your American accent wrapped around the French words you spoke with a kind of ease, your thoughts came to you in French more than they did in English, and it dawned on you one day that you couldn’t have imitated the sweetness of the Garrison rat’s voice if you tried.

Honestly, you couldn’t care less. Maybe it was for the better.

You gently pushed open the glass door to the bar and, smoothing your dress, walked inside.

Lilting jazz, warm golden light, quiet conversation, respectful barmaids, a wide array of bottles at the bar, and best of all, sparsely populated. You loved coming to this place— you were already a couple of shots in, of course, but you enjoyed the French stuff.

You carefully sat down on your usual barstool to the left of the barmaid and calmly told her, “Comme d’habitude.”

She nodded without looking at you, emotionless. “Pas de problème.”

You settled back onto the stool, content to think about nothing for a moment as your drink was being made, but you sensed him approaching you before you saw him. Even though you had to tell yourself that you weren’t the Garrison rat anymore, that mysterious charm hadn’t been lost on the men of Paris, clearly.

The new man— dark hair, gray eyes, nothing remarkable — sat on the stool to your direct left, with the kind of forced confidence that immediately told you he had to practice it before coming over to sit with you, and you refused to look at him.

The barmaid slid a shot over to you, and the mysterious new man held up his hand, as though to intercept you from paying. “Je vais le payer.”

Looking anywhere but his face, you didn’t stop him as he handed over a fistful of coins to the barmaid.

Why should you? It was free drinks. That was welcomed in Las Vegas, New York City, Small Heath, and Paris.

As the barmaid walked away to attend to a new customer, his attention was on you now.

“Vous venez souvent dans ce bar.”

It was a statement, not a question. You looked at him, your face completely blank, and said nothing.

He smirked at you. “Vous aimez cette musique, oui? Le jazz est toujours beau. Bon pour danser.”

When you still said nothing, growing slightly frustrated now, he asked, “Quelle est votre histoire?”

You scoffed, and finally decided to speak.

“C’est une longue histoire. Une trop longue histoire. La seule chose que je sais, c’est que je ne tomberai plus jamais en amour, donc si vous pensez m’inviter à danser, n’essaie pas.”

The man looked at you for a long moment, before getting up from the stool and walking away— wordless, the kind of complicated look on his face that you didn’t understand. And it pissed you off, really, not understanding why he had the audacity to look hurt.

With the drunken blurriness of your vision, as the man retreated into the distance, his silhouette seemed to be absorbed by the gleaming, golden light, and you let out a low sigh of relief as you were left alone again. Alone with your thoughts.

You turned back to the bar and found yourself lost in the murky depths of your drink that he’d paid for. Through the haze, you blearily noticed that you’d started thinking in English again. Blunt and short sentences, but still: English.

I’m never going to love again.

//////

AUGUST 1920 - SMALL HEATH, BIRMINGHAM

I’m never going to love again, thought John as he stared moodily across the length of the merry Garrison. Grace may not have been there anymore, but the roaring folk songs every night had remained in her memory, and someone had clearly written a new one for the drunks to sing.

The only person there that wasn’t singing, John couldn’t help but roll his eyes. He wasn’t in the mood to act as though there weren’t any horribly-concealed glances in his direction every few minutes. Though, as time went on, they were becoming lesser and lesser, the Garrison rat was disappearing into a mythical woman that belonged to the folklore of Small Heath. Honestly, in the months without her, sometimes it was hard to believe that she had ever truly lived.

The song roared on.

“Oh, the Garrison rat, the Garrison rat, she left at twilight and we haven’t seen her since that…”

[lilacwineandthesinkingsun]

oh i have an angst request that is on my mind for a while, so what about steve rogers went back to the past to be with peggy leaving his fiance, reader behind. bucky and sam were pissed about it and Reader decided to move away to another state or country so she could stop remembering the times that she has with steve.

I'll just repost one from my old blog which i stopped cause of the haters. :) with a bonus of a little loki x reader villain moment and a sprinkle more of angst.

If I can't have love..

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

You were happily married with Steve for years now. You were a part of the team as an assassin, but he refused to let you go with them this mission. Time travelling was an unknown territory, and he was afraid you’d both be lost.

-STEVE FUCKING ROGERS what the fuck you mean i cant go?

-YOU CANT AND IT IS FINAL (Y/N)… - he shouted at you frustrated, punching a hole in the wall that made the whole team look at you two, as you just walked out slowly without flinching, giving a death stare to him, before shutting the door harsly.

You went out for a run. Soon enough Natasha was running along with you. You didn’t look at her, nor said a thing, just ran a bit faster, which of course she matched easily.

-You know he’s just afraid he’d lose you.

-Yea and i’m not afraid of losing him huh? - you said rolling your eyes, sprinting now. Anything to let them leave you alone.

This was the day. You were sitting out on a bench near the compound. This morning when Steve left your shared bedroom, he kissed you softly, said he’ll be back before you’d even wake up, and that he’ll love you forever no matter what. He then kissed your wedding band, and left.

You saw the flashing lights, so you stood up, and walked inside.

One by one everyone came back.. Everyone except Steve.

Bucky looked at you, tears in his eyes. He walked up to you, put a wedding band in your hand and ran out.

-Wait.. this… this is Steve’s… Nat.. Nat what the fuck happened over there?

-I don’t know… I was in a different timeline.. Bucky was there, maybe he knows..

-Fuck… - you ran after him, tears streaming down your face.

-BUCKY BUCKY.. please.. please tell me… I have the right to know… what happened? -You pleaded at his door, the rest of them behind you in the living room area.

The door slowly opened, his eyes were bloodshot, he had been crying. You were expecting the worst. But you did not expect what you heard when you all sat down in the living room.

-I… I don’t know how to tell this nicely.. so i’ll just tell the facts. We were progressing with the mission, it was going well.. Then he saw Peggy… I tried to get him not to walk up to her. I know he missed her, but it could fuck up the present greatly. He said he wanted one last dance… Then when it was time he gave me his wedding band, and to say how sorry he is. And he… he fucking stayed in the past…

-He… He left me… for someone in the past.. We spent a decade together, happily married.. Then he just left like that..

-Doll… he’ll be back, he can come back..

-The fuck he will.. He chose someone 60 years back in the past over his own fucking wife.. I’m nothing to him, just a fucking stand in…- you went for the door, turning back just to say with a poker face - expect my letter of resignation by the end of the day.- then you left without another word.

Nobody dared to follow you. You were too heartbroken for calm ehaded conversations right now. They wanted to gave you a few days to calm down, then talk to you out of leaving the team. Only when they went to the house you and Steve bought, they found traces of heavy drinking, picture frames broken, pictures burned, torn up, clothes scattered around, but only Steve’s.. Everything in the house that was yours was gone, including you. They knew that as a trained assasin you could hide, and wipe your complete existence, so they knew it was pointless to search for you. If you wanted noone to find you, noone could. They cleaned the house, put Steve’s stuff back in place, and his wedding band in the middle of the coffeetable with a burned picture which now only had him and his smile. Bucky couldn’t bear to stay any longer, as he didn’t just lose Steve that day, he lost you, and he couldn’t even imagine what you’ve felt. If he felt betrayed, what about you? Steve throw a happy marriage out the window for somebody who probably wasn’t the ONE, every signs, all those years with you just showed how you were that. But now it was too late. He hoped wherever you went, you’ll find peace and happiness. Or something pretty close to it. Little did they know.. You met Loki at a bar, he was bitter, the kind guy long gone. He seeked revenge, just as much as you. In your brain Steve’s betrayal transfered into the team’s betrayal. They sent him back, not letting you go, if you could be angry with Steve, you might as well be mad ont he team. It was their fault now. If there wasn’t a stupid mission to bring back half the population, then you’d still have Steve.

Loki just came back into your life the right time. He wanted his revenge, you wanted yours. You both were deadly. You both knew secrets, and that made you the biggest threat ever. Good thing they didn’t know you were about to give them the first blow.

A few weeks later suddenly all systems shut down. The elecricity gone. Without FRIDAY they couldn’t leave their rooms. You just wanted them to be on alert. That made it more fun. Loki stole the tesseracht, you just smashed shit, and left a little note: GUESS WHO’S BACK. Without FRIDAY they didn’t have any camerafootage either so they didn’t know who was it. Of course the missing Tesseracht made them think it was Loki.

-Yea, but with whom? Last i remember Loki was stupid for tech.. He couldn’t have shut everything down without the codes, without knowing what he does. Nothing is busted in the server rooms either. This can’t be him alone. -Said Tony. – do any of you know of anyone who’s this good with tech and we didn’t put them behind bars yet?

-Well, there was that guy, he just got out of prison. Maybe it’s him? – asked Sam.

-No, he stopped, we kept an eye on him, also he didn’t know any of the codes, you’d need to have some kind of clearance to acces these stuff… And that is something only this team had. And unless someone is helping Loki, and pranking us from this room, then i don’t know who could be.. – said Nat.

You and Loki laughed and clinked your glasses of whiskey. You now had power, you knew their weaknesses. You literally defeated every one of them in combat. There was no way they’d defeat you. Drunk from the power and the whiskey, you turned to straddle Loki’s legs, putting your hand around his neck, as you both smirked at eachother, while you took the cigarette from his mouth, taking a drag yourself. His hands went to your hips, caressing upwards from your thighs.

-I didn’t know there was this bad girl under that perfect little housewife… - he said smirking, raising an eyebrow.

-Oh there was.. It just took a little betrayal.. I take you like it though.. – you said winking, as you grind down on his erection through both your clothes, as his fingers held your hips so thight, you were sure it would leave marks. -Fuck yea i like it. – he said, before pulling you in for a kiss. You didn’t like him in the slightest, but the broken heart, and the shared bloodlust did something to both of you. He teleported you with him using the tesseracht, straight into your shared secret spot not even far from the compound. It was a small shed in the middle of a forest. You were still straddling him, and he was trying to remove your tactical gear. Caressing your hot skin as if it was the most beautiful thing he ever saw or touched.

-I was waiting for this for so long.. You’re so beautiful (Y/n).. He was a dick to ever think anyone could be better than this. – he said and you moaned at the praise.. He felt your juices seeping through his pants.. -Hmmm… you have a praise kink doll?

-oh shut up Loki.. touch me already… - you said as you removed the last pieces of clothing from yourself..

He smirked then turned you both around, so he was between your legs, pinning your arms above your head with one hand.

-Let me test my theory… - he said as his free hand travelled down south stopping just above your mound. -Want me to fuck you like the good girl you are? That smart, sexy, dangerous girl i saw today the first time and fell even more in love with? – you moaned at his praises, goosebumps rising on your skin, as you bucked your hips to his hand, needed all the friction you could get.

-Damn so wet for me already… -he whispered against your neck, as he planted kisses under oyur ear, over your collarbones, as his fingers gathered your slick to draw lazy circles around your clit, earning breathy moans from you.

-Loki.. please.. need you.. please..

-mmm i love when you beg baby.. Your wish is my command..- he stated as he dipped two fingers into you, trying to prepare you…When you were ready, and incredibely on edge, he took his fingers, making you whimper at the loss of contract. He smirked at you and took his slick covered fingers to his mouth licking your juices, while slapping your overly sensitive pussy with his member.

- How badly you want it darling? –he asked lining himself up to your etrance, but not pushing in. You just rolled your hips trying to get him to enter.

-Words.. – he smirked, and when you opened your mouth to talk, he slowly pushed in. The words died on your tongue, only a moan coming out. When you got used to his size, he started to thrust into you roughly, you were sure his hands gonna leave marks on you, as well as his mouth on your collarbones. You were close, but you kept it back, you needed to be told that you can cum. You were a good girl after all. He sensed your walls clenching around him as he neared his own release.

-God, if you’ll squeeze me like that i won’t last long… Such a good girl, taking me so well… - that had you trembling under him.

-Please.. pleasee.. i need to.. i need to.. – you tried to say, buti t was just a whimpering, moaning mess..

-Don’t worry honey.. i’ll keep you safe.. cum for me… cum around my cock.. – he said, and you did just that.. When he pulled out after some time, you whimpered again. He caressed your skin, leaving goosebumps in his wake.. He got up to fetch a washcloth to clean you up, but by the time he got back tot he room, you were asleep. Like an angel he thought.

-How could that bastard ever let you go.. – he whispered before joining you, pulling you close to his chest.

The next morning the bed beside you were empty. You were sad, but somehow okay with it. You knew Loki was a player, and you were just partners in crime, not a couple. It was okay that he left you. You thought… Until the front door opened, and he entered with a boquet of hydragenea, and fresh coffee.

-You didn’t have to… - you said shyly.

-I wanted to.. I might be the big and evil Loki, and just your companion in taking revenge… But that doesn’t mean i can’t spoil you.. – he said with the most charming smile, you didn’t know he was capable of.-In the meantime, what do you say we play with them a bit more?-Oh i like the idea… maybe we could get a few bad guys out of the cells… allies you may say… - you smirked at him wickedly. And he would be damned not to comply. It was an easy task, yet it would fuck with the avengers greatly.

You both got ready, and teleported into the cells. You shut down everything again, and started to free some of the worst criminals. On your way out someone shouted at you..

-Doll?

It was Bucky, you smiled at him, wicked, almost as if wasn’t even you, then you launched at him.

-Im not gonna hurt you doll.. Stop this.. Why do you help him?

-Oh Bucks.. he’s helping me.. You all at fault, you let him go, you didn’t drag him back.. And well.. turns out i’m bad at betrayals, but oh so good at revenge..- you said as you kept attacking him.

-Noone betrayed you angel, only Steve.. – Sam flew in, and tried to get you, but of yourse couldnt.

-Loks.. now. – you said, then Loki teleported you, and the criminals out of there, back to your secret base.

-Fuck.. – Said Sam and Bucky in unison.

——————————————————————-

The same time, the power got back, and the teleport flashed. Steve laid in it. Nat ran up to him.

-Hey big guy.. what the fuck took you so long?

-I saw Peggy.. It all came back..

-Then why didnt you stay?

-I.. She wasn’t the one… (Y/n) is..

-Well good morning prince charming.. She just attacked the compound with Loki… seeking revenge on US because you though fucking PEGGY when your WIFE IS WAITING FOR YOU HERE IS A FUCKING GOOD IDEA.- Bucky shouted at him, as he took his collar, and pushed him up a wall.

-What are you talking about Bucky? – asked Nat.

-Oh yea, good news, (Y/n) was the one shutting down everything, Loki has the tesseracht, and they just took 5 of the most dangerous criminals with them.. god knows where.. Loki wants revenge that we knew of.. But now (Y/n) wants revenge because we didn’t let her come, and we didn’t fucking dragged you back… And you know what Steve? I understand her. You left her after a decade, and after being married for someone you spent a month with in the fucking 40’s. Do you fucking understand how that would feel? How did i feel when i lost my best friend and i had to gave his wedding band back to his wife back home, breaking your heart beyond being able to be put together again?How bad it felt when i saw your fucking house trashed and completely without any sign of her ever being there? – he shouted at him, crying, before letting him go, sinking tot he floor, as Bucky ran out god knows where.

Steve just hide his face in his hands.

-Get up big guy, you’ll save your marriage if you can, but first we need to get back those criminals and the fcking tesseracht. Do you know of any secret sports we don’t know of?

-I have a few ideas ..

Then the search for you started

———————————————————————

After two weeks there was only one abandoned base they didn’t check. When they arrived, you and Loki teleported out tot he field before them, bringing the criminals with you. You were surprised to see Steve there, but it just fed to your anger.. Smirking at them you asked.

-Awww you came out to play? – you asked as you played with your knives in your hand.

-Why are you doing this honey? -Steve asked, but you only laughed and sent the wedding band from your finger as well as the one he proposed with straight to his palms with help of the tesseracht.

-So, dearie.. how did Peggy feel? Did you fuck her good? Where did you left her?

-Jesus (Y/n).. I know i fucked up but the team had nothing to do with it. Just give back the tesseracht, send back the criminals, and fight me then..

-Oh Stevie, Stevie… You know… i’ll happily gut you any day for betraying me and everything we believed in…… after you saw every single one of your teammates die in front of you, everyone that mattered breath their last breath out.. But then who will play with me..

-Why? Why do you do this?

-If i can’t have love, I’ll have power.

[clementinesjourney]

Masterlist

Hi guys! Here you can search from all my writings, i organize it based on pairings, characters. 

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MINORS DO NOT INTERACT.

My writings are not to be translated, copied, put on other platforms, or reposted without my consent. However reblogs are appreciated.

Stucky:

I’m not crazy (finished series):

Pt.1 - Escape

Pt.2 - The party 

Pt. 3 - Sneaking out 

Pt. 4 - Kisses 

Pt. 5 - First mission 

Pt. 6 - The start of forever

Record Shop Funk (finished series):

Pt. 1 Like real people do 

Pt. 2 Let's pretend 

Pt. 3 Coffee and cigarettes 

Pt. 4 - R U Mine?

Still the mouth opens...

Bucky/Seb: 

Old feelings new beginnings (one shot)

I'll even be a clown.. cause I just wanna amuse ya... (one shot)

The best kind of humans are the ones who stay. (one shot)

Heart made of glass, my mind of stone..(one shot)

I wanted to be alright.. (one shot)

It’s a men’s world (finished series): 

Pt 1. The Urban Legend 

Pt 2. A birthday and a wedding

Pt 3. Sweet as honey

Pt 4. Until tomorrow

Pt 5. The plaything and the Queen

Two weeks (finsihed series):

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

There is always a price (on-going):

Pt. 1.

Pt. 2.

Pt. 3.

Alfie Solomons/James Delaney/Tom Hardy:

The bookkeeper (finished series):

First part

Second part

Third part

Chris Evans/Steve:  

Interviews

If i can’t have love..

