#moon trauma links

[mx-legend-of-faye]

I’m sure someone on here somewhere has made a similar post to this but…

Time and Wild bonding over their moon trauma. Time and Wild bonding just in general. Time and Malon just kind of adopting Wild. Twilight joining their little family as somewhere between a dad and older brother to Wild. Just those four being a family. Epona being there too.

The rest of the chain being like the cousins you see mainly on holidays except they see each other all the time and they’re more like brothers too.

Malon and Wild cooking together. Twilight and Wild helping take care of Epona together. Time and Wild outside watching the moon, making sure it’s acting normal on a night neither of them can sleep. Time and Malon using Wild’s slate to take pictures of Twilight and Wild when the two of them sleep in accidentally.

The whole chain + Malon taking a family picture with Wild’s slate. That being one of Wild’s favorite pictures right alongside the one of him, the other champions, and Zelda.

[turtleblogatlast]

Absolutely love the idea that it was April who got the boys super into snow days.

Like, pre-April, they probably would view the days as miserable, since as turtles they’re likely more susceptible to the cold and back then they probably had much less to keep warm with.

The cold altogether was just never good to them - and then April comes around and teaches them how to make a snowman. And when it’s done, she pelts them with snowballs. And suddenly, the cold is now fun, and they might still be shivering, but now they’re smiling too.

[sweeteastart]

LU Time in 3 or 4 E outfits, if you're still doing these when you get to this LOL.

Still doing it albeit slowly 'cause I'm a bit burnout--

At first, I thought I wouldn't do the same outfit twice but the idea of Time in the beautiful white dress was too strong... so yet again I ended up doing both.

Thanks for the ask ♪♪♪♪

[smilesrobotlover]

*head in hands* oot link is such a tragic character and it makes me so sad

[naffeclipse]

Chapter 8: The Episode Surrounded By Howls

FNAF Cryptid!Sun/Moon x Cryptid Hunter!Y/N (SFW)

This time, you wait until you clear your mouth of food before replying with a chuckle. “Yes. They’re extremely violent. I’ve heard of several cryptid hunters getting killed by those kinds of cryptids.” You realize half a second later that you probably shouldn’t have mentioned that last tidbit just as Sun’s optics flick immediately to your face. His hands clench the wet paper towel tighter to your palm. For a moment, the pressure almost makes the bones of your hand creak before he lets go. A coolness settles into the camper. You ignore the shudder it brings with it.

Word Count: ~14,700 Warnings: Animal death/gore, gore, blood, injury, death, guns, past-trama, night terrors, anxiety, and heart-eating.

A/N: Wow, an episode that only fits into one chapter! I was aiming for a smaller episode for this one, but, of course, it got bigger than I planned. There wasn't any real way to cut it in half without ruining the flow, so you guys get this long chapter!

Sun kisses your boo-boo better, you take a drive down a road, then there's a full moon and a poor cow, and a cornfield that brings back a very haunting time for you, then Moon kisses your boo-boo better.

[peachy-kun]

Night of the Final Day

The dawn approaches...

Hoo boy I went kind of ham on this, but I really have been itching to make a serious Majora’s Mask piece for ages, and this scratched that itch

I swear eventually I’ll also draw some TotK but MM is just always there in the back of my mind

[musical-chan]

Father of Time Chapter 25: The Boy of Many Masks and What Became of Them

Aveum returned to the room shortly after Deity and Link, wearing silver armor almost identical to the Fierce Deity's, though with a silvery purple tunic under and different symbols upon the breastplate.  Like Oceans, there was Nayru's symbol on the left but the right had a strange clock-like thing instead. She had two thin swords on her hips. 

"Do all of you guys have the same armor?! I didn't know you knew how to fight, Aunt Aevum!" Link eyed the plate armor appreciatively; would he get something similar when he got older? Farore's words about manifesting armor wound lazily through his mind. 

"Of course I do. I just prefer not to. Those things in the temple though, UG. Seriously. Majora was psychotic. Link, you're looking much better."  The goddess put a finger on the boy's cheek, turning his face a bit. "The marks aren't visible anymore and I don't sense any problems. Good!" 

Deity narrowed his eyes a bit. "Pardon?" 

The goddess frowned at Link. "You haven't told him?" 

Link sighed and dropped onto his bed. "Ah man, we only just got back. No chance to. I haven't seen him all day!"

So they told him over dinner in their room. Aevum was more than willing to talk about the strange reaction to the deku mask and Link left her to it.   The way she talked about the experience felt very clinical and it was nice to get some separation from the event.  He had half forgotten what it had felt like with the excitement of playing outside but even still, the talk reminded him uncomfortably of the whole ordeal. He shuddered and crouched over slightly and Deity gave him a probing look. 

"We should take care of the masks then. Now."

"Hold on a moment, Brother. I wanted to poke at the magic some more.  Link isn't in any danger just from them existing. He wouldn't even try one on just to see if we could prevent the reaction from happening again."

"Aevum, I swear to the Mothers…"

"You would! Calm down. I'm not saying he had a great day but none of us could have predicted what happened and we handled it.  In fact, you should be glad I was the one with him. Rewinding the magic out of him was by far the safest option."

"Really, um, I'm okay dad."  Link gave his father a tight smile. "I even sort of forgot about it when I was outside with the others." 

Aevum took the Goron mask out and shook it at Deity. "Did you want to try one on? We could see if it's you. Maybe your power is still mad about being stuck in one of these." 

"Absolutely not." 

"You two are no help at all. And stop with the voice, you'll scare the mortals.  Honestly!" She tucked the mask back away and stood. "I have some more things to do and I'll see what I can uncover about the masks. We can take care of them soon, I promise." 

Link yawned as he pushed the last bites of food onto his spoon. "Do you ever sleep, Aunt Aevum?" 

"I get plenty of rest at the temple. I want to make the best use of my time here; I can't run off to other realities that often you know. You should sleep or whatever though. If you need me, if you have any unforeseen side effects overnight, I will hear." And like every other time before, she was gone.

(Read the Rest on AO3!)

I really do love Termina. It's a lot of fun to write in.

[twistpixel]

In my mind there does exist a fanfic and it’s a one shot and it has no point beyond like, Bruce is a bad parent to Jason. I think there’s a desire to like force that out and make it clear cut and that leads to things like Bruce being overtly abusive in some fanfics. But I have 0 tolerance for fathers so he’s already overtly abusive enough in canon for me and this between the panels fanfic in my mind is just opening that up and showing it to the reader by making it so obvious it can’t be ignored (but not by Bruce because he can ignore anything).

[aphrodeiities]

ᴘʟᴀɴᴇᴛꜱ ɪɴ ʀᴇᴛʀᴏɢʀᴀᴅᴇ

thank you for the 10,000+ followers! a game with no exchange will be released:)

now that i've written and understand planets in retrograde thoroughly they will be included in chart readings for free.

THE SUN AND THE MOON CANNOT BE IN RX.

MERCURY IN RX

♇ having mercury in rx makes someone think more often, especially over the most pettiest things they think is big. they're very anxious people, and since it is in retrograde it could be implied that they're "wired differently" they think more out of the box, and even speak different, how they speak and write could be very distinct.

♇ mercury in retrograde could give someone inactive relatives, or cousins and siblings they're not close to. and since they're people who doubt themselves a lot, they could stall themselves from the path they're supposed to take, being their own obstacles. they could also be people who take some time to take in/process information.

♇ as i said they're people who hold themselves back a lot, this could link to their childhood, might've had people speak over them and silence them when they were younger.

VENUS IN RX

♇ people who have venus in retrograde might focus on love too much, and they could be people who have a struggling relationship with women. sisters, women who are their cousins and women who are their friends.