Sunshine

See you again

Peaky Blinders: 

The Grays (i)

Vikings:

Behind every earl is a strong woman (Ubbe)

ONE_SHOTS BASED ON MUSIC:

Big, bad, handsome man     biker!henry cavill x reader

Why’d you only call me when you’re high   Sam Wilson x reader

I've been Miss Misery since your goodbye Marcus Whitmore x reader

Favorite crime WS!Bucky x reader

[andreafmn]

Made for Each Other (Thor) - Part 1

Word Count: 2.9K

Requested: by @clementinesjourney: “I kinda always fantasize about thor x reader x bucky where they are like soulmates and the boys need to learn to share their little goddess.. smutty or not haha. <;3”

Story Description: In a world where everyone has a soulmate, (Y/N) gets two. One turns out to be a god, the other a 90+-year-old brainwashed Hydra assassin. Both men will have to learn to share because (Y/N) is not giving up either of them.

Pairings: Thor Odinson x Fem!Reader

Warnings: 18+ ONLY, SMUT, oral, fingering, unprotected sex, soulmate AU,

A/N: It's a tad short but I wanted to divide it into three parts. First will be only Thor, second just Bucky, and the third, well, all three. I'm still very new to the smut writings but I'm gonna keep working on it. Hope you like it!

And, if it’s not a big ask, please check out my other socials and my Etsy store 😊

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Rules were made for a reason, but how (Y/N) loved to break them. She never felt they applied to her, all except the soulmate rule.

Just like every other person, on her eighteenth birthday, a name appeared on her left ring finger. But in her nature, unlike everyone else, another name appeared on her right finger as well. Thor and James were scribbled on her fingers, and she made it her purpose to find to him they belonged to. For years she had fun with her fair share of James, none of them holding her name. Living in America it was hard to not come across at least one. As for Thors, she only had one encounter with a Swedish man that had been visiting the city, but lo and behold, it wasn’t a match.

(Y/N) found no reason to get tied down, rather focusing on her work and enjoying the sporadic encounter as it would arise. Working for SHIELD had her time-restricted enough though. Being one of their higher-ranked agents she rarely had any personal hours, but she was able to work alongside some of the best assets they had. One of her greatest accomplishments would be the mission she worked with Clint Barton to eliminate the Black Widow. The best decision they made was to have SHIELD recruit her instead of eliminating her, her abilities too advanced to waste.

She quickly became close to the redhead, having some initial difficulty due to Natasha’s guarded persona. But as time went by and missions were assigned, the women grew a familial bond alongside Barton. The three of them became the go-to for the hardest missions and top recruits for the new group of the Avengers. Thanks to that union one of the names on her hand turned red.

Thor.

There wasn’t much interaction between them as they fought against the god’s adoptive brother and his Chitauri army, but the first time they had an opportunity to consort there wasn’t much talking done.

“Lady (Y/N), correct?” The girl was startled, her mind focused on the lights of the city, but she nodded in response. “I believe it is safe to assume that the lettering on your finger turned red as well since that day in the jet.”

“It did,” she smirked. “I never would have guessed that my soulmate would come from another planet, even less that he would be considered a god in mine.”

“And I would have never known that mine would be a Midgardian. I never would have found you if it hadn’t been for my little brother.”

“I guess one day I’ll have to thank him.” (Y/N)’s lips played with a coquettish smile, her eyes looking up to meet Thor’s direct eye line. “I’m just wondering is there any other place where you’d be considered a god?”

The blond furrowed his eyebrows for a second, (Y/N)’s come-on line flying over his head until she was biting down on her lip and cocking an eyebrow. A hearty laugh escaped his throat as he threw his head back understanding what the girl meant. “I think you should be the judge of that.”

“Well, actions do speak louder than words.”

“Wait, how do actions spe…?” (Y/N) cut the god off by pulling him down and slamming her lips on his.

Thor’s hand landed on her nape, pushing her into him as much as he could, deepening the kiss. Both connected through a clashing of lips and teeth. They were eager to know how the carnal embrace with a soulmate would taste. His arms snaked their way down her body, landing on the bottom of her thighs and pulling her up. (Y/N) jumped and wrapped her legs around his waist, her hands finding a home in his hair.

“As much as I enjoy the fresh air,” she spoke through breaths. “Why don’t we take this to my room?”

“I like the sound of that,” Thor grinned. (Y/N) grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room Stark had assigned her for the night, laughter being stifled as they did their best to keep quiet down the hallways.

As soon as she closed the door, Thor turned her around and crashed their lips together once more. There was an insatiable hunger that they knew could only be sufficed by the other. Their hands worked quickly to rid each other of any piece of fabric that separated their heated bodies. The blond detached from the girl’s lips and peppered her cheeks, traveling down her neck where he made sure to suck at the spot that made (Y/N) moan. Her head fell back giving Thor better access to the point, a small thud ringing as the back of it knocked on the door.

Thor’s hands remained on her waist for a very short time before resting on one of her breasts, teasing the peaked mound. The sounds coming from (Y/N) confirmed that he was on the right track. His free hand found a job quickly, landing on the bundle of nerves between her legs.

“Oh,” she trembled. “Fuck.”

Thor’s middle finger gathered wetness from her slit to ease the movements on her clit. The initial touch was enough to send weakening rays of electricity through her body. (Y/N) pierced his arms with her nails, needing to support herself as her legs went limp. His fingers worked swiftly, taking their time to reach peak ecstasy. Switching his middle finger with his thumb, he was able to insert the digit that had been working into her whilst continuing the stimulation on the nerve bud. The single-digit inside her was then accompanied by his index finger. He listened to her breathing to set the pace of his fingers.

It didn’t take long until (Y/N) came undone on his fingers, clenching her legs to stop the friction. She rested her head on Thor’s chest, trying to regain her breath. He softly chuckled and admired his work. But she wasn’t done.

“If you can do that with your hands, I want to see what comes in the full package,” she smirked. She pushed his chest until his legs hit the border of her bed. He propped himself up on his elbows to admire the scene developing between his legs.

In the light of the night, he could make out (Y/N)’s smaller hands grabbing hold of his member, licking a stripe up and down his shaft. Looking up through her eyelashes, she could see the man taking in a sharp breath as she finally provided him with much-needed contact. The blond was painfully hard, and since (Y/N) was known to be a tease, she took her time.

Her tongue drew circles on his head, licking up the precum that had already sprouted. Her hand moved slowly up and down his long shaft, twisting and squeezing as her tongue slowly circled the tip. It only turned her on more seeing Thor trying to repress how much he wanted her to quicken the pace, needing a release. He could see what her intentions were – she was in charge.

But he needed more, and he unconsciously bucked his hips, moaning as his tip felt the vibrations from the back of (Y/N)’s throat.

“Uh-uh, darling,” she stopped her movements. “If you wanna have fun you have to play by the rules – my rules, obviously.”

“I-I’ll try,” he staggered. “But please…”

“Well, since you asked so nicely,” she devilishly smiled, taking him once more into her mouth. ‘

This time, she took as much of his cock as she could in her mouth bobbing on it and being aided by her hand. From time to time, she allowed the tip to reach the back of her throat, ripples running through him as she gagged on it. Her saliva fell down the shaft, easing the friction her hand was providing. Then a guttural moan escaped the man when (Y/N)’s free hand gave his tensed balls a slight squeeze.

“Fu-uck,” he managed to breathe out. “Don’t stop.”

(Y/N) smiled up at him and quickened her tempo, bringing him closer to the edge as she did. She loved what she was seeing. His golden hair was stuck to his forehead, his eyes rolled to the back of his head, his chest heaving rapidly. Everything about it was incredibly intoxicating. In fact, she had become so entranced by him that she noticed he had reached his climax when she felt the warm liquid hitting the back of her throat.

“Seems like you’re still up to keep going.”

“I can’t lie. My stamina is sort of godly,” he chuckled. He rested his hand on her chin and lifted her up to place a soft kiss on her lips. Then he wrapped an arm on her waist and flipped her onto the bed, her back pressed into the cold sheets. “Now that you’ve had your fair share of fun, I think it’s my turn.”

“Wai… oh,” she shuddered.

Thor dove headfirst onto her heat, lapping at the juices that poured out of her. He skillfully drove his tongue through her lips, separating the folds and humming as he moved. The soft vibrations sent shivers down her thighs. One of her hands grabbed hold of Thor’s hair, pulling on it as waves of pleasure rippled through her body; her other hand massaging her breasts and adding to the feeling. His beard tickled her thighs and she allowed herself to give in to the indulgence.

His mouth then started sucking on her clit as two of his fingers disappeared into her opening, sliding easily into her wetness. He explored her again with his fingers and now with his lips, the sweet taste overpowering his mind. Thor was intoxicated. Her smell, her taste, her moans, her arched body – every part of her being committed to his memory.

“Ho-ly shit.” Once more (Y/N) had reached her peak. Panting, shaking, and moaning as Thor continued pumping in and out of her slowly. Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t had sex in months, or maybe it was because of the soulmate connection, but she was finishing too quickly. She wanted to savor the moment, hold off for as long as she could. “Fuck.”

“I hope I have not tired you out,” he snickered. Their chests were heaving, rising and falling at an anguishing pace.

“I don’t tire easily, darling.” (Y/N) pulled him up and flipped him over so she was now on top, straddling his waist with her thighs. “Now tell me what you want.”

“I need you,” he breathed. Thor had sat up, bare chests pressed together. “I need to be inside you.”

Those words were all she needed to push forward. (Y/N) grabbed hold of his dick, using her own wetness to ease it in. She wrapped her arms around Thor’s neck, resting her head on the crook of it as she slowly descended on his length.

“Am I hurting you?” Thor worried as (Y/N) clutched to his neck, unmoving and gasping.

“No,” she chuckled dryly. “I just need a second to get used to the size.”

“I guess Midgardians aren’t well endowed, then?”

“Certainly not like this.” Thor was grinning, glad he had been at the top of her list. “I think I can start moving.”

She lifted herself slowly and crashed back down. It was an otherworldly experience. (Y/N) could feel everything. The way his cock was stretching her walls, how his veins contracted inside her, her own body contracting against his. She wanted to say in that moment for as long as she could.

But their bodies wanted something different. They needed the warmth, the friction, to reach maximum pleasure together. (Y/N) bounced onto his lap as Thor’s mouth attached itself to her breast, taking the sensitive numb and teasing it with his tongue. She let out a loud moan, not caring who in the building could hear her.

“Fuck, harder!” Thor had flipped them over, where he now was on top. He was now reaching areas that she couldn’t have imagined whilst on top.

Thor drilled into her at a painful pace, and (Y/N) was elated. He plunged in and out of her until she could feel both were reaching the point of no return. Their climaxes were nearing as much as they wanted to continue, they had been withheld from sex too long. It only took a couple of more strokes for both of them to explode, each other’s name on their lips.

It was electrifying. Their bodies could feel the current traveling through their veins, the pinnacle of their pleasure reverberating through them. Thor exited her and plopped beside her on the bed, body glistening in sweat. He extended his left arm and (Y/N) cuddled up to him, laying her head on his chest. He played with the fingers of her left arm, staring at his name written on her finger in red.

Up to that point, no one had made her feel that way, as connected mentally and sexually as she felt with Thor. Yet, something was missing. Her mind couldn’t help drifting to the other name on her right hand. There was a reason why she had also gotten the name James on her. Meeting Thor had filled a part of her she didn’t know was empty – meeting this James would complete the other part.

Thor noticed that her eyesight was set on the opposite hand he was distracted with and noticed another name on it. Jealousy ran through him. He had just met his soulmate and for some reason, destiny had decided he’d have to share her with some other man. Thankfully, the name had not turned red. He felt a sense of pride that he had gotten to meet (Y/N) before that other man had the chance to, pride now filling him.

“Couldn’t help but notice you have another name on that hand,” he spoke up. “You haven’t met him yet though, huh?”

“Oh,” she was broken out of thought. “It took this long and your brother terrorizing Earth for us to meet. I don’t think I’ll ever meet James in this lifetime. Seems almost impossible.”

“Well, at least the fates decided that we should meet, regardless of the circumstances.” His laugh reverberated off the walls before dying down. “But you do know I have to go to Asgard tomorrow to take my brother back.”

“I can’t believe we’ve just met and you’re already leaving. I wish we had more time to truly get to know each other.” He ran his hand through her head as she leaned into his touch. This level of comfort she had never felt with her past rendezvous. “Will you be back to Earth anytime soon?”

“Only time will tell if I will be needed back on Earth, but my duties lie in Asgard. My parents, my people – I do not think I could abandon them.” (Y/N) should have expected that answer. He was a royal in his planet and his role in the protection of said place was far too important to be let go of. “You could come with me.”

“As you have your role on Asgard, I have mine here on Earth. I can’t leave Nat and Clint, and my work at SHIELD is too important,” she sighed. “But I know we will cross each other’s path again. We are literally destined for each other.”

“In that you are correct, Lady (Y/N). I promise you one day I’ll take you to see my kingdom. I’m sure you’ll love it.”

“I’m sure I will too,” she grinned. “But since you’ll be away for an unprecedented amount of time, how about we go for round 2.”

“I like where your head is at.”

That went on for the rest of the night, the sunlight creeping through the blinds being the indicator of how much time had passed. Thor had excused himself not too long afterward, needing to prepare for his journey home. (Y/N) used the quiet hours to shower off the night and appear like a well-respected agent in the eyes of the public.

But someone else had another idea.

“You had fun last night, huh?” Natasha crept from a corner making (Y/N) jump and cling onto her towel.

“What the hell, Nat? Announce yourself once in a while, damn. Gonna give me a heart attack.”

“I wouldn’t be a good spy if I allowed my presence to be known,” she laughed. “But seriously. You and the mighty Thor?”

“How’d you know?” (Y/N) laughed – she knew exactly how.

“You guys weren’t very quiet. After like the third round I had to put my pillow over my ears to try and get some sleep,” Natasha pointed. “You know Clint and I won’t let you live this down, right?”

“And I don’t really care, my good friend. It was incredible!” (Y/N) did not care if all of New York City found out she had the best sex of her life with a god.

“So, sex with a soulmate really is as groundbreaking as Barton had said?” She grimaced. “Well then, one soulmate down?”

“And hopefully one more to go,” she smiled.

Permanent Taglist: @winter-soldier-101 @zheezs14 @DyslexicCatterpillar

*make sure your settings are set to be able to tag you 😉

[barnesafterglow]

hey guys! so i have officially decided to discontinue my taglist because it's gotten pretty large and it's become a bit of a hassle to tag everyone

so, in place of this, i have to decided to create a library blog like i've seen some other tumblrs do on here. please follow @theafterglowlibrary and turn on notifications for all fic updates!

please i have decided to do a taglist for each of my series (with a max of 50 people) and will post the links to those with each masterlist

i'm tagging my current taglist under the cut so people can be updated to this change <3

@mrsbarnesinmyimagination @ducky2104 @demongirl1917 @writing-for-marvel @zbutx @asgardwinter @thesneakylittleminx @winth0rsoldier @carrotfantasimp @cutelittletwistedhorror @enchantedbarnes @tlcwrites @maladaptivexxdaydreaming @subwaysurf45 @intrepidacious @ambrosiase @nexusnyx @buckydaddy @gray-reads @starbuckie @lovinggbarnes @igotnoname4thisblog @signofthebarnes @cupidsbarnes @lostyx  @silentkiller2374 @blossomedfloweroflove @red42985 @bennibabie @thesneakylittleminx  @theokatz @fyeahatised @smokeinherperfume @miyadarling @awaywithtime @fandoms-writings @povlvr @pellucid-constellations @sweetdreamsbuck @clementinesjourney @beefybuckrrito @pineprincess @scxrletrecsmarvel @vivalakatee @dihra-vesa @peachyprism @emmabarnes @goldustwomun @scxrletrecsmarvel @bucky-fricking-barnes-reads @the-iceni-bitch

[babyjakes]

〈 disclaimer: this blog posts content not suitable for individuals under the age of 18. minors are strictly prohibited from viewing, sharing, or interacting with this blog. for more information on this blog's commitment to protecting minors, read our full statement here. 〉

nav | masterlist | rules | library

find all the submissions to eun's 4k follower writing challenge from her old blog [@dadplease] here!

sunshine by @clementinesjourney | angst, fluff | steve rogers x avenger!reader | prompt: “come on, stay with me. help is on the way.”

look at me by @steebsfav | hurt/comfort, fluff | steve rogers x reader | prompt: “what do you need? anything, i’ll do anything to make it better.”

the end of the world by @put-trash-here | angst | steve rogers x reader| prompt: “please let me in. you don’t have to be alone.”

here for you by @starksbabie | hurt/comfort | steve rogers x reader | prompt: “i never wanted you to see me like this.”

[clementinesjourney]

So here's the thing..

Hey guys!

I've been away from this platform witing-wise for quite some time now, and at this point, after a few rude messages, i thought i'd just tell why did i stopped writing on here.

My stories mostly contained stuff that happened to me, and were meant to help me deal with the trauma and shit on my own. (i was and still am getting help from professionals, so there's that too).

On one hand i am sorry if you couldn't enjoy my stories cause simply the character did not fit you, on the other hand i am not for above said reason.

I am not aiming to be a big-shot writer, nor do i want to publish anything anywhere else. People need to realize that some "writers" on tumblr do not write for the "audience" but for themselves, to help deal with life.

Maybe i could've stated that these aren't for "entertainment - purposes" but then i wonder if i'd get messages calling me attention seeker, and like "why do you keep mentioning your trauma all the time.. *eye-roll*"...

So the sad (also not sad) reality of it that you can literally never satisfy everone. And i didn't even want that.

I simply wrote stuff that helped me mentally, or sometimes calmed my soul when it was the hardest.

After some of these messages i spiraled, i still have like 20 stories in my drafts that i will probably never post, just cause i can't get myself to deal with people this way.

If you buy a book, and the main character's physique or looks does not fit you, do you go and complain? No.. And honestly this all upsets me. You can call me selfish or anything you want, but coming for me just cause i wrote a red-headed character? I literally just shared stuff that helped me feel better.

Anyways, i probably won't be posting any story here from now on.

PLEASE please please think before you come for someone for such things..

Thank you for understanding, and thanks to those who enjoyed my stories, gave feedback in a humanly way. <3

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 13

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

previous / next

summary:  torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: angst and fluff, mentions of pregnancy and infertility and abortion, mentions of cocaine/addiction, mentions of alcohol and alcoholism, VERY brief mentions of domestic abuse that have nothing to do with john or reader, goddamn we are FEELING OUR FEELINGS in this one

word count: 2.4k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23@smailaway @cedricscoffin @buckysjuicyplums @belledawnidk @wandering-poetess @bobafett-tea

a/n: happy holidays motherfuckers

//////

The days passed painfully.

Eventually, you got used to the bed being cold when you woke up. To be fair, it wasn’t like John had disappeared from the Shelby Parlour entirely, reminders of his presence were still floating around— Arthur still yelled his name down the hallways, Polly kept cursing his name when dirt from his boots stained the threshold, and the door to the betting shop swinging open and closed was a constant, indicating that at least someone was in there at all times.

He just…wasn’t there.

You talked to Polly, you kept in touch with Esme, you drank until your head spun, the kids always kept you stressfully busy, but you were almost never in the same room at the same time anymore. He didn’t appear in the kitchen when you made breakfast for his kids, and when he stomped into the pantry for a drink during the evenings, he merely glanced over you while you were dusting or cooking. He was either with Tommy on some Blinders mission, betting on the horses of Watery Lane, drinking at the Garrison, and you were pretty sure he had started going to the whorehouse behind your back again.

Your own husband had become a ghost.

In a way, you were used to it. You got the groceries alone, you washed the dishes alone, you did the laundry alone, not unalike before you had remarried and you were alone in Small Heath. When it became time to have the stitches in your abdomen removed, you walked to your doctor’s appointment by yourself and sat alone in the waiting room.

The resulting scar tissue in your abdomen was ugly, white, and stretching, and you preferred not to look at it, but it was impossible to deny, it gave you all the more reason to catch a train directly out of Birmingham.

But first, before you decided on anything, you needed to clear your head.

//////

You bit your lip to keep yourself from smiling as the old Lee house atop the grassy hill slowly became visible on the horizon.

Though, maybe your relief was because Esme’s overly-fast, reckless driving on the dirt road was rattling you as much as humanly possible.

“Don’t tell George I stole the car!” she yelled over her shoulder— the loud roaring of the engine threatened to drown out her voice. “Zilpha wouldn’t let me get my license!”

You shot her a nervous smile in response, your teeth chattering.

//////

It hadn’t taken long to settle your things in your old bedroom in the Lee house, the contents of your suitcase were scattered on your bed.

Contrary to what it may have looked like, you weren’t running away at all. Polly knew you were here, she’d seen you carry your suitcase out of the door, and no matter how passive-aggressively she responded to the news, nothing would convince you that it wasn’t perfectly normal to want some time alone, away from your husband, away from everything.

Your throat bobbed nervously, and you awkwardly twisted your hands together.

Yeah. Right. Definitely.

You had to cringe for yourself— you wished everything was a lot more simpler than it was.

Esme was in the kitchen when you came out of your room, rifling through the mini fridge behind the bar, but she looked up when she heard you coming.

She had a small tin covered in tinfoil in her hands. “Want a slice of pie? It’s blueberry.”

You nodded, moving to sit at the bar. “Okay.”

Then before you could stop yourself, you blurted out, “Do - do you think you’ll ever get married?”

She gave you a weird look. “What?”

“Sorry,” you said immediately, embarrassment suddenly coursing through you. “I - I just-“

She was looking at you like you had three heads now. “Y/N, have you worked yourself into one of those philosophical states again?”

You opened your mouth to speak, but your brain bailed on you, so you closed it.

You shrugged weakly, hating the feeling of absolute uncertainty crawling up your spine. “I - I’m just, I dunno, thinking.”

She smirked. “That means yes.”

Your eyebrows furrowed as she took a knife from the drawer and cut you a generous slice of pie. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She transferred your slice onto a plate, slid it over the bar to you, then cut another slice for herself. “It can mean anything you want it to mean.”

Your uncertainty only deepened.

“I wasn’t always like this, you know,” you said. “When I was in Vegas, I was crazier.”

Esme grabbed two forks from the drawer. “I thought you were from New York?”

“Sam and I moved there just before the war, but I’m from Las Vegas,” you answered. “You wouldn’t want to visit there, trust me. West Coast, hot and humid, barely two thousand people there and no one had shit to do except drink and sniff cocaine. Literal tumbleweeds on the road. You’d have to go to Reno if you wanted a good life, and even then, you barely had anything to do if you weren’t a miner.”

She tutted, giving you your fork. “Must’ve been quite the culture shock moving to New York.”

You rolled your eyes, hard. “Oh, I used to say that Sam saved me.”

Esme grinned, piercing the crust of her slice of pie with her fork. “How shitty did your life have to be to think that a gangster saved you?”

You already had a forkful of pie in your mouth. “Well, at that time I was basically spending every other day getting wasted on cocaine, so he helped me realize I was doing a bit too much. I probably would’ve died in that desert wasteland otherwise.”

And he was an Englishman in America, he dressed like a Senator compared to everyone else, he was tall and mysterious and and the talk of a small town, he was a businessman, he had money, he wanted a wife…he wanted you.

Everything that Sam was, it was basically the inverse of everything you’d been when you’d arrived in Small Heath, and your heart suddenly ached with jealousy at the memory.

You swallowed, contemplating. “Then we both decided it was best for us to move to New York.”

You paused again, deep in a memory.

“I had a whole fit about how much my engagement ring cost.”

It wasn’t funny then, but you laughed now. “Looking back, it was so stupid, you know? I don’t think I’ve ever been cut out for the whole doting wife role that everyone always expects women my age to pull off flawlessly. And I loved Sam, I really did, but I don’t know if it was right that I met him, much less married him. Sex is great, being in love is great, taking care of kids is great sometimes, mindlessly dreaming about the future is great when it’s only a mindless dream and it can’t happen, but I don’t think I ever should’ve been nailed down like that. Like, just because he got me off of cocaine doesn’t mean that I stopped being wild completely. The mania was still there like it’s always been. It was there when I met John, it was there when I married him, and it’s within me right now.”

You couldn’t even remember a time where you wanted to talk about this, but now that you were, you just couldn’t stop talking.

“I loved Sam, I really did. Sometimes it really did feel like he saved me. I loved him so much and I can’t stop saying that, because sometimes it feels like he’s never been gone at all and the way he died was so fucking unfair. I knew wives in New York whose husbands almost definitely beat them in private, controlled what they eat, what they wear, what they say. Sam didn’t do any of that. He treated me like the Queen of England.”

Digesting this, Esme’s face was impossible to read.

She set down her fork beside her plate quietly. “Sam was probably the best out of all the Lee cousins, and I’m not just saying that for your sake.”

“Is it selfish to say that I wish he was still here?” you asked in a whisper. “Because I still wish he was, I really do, but it’s not all cut and dry. I didn’t mean to fall in love with John, but I did, holy shit, I fell in love with him so embarrassingly quickly, and it was so convenient because we were Romeo and Juliet and it settled that awkward footnote in Tommy Shelby’s grand plan to conquer Birmingham or whatever. And so we were engaged. And so we were married. I loved John, but I loved Sam as well, so I knew it would be best to fight the battle privately. I never talked to John about Sam, just like he never wanted to talk about the mother of his children, and now I don’t think either of us loves the other at all.”

You let your words rest in the air for a moment. Esme had eaten almost all of her pie, and you hadn’t touched yours.

“I know that’s what the Garrison rat part of me wanted, but I wasn’t expecting it to be so lonely.”

A beat passed, and the horrible feeling of post-overshare regret hit you like a wave, and you immediately started shovelling pie into your mouth to ignore it. Esme hadn’t even agreed to be your therapist, why were you like this?

“Sounds like you’re resenting him,” Esme suggested.

“Who? Sam or John?”

“Yes.”

You opened your mouth and closed it.

“Damn.”

Absolutely nothing was funny, but when you caught Esme’s eye from across the bar, you laughed a little, followed by brief silence, and then you suddenly couldn’t stop laughing.

“Damn,” you repeated, half-choking on your laughter, “Oh goddamn - Jesus, I am so fucked.”

Esme shot you a smile you couldn’t quite read, then said, “Let’s go on the porch.”

//////

There was a pink-purple sunset on the horizon, like fingerpaint smeared just over the tall pine trees that lined the clearing where you and Sam had been married.

“Pretty sky,” Esme commented as she tossed the blanket over your legs: you were both sitting on the wooden steps of the porch, overlooking the hill.

“Peaceful,” you added. You’d almost missed this: it was chilly like it always was anywhere in England, but you could hear the crashing of the distant ocean, and the crickets chirping from somewhere invisible, and the scent of grass was overpowering as you looked out at the clearing.

“You and Sam got married over there, right?” Esme said, pointing in the distance. “Remember the chickens?”

You burst out laughing. “Oh, God.”

The ceremony of your first wedding had gone on pretty much without a hitch: this was back when the old Lee house was a fully-operating farm, so you’d made the best with what you had. Haybales weren’t your first choice of decoration, nor were the mosquitos, and you would’ve preferred the weather to be less humid, but everything was alright until you were about to say I do.

“Do you, Y/N Y/L/N, take Samuel Alexander Lee, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do,” you’d tried to say, but there was suddenly a loud gasp from the crowd assembled in front of you, and people automatically leapt up from their seats to get away from the horde of chickens that had scattered onto the scene, leaving you, Sam, and the officiant looking dumbfounded.

“What do you even say to that?” Esme exclaimed, laughing. “I mean, c’mon.”

“I didn’t even know and I was in that situation!’ you shot back, grinning. “Fuck’s sake. Feels like a century ago.”

“Getting married seems like such a huge hassle,” she announced. “I’m only ever gonna get married if Zilpha forces me into it, and believe me, she’s tried, ever since I became of marryin’ age. I think I’ve made it clear that I’m not gonna have her grandkids and let her control me. She’d have to lobotomize me.”

At this, she laid a hand protectively over her stomach— a bit of a random action, honestly— and you pondered something to say.

Reaching back into your memory, you said, “Whatever happened to that guy you were kissing at the Garrison? Remember when Ada went into labour at the engagement party?”

You smiled because that had felt like forever ago, but she didn’t return the gesture.

The porch fell into silence.

A long silence.

A very long silence.

“Esme?’ you asked awkwardly.

“He knocked me up,” she whispered quickly, so fast you almost didn’t hear it. “I’m about eight weeks along. Gettin’ a doctor to take care of it next week.”

The awkward silence continued and you blinked rapidly, trying to process this outrageous information. You opened your mouth and closed it several times, unsure what to make of it.

Then it hit you.

“Esme, you were pregnant and asking for cocaine?”

“How else was I supposed to deal with the morning sickness?” Esme cried, shoving the blanket off of her. “Maybe I am in my Nevada phase. I’m wild like you are. The mania of existing is there for me too.”

What?

The?

Fuck?

The painful knowledge of knowing you were infertile hit you once again, but you pushed it aside.

“You know what, I don’t even care. You’re doing what’s best for you, and that’s what matters,” you said, and you leaned forward, wrapping your arms around her. “You’ve protected me by bringing me here, and I’ll protect you.”

Esme wrapped her arms around you too, leaning into the hug, and said nothing for a moment.

Another long moment passed. Her hair smelled like cigarette smoke. 

(Honestly, you weren’t willing to draw yourself out of your thoughts.)

“No one else knows. Not even Zilpha,” she muttered into your shoulder.

You grimaced for her. “She’d make you keep it.”

“I know. I don’t want to.”

You pulled away and glanced at the door behind you, trying to find something meaningful to say.

You gave her what you hoped was a tight-lipped smile, but it came out more like a grimace.

“I know a good cup of tea always makes me feel better, do you want some?” 

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 11

CHAPTER ELEVEN

previous / next

summary: torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: basically everything horrible you can think of. ANGST, vomiting, gore x1000, friendly reminder that this is the peaky blinders we’re talking about so even more guns and gunshot wounds, everything to do with pregnancy and infertility…this chapter is a lot honestly i think we all need to hug it out after this one

word count: 3.5k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23 @smailaway @cedricscoffin @buckysjuicyplums @belledawnidk @wandering-poetess @bobafett-tea

a/n: you know that scene in friends where ross is yelling PIVOT over and over while he tries to get a couch up a staircase? no spoilers, but that was basically me writing this chapter regarding the entire vibe of the series thus far lol. i stayed up most of the night to write this.

//////

To you, hospital food tasted like wet sand.

Esme had brought you a banana from the Shelby Parlour and you’d eaten almost a quarter of it several hours ago— but the nurses had to come and take the remains because even though your stomach was pulsating and needy, crying out in pain, you hadn’t been able to keep any food down after the surgery. Bowel movements were an absolute nightmare, the mere thought of it made you nauseous to the point where it was hard to stay in the world of reality.

Your stomach was covered in jagged, bright blue stitches from bullet removal, which ached and stung every time your chest rose to take a breath, and there were tiny white claw marks pressed into John’s hand from squeezing it as hard as you could when another wave of white-hot pain raced through your brain.

(He said it barely hurt, though, so your hand remained firmly clamped around his.)

At one o’clock in the morning, sixteen hours on, the intensity of your pain had decreased enough to keep you in the world of reality, so you were awake and conscious while awaiting the final test results from the doctor.

She got hit in a rather critical area, the nurse had told John, refusing to look at you the entire time. There could be unfortunate complications from this.

If only you knew what the fuck that meant.

“You okay?“ John whispered, finally giving you an excuse to stop thinking about the ever-continuing tinnitus ringing in your ears, and you looked at him.

“What time is it?” you mumbled back.

Pausing, he checked his watch, then said, “1:33.”

You looked at him blankly, and he grimaced sympathetically, reading your mind. “He should be here soon, love.”

“I want that fucker dead,” you mumbled, trying to roll over on your other side but immediately regretting it when your stitches burned and screamed in pain.

When you looked back at John, there was a revengeful type of passion burning in his eyes, and that same uncomfortable shudder from earlier crawled up your spine as he said, “You should be able to see him die. He fuckin’ shot you.”

You blinked rapidly as tears burned hot behind your eyelids, but you clenched your eyes shut for a moment, refusing to let them fall.

Sam wouldn’t have wanted you to lie to yourself, so the truth was this: you just hated feeling so broken. This was your second hospital visit in, what, two weeks? It wasn’t that being a Shelby warranted more trouble than you being a Lee, but that they were two equally shitty options in a shithole corner of the world, and now that you were bound by blood to another man, sworn to live out the rest of your life as a housewife, you weren’t sure if you could ever leave Birmingham and feel freedom ever again. Run away and leave everything behind.

And after this bullet in your stomach, you weren’t sure if you could ever function like you used to ever again.

Both you and John looked up at the same time when you heard the sound of footsteps growing closer to your room, and anxiety made your heart leap into your throat.

There was a small CREAK, then the doctor politely edged the door open and shuffled inside.

His face was somber, and your heart immediately plummeted into your stomach, expecting the worst.

“Mrs Shelby,” he started, his voice low with respect. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news.”

//////

When you woke up the following morning, even though you were still covered from the waist down in itchy linen sheets, lying in the same hospital bed with your stomach aching and pinching with recovery pains, confirming it hadn’t been a horrible, horrible dream, something was distracting you.

It was the bright sunlight filtering through the room, like a beacon of hope.

Actually, it reminded you of your first morning after with John: the tender smell of his skin, the feeling of your bodies gently pressed together, the warmth, the satisfaction, the residue of Polly’s perfume…

And then finally, the panic.

The bad news of last night came crashing back down onto you, and your stomach churned horribly in a way that had nothing to do with your stitches as you sat up in bed, blood thundering to your brain as a single word echoed in your mind.

Infertile.

John, the Englishman, would probably pronounce it differently than you, the American, would, but the meaning was still the same: you can’t have kids.

You.

Can’t.

Have.

Kids.

Esme would have scoffed at the sudden traditionalism, but you had the sinking feeling like you’d failed at life the longer you thought about it, and there was a horrible feeling gathering in the pit of your stomach, a feeling that you had no idea how to deal with, let alone contain, and it felt like your mind was speeding years into the future, unable to get all the unspoken promises expected of a husband and wife that had now been broken out of your head, and—

You stole a glimpse at John, who had dozed off in his seat, but instead of calming you, it only made the panic in your chest rise. Impossible to know what he was thinking while he was sleeping.

God, impossible to know if he still wanted you.

You closed your eyes and raised your hand to gnaw on the nail of your thumb, a habit you’d neglected for weeks on end.

Fuck fuck fuck.

A shitty situation all around, but eventually, you resolved to go back to sleep.

//////

In your dream, you fell into the Parlour a swollen-lipped mess, the heat clouding your ability to think straight as John’s lips flew onto yours again—

SMASH!

—you’d staggered straight into something glass and it shattered, but that didn’t matter, he was pushing you into the betting shop as you threw your arms around his neck.

He swiped at something on the table and you heard it get broken, not like you cared since he was already lying you down onto the wood, kissing you like a man starving, and you wrapped your legs around him, pulling him so close you nearly forgot how to breathe.

As he sucked a bruising kiss into your neck, your voice came out a grinning whisper.

“You don’t want any more kids, do you?”

John was already shoving his hand down the front of your skirt, and you couldn’t see his face, but when he spoke you knew he was playing into the game.

“Maybe I changed my mind. You never know, after all. It’d be cute to see you pregnant.”

You rolled your eyes, then bit your lip as his fingers met your clit and your gut twisted in the most pleasurable way.

“Fucker,” you mumbled, but you said it with love.

Instead of waking with a start, your eyes calmly opened as the dream faded into nothingness, and you laid motionless for a moment as bleak, unchanging reality settled in.

For the first time in God only knows how long, you were completely alone in your hospital room.

The room was dark, and still you closed your eyes, hating how this all felt like a sick joke.

In the thick silence, you wondered where Esme was, and if she was angry that you hadn’t been able to get her cocaine. You wondered where John was, if he was tracking down the shooter like he’d promised. Your mind wandered to the kids, and you wondered if they knew what was happening, if they were worried about you— according to Polly, the only thing they knew was that you’d had an accident and had ended up in the hospital.

Like you’d fallen and scraped your knee.

Your tears were hot and fast and they made you feel dirty, like the sadness was filth staining your cheeks, but knowing it would’ve been worse to hold them back, you let them fall, slapping a hand over your mouth so the nurses wouldn’t hear your choked, anguished cry.