♇ they could also be very secretive people, they have a hard time opening up, which could make them be deemed as cold. they have a hard time giving and receiving affection.

♇ they could be bad at handling money, and might think everyone is out to get them. they could find it hard to love themselves, having venus in rx, is the peak of the "tortured poet".

MARS IN RX

♇ those who have mars in retrograde could have a hard time getting along with men, or even with the opposite sex. to have mars in rx could mean you could be considered as someone who i very intense. can a hard time expressing your sexuality and aiming for your goals.

♇ instead of learning life lessons quick, they are normally stubborn people and barely listen to advice given to them by trusted people. could be people who are too hesitant, say and do things at the wrong time and place.

♇ people with mars in retrograde might've gone through sexual trauma, could be scared to be intimate with other people. they're people who hate authority or people trying to have dominance over them. the type of people to not listen to the rules and break them.

JUPITER IN RX

♇ people who have jupiter in rx are the definition of "thinking out of the box", they're people who do have moments that question their faith and some of these people tend to have a God Complex.

♇ sometimes they feel like they're the unluckiest person in the world, might feel like they wont be able to travel the world like they want to. could also have long cycles of depression.

♇ having jupiter in retrograde can mean they're someone who marches to the beat of their own drum, they can be very detail-oriented people, which sometimes mean they feel like they can judge anyone and think of themselves to be flawless. jupiter in rx people are the type of people who want everything in their future to be perfect also, without life's trials and tribulations. can be unrealistic.

SATURN IN RX

♇ as it is told, saturn in retrograde brings a father that wasnt in the person's life, the person who has the saturn in rx can make someone feel like they're being punished by life all the time.

♇ this could also mean they might find it hard to express themselves emotionally, could be due to their childhood. they go through many trials and tribulations, makes them depressive, but in the end they become really wise.

♇ they doubt themselves a lot, could have trouble balancing themselves, and their masculinity, could be too domineering.

URANUS IN RX

♇ people with uranus in rx do not like change, they're likely insecure, [not all are going to be due to different commodities in a chart], but these are usually people who think they are not going to succeed in life.

♇ they sometimes feel like they're in control of nothing which pushes them into their need of controlling everything. they're quick-thinkers but still over-thinkers. they feel like they can never feel nice in a platonic or romantic connection.

♇ it leads them into being paranoid and chaotic. they might also put themselves in a box to make things easier, don't know they're limiting their potential when doing that, they're so much more and need to understand it.

NEPTUNE IN RX

♇ to have neptune in rx could make the kin be very delusional, might find it hard to separate idealistic views with reality. definitely reminds me of alice in wonderland. they're very spiritual people but can over-whelm people by adding their faith into everything.

♇ could be really good at manifesting; trust issues but sometimes are stubborn from learning their mistakes. can be deemed as very dreamy and compassionate.

♇ they could have this feeling of needing to save everyone. their trials and tribulations are a creative outlet for them, another indicator of being the tortured poet. [but the tiring and damaging things they go through are usually expressed through their art, which includes writing, story-telling, writing music, painting etc].

PLUTO IN RX

♇ i do get surprised when i come across these in a natal chart reading, but, pluto in rx folks definitely do hate constraint, they dislike authority and feeling like they're being controlled, which could push them into trying to control other people.

♇ could be escapists through drug and sex, they could also find it hard to accept their dark-self. easily infatuated people, people can get easily obsessed with them as they can get with other people.