Worst of all, you were somehow thinking of what you’d be doing at this very moment in time had Sam still been alive.

You wanted to say in Paris, tidying your new apartment, polishing your French skills and waiting dutifully for the arrival of the baby growing inside of you, but the more realistic answer would be still in Small Heath, only living in the huge Lee house in the country, and Esme would probably still be wanting cocaine, and you’d still brave the whorehouse for her, and you’d still get shot, only by a Shelby brother this time around…

Jesus, John could’ve been the one who shot you.

At that thought, tears ran down your jaw as a new wave of sadness overcame you, making you feel pathetic.

Yeah, you really didn’t like thinking about this.

//////

You were discharged from the hospital days later with the stitches still in your side, and John gingerly led you to the car.

“You’re gonna want to come out to the outskirts tonight,” he mumbled in your ear before you climbed into the seat. “Tommy thinks we got him.”

You glanced back at him and John grimaced at you.

“Fuckin’ monarchist. Thought he could mess with the Blinders and get away with it.”

You said nothing and refused the hand he held out for you, and even though your stitches burned and screamed and wailed like usual, you climbed into the car yourself.

//////

POW! POW! POW!

“NOT SO FUCKIN’ PROUD NOW, HUH?”

POW! POW! POW!

You’d honestly lost count of how many times John had punched him, but nonetheless, with the man who shot you pinned to the ground by Tommy and Arthur, he was hardly interested in stopping: when you briefly caught sight of your shooter’s face in the moonlight, one of his eyes was swollen shut and quickly turning purple because of the force of John’s punch; there was a nasty yellowish-green pus leaking from his ajar lower lip, and the longer this went on, the more it seemed clear John was about to literally beat him to death with his fists.

John was yelling as loudly as he could over the sound of his own cacophonous violence, yelling himself absolutely hoarse, his voice strained with fury and hurt and sadness and fucking intense emotion you didn’t even know a human could experience, fury so strong and reverberating, you had to reflexively shiver for the man who’d rendered you infertile.

“YOU SHOT MY FUCKIN’ WIFE!” John roared, yanking a handful of his hair and tugging him upward only to slam his face into the ground over and over, and the stitches on your stomach twinged uncomfortably.

The Shelbys had promised it would be satisfying watching the life bleed out of him, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone else ever again, but you weren’t sure how you felt knowing that John could inflict this much pain with his bare hands.

(And you’d specifically drove to this clearing so no one would see this man die.)

“Ah, lookit that, he’s fuckin’ cryin’ now,” Arthur called out, lifting him slightly to check his face. “I really can’t believe it. He’s fucking crying.”

Then the man screamed, horribly, anguished and regretful and clearly in unimaginable pain, and the force of it made your ears ring when you weren’t even particularly close to him.

It might’ve been traitorous to do it, but a part of you cringed for him. Sure, you might’ve had a lot of issues in your life, but you usually jumped to sadness, not anger.

And if it was anger…well, it certainly wasn’t of this magnitude.

“Finish him off, John boy,” Tommy shouted over the cries of pain, holding the man down as he writhed.

“Y/N, you want to see this pathetic fuckin’ rat before he dies?” Arthur yelled over to you, and with the colour rapidly disappearing from your face, you took a few steps forward on shaky legs, hoping that when it was over with, you’d just be able to forget about this quickly.

“Hold on a minute, lads,” John told his brothers, fiddling with something hanging on his waist, concealed by his coat. “I got an idea.”

An electrifying beat, then he looked at you, and it was like all the air had disappeared from your lungs.

His face was grim. “Y/N, have you ever shot a gun before?”

Hating what was about to happen, you silently shook your head as your heart started beating out of your chest.

No. No. No.

You can’t do this.

He’s not going to make you do this.

He can’t make you do this. He’s a good man.

And then the cold, numbing realization:

He’s gonna make you do this.

“It’s loaded,” John told you, stepping forward to wrap your shaking hand around the thick black handle of the gun, “All you have to do is point and pull the trigger, alright? It’s gonna kick, but don’t let it scare you.”

As you examined the gun in your hands, Tommy and Arthur finally stopped pressing your shooter into the ground and stood up, looking over your shoulder at the gun.

“Berettas are fuckin’ nice,” Arthur mumbled into your ear, but you had no idea what that meant.

“Aim square for the back of the head,” Tommy told you on your other side. “And step back so you don’t get his brains sprayed on ya.”

Heart in your throat, you went backward by about two steps and shakily pointed the gun downward at the crying, sniffling man who had all but accepted his fate, and suddenly it was like you were incapable of feeling anything at all.

What happened next came incredibly quick yet simultaneously in slow motion.

You squeezed the trigger and the force of the bullet coming out of the gun made your hand sting, but then an absolute geyser of blood burst from the man’s fucking head, and you opened your mouth to shriek but suddenly it was like your brain was underwater so you couldn’t even really hear it, you just stepped back reflexively as bits of an organ erupted from his head and effectively sprayed you.

You almost fainted when you realized the man’s brains were in your hair.

It was like one minute you were standing and the next you were on the ground, vomiting the remains of the vegetable casserole Polly had made earlier that afternoon, but your head was spinning, you weren’t processing anything correctly, you couldn’t hear or see anything, there were random words echoing in your head instead of actual thoughts, all you knew was that there was a man dead on the ground and you had brains in your hair and you killed him you killed him you killed him you killed him—

You felt a hand on your back and the first thing out of your mouth was a hissed, “Don’t touch me.”

Luckily, the hand immediately rescinded, and as you slowly became aware of your heart racing in your chest and the tinnitus rushing in your ears from the close-range gunshot, you leaned forward and brushed the detritus of a murder out of your hair.

You were dry-heaving now, weak on all fours, but it just didn’t feel enough.

Being infertile made you feel dirty already, but now you were a murderer, and it hit you like a truck.

JOHN FUCKING SHELBY HAD MADE YOU INTO A FUCKING MURDERER.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” you choked out as the same hand brushed your back again, and completely mindless, you leapt up, shoved John’s hand away from you, and started running.

//////

It took what felt like hours to get back to Watery Lane, and you were choking on your own tears by that time, completely out of breath from running and holding your skirt up out of the way because your feet were moving faster than your brain. Your hands were covered in dirt and blood and the hem of your skirt was dipped in vomit and stained with grass, you probably looked like you belonged in an insane asylum.

You ran past the Shelby Parlour entirely and ripped open the door to the Lee house, blindly running up that cramped staircase that you knew from experience led to Esme’s room.

You could hear a stampede of footsteps downstairs and yelling in Romani, evidently because a stranger had just randomly burst into Zilpha’s home, but you didn’t even care, you pushed the door open and collapsed inside, so drunk on adrenaline you couldn’t even feel your stitches anymore.

Of course, Esme turned around to see you dishevelled and bloody on the carpet and immediately became concerned.

She was in front of you in an instant.

“Y/N, what the fuck happened to you?”

“I killed the person who shot me,” you tried to say, but it must’ve come out completely incoherent because you had to suck in a massive breath, the first full breath you gave to your lungs. “I - I-“

Esme’s eyebrows furrowed and she knelt in front of you. “Slow down, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

“I - I killed a man,” you gasped, your eyes darting desperately across her face as the words formed on your tongue erratically, “The man who shot me. I shot him in the head in a clearing outside town.”

Esme’s eyes widened, and you hesitated, suddenly becoming aware of the chaos this would cause if you said it, but in the end you said it anyway.

You looked her in the eyes and it was like your head stopped spinning.

“John made me.”

You knew immediately that you’d rekindled the gang war between the Lees and the Shelbys when Esme’s face darkened.

“He made you?” she repeated. “Y/N Lee, your husband made you kill someone?”

You nodded hopelessly and buried your face into your hands. “I couldn’t say no.”

Esme immediately wrapped her arms around you and you leaned into her as your shoulders shook, trying not to outright sob in front of her.

“I - I - I don’t want to start something,” you blubbered into her shirt.

“Hold on, let me get this straight,” she said from above you, pulling away slightly. “You know damn well you could’ve gone to the Parlour and told Polly, right?”

You looked at her quizzically.

“And I suppose you could’ve gone to Ada’s apartment,” she continued. “But you went and told me, the dirty Lee girl who can’t get married off because she causes so much trouble.”

You could only blink.

“Because you know what I can tell the rest of ‘em. You know what the Lees can start,” she said, and the weight of what she was saying pressed on your lungs until it was hard to breathe again.

“Just give the word and the Lees will be behind you,” she finished, and there was a thick silence that hung in the air.

“John is my husband,” you whispered blankly, and Esme finally snapped.

“Jesus Christ, Y/N, how did you even get here?” she shouted, gesturing wildly to your muddy clothes. “For crying out loud, did you run all the way from the outskirts?”

At that moment, there was loud thumping up the staircase, and a split-second later the door was flung open by Zilpha Lee, red in the face and yelling something in Romani.

Evidently not for the first time, Esme immediately whipped around to scream back, and only half-understanding the Romani language, you tuned it out and let your brain go underwater again, Esme’s voice echoing in your mind the entire time.

Just give the word.

She wanted you to be at literal war with your in-laws, which was insanity considering you’d only been married for a week.

Insanity considering you knew you loved him.

Insanity considering that before this, you believed he loved you.

But at the same time, John had made you kill someone. He didn’t put you in harm’s way, but he’d made you witness a horrible thing, and made you perform something that would surely haunt you for the rest of your life right after that, and after how badly you’d reacted, you weren’t sure if you could forgive him for that.

And selfishly, you’d always wanted an excuse to leave Birmingham.

And you’d never wanted to be married in the first place.

Let alone be married into the Shelby family. The Peaky fucking Blinders.

Just give the word.

Your stomach was pulsating again, and dread filled you when you realized you were about to vomit, only there was nothing left in your stomach to come up.

The urge in you got to be too strong, akin to an avalanche: blood suddenly thundering to your brain, you shoved past Esme and Zilpha and utterly flew down the stairs, into the hallway, and out of the door, until you were running down the middle of the Lane like a maniac all over again.

It didn’t matter. You were shivering and crying and the rainwater was pelting down hard on your back, but the plan was coming together at once.

I need to get out of here.

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 10

CHAPTER TEN

previous / next

summary: torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: domestic fluff and the smuttiest chapter (i believe) yet, gunshot wounds, smoking, past cocaine addiction/attempts at sobriety

word count: 3k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23 @smailaway @cedricscoffin @buckysjuicyplums @belledawnidk @wandering-poetess @bobafett-tea

a/n: a motorcyclist at tim hortons parked in the spot next to my parking spot the other day (i was in the car waiting for my friend, who was inside) and when i looked up out of reflex he smiled at me and i got spooked because he looked DISTURBINGLY like john shelby/joe cole. now i have a headcanon that john would drive a motorcycle in a modern!peaky AU. that is all.

//////

Miraculously, Tommy Shelby was the first to speak.

“What?”

“Shot at the train station,” Freddie shouted at the top of his lungs, waving the Roman candle around like a madman. “He was shot at the train station - I didn’t see it, but they’re sayin’ it was your fuckin’ Irish barmaid who shot him, I don’t know what happened, but it’s a bullet in the leg!”

“My fuckin’ Irish barmaid?” Tommy started to say, somewhere between angry and incredulous, but John had suddenly appeared at the forefront of the crowd, interrupting him.

“Could that kill him?” he asked urgently.

“I dunno, but he’s at the hospital right now,” Freddie replied, and as all eyes were now on him, he lowered the Roman candle. “Just thought you oughta know - I think everyone needs to know, honestly, this is fuckin’ huge.”

“Freddie, where did you hear this?” Ada inserted sharply, hoisting a wailing Karl higher on her shoulder. “Were you at the Garrison?”

“I was, yeah,” he replied, nodding hurriedly, “And Grace wasn’t there, mind you.”

“That would be because she was supposed to be heading to London,” Tommy put in angrily, stomping on his cigarette. “I need to go.”

“We need to go,” John corrected, taking his toothpick out of his mouth and looking back at Arthur, who must’ve been further into the crowd. “The Peaky Blinders are gonna be the first people they think of, those bloody coppers are gonna be on our ass all over again.”

Incredulous, your cigarette still burning between your fingers, you glanced over your shoulder and shared a wordless look with Esme — can you believe this shit? — and called out, “So is the party still going on or not?”

Immediately you felt something tugging on the hem of your dress and looked down– one of John’s kids, the youngest boy, was looking up at you.

(You were honestly surprised he was able to stand.)

“I’m scared, mum,” he whispered, looking up at you with huge, blue, watery eyes. “Please, can we go home?”

“Esme, Y/N, Ada, you all need to go back to the Parlour,” Tommy said over him, pointing in the vague direction of the street. “And put the kids to bed, alright? The Blinders will regroup and try to find Grace.”

“Where did Polly go?” you said blankly, turning around. “I-”

Resigning yourself, you shared another wary look with Esme and pulled John’s boy close.

“You come with me, now. We need to find Katie and Finn,” you told him, hoping your voice sounded like you knew what was happening.

//////

You couldn’t stop shivering and shaking and sobbing.

“Please,” you whispered, keeping your arms tight around your legs as you tucked your face into your kneecaps, “Please…it’s so cold…”

Sam was awkwardly kneeling before you, holding the dripping shower head. He looked like he was in pain because he knew he was hurting you, but nonetheless, he was firm.

“I know honey, but we gotta break your fever. Can you stay strong for me?”

“It hurts,” you mumbled uselessly, refusing to look at him and watching freezing cold water droplets run down your bare legs instead. “It hurts so bad, please just make it stop.”

It had been four days without cocaine, and things were going horribly. Bloody chunks were flying out of your nose every time you sneezed, meaning your sinuses were fried, and you’d become so frail you couldn’t even do every day tasks by yourself anymore. Your body was akin to a withering corpse.

Just like Sam.

You woke up with a start, your heart pounding so hard and thunderous you wouldn’t be surprised if it burst out of your chest right then and there.

You’re safe, you automatically tried to reassure yourself, propping yourself up on your elbows to stare at the dark ceiling as you tried to calm your breathing.

You’re safe, you’re sober, and you need a drink.

Somehow, you didn’t quite trust your thoughts.

You bit your lip and looked over at John, breathing evenly and contentedly, his eyes softly shut, completely oblivious to it all.

He’d returned from the field at close to two in the morning, with no trustworthy news of what had happened to Inspector Campbell, or Grace, or if there were legions of coppers targeting the Blinders at all. The consummation to your marriage had been awkward and swift, like there was an elephant in the room, and he’d slipped off to sleep soon afterward.

Now he was lying here, his chest rising and falling softly.

You knew he’d been a soldier so it was probably hard for him to sleep peacefully, but still, you envied him. He looked so…young. Young and calm, and— well, you wouldn’t describe a hardened Peaky Blinder as innocent per se, but there was something sweet about him while he slept. You’d always known he was slightly younger than you, but until now, he didn’t look at it.

And to think the ladies had told so many stories about him at the Garrison…

You smirked to yourself and lowered yourself back onto the bed until you were on your back, lying beside him.

His hand was lying blankly on the linen sheets, and it had probably been touching your leg until you’d woken up from your nightmare.

You hesitated, then wrapped his hand in your own and gently squeezed.

Even in sleep, he squeezed back. Lightly, like a ghost.

You smiled a little, and then, just because he was asleep and wouldn’t hear it, you whispered this:

“I love you.”

//////

“Everyone’s still on their toes,” John said from the table the next morning, while you cracked an egg in the pan. “We still don’t know what’s happening just yet. But Campbell’s definitely been shot. And we can’t fuckin’ find Grace.”

“How does Katie like her eggs?” you asked mildly.

“Overeasy, lots of pepper,” John responded distractedly, flipping a page of the morning paper. “Jesus, twelve arrests this week.”

“Anything to do with Campbell?”

“Dunno. Looks like it. Nothing’s going anywhere, of course.”

You pursed your lips— the morning after the wedding, it felt like all your bones were tight somehow— and plopped an egg onto the waiting plate. “Okay.”

//////

The first step into the lukewarm shower was the first moment of peace you’d had that entire morning: John had left for Blinders business soon after breakfast and Finn had tried to help you as much as possible, but preparing four tired, whiny kids that weren’t even originally yours for the various places they needed to be proved more difficult than you may have originally thought.

One sweaty, tired, hoarse hour later, you’d finally been able to lock yourself into the bathroom, strip off your sweaty clothes that were clinging to your clammy skin, and climb into the shower. Now you were standing blankly under the spray, contemplating your next move.

Is this what your life would look like from now on, then? Just an endless to-do list of things you needed to do?

Were you expected to be nothing but a vessel for John’s kids? When you were alone and you couldn’t lie to yourself, the thought of this morning being a reflection of the rest of your life was terrifying.

You couldn’t believe Sam had once wanted five kids…

If it happened once, it happened a million times: you weren’t sure if it was the thought of the future or the thought of Sam, but you felt your breath catch and your heart rush in your chest…

You’re okay you’re okay you’re okay.

Lost in thought and lost in grief, you barely heard the bathroom door open over the sound of pouring water all around you.

“I’m in here,” you tried weakly, not looking up, and there it was again: that sore numbness that you hated so much.

“I know,” John responded from the other side of the curtain. “Give me a second.”

You heard his shoes clatter to the floor and the sound of something unzipping, then he was pushing the shower curtain aside, making it rattle, and the water sloshed slightly under your feet as he stepped into the tub behind you.

You weren’t sure if you wanted to look at him. If you didn’t, it felt like there was a looming shadow on your back, and it made your stomach tense— anticipation and arousal blending into one, swirling around in your gut.

You wanted to ask why he was back at the Parlour so soon when he had Blinders business to handle, but you had a feeling like you weren’t supposed to talk during such an intimate moment, so you closed your eyes and listened to him move closer until he was just behind you, his chest pressing lightly against your back. Both of your bodies were slick under the lukewarm spray.

“You dealt with the kids?” he mumbled, the low tone of his voice making you shiver. A rhetorical question.

It suddenly became apparent that your breath had hitched as John’s hand drifted down the front of your body: you weren’t sure if it was the hot water pouring over both of you or the secrecy of it all that made the anticipation so powerful, but you were leaning into it like a horny teenager, like it was the last of him you’d ever feel. The last of the John Shelby you understood.

“Touch me,” you breathed.

At your command, his fingertip grazed over your clit, teasing like always, but your mouth fell open as he started rubbing it in small circles, his other hand drifting over to grip your sopping wet waist gently, like you were a fragile thing he was afraid to break.

“You’re always so good, you know that?” John whispered in your ear. “Can’t believe you’re my fucking wife.”

As the pressure built up in your gut, you thought about saying something witty, about being the Garrison rat the whole town talked about, but heat was already pooling low in your abdomen and suddenly you weren’t thinking about anything at all.

Your eyes fluttered closed gently, and you let your head drift onto his shoulder.

“How much time you have?” John mumbled into your ear, and it suddenly hit you that this was only a stolen moment and not a moment you could stretch into forever, there were things that needed to be done, and you needed to get a move on.

“Doesn’t matter,” you mumbled, taking his hand and guiding it gently between your legs, making him feel how wet you were. “John, I need you.”

At this, he released you abruptly, then took your arms and rotated you to face the wall.

You flinched a little at the feel of the cold tile against your cheek, but John scooped your leg up and pinned your leg to the side, giving him enough room to slide his cock inside of you— something you didn’t even realize you had been needing.

“Oh, fuck,” you choked, and John grunted something intelligible as he started moving inside of you— this wasn’t nearly as pleasurable as it would’ve been had you both been dry, but still, you needed all of him you could get.

With him inside of you, it was a much deeper and almost rebellious pleasure as your bodies experimented with a rhythm under the warm shower spray— you could’ve sworn the water had been lukewarm when you’d stepped into it just minutes ago— and it made you want to cry out as John finally hit that spot inside of you that made your entire body sing.

“Fuck, harder, harder!”

It was far from gentle, he was fucking you as relentlessly as he could in this cramped shower, but nonetheless, it felt like heaven.

His hands roamed over your body, teasing your clit and squeezing your breasts before his hands finally settled on your hips, using the slippery grip he had on you to thrust into you in the way you were begging for, harder.

Your body was wet in a lot of confusing ways, your legs were shaking so violently you were scared you were about to slip and fall onto the shower floor, but you didn’t care, your hands were curling into fists as your climax started to approach—

“Fuck!” you choked as an orgasm swept through you again, powerful and heavenly and good and, after a moment, making you come to your senses that you needed to turn off the goddamn shower and pretend like this never happened.

This was a stolen moment after all, not a moment of significance.

Just a moment after your own orgasm, you felt John fill you, hot and deep and satisfyingly full like he always was, and you moaned weakly as he withdrew from you.

Your whole body was vibrating as you came down from your high and John leaned over to shut off the shower before you could, leaving your bodies sopping wet and dripping and awkward in the sudden rush of room-temperature air.

That was the downside, unfortunately: neither of you never knew what to do in the aftermath. For John, it was something he picked up after years of contractual, loveless sex with prostitutes at the whorehouse, and for you, it was something you struggled with because of the annoying, sore, grieving emptiness. It felt good in the moment, but...

“I - I need a towel,” you stammered, and once again, you had to remind yourself that John was your husband now and this was okay before you let the shame settle in.

/////

“Let me get this straight,” you repeated, trying not to frown as the weight of what she was asking you sunk in, “You want me to go into Zhang’s, a whorehouse, ask for a girl named Mei…and you want me to get snow for you? With no strings attached?”

Esme nodded rapidly, glancing around at the betting shop like someone was due to rush in and catch this scandalous conversation.

“Yeah. You can tell her I sent you.”

You were looking at her like she had three heads. “Esme, why do you want me to do this for you?”

“C’mon, Y/N, you know how Zilpha is,” she said, though she didn’t sound very convincing. “I’m going back up to the country in a few days, my supply ran out last Tuesday, and I’d rather not think about what will happen to me if Zilpha catches me.”

She couldn’t be in withdrawal, could she?

You blinked hard, the decision mulling around in your brain for a moment, but finally sighed. “You’re unbelievable, you know that?”

Esme smiled, bright and mischievous-- she knew your answer. “Thanks a million, Y/N. You’re an angel.”

“Yeah, but you Lees certainly aren’t,” you mumbled under your breath: you knew the mischief and frustration all too well from Sam. “I’ll be back in a half hour, okay? Stay here.”

/////

The copious amounts of red silk hung around Zhang’s lobby had the entire place glowing scarlet, and as you took your first cautious step into the place, your nostrils were met with the overpowering smell of sex and a type of spice you couldn’t recognize.

You wouldn’t have expected a whorehouse to hide it, but you could hear a faint thumping and moans down the hallway, making you wrinkle your nose, but you stepped forward and rapped on the desk like your intentions were innocent.

A door swung open and Mr Zhang appeared in front of you, and you nodded at him.

“I’m looking for Mei. I’ve been told you have snow,” you said, like you were looking for a loaf of bread at the supermarket.

When he didn’t say anything, just looked at you suspiciously, you met his eye. “I’ve been sent by Esme Lee.”

At that same moment, a prostitute poked her head around the corner. “She lookin’ for Mei?”

“It’s for the Lee girl,” Mr Zhang grunted.

A blank look crossed the prostitute’s face for a moment, but she stuck her head out into the hallway and screamed at the top of her lungs, “MEI!”

The thumping and moans awkwardly stopped for a moment, and a teenage girl appeared from a room at the furthest end of the hallway.

“WHAT?” she screamed back.

“Business,” the prostitute said, motioning to you, and you silently wished you could get out of here.

//////

You couldn’t get rid of the anxiety pulsing in your chest as you awkwardly hurried back to the Shelby Parlour, passing the trotting horses and acrid-smelling furnaces, like usual— but you had a feeling like everybody on the street was watching you, somehow.

Even though you’d already reminded yourself that it was impossible for them to know you had cocaine on you, and you were being irrational, like always, your gut still twisted with worry, and an uncomfortable shudder crept up your spine.

You heard footsteps behind you, but you pressed your lips together and kept your eyes down on the blackened cobblestone on the off-chance it was coppers.

You’d hate yourself for not turning fast enough as a wheezy voice echoed through the air.

“Look, we caught the fuckin’ Garrison rat!”

There was a gunshot behind you, and the moment you heard it, pain exploded across your torso, pain so intense that for a terrifying second you couldn’t find the source, but it felt like a tidal wave of panic rushing across your brain as your body tried to find the right response.

You looked down and blood was rapidly spreading across your front.

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

previous / next

summary: torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: fluff concerning the possibility of the L word (and it’s not lesbians), brief smut, (it’s finally happening folks!!!) it’s still unclear whether reader is an alcoholic or not but we might be verging into that territory now, alcohol-based hallucinations, mentions of past cocaine addiction, and of course angst concerning grief

word count: 2.2k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23 @smailaway @cedricscoffin @buckysjuicyplums @belledawnidk

a/n: i am slowly running out of john gifs to use, lol. i’ve been meaning to learn how to make my own! anyway, we’re pretending it hasn’t been 25 hours since i posted chapter six :)

//////

Hours had passed with you alone in your apartment. You hadn’t figured out what to do with yourself just yet; you’d gotten a bottle of wine on the angry way home, and had been alternating between guzzling it and cleaning up the mess you’d made in the apartment that you’d never had the chance to clean up.

Cushions that had been slashed open, emptied of their stuffing and thrown on the ground went into the garbage; clothes previously torn out of your closet were washed, dried, folded and put away; the remnants of glass in your kitchen had been swept up and tossed and you were in a drunken stupor by the end of it. Had you been paying closer attention to your body, you would’ve noticed the ghost of Sam whispering to you, warning you that you were going to drink yourself into a coma if you kept this up, but of course you ignored it.

God, your emotions controlled you more than you controlled them. Sometimes it was fiery and free, but most of the time you hated it.

As soon as the last of what had once been a pretty ceramic mug had been thrown into the garbage, you sat back on the couch and sighed. Regret was coming over you now. You knew you needed to apologize to John before the wedding, but you were hardly in the right state of mind to do so.

In response to that, you reached for the wine glass you’d been drinking out of for the past few hours and filled it with that thick, cherry red liquid.

You’ll drink yourself into a coma, Sam whispered again, but you ignored it.

They had this type of wine at your wedding, you remembered. Before they had gotten deep into gang wars in the midst of the First World War, the Lees had owned a vineyard by the old house Esme lived in: they grew their own grapes and, if Sam’s stories were to be believed, every summer was spent alternating between getting unbelievably drunk and getting high on snow.

To you, it was endearing how much it sounded like the hot, sweltering summers you used to endure in Nevada, when you were in the process of weaning yourself off cocaine— maybe the fiery heat of summer was what drew you both together.

Back in the present, you paused and drank deeply, staring up at the ceiling of that shitty apartment. You hadn’t noticed that water damage stain before, but you were too deep in your thoughts to care.

You were sure that fiery type of emotion drew you to John, too. God, the way he looked at you when he sat besides you in that booth at the Garrison— “Different, huh?” he’d mumbled with that fucking smile on his face— it inspired a feeling so bittersweet inside of you, it made you want to claw your heart out of your chest.

Jesus, fuck. You wished Sam were here to talk you out of this pointless engagement.

You closed your eyes and let your hand drift into the air above you. You could visualize him if you tried hard enough— if you closed your eyes, you’d see him again.

Your stomach lurched, subliminally begging for you to sober up, but of course you ignored it.

Brown eyes, freckles dotted across his cheeks, that kind of sly smile that stretched across his face, made dimples deepen, had you lighting a fire in your stomach. Calluses on his fingers and that ugly gunshot scar on the back of his hand when George Lee had accidentally shot him at the gun range when they were Finn’s age.

You breathed deeply through your nose, feeling the tears release and run down your cheeks, and then you felt him.

Tough skin caressing your fingers. A voice that sounded like honey. His choked kind of breathless laugh that was somehow the softest thing you’d ever heard.

“Y/N, you need to listen to me, alright? I’m always gonna be in love with you. I mean - fuckin’ Christ. I’m so fucking in love with you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

His voice was an echo, but it sounded so real. You knew he was smiling that smile that now tore you up from the inside.

“You wanna just stay in bed all day, yeah? You can do that. We got time to do that. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“We don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do,” you mumbled to yourself. Your arm was still ghostly poised in the air.

“I’m always gonna be with you, y’know that? It’s just you and me. As for the rest of the world, fuck ‘em. I need you, Y/N. I fuckin’ need you.”

Tears were rolling freely down your face now, it felt like your whole face was wet. Snot was dripping down your lips, it was a while before you could catch your breath.

Your voice came out choked. “I fuckin’ need you too, Sam.”

There was a beat: his voice changed.

“Can you do one thing for me?” he asked softly.

“Anything,” you whispered back. “Anything, I love you, you know that.”

“I need you to put down the bottle,” he replied. “I need you to walk to bed.”

You did what he said: the bottle of wine and the glass went onto the coffee table, and you wandered into your tiny bedroom like a zombie. You never wanted to let go of the warmth of him.

When he spoke again, his voice was thick in your ears, sending a delightful shiver down your spine.

“I need you to get in. Get as comfortable as you can.”

You complied: for the first time in months, your ratty blankets felt warm. You brought your legs up to your chest, unabashedly curled up like a little kid, and kept your eyes closed.

You could feel Sam’s hand on your shoulder now. Warm, like molten gold.

“I need you to know that everything is going to be alright, okay? You’re going to be happy. I want you to be happy.”

“John’s a bad man,” you mumbled out to the stretch of darkness you were seeing through your closed eyes.

To your surprise, Sam laughed. “On the surface, maybe. But he’s good. I can tell he is. Bit reckless, maybe - four children at twenty-four, that’s fucking mental, eh?”

You giggled like a teenager. “He makes my eyes roll up into the back of my head, it’s not hard to understand why he has that many kids.”

Sam snorted, and you laughed again, just to feel that whole-hearted warmth.

Whole.

You hadn’t felt this whole in a year.

Sensing this, Sam went quiet.

“I want you to get some rest, darling.”

As you drew your blankets up to your chin, you felt a phantom kiss on your temple.

His lips. Soft and full, even though he smoked constantly.

Sweet dreams, my love.

//////

Halfway across town, John woke with a start.

For a minute he’d thought that he’d woken up in the middle of the night, but when he groped for the clock on the nightstand and took a glimpse at it, it told him that it was 4 PM in the afternoon— he’d slept for an entire day, and none of the Shelbys had come to wake him.

Paranoid, worried about having somehow missed Black Star Day even though it was planned for a week ahead, John stumbled out of bed, shuffled into his rumpled, three-piece suit he’d worn two days ago, stuck a fresh toothpick in his mouth, and shuffled downstairs into the betting shop, distorted thoughts of possibly visiting Zhang’s filled his head.

Unsurprisingly, Arthur was there at the table, smoking a cigar and attempting to read what looked like yesterday’s morning paper.

“Where’s everyone?” John asked warily, stopping short.

“Gone to the Lees, I s’pose,” he answered without looking up. “They’ve gone to sort out the dowry for that girl of yours.”

Arthur snorted and turned a page. “You should see the size of it, I’ll tell you right now.”

Unconvinced, John glanced at the chalkboard used for keeping track of bets and schedules. You’d be at work right now, and his kids would most likely be somewhere driving those nuns at the preparatory school up the wall.

Most likely— he never was totally sure, anyway. Jesus, he really needed to get a better hold on his kids.

“Let me know if Y/N swings by the Parlour,” he told Arthur curtly, then stomped out the door.

//////

You did, in fact, swing by the Parlour: two hours after you’d gotten off of work, you changed into your best dress to deliver the Lees’ finest set of china to the house. You’d fought tooth and nail to come there alone, Zilpha in particular had put up a fight— resulting in the sharpest back and forth in the Romani language you’d ever heard— but truth be told, you couldn’t care less about the dowry, you were just looking for a chance to apologize to John.

Upon coming inside, you met Polly, apparently alone and serenely painting her nails at the kitchen table.

“Hi,” you started awkwardly, “This - uh - this is, my dowry, y’know, for the wedding-“

“Leave it on the table,” she shot back flatly, never looking up at you.

You were crippled with awkwardness now. Fuck, where was that confidence you’d possessed two days ago? “Is John here?”

Polly still didn’t look at you. “He’s upstairs.”

Upstairs.

“Thank you,” you replied after a tense beat, and mentally cursing yourself for your lack of grace, you placed the china on the table and shuffled upstairs.

The air up here was unnaturally still, and it smelled like vanilla. The unexpected sweetness had you on edge.

Praying that your drunken memory was serving you right, you nudged open the door that you thought was John’s, and stepped inside.

Sure enough, John was standing with his back to you, staring out of the window.

Upon hearing the door creak, he turned and almost jumped when he saw you.

“Y/N!”

You took a deep breath. “John, I-“

Then, quite confusingly, you both started speaking at once.

“God, I’m sorry, I acted like such a fuckin’ dolt, and I went about it so foolishly-”

“-It’s on me, I don’t even know why I made such a big deal of it at the Garrison like that-”

“-It’s just that-”

“I - I-”

You both stopped at the same time, looking at each other like deer in headlights, and you bit your lip to stop yourself from smiling.

“I bought you flowers,” John put in sheepishly, gesturing towards the windowsill. “Don’t judge me, it was Finn’s idea.”

The tension had successfully been broken: you laughed, feeling warmth rush in your chest. “You didn’t have to, it’s fine.”

“Are we good?” he asked you anxiously, and you nodded immediately.

After a beat, you reached out to hug him.

“We’re gonna get married soon,” you whispered in his ear, and you saw the hairs on his neck raise. “I figured we don’t need the extra stress.”

“Are you ever gonna tell me what got you so worked up about Black Star Day?” John breathed back.

There was the smallest moment of hesitation: the words were right there, all you had to do was coax them onto your tongue.

Waiting. You were waiting, everything was waiting.

His face was so close.

Three words to say.

Just three words.

Say it.

It didn’t matter: in the end, you were a coward.

“I can’t lose you,” you whispered instead, looking up at him.

For a moment, he said nothing. There was a storm darkening on his face, and you had no idea what it meant.

“You have no idea what kind of effect you have on people,” he muttered, after what seemed like an eternity.

Confusion sprung into your eyebrows. “What?”

John was struggling to hide the grin pulling at his lips. “Ever since I saw you in the Garrison, no one else has been worth thinking about, y’know that?”

You opened your mouth and closed it, unsure of what to say. There was a heartbeat between your legs, impossible to ignore, and you weren’t sure you could verbally say what you meant.

You could definitely say it physically, though.

Your breath catching in your throat, you pushed your lips onto his, and sensing your need, John’s hands slid under your ass to lift you up.

The bedsprings creaked horribly as he tossed you onto the bed, but you didn’t care: you scrambled up to grab his hand and pressed it to the heat blossoming between your legs.

“Yours,” you breathed, and somehow the confirmation was stronger than those three cursed words always on the tip of your tongue. “Yours whenever you need it, you hear me?”

“Mine, eh?” John repeated, and you couldn’t help your grin as he found the zipper on the back of your dress and tugged it down, exposing completely bare skin. “This fucking pussy’s mine now, is it?”

“All yours, always has been.”

“Yeah, that’s what I fucking thought.”

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 9

CHAPTER NINE

previous / next

summary: torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: alcohol, cigarettes, mentions of cocaine, a knife being used to cut open human flesh (but it’s not self-harm or anything, it’s apart of a ritual), and lots of fluff! i know john is young but he’s a dad and it’s beautiful.

word count: 2.3k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23 @smailaway @cedricscoffin @buckysjuicyplums @belledawnidk @wandering-poetess

a/n: forever is the sweetest con.

//////

“John doesn’t have shoes.”

You looked up at Esme in the doorway and laid down your face powder. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not, and Arthur’s are too big,” she replied as she stomped into the room, looking harried. “You know, if Tommy hadn’t banned snow for today, I’d be high off my mind right now and everything would be fine.”

“Don’t get high,” you said distractedly, now patting around for wherever you’d put your makeup bag as your heart started racing. “Is - is Polly here?”

“I dunno, she was at the market a second ago…”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you hissed to yourself, bounding up. “Be right back.”

“Where’s your dress?” you heard Esme say, but you didn’t care, you’d already started running.

It was your wedding day, and at nine o’clock in the morning, the chaos was already starting.

//////

“Polly’s at Zhang’s,” Tommy told you as soon as you’d rushed into the kitchen. “He should be able to help us.”

“I’m getting my fuckin’ shoes from a fuckin’ whorehouse on my wedding day,” John complained fretfully to no one in particular, and you snorted at him. “It could be worse, you could be wearing shoes from a whorehouse to your fuckin’ funeral.”

“It’s gonna be John’s funeral in about three seconds if you lot don’t clear out!” Ada yelled from the hallway, and Karl the baby started crying.

“Esme, Y/N, you can stay,” she added after a minute. “I need peace and quiet, God knows that’s not something the Peaky Blinders understand.”

Tommy looked to be resisting a smirk as he took a drag from his cigarette. “Ah, well…”

He exhaled a plume of smoke and clapped John on the shoulder. “John boy, we better be headin’ out.”

There was a pause as John got up from the counter and Tommy pressed his cigarette into the ash tray, and they hastened out of Ada’s apartment.

“Thank the Lord,” Ada snapped, her voice seeping with disdain— she evidently wasn’t grateful at all. “You let me know if Polly’s coming ‘round, alright?”

At that moment, Esme slid into the kitchen. “Are we supposed to be headin’ to the Parlour before or after the wedding?”

Bundled up in Ada’s arms, Karl screamed for no reason, and you cringed.

“I don’t know,” you replied hurriedly, brushing past her. “We’ll figure it out when we get there.”

“Do you lot plan anything besides murder?” Esme exclaimed angrily.

“Your guess is as good as mine!” you called from the other room, and Ada rolled her eyes.

//////

“Are you panicking, John boy?” Arthur called out teasingly from the bathroom, and John resisted the urge to gulp. “No.”

His voice was calm, surprisingly, even though he was tossing around his cap in his hands, trying to ignore the fact he was due to walk out into the street any minute now. A wedding ceremony simply couldn’t happen without the groom, that was for sure, but his thoughts were suffocating him.

He couldn’t help it, he could still remember what his and Martha’s wedding had been like. Upon first meeting her, all of the Shelbys had approved of her almost immediately, with her soft and sweet energy that was such a startling change from the usual fiery Shelby temper, it endeared her to everyone around her. She’d spent the entire week beforehand handpicking the wildflowers she held in the ceremony, and everyone agreed in the aftermath that the pregnancy glow had made her look absolutely radiant in her wedding dress, and John looked so happy to be marrying her, it was simply meant to be. Even though many would have raised their eyebrows at the marriage of two eighteen-year-olds, Polly used to say that just by looking at them you could tell it was going to be a marriage that would last for many years. Decades. The rest of their lives, hopefully.

Jesus, Polly was right, God really does take the best ones first.

He could barely fathom that he was doing it all again, that’s all. At twenty-four nonetheless, with Martha dead from sepsis. And you were three years older than him— that was hardly seen in Small Heath, let alone the world, what were all the regulars at the Garrison thinking?

“It’s eleven thirty, John boy, we should start headin’ out,” Arthur called from the bathroom, and John nodded, forcing himself to clear his head.

He smoothed his hair back and put his cap on, ignoring the rush of confidence he felt while wearing it.

“You go out first, mate. Meet the rest of ‘em, I‘ll be right behind you.”

//////

There was a surprising amount of people lined up in rows, watching quietly, and both you and Johnny Dogs were waiting for him when John and the rest of the Shelbys arrived.

John couldn’t see you from the front yet, but his breath hitched in his throat. Your veil was long, tumbling down your back in a silver waterfall, and someone had tied your hair into a tight bun at the back of your head and adorned it with flowers. He was so used to seeing your hair down, he almost didn’t know what to make of it, and he hadn’t even seen your face yet.

“Go on now,” he heard Tommy whispering, and hoping his heart wouldn’t fall out of his chest, John walked up and knelt in his place before Johnny Dogs, willing himself not to look at you. You were beside him, and your face was obscured by the veil.

As the speech started, John realized it was all bullshit that didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, and he wasn’t even listening to most of it anyway as you hastily lifted your veil and tossed it behind your head.

It was like he couldn’t understand why Martha had ever been worth thinking about. You were a positively luminous thing in this smoky grey, manure-filled, charcoal-covered place— something so beautiful, he couldn’t help but look back into the crowd and smirk at the first Shelby brother he saw.

But the ceremony didn’t pause.

“Do you, John Michael Shelby, take Y/N Lee to be your beautiful young wife?”

John looked back at Johnny Dogs and nodded hurriedly. “I do, yeah.”

You bit your lip and tried to smile at him, but it came out more of a grimace. You were just hoping he wouldn’t notice your hands shaking.

Johnny Dogs was addressing you, now. “And do you, Y/N Lee, take John Michael Shelby to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

You twisted your hands together and inclined your head slightly. “I do.”

“With that, there remains one more part of the ceremony,” Johnny Dogs announced to the crowd. “The mingling of the two bloods, so the two families become the one family.”

As he spoke, he brandished a small knife and cut open the palm of John’s hand: John didn’t flinch at all as the first few droplets of bright red blood emerged from his palm, but you bit your lip even harder and swallowed a curse as the knife cut deep into your flesh. It stung, especially because the purpose was to leave a scar.

The pain faded somewhat when John reached forward to enclose your hand in his, and as he caught your eye again, he squeezed it reassuringly, like it was just some happy drunken night at the Garrison.

It was crazy, but for the first time that morning, you smiled honestly and squeezed back, loving how this was like your own secret language. Maybe you were both more alike than you thought: you’d both been married once before, and it was funny how your spouses had died and it had been so unfair and horrible and your heart still ripped in two at the thought of it, but you were kneeling here today and John was squeezing your bleeding hand and looking into your eyes with that tiny smirk on his face and suddenly, you understood that he was just as scared as you were, but he’d gone through the same grief as you and come out of it, so if he said it was alright, it was going to be alright.

“I now pronounce you man and wife!” Johnny Dogs boomed, and as cheering and clapping erupted from the crowd, John leaned forward swiftly to press his lips to your own, and you pushed back on them earnestly. You knew how chapped his lips were, you’d kissed him a dozen times by now, but today they were sweet. Like he’d been drinking cherry wine before this.

And in that moment nothing mattered, because you were married to John and you were officially a Shelby.

“I’m married!” you gasped as you broke away from him, almost not knowing what to make of it. 

“We’re married,” he corrected, holding his bleeding hand out for you and not even trying to hide the grin that was slipping onto his face now. “C’mon.”

And so you took his hand and hurried away from the spot you’d been married in search of the Shelby Parlour.

//////

“Now, what is this?” Esme gasped much too loudly as she opened one of the numerous plastic trays in front of her: she was several stages past tipsy, and it wasn’t even dusk yet. “You’ve made charcuterie, haven’t you?”

“Ar, we wanted to be real fancy, Esme,” Arthur replied, swinging an empty beer bottle around. “Matter of fact, how long until the reception, eh?”

“I dunno, but Tommy’s getting the fireworks!” Finn chimed in happily from beside Arthur. “He told me they’re gonna be all different colours.”

“There’ll be fireworks?” little Katie exclaimed, whipping around to face you with her eyes wide as saucers. That was John’s girl to a tee, you’d quickly learned: completely uninterested until someone mentioned something she enjoyed.

You laughed, bending down to smooth Katie’s frizzy hair out of her face. “Tommy’ll get the real pretty ones just for you, I promise.”

“Remember the ones we saw last year for Christmas, Daddy?” Katie said urgently, pivoting fast and rounding on John now, “They were so beautiful…all red and green and gold across the field…”

John smirked at the memory, giving her a hasty, one-armed hug. “You can definitely say that, yeah.”

As your train of thought slowly disappeared into boredom, you couldn’t help but notice again that there was a strange type of stability in the air ever since you married John, and you couldn’t remember the last time you’d felt it, but it had your heart pounding hard in your chest— aching — and you couldn’t understand why. It was a lonely type of ache, too, like if you told John or Esme about it, they likely wouldn’t understand.

It was a “just pray for it to pass” type of ache.

Deep down, you knew you shouldn’t ignore it, but at the same time, you also knew you would have to. Complicated, catastrophic and intense mood swings had been frequent for you ever since you’d been born; you always found a way to ride it out somehow.

(Still, there was an itch for something, and it bothered you not knowing what it was.)

//////

The reception was bustling and bright and beautiful and you and John had somehow managed to end up at opposite sides of the field: there were rivulets of people leaping over haybales to dance by the roaring bonfire, and there were loud voices swearing and engaging in conversations about the usual topics in Small Heath— horses, Inspector Campbell’s reign, questionable Chinese magic at the market, whatever whore happened to be stirring up drama at Zhang’s, the thrilling conquests of the Peaky Blinders…

It hadn’t hit you yet that you were strangely abandoned at your own wedding reception, standing off to the side with Esme.

“It’s way too loud out here,” Esme shouted over the noise as she bent her head to take a sip of rum. “And people are gonna do something stupid soon, I bet. Mob mentality.”

“That’s what the night’s for, love,” you yelled back resignedly, trying to squint over the crowd to find John: he had promised to thank people for coming on your behalf, as everyone knew you in Small Heath because you were the Garrison rat, but you’d barely made friends with anyone since you’d arrived in December. “You see John, by any chance?”

“Nope,” Esme responded, taking out what looked like a pack of cigarettes from her bra. “You want a cig?”

You hesitated for a millionth of a second, but nodded.

“I’m not supposed to be smoking,” you admitted as Esme lit the cigarette for you in an enormous puff of grey smoke. “I said to John I’d try to quit all my reckless antics for his kids.”

“That’s dumb,” she replied immediately, passing the cigarette off to you. “You’ve got needs too, you know. I don’t get why wives just let their husbands control them.”

Yeah, and that’s probably why you give the Lees so much grief, your thoughts shot back sarcastically as you took a deep drag from the cigarette, but you didn’t say anything.

Esme didn’t notice anything, of course: instead she looked at you with a mischievous look in her eyes.

“Would you kill me if I showed you what I had on me right now?”

“Tommy told you not to get high,” you replied immediately.

“Relax, I’ve got something better than cocaine,” she shot back. “Do you think we can sneak off for a bit?”

You stalled, glancing around the huge party that was currently being held in your honour. “I-”

BANG! POW! BANG!

You nearly jumped out of your skeleton and automatically whipped around to see whatever had caused the noise.

To your surprise, Freddie Thorne was storming onto the scene, looking mutinous and holding a Roman candle high over his head.

(Out of instinct, you glanced over at the crowd: Ada Thorne looked just as shocked as everyone.)

“Everyone!” Freddie bellowed at the top of his lungs, pivoting on his heel to address everyone at the party. “Inspector Campbell’s been killed!”

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

previous / next

summary: torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: even more fluff concerning the possibility of the L word (and it’s still not lesbians), brief smut, tommy shelby doesn’t understand boundaries, we’re not verging into alcoholic territory anymore we ARE in alcoholic territory, mentions of alcohol-based hallucinations, and mentions of cocaine

word count: 2.1k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23 @smailaway @cedricscoffin @buckysjuicyplums @belledawnidk @wandering-poetess

a/n: it’s been a crazy three months, hasn’t it? i lost someone i loved, got hit by writer’s block in grief and briefly uninstalled tumblr, moved, got chickens and named a chicken after said person who died, learned how to surf (albeit terribly), finished another year of school, made plans to go to quebec this summer, got published in a magazine, got a new job only to quit because my manager was batshit crazy, and craziest of all, i forgot about TGR. not forever though. i’d never give up on you guys. ;)

//////

“Baby - baby, oh fuck, please, please, please-”

In a better world, you would’ve pushed John back and rode his face until you came, but you knew better, you simply lied back onto vanilla-smelling sheets and let yourself get lost on his fluttering tongue.

“That feel good, don’t it?” he asked, and you knew he was grinning like the devil between your legs, but you didn’t care.

“Don’t fucking stop,” you cried out as his tongue enveloped your swollen clit. You knew that burning type of orgasm was on the horizon, the type where your vision would blur around the edges with whiteness as you gasped out brokenly, you were so fucking close—

Unfortunately, the more you were cooped up in John’s room, so high in heaven you were barely in Small Heath anymore, the more you grew susceptible to the possibility of footsteps.

Your thighs trembled as a vertiginous orgasm began to bloom in your core, but before you could cry out again, the door was flung open with a loud CRASH!

You shrieked and flung yourself backward: John reacted faster than you did, drawing his gun from nowhere and pushing you out of view from Tommy, who was in the doorway.

“John, I’ve told you to lock the door, I could’ve been anyone,” Tommy said, apparently not giving the slightest fuck that he’d just walked in on you both naked, in flagrante delicto. “Get dressed, we’re doing it today.”

Your heart was still pounding hard because of the intrusion, but you rolled your eyes. “As a matter of fact, he’s doing me today.”

Tommy barely blinked. “Make sure he’s done you by nine.”

“You should learn to knock!” you screamed as Tommy turned on his heel and left.

“It’s not a day for knocking,” he shot back from the hallway, and then he was gone.

“Prick,” John said flatly as the door swung behind him.

There was an awkward beat: you didn’t feel like continuing this now, so you tossed him a reproachful glare and climbed out of bed.

//////

That morning, the Shelby Parlour was in a flurry of plan-making chaos unlike anything you’d ever seen, so while that sinking feeling was still weighing terribly on your stomach, you decided to step out into Watery Lane for a drink at the Garrison. You knew as your wedding date drew closer that you’d have to quit drinking liquor as much as you did for the sake of John’s kids— someone had to be responsible in the Shelby family, you thought — but as far as you were concerned, on a day like this, drinking was warranted.

As you passed the usual trotting horses and furnaces, you realized an ice cube of dread had slid into your throat once again. You didn’t want to stay here, and had always looked forward to the day the stench of manure would be a distant memory, but now that you were marrying John, you had to stay. For the time being, anyway. And especially since you were marrying a Peaky Blinder, who knew what kind of trouble you were getting into.

You scoffed to yourself as you pushed open the heavy oak doors of the Garrison. Just this summer, you’d always had some tricks up your sleeve, right? When had that stopped?

You know when it stopped, your thoughts snapped as you sat down in the corner booth you’d notoriously claimed as yours, and with your mind still misting, you pulled out a pack of cigarettes you’d stolen from the Shelby Parlour and shoved a cigarette in your mouth.

It had been a while since you’d last used your lighter, even if you always kept in on you just in case: after a few tries, a weak flame eventually sputtered to life, and you held it to the end of the cigarette.

The first hit of nicotine hit like a soothing wave crashing over you, and you closed your eyes as you exhaled a cloud of smoke, reassuring yourself again that John would be alive by the end of today, and everything would work out in your favour, because it always did.

You were the fucking Garrison rat, after all.

//////

In all of the stress and gunfire, you had abruptly decided to forswear alcohol for the rest of the day, and it was safe to say that things were going badly.

Quite simply, it was impossible. The agony had started in the hours after you’d denied yourself just one drink— you were swollen everywhere it was possible to be swollen, aching everywhere it was possible to ache. You were shivering and shaking, caught up in a cold that had nothing to do with the grievous Small Heath winters, and worst of all, no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t make the pain go away.

Your stomach felt shrivelled from how much you were vomiting. You were afraid that if it wouldn’t stop, you’d be coughing up blood or something worse-- and every time you retched, the pain in your head only got worse.

Because on top of the vomiting, you were, without a doubt, experiencing the worst migraine you’d ever had in your life. The throbbing pain was absolutely wreaking havoc on your head, and every time you tried to move, the glowing white ball of pain concentrated on the back of your skull got unbearable-- rendering you useless to everything around you as you shrieked in pain. The only thing you seemed capable of doing was moaning weakly on the bathroom floor, clutching your stomach.

You had no idea how many hours had passed since Tommy had walked in on you and John that morning, but it felt like an eternity. As far as you knew, people were still stomping in and out of the Parlour, relaying information, and with the nature of the war, they wouldn’t be stopping until at least midnight tonight.

You were begging for time to speed up again. And to think that the first few weeks of John had seemed so fleeting…

Yeah, because of the alcohol, you found yourself responding, disgruntled.

What made it worse, you realized as you lied on the floor, repenting, was the only person you could blame for your pain was yourself.

BANGBANGBANG!

You moaned weakly as someone started banging on the bathroom door. The pain in your head was only getting worse.

“Y/N?”

It was a male voice, a significantly young one, clearly brimming with pride and joy and hardly able to contain it. “It’s Finn, Y/N, we won! We fuckin’ won!”

“Go on now, Finn,” you heard a much more huskier voice saying, and you groaned as Finn scampered down the hall, the thumping of the floorboards creating more pain for your head as he went.

There was a gentler knock on the door this time. You figured it was Tommy.

“Y/N, are you in there? Billy Kimber’s dead, we’re alive, it’s all good. You should come down to join the celebrations, we’re gonna go to the Garrison in a bit, John’s been wondering where you’ve went.”

“I think I need a doctor,” you choked out as your stomach churned particularly horribly, and that wave of dread crashed over you again.

Please, not again.

Tommy paused. “The fuck are you on about?”

He rattled the doorknob, but you’d dragged in a chair from the master bedroom hours ago, effectively locking it.

There was a BANG as his fists met the wood-- he was angry now, you could feel it.

“Y/N, have you locked the fucking door?”

“Tommy, now’s not the fucking time!” you shouted. You couldn’t believe you were experiencing this mind-numbing anguish all over again, and the thing Tommy was most worried about was the fucking door. “Call a fucking doctor, one we can trust, alright, and - and I’ll open the goddamn door. You don’t understand, I’ve been doing nothing but vomiting all day, I - I can hardly move, and - and-”

You paused to retch, but nothing came out.

“I haven’t had a drink since this morning. That’s fucking why. Call a doctor, please.”

Tommy scoffed. “Y/N, if you’re suffering so much, come down and have a drink.”

You would’ve laughed at the absurdity of it all had you been strong enough. “And start that never ending cycle all over again?”

By the silence on the other side of the door, you’d said everything you needed to. The drinks were going to kill you if you kept on like this, and more importantly, what good was a fucking wife if she was fucking dead?

“Stay right there,” Tommy said tersely, after what felt like an eternity. “I’ll call the doctor. You stay right there, and you best open the fucking door when we tell you to, alright?”

Your throat tasted like blood, but you ignored it.

“Alright.”

//////

John’s hand was warm and comforting when it was nestled in yours, and when he bent down to kiss your cheek, you could smell the whiskey on his breath. Polly and Johnny Dogs had been the last to leave, and they’d left long ago, and until the godforsaken doctor came and told you why you were shivering and shaking and suddenly seeing Sam rippling in corners of the room, it would just be you and John. You wouldn’t be surprised if you were left here all night.

You’d been waiting in this curtained room for nearly three hours now, and this hospital grey had you feeling bleak. The air smelled of something chemical, like chopped up aspirin— you knew from experience it was probably cocaine, but you couldn’t tell if it was coming from the room itself or John, and to be honest, you didn’t want to know.

“I wanna make sure my fucking wife’s alright,” he told you when you’d apologized for making him miss out on the Black Star celebrations. “You’re gonna be taking care of my kids, alright? You’re my first priority. Always. Dunno what you’re apologizing for, it’s not like the world’s gonna run out of whiskey tonight.”

You smiled weakly, mostly to keep yourself awake. “Shake me if I fall asleep.”

//////

The ride back to the Parlour was quiet: nothing had managed to get done.

Absolutely nothing.

“So there’s nothing wrong with you?” John asked as he turned back onto Watery Lane, his voice quiet but angry. “Nothing at all?”

You laughed bitterly and took a deep swig from the moonshine John had given you. “I guess, yeah. I know this is fuckin’ backward.”

It was: you were feeling awfully weak from having your blood drawn and all the unnecessary prodding the doctor had done, from feeling out your shivering limbs to the much-too-sharp questions: do you feel you should cut down on your alcohol consumption? Have you felt guilty about your drinking? How many drinks do you have in a day? How long has this been going on?

At least you felt better when the bitter and burning tang of alcohol travelled down your throat once more as soon as you’d stumbled out of the hospital. A faintly pink dawn was breaking through the grey buildings and the furnace smoke now, and with your eyes aching, all you could look at was your ashen feet.

“Pol says we shouldn’t waste time on the wedding now that Black Star Day has passed,” John snapped as he parked before the Parlour. “She says that with luck, it should be happenin’ by the end of the month or so.”

You looked up as John threw the door open with a much-too-violent BANG and climbed out of the car.

You frowned. “There something the matter with you?”

He scoffed and paused in front of the door to light a cigarette. “Maybe the fact that we spent all night at the hospital only for the docs to come up with nothing, yeah.”

You shrugged your shoulders and disembarked from the car, clinging to John’s hand for support. You were much too tired for this right now: all you could think about was collapsing into John’s warm bed upstairs and sleeping through the rest of the day.

“Maybe they’re right, you know. Maybe there is nothing wrong with me?”

John gave you a look. “So you just had a meltdown for the fun of it?”

“I feel better now,” you replied weakly, holding up the flask of moonshine. “That’s gotta count for something.”

John rolled his eyes and held out his hand again. “You’re gonna be the death of me, Y/N. Come inside.”

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 5

CHAPTER FIVE

previous / next

summary: torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: a graphic birth scene, an abundance of swearing, alcohol, period misogyny, destructive anger, angst and panic attacks, but don’t worry there’s a lot of fluff :)

word count: 2.5k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23 @smailaway @cedricscoffin @buckysjuicyplums @belledawnidk

a/n: “the 555 angel number’s meaning is that significant change is imminent. change is a part of life, and when we see the number 555, something is telling you that a transition is in play in your life and all around you.”

//////

When the door first swung shut behind John, there was silence for several seconds. The calm before the storm, you could already tell. You stood in the kitchen of your apartment, glittering engagement ring on your finger, not quite sure what to do.

Then, quite predictably, a new wave of anger surged through you, lighting your nerves on fire, and you howled, a loud, desperate sound.

Your hands flew to your head and you grasped at your own hair, screaming and tugging, needing to hurt something, even yourself.

The whiskey bottle was on the counter and it was so fucking easy: you chucked the stopper elsewhere and gulped the damn thing whole, not caring for the liquid slopping out and staining your shirt.

As soon as it was empty, you lobbed it at the wall, where it exploded in a shower of glass.

Just to feel the rush, you screamed again, filled with anguish.

Anything. Fucking anything.

Fluid as a tornado, you ripped open your cabinets and flung the contents across the room: mugs, bowls, cups and wine glasses landed and shattered with a loud CRASH, but it still wasn’t enough.

“Fuck!”

It was the type of cold loneliness that pulsed through your chest— the fact that it was happening again. Again. The one thing you swore to avoid.

You’d never be able to escape this fucking town.

//////

The engagement party was more like a battle planning party, and time passed miserably. You were sulking in the corner for most of it, hiding a flask of moonshine between the tablecloth and the lilac folds of your dress. Sour-smelling candles burned slowly, there was fast conversation in the Romani language, and halfway across the yard, John was smoking a cigar and waving his hands around.

So much for trying to quit.

Esme Lee was the only person who sat at your table, and you didn’t have the nerve to ask her about it, but you were pretty sure she was high. Even though she had miraculously bothered to put shoes on for the occasion— surprisingly shiny boots made of dark leather— she smelled like grass and dirt and something that made you think of horses, and horses in Birmingham made you think of mischief.

Also, though it could’ve just been the candlelight, you could’ve sworn the whites of her eyes were red, and she was acting more dazed than usual.

Halfway across the yard, Zilpha Lee averted her eyes for the smallest second— a dark-haired, heavily pregnant woman looked to be drunk and attempting to dance— and while the matriarch was distracted, you quickly raised the flask of moonshine to your lips and drank.

When she looked back at you, the flask was already back underneath the tablecloth, and you forced yourself not to flinch at the burning feeling travelling down your throat.

You sighed as Tommy Shelby moved forward, seemingly to stop the woman from dancing, and she started screaming at him.

People were arguing at your engagement party, Esme was high, and now you were staggering towards drunk. Splendid.

“The fuck’s going on over there?” Esme muttered.

You tried to squint— people were crowding around the pregnant woman. “Dunno.”

“Holy shit!” Esme cried suddenly, leaping out of her seat. “Not fucking now!”

You rose out of your seat more hesitantly: the moonshine was clouding your head. “What’s going on?”

“She’s-”

Esme made an incoherent hand gesture, saw your confusion, gave up, and grabbed you by the hand. “Look!”

“Water!” John’s aunt Polly was yelling. “Holy shit, there’s water, everybody clear out-”

“Water?” you repeated dumbly, incredibly slow on the uptake.

“Her water’s just broke, you fucking moron, she’s pregnant,” Esme said. “C’mon, we have to go-”

You were stalling, scanning the ground for a safe place to put the moonshine. “But I’m not a nurse!”

“It’s women’s business, we have to go!” she shouted over you.

“How many births have you seen?” you yelled desperately as she started running towards the pregnant woman being ushered away.

She didn’t answer.

“Fuck you, Esme Lee!” you shouted as she disappeared into the crowd.

“Y/N!” someone called, and you whipped around.

John Shelby was behind you, looking as surly as ever. “You gotta fuckin’ come.”

“Last time I checked, no I fucking don’t,” you shot back.

John didn’t seem to be in the mood to argue. “You heard her, women’s business, let’s go.”

//////

The pregnant woman was John’s sister, you quickly learned, and she was making some of the ugliest noises you’d ever heard in your life.

Being present at a birth was no doubt a disgusting scene. Everyone other than you seemed to know what to do— John’s aunt Polly was rubbing Ada’s back, chanting encouraging words to her and the room at large, Esme was pacing around the room, folding and unfolding towels, checking and rechecking the number of blankets and pillows and diapers on hand, waving her hands around and cursing loudly in Romani every time people passed through the room, relaying information.

And you?

You tried to hide your cringe every time Ada shrieked and keened and wailed, and Esme had forced you to help clean up the fluid flowing out of her that she’d dubbed “baby juice”.

You couldn’t understand what kept them so calm. That horrible feeling was rippling through your chest again, the one that signalled the start of the panic attack, and you were wrestling with it desperately, cursing all of your life’s decisions for bringing you here. Panic rendered you useless and you knew it.

“Right now, that’s it Ada dear,” Polly was chanting. The racket Ada was making was nearly deafening. “Keep pushing now - almost there-”

“Fucking hell,” Esme mumbled to no one in particular, making a face.

“That’s the head!” Polly shouted over her, looking around wildly— your stomach sank when she locked eyes with you. “Y/N, fetch those towels!”

BANGBANGBANG!

“Is that fuckin’ Freddie?” Ada screamed over the racket, trying to sit up to look at the door, but Polly pushed her down again. “Focus, Ada!”

“I think I’m going to be ill,” you tried to say over the cacophony, but Esme was cursing louder than anyone.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” she said, and as you caught sight of what was happening between Ada’s legs, you gagged and forced a hand over your mouth.

Then a lot of things happened at once.

“Holy shit!” Esme hissed, wailing filled the room, Polly cursed very loudly, and the door flew open with a resounding THUD.

“Ada!” an unfamiliar man yelped, but you’d already ducked out of the room to vomit.

You couldn’t help it: you were thinking of Paris again. You couldn’t believe this was expected from you, one day.

One blink and you were back to early November last year.

You had been waiting on another one of Sam’s letters— despite the constant cold and hunger and bitter, unflinching silence that came when you were a lone childless wife in a cheap apartment, you waited. You waited, for the love of all things good and holy, you waited for either him or the letters to come back to you.

You believed the emotion you were experiencing was anguish.

The letters, which always came in Sam’s thin, careful, sloping script, were often the best part of a period where the rations got smaller and smaller with each delivery. However, like the rations, the letters were getting less and less frequent as the war worsened, and Sam was scaring you with his descriptions of the trenches. Maggots and sweat and lice and days without sleep, all in the name of patriotism. It seemed backward to you.

You’d been reading the paper, though, slowly getting accustomed to how the people in New York behaved. As far as you knew, the people of New York prayed dutifully, blessed with knowledge from above that the men would come home safe.

Before Sam had enlisted, he’d promised to take you to his cousin’s unoccupied apartment in the heart of Paris, and you’d conceive children in the City of Love. It was a promise he continuously referenced in his letters.

Five children, you’d decided. Five was his lucky number, you see. He was on his fifth cigarette when he met you at that dive bar, and something like the fifth blues song was playing. There were five bracelets on each of your wrists, the bracelets your mom had given you for your eighteenth birthday, and you’d woken up with five bruises on your neck the following morning. It had to be fate.

The longer you waited, the more your golden days seemed imaginary. It was November 11th, 1918, and your lover had been away from you for years now.

You remembered that morning clearly. You woke up late— sometime around eleven— and went outside on the balcony to light a cigarette. You were confused when there was screaming in the streets. Church bells were ringing. People were dancing.

“It’s over,” they cried, “It’s over.”

Your mouth fell agape, foolishly.

Was Sam finally coming home?

The cold, hard truth: he wasn’t.

Reality came back jarringly and suddenly: you were retching into a basin, your throat was raw, and you were hyperventilating yourself to the point of a panic attack.

You slumped over and clenched your eyes shut, clutching your stomach. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

BANGBANGBANG!

You couldn’t breathe, not when someone was banging on the door. Loudly.

BANGBANGBANG!

“Y/N? You alright? Would you like to see the baby?”

It was Esme.

“Coming!” you choked out: you pressed a hand to your forehead. Your palm was sweaty and damp.

“Uh, well, I’m going out to the Garrison, if you wanna come by later for a drink,” she called back.

“Give me a fuckin’ minute,” you groaned.

After you heard Esme’s dark leather boots clunking away from the door, you got up once more and turned on the faucet.

You ran your hands under it, splashed your face, then reached for the soap. Five pumps, a bit unnecessary, but still, you lathered until you felt your breathing steady.

You can do this.

You surveyed yourself in your mirror. Your eyelashes were wet and glossy with tears, the whites of your eyes were scarlet from crying, and your cheeks were unnaturally puffy and red. Not only did you look pathetic, you looked ill.

You’d definitely feel better after a drink.

You smiled weakly at your reflection to make yourself feel better, then turned on your heel and left the bathroom.

“How’s the baby?” you asked as the door swung shut behind you. Ada was rocking a small bundle of blankets.

“He’s beautiful,” she replied, looking up at you.

“I’m Y/N,” you told her awkwardly, indicating your engagement ring. “John’s girl. Dunno if I ever told you that.”

John’s girl. You tried to ignore the title.

Ada bobbed her head. “I know.”

“I’m gonna go out for a drink,” you told her. “Be safe. And congratulations, alright?”

She smiled— a delicate curving of her lips. “Thank you.”

With that, you pulled your coat over that lilac dress and went out in search of the Garrison.

//////

“Oh, here she is, here she fuckin’ is,” Arthur said the moment you stepped into the Garrison, stretching his arms out wide as though to embrace a horde of people, “The fuckin’ queen of the land, get her a round of drinks now…”

“Uh, what?” you tried to say, but John had already come out of nowhere and wrapped you into a hug. He smelled like beer and tobacco.

“He’s drunk, don’t question it,” he mumbled into your ear.

“Will that be Irish, then?” Grace called to you over the drunk ramblings of the Blinders.

“Sure, yeah,” you replied distractedly, already shrugging your coat off your shoulders. “Where’s Esme?”

“Dunno, she was with one of the Blinders last I checked,” John replied merrily. “How’s the baby?”

You were a bit taken aback by his sudden display of affection. “He’s lovely, as far as I know.”

John all but grinned. “Fuckin’ great.”

You couldn’t help but laugh as he led you over to the bar. “What’s got you so happy tonight?”

“What doesn’t?” he shot back, indicating the atmosphere of the Garrison: people chatting merrily, getting drunk, laughing about horses and newborns. “We’ve got drinks, cigarettes, a new nephew, I’m gonna marry a pretty girl in a couple weeks’ time…”

Your face flushed, but you didn’t say anything.

“Look at Tommy, he’s fuckin’ smiling,” John said, nudging you in the ribs, and you turned around to look across the room. “When’s the last time you’ve seen him smile, eh?”

“You’re gonna fuckin’ jinx it,” you laughed back at him as Grace slid you a whiskey.

“Life’s good, Y/N,” he said, and when he looked at you, his eyes burned a fierce blue. “Life’s good.”

There was a beat: you’d noticed his hand had magically appeared on the bar.

For the first time, it wasn’t about having nerve: you simply reached over and enclosed your hand in his.

When you squeezed, John squeezed back. It felt good.

“Is that the fuckin’ Lee girl?” he exclaimed suddenly, twisting sideways on the stool.

You looked: sure enough, in a booth across the room, Esme was locked in a passionate, clearly whiskey-drunk kiss with a Blinder you didn’t recognize.

“Get a room, lads, get a room,” Arthur was saying, tossing his cap in their direction.

You had to stifle a laugh. “Good for her.”

BANG!

Everyone startled: Polly Gray had flung open the doors of the Garrison, and instantly you knew something was wrong.

“What’s the matter-?” you tried to say, but she’d already lunged forward and struck Tommy Shelby across the face.

There was a rush of bodies and John had suddenly disappeared from your side: he, along with Arthur, had gone to restrain her.

“The police came and took his father away!” Polly snarled, and with a huff, she spat on the ground. “You liar.”

There was silence as she untangled herself from John and Arthur, and as quickly as she came, she stalked out.

Across the room, Esme pulled away from the Blinder with a loud POP. “The fuck was that?”

“I need to go,” Tommy said immediately.

“You can’t do that, we were having a good time,” Arthur shot back.

“Lads, no one wants a fuckin’ argument,” John cut in.

Tommy lost his patience. “Freddie’s in fuckin’ custody, John boy!”

Halfway across the room, you exchanged a worried look with Esme.

Your place? she mouthed, already dismounting from the Blinder.

You nodded and got up from the bar.

“For the drinks,” you said, sliding money over the counter.

“That’s more than enough,” Grace started to say, but you’d already started for the front doors.

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 6

CHAPTER SIX

previous / next

summary: torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: angst, smoking, swearing, mentions of guns, being hungover…i’m giving up on these warnings, there’s nothing extremely shocking in this chapter

word count: 1.2k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23 @smailaway @cedricscoffin @buckysjuicyplums @belledawnidk

a/n: my shortest chapter yet, but an important one. we’re hurtling towards the wedding (+ some other exciting shenanigans) now folks, i couldn’t be more excited! when i started this, i never wanted tgr to be too long. i’m no longer in my ao3 days where i wrote multi-chaptered fics that were 70+ chapters long, about 100,000 words. i’m thinking this will be maybe ten to fifteen chapters at max?

//////

All you knew was that one minute, you were revelling in the warmth of the Garrison, feeling truly light and peaceful for the first time in months, and the next, your face was pressed at an odd angle into your mattress.

Fuck, you were hungover. Dramatically so.

You kept your eyes closed as you tried to adjust to you new environment. Your cheek was damp, like there was a pool of drool on your pillow, you could smell the aftermath of rain outside…it was early morning, you would’ve guessed.

Your memory was a disorganized film on shaky replay.

Ada’s wails and cries. The moonshine and your lilac dress. Esme’s lips pressed against a stranger’s at the Garrison’s.

Esme.

You shot up, the tiredness abandoning you in an instant. Where the hell was she?

“Esme?” you called, jumping out of bed to sweep a bathrobe over your shoulders. “Where are you?”

Quite peculiarly, your bathroom door had been left slightly ajar. You could hear sloshing water coming from within.

Oh, fuck.

“Esme?” you tried again, rattling the doorknob as a warning. “I’m coming in.”

With a much too menacing CREAK, you opened the door to Esme lying inside the half-filled bathtub, blinking slowly and apparently just as hungover as you were, possibly even more so. She was still in her clothes from last night, and had ostensibly been there since you’d ran away from the Garrison.

You paused, taking in the sight of her. What the hell had happened?

“Well, what are you waiting for?” Esme snapped when you only stared at her like a deer in headlights. “Get me out of here, I can’t move.”

You looked at her awkwardly. “How did you not drown?”

Esme rolled her eyes. “Your guess is as good as mine, love. Been here all night. I can’t get out, it’s too slippery.”

You nodded. “Wait here, I’ll get you a towel.”

//////

“Lads, we’ve got another problem,” Tommy started as he strode into the betting shop, a fresh cigarette hanging from his lips like always. He’d evidently just come from business in either the Garrison or the train station.

“Yeah, we always have a problem,” John spat back, not looking up from his cards. “What do you want now?”

“Royal flush,” Finn mumbled quietly while everyone was distracted, laying his hand down.

“It’s the IRA chief,” Tommy said simply, chucking his cap on the table, “Fucking bastard.”

“Oh, here we go,” John returned flatly.

“Off the bloody rails…”

BANG!

You swept inside the Shelby Parlour with that sheer fiery confidence of someone who had been inside hundreds of times before, and instantly John knew something was wrong. Your cheeks were pink and your hat was speckled with snow, it looked like you’d just come home from work.

When no one said anything, only gaped at you, you glared at them all.

“What’s this about Black Star Day?” you snapped.

There was an awkward silence for a moment.

John looked down to avoid your eyes, saw the royal flush lying on the table, and cursed under his breath.

“How’d you find out about that?” Finn piped up unhelpfully.

“Esme went to the Garrison because last night she was boiled as an owl, and she met that fuckin’ Irish barmaid, and I dunno if Esme asked questions or Grace told her something, but I can see one of you bastards are planning something, and I don’t like the sound of it,” you shot back. “What in the world is going on?”

Tommy let out an enormous sigh. “Y/N, this won’t interfere with the wedding. Is that what you’re concerned about?”

His patronizing voice alone was enough to make blood leap into your throat— first the Lees, now the Shelbys, you fucking hated being treated like a child. “I don’t give two shits about my wedding!”

Tommy took the limp, unlit cigarette out of his mouth and sighed. You recognized that look on his face instantly: it was the look of someone who was praying for God to kill them.

“First Ada, then Arthur, now this,” he mumbled. “Jesus Christ, Y/N, what can I do?”

“What is Black Star Day?” you exclaimed furiously.

“We’re gonna go downtown with Billy Kimber and his boys and put bullets in their heads,” John spat back. “We’ve been planning it for weeks. There. Are you happy?”

You gave him a withering look. “When is this happening?”

Guilt almost flashed across his face. “Next week.”

You swore violently, balling your hands into fists. “All of you are gonna die, you know that?”

“We won’t,” Tommy tried to say, but too late: as fast as you’d came, you’d already stomped out of the Parlour.

John could’ve sworn he heard a choked sob before the door shut with a loud SLAM.

There was silence: John looked down at his hand of cards and after a moment of contemplation, set them down.

“That was weird,” Finn said when no one would say anything.

“You don’t get in the middle of it, Finn,” Tommy replied almost immediately, then nodded at John. “Go deal with her, will you?”

“I - I don’t-”

He paused to sweep his hair out of his face, then sighed. “I don’t know how.”

“You’ve been fucking her,” Tommy said, like that solved everything. “You should know her. Figure it out.”

“Tom, we’re not delaying Black Star Day!” he shot back, looking around for wherever he’d put his cap. “We’re dealing with Kimber first and foremost so I can get married afterwards, I thought that was the plan.”

“Are we gonna finish the game?” Finn put in tentatively.

“I’m going, I’m going,” John said over him, throwing his hands up in defeat. “If I’m not back in two hours, don’t send someone looking for me, alright?”

Annoyed, Tommy said nothing and lit his cigarette.

//////

“Y/N?” John cried desperately as he dashed down the Lane, “Y/N?”

He dodged a horse trotting down the street and sped into the Garrison.

“Y/N!”

Your head snapped up as the oak doors to the Garrison flew open. “Jesus Christ, what now?”

John stopped just short of the bar, out of breath. “I - I didn’t wanna leave you alone.”

“We’re not doing this right now,” you warned him, indicating the crowded Garrison.

“But-”

“Forget about it.”

“Just-”

You got up and swept your coat over your shoulders. “John, we’re done here. I want to be left alone.”

Before he could stumble through an apology, before he could ask you why you were even so worked up about Black Star Day in the first place, you swept out once more, leaving him with silence.

John was suddenly aware people were staring.

Unsure of what to do now that he’d been stormed out on twice, he stood there, chewing on his toothpick, trying not to let his temper get the best of him and wondering what to do next. He could feel his heart beating hard in his chest, and his knuckles were buzzing again, practically begging to be thrown towards open, vulnerable flesh…

It was then he realized that Grace the Irish barmaid was behind the counter, slowly and awkwardly wiping a glass.

Grace, the woman who had started all of this. Grace, the woman Tommy was supposedly in love with, after all those months of being withdrawn and cold. Grace, who’d done nothing but disrupt the perfectly lovely order of things.

John rounded on her and, not sure what to do with the fiery emotion inside his chest, took the toothpick out of his mouth. “Look what you’ve done.”

Grace opened her mouth and closed it, possibly to say something, but too late: he’d already stormed out.

[val-made-a-mistake]

❝the garrison rat❞ CHP 3

CHAPTER THREE

previous / next

summary: torn apart by an unexpected loss, you find yourself unable to leave birmingham. you’re aware that people notice you drinking in the garrison every other night, you’re aware they call you nicknames, but you don’t care about any of it— at least, not until you start speaking to john shelby. he’s looking for a wife and you vowed to never love again, which makes things a bit complicated.

warnings: this is a peaky blinders fic, you should already know what this entails. an abundance of swearing, sexual themes, (not quite smut, not yet) smoking, alcohol, mentions of cocaine, blood and violence, fluff and angst particularly pertaining grief, period misogyny, very vaguely set in season one, etc etc

word count: 2.3k

tag list: @datewithgianni @1950schick @clementinesjourney @cbouvier23 @smailaway @cedricscoffin

a/n: sorry for the extended wait on this chapter, thanksgiving weekend has been wild for me! blame mercury, idk. we pick up the pace a lot in this one <3

//////

When John woke up, the sun was streaming in through the room in slivers thanks to Polly’s thick, linen curtains. With how naturally disoriented he was because of the night before, it nearly blinded him, he almost stumbled out of bed on reflex.

He felt warm though, comfortingly warm, so he closed his eyes for a long second and tried to relax. His thoughts of the night before were muddy, he couldn’t quite discern what had gone on after the Garrison rat had showed up.

John inhaled, deep like his mother taught him.

The first thing that anchored him was the overpowering smell of Polly’s perfume, hung around the room like tinsel on Christmas Eve. Considering he’d been absent for so long during the war, the whole house had adopted the sweet, market-bought vanilla usually associated with Polly’s presence, and for the most part it was a pleasant change from the natural Small Heath smells of tobacco, gunpowder, and dirt.

God, his head felt like someone had forced a machete into the back of it.

John exhaled, trying to understand why his heart was beating so goddamn fast. It was because he’d never be able to escape this fucking town, wasn’t it?

Suddenly, there was a small CREAK near his bedroom door and his eyes flew open on instinct. He turned to see the disturbance, and--

He couldn’t help it, his mouth fell open. “What the fuck?”

You leapt backward as though electrocuted and nearly gagged on the toothbrush in your mouth. “What the fuck!”

John scrambled up, panicking. “How’d the fuck you get in here?”

“I don’t know!”

“Why are you-” he fumbled with his bedsheets, desperately trying to spot a nearby shirt. “I - fucking hell - are you hungover?”

“Horribly.” You took the toothbrush out of your mouth. “Your aunt was nice enough to give me this shirt and a toothbrush, I was gonna get going...”

A grin was shamelessly pulling at John’s lips now, just imagining the conversation he was going to have with Arthur later that afternoon. “You have to work on the weekend?”

You seemed to choke on words and gestured wildly to the air in front of you. “I - you know how Campbell is, he’s got everybody working weird hours.”

He didn’t believe this in the slightest, and gave you a pointed look. An awkward silence ensued.

“Do you remember what happened last night?” he asked finally, getting up to search for clothes without a hint of shame at his nakedness.

You shrugged, pointedly gazing at your fingernails now. “Bits and pieces.”

Vaguely, John remembered. He remembered the rainwater pouring down and the card games and Finn snoring softly, and he remembered the look on your face when he’d answered the door-- fucking needy, and just like that, he was a little needy in return.

By the state of his coat on the floor, you’d probably messily ventured down Watery Lane together-- on a date? -- and if he concentrated hard enough, he might’ve remembered the ghost of your body on his, or his tongue rolling against yours. So much for a night without snow or drinks.

“I should get going,” you repeated firmly, turning on your heel to leave.

“Wait,” said John rather stupidly, and he bent down to grab his coat. “People are gonna ask if they see you runnin’ down the Lane in that. Make sure you aren’t seen leaving the Parlour, ‘kay?”

You raised a flirtatious eyebrow and took the coat. “Yes, sir.”

Something purred happily deep inside of him, but John strangled it. “I’ll see you at the Garrison?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

You winked at him and turned to leave.

//////

Polly was in the kitchen when he came down, smoking one of her black cigarettes and reading the morning paper.

There was a laugh in her voice when she spoke. “Fun night?”

John stalled, chewing on his toothpick wearily. “You’re makin’ fun of me.”

She tried and failed to smother her smirk. “I’m not, I just know the others would get a kick out of the look on your face when you opened the door and saw her standing there.”

He winced in spite of himself, and the words were tumbling out of his mouth before he could stop them. “Did - did I look like an idiot?”

Polly gave him a long look and he changed tack. “What time did she wake up?”

“About twenty minutes ago, I don’t think she knew I was here. Poor girl had the same look on her face as you did when you were younger and your mother asked about maths.”

John remembered that incident, he’d stopped going to school shortly after that. He was good at math up until the alphabet started getting involved.

“Eh,” he said when he found there was nothing to say. “You know where Arthur is?”

“He came home ‘round five o’clock this morning. Don’t wake him.”

He nodded, moving forward to the kitchen with an intent to poach an egg. “And Tom?”

“Antagonizing Campbell, probably.” Polly smirked and exhaled a plume of smoke. “Do you have any plans for today?”

“Not much,” John admitted as he cracked an egg. “Katie needs a new blouse for school, I was gonna see if I could pick that up for her...”

The inevitable came round again. The kids. Or, more specifically, what he was going to do with them.

“Have you told Y/N about the kids?” Polly asked softly, pressing her cigarette into the ashtray.

John strained his memory of last night, trying to remember.

“She...she told me last night that she - that she’d been to the country to help take care of somebody’s kids, so that’s why I didn’t see her at the Garrison,” he replied uncertainly. “I - I assumed the kids she took care of were in good shape.”

Polly raised her eyebrows expectantly and John resisted the urge to run out of the room.

“Pol...”

“I’m not implying anything!” she exclaimed, holding her hands up as though confronted by coppers, but she was grinning, ruining the effect. “You need to decide what’s best for your kids, not me. The only thing we’re all asking you to do is to do it soon.”

“‘Ello,” Arthur said from the doorway, shirtless and gripping a bottle of tequila by the neck. “You makin’ eggs?”

//////

The Garrison was quieter tonight, but like always, there was still singing. Grace was standing up on a stool, oblivious to the men gazing up at her admiringly as she sang.

“You’d think she was queen of the land,” she sang, and no doubt about it, she was looking over at you. “And her hair fell over her shoulder, tied up with a black velvet band...”

You smirked, fingering the velvet hairtie you’d indeed used to tie up your hair tonight.

“She’s singin’ about you, eh?” someone asked, and you jumped a little.

Wondering why you had an uncanny ability to attract Shelbys in this godforsaken pub, you took a sip from your drink and nodded. “I suppose so. Didn’t tell her to.”

A lazy smirk hung round Tommy Shelby’s lips. “What brings you here tonight, Y/N?”

You gave him a weird look. “I wanted a fucking drink. You?”

He shrugged apathetically. “Technically I’m supposed to be covering for John boy, he’s pissing his pants. He should be here in a few minutes or so.”

You chewed on your lip in an effort to hide your grin. “Mhm.”

Silence fell, and you stared down into the depths of your drink, wondering if you should say it.

Fuck it.

“Can you thank Polly Gray for me?” you asked hesitantly. “I’m not sure if I thanked her, when I - I mean, when I woke up this morning.”

Tommy nodded at the barmaid for another drink. “At the rate things are going, I’m sure you’ll be able to thank her yourself.”

The cold Sam feeling doused your chest again, and you found yourself unable to breathe.

BANG!

The oak doors of the Garrison jumped open, Grace’s song abruptly broke off, mostly out of surprise, and half the pub looked up.

Unsurprisingly, John Shelby was standing there, in a cap and three piece suit like always, chewing on a fresh toothpick.

Quite hurriedly, Grace resumed her song like nothing had happened.

“Y/N!” John called with surprising warmth, hurrying over to the bar like half the pub wasn’t staring at him. “You good?”

“I’m fine,” you replied suspiciously, your head swiveling between Tommy and John as though you were watching a ping pong match, trying to figure out what was going on. “You?”

“Fucking grand, fucking grand.”

Tommy seemed to sense his heavy-handed approach, cringed, and stood up from the bar on instinct. “Right, I better clear out...”

“You can stay,” you interjected quickly, a bit too sharply. “Really, I don’t mind.”

“No, I should go, I have a lady to give a job to,” he replied, very obviously eyeing Grace.

“Oh, well, alright then...”

“What’s that about?” you asked John as soon as he’d left.

“My sister,” he responded warily, downing Tommy’s drink. “She’s not speakin’ to us.”

You raised your eyebrows, not wanting to get into it. “Ah.”

“She’ll be alright,” he replied gruffly, rubbing his nose. You could tell that was more of a prayer than a promise, but decided not to comment on it.

“What brings you here tonight, John Shelby?” you asked instead, mimicking Tommy.

He looked at you, a ghost of a smirk on his lips. “I think you already know.”

“Well, I’m gonna need a lot more whiskey if you plan on taking me to the races,” you shot back flirtatiously, raising your glass to your lips. “Think I need a lot more whiskey in general, honestly...”

He laughed and you handed your glass off to the barmaid in exchange for another one.

“I’ll pay for it,” he offered, rifling through his wallet, and you didn’t object.

Instead, you looked over at the merry Garrison, at the men dancing and drunkenly carrying on Grace’s singing, and your eyes found Tommy, whispering in Grace’s ear. She’d since gotten off the stool.

You felt your eyebrows raise.

“How much whiskey does it take to get you drunk?” you asked suddenly, turning back to him.

John raised his eyebrows in return. “A bit.”

“Same. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

There was a long silence. He surveyed you intently.

“Fuck yeah.”

//////

When John stomped into the betting shop the next morning, the Shelbys were in a family meeting.

“Where were you, John boy?” Tommy asked, wiping a fresh cigarette on his lips as the rest stared at him suspiciously.

“Doesn’t matter,” he replied gruffly, grabbing a chair and twisting it backward to sit down. “What are we-”

“I would say it matters, considering the topic of our meeting,” Polly cut in sharply.

John looked blankly from her, to Arthur, to Tommy, then to Johnny Dogs-- shit, if Johnny Dogs was in on a meeting, this couldn’t be good.

“Is this about Ada?” he asked weakly.

“Sort of,” Polly replied gently. “Sit down, love.”

“Campbell?” John suggested wildly, already going to stomp out of the door. “I swear to God, if he’s overstepping his territory again, I’ll cut him a smile so big his head’ll-”

“John,” Tommy cut in, irritated now, gesturing to the seat he’d pulled out. “Sit down, this is about the girl you’ve been fucking, yeah?”

“Use her fuckin’ name,” he replied bitterly as he sat back down.

“Tom wants you and Y/N to be married,” Arthur said awkwardly, shoving his hands in his pockets.

John turned to him. “Fucking what?”

“We'll give you money to buy the ring,” Polly added, her voice noticeably less gentle now, and he suddenly got the idea that they were going to force him into this if he didn’t comply. “It’ll be a nice one, you can take the train to London and be back by tomorrow morning. You want to have her over?”

“I want to slow down!” he shot back wildly, taking off his cap to smooth his hair back. “Fucking hell, you said you’d give me a few weeks-”

“Well, John boy, it has been a few weeks,” Tommy replied, shooting Arthur a knowing look. “You’ve been fucking her, yeah? That’s gotta count for something.”

“That doesn’t have to count for anything!” he exclaimed, face reddening.

Polly tried and failed to smother her laugh. “I’ll bet it counted for something when you were with Lizzie.”

“DON’T TALK TO ME ABOUT THAT WOMAN!” John shouted, bounding up and sending the chair tumbling to the floor. “Fucking hell, you’re all outta your fucking minds, you know that?”

Arthur shrugged, careless. “You’re not wrong.”

Polly drew back to glare at him.

“I’ve talked to George Lee, he said it should be fine,” Tommy continued, apparently not giving the slightest iota of a fuck. “And I got Grace to go seek Ada out wherever she’s hiding. We’ll have a nice engagement party in a week’s time, and if everything goes well, if we’re not all fuckin’ dead by the end of this, we’ll be able to have a nice wedding once Billy Kimber and Inspector Campbell are dealt with."

He gestured to Johnny Dogs. “Johnny should be able to officiate it.”

Johnny held up a hand. “Aye.”

“This is mental,” John muttered under his breath, fumbling around for a new toothpick, “But it’s fine, then. I guess I’ll go to London.”

He met Tommy’s strikingly blue gaze head-on. “But if it doesn’t go well, don’t fucking blame me, alright?”

Tommy raised an eyebrow-- the same apathetic look he’d given his superiors back in France when they told him he wouldn’t do well in the tunnels. John hated that look. It meant he knew he was going to get what he wanted in the end.

“She’ll make a good wife, John boy,” Arthur said when no one would say anything. “And if she doesn’t, you got Zhang’s down the street.”

“Go on now,” Polly added, waving a hand. “The sooner you start, the sooner it’s over.”

“Good luck!” Johnny Dogs called as John stomped out of the room.