♇ good money makers, could manipulate others with materialism, though, they might not be confrontational, could feel easily intimidated. sometimes could never see the potential in themselves can be their own obstacle.

masterlist

pluto

[glamourscat]

Some general hcs about the blue lock guys? Maybe if they are a girl or boy dad? Idk, anything of the sort thx 🙏🏻

Girls dads vs boys dads BLLK BOYS EDITION

GIRL'S DAD

⁃ REO MF MIKAGE. He is the N1 girl’s dad. So much that he *will* accidentally spoil her to the moon and back (literally). And he will hit you with “but look at her and her puppy eyes? How can you resist her? Is not my fault if she asked to own a star in her name for her birthday. It’s the least I could do for my own little star “

⁃ ISAGI: I don’t think I need to elaborate on him. But I will, because i love to yap. It's canon (or i think? i am pretty sure i have read it in the egoist bible but i cannot find the link i had saved for the life of me) that he would have loved a younger sister growing up. So it just makes sense.

⁃ BAROU : he has two younger sisters to which it's canon he cares and loves them for his dear life. Barou pretty much is already wired in husband and father mode ⁃ YUKIMIYA: purely out of personal vibes.

HEAR ME OUT ON THIS ONE:

⁃ SHIDOU: In the eventual future where this little gremlin fixes whatever he has going on, he would make such a good girl dad. Why? vibes. He just fits the girl's dad vibes i can't explain to you why, you either see it or don't.

At the same time tho, I also see him as the unhinged, fun uncle who is everywhere at once. Living his life the most weirdly, yet oddly free, way.

BOY'S DAD (this is all about pure vibes honestly)

⁃ KUNIGAMI

⁃ CHIGIRI

⁃ GAGAMARU

BOTH

⁃ BACHIRA: My favourite Bee. He just wants a child honestly, in a very far future. He would be such a great dad. The fun, loving and just an absolute gem. He just want at least 2 kids, boy or girl doesn't matter as long as he can shower them with love.

⁃ NIKO

NONE

⁃ NAGI: I mean lmao.. self explanatory. He thinks everything is an hassle. Definitely doesn’t want kids

⁃ ARYU: I can’t personally see him having kids, he lives a stress free life and kids are definetly no stress free— he is the cool aunt that travels the world, has always some crazy stories up his sleeve and loves expensive wine and clothes.

⁃ KAISER: his childhood was everything but good. And the scars he suffered are a life time reminder of the neglect and abuse he faced. The amount of trauma cannot be healed over the course of a month nor a few years, it's a constant learning curve that will follow him until his last breath. Honestly speaking, just like Rin-- but in a more complicated way here, it would be extremely hard to get into a relationship with him alone. I cannot image how dating/ married and having a kid would work with his twisted way of seeing life and relationships.

⁃ SAE: emotional range of a tea spoon. I can’t see him settling down in a marriage, much less having a kid.

⁃ RIN: this is complicated, because I think he could settle in the “both” category and here. The thing is, objectively speaking, he is very selfish. His football career will come before anything, and like we see, he is not thinking twice before cutting people off if needed. Thus, if he doesn’t change his mindset/grow up.. if he wants a long, standing football career, I cannot see him settling any time soon. Not to mention his struggle to make friends, let alone being in a relationship. But, in the case he does change, I think he would like two kids for sure.

[scoonsalicious]

Unwanted Masterlist

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader

Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn't be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust. Completed.

If you ever feel so inclined to support my work, hop on over to buy me a coffee; it's much appreciated! <3

Warnings: 18+ Minors: GTFO; I don’t serve your kind here.

"*" indicates explicit sexual content (each chapter will feature its own warnings as needed), language, alcohol/drug use, drunk!Bucky, drunk!/high!Reader, pick-me!oc, angst, mentions of CSA, angst, emotional affair, angst, physical infidelity (dependent on your pov), canon-level violence, emotional trauma, did I mention angst?, some fluffy moments, destructive behavior, injury, medical conditions, poorly translated Russian, unprotected anonymous sex, murder, minor oc character death, mentions of SA and torture, underage drug use, mentions of sex trafficking, mention of child injury.

More will be added as the story progresses, and some chapters will have specific warnings that I will keep under wraps to avoid spoilers. When we get to those sections, I will let you know, so if there is a specific trigger that you absolutely cannot handle, let me know and I will tell you if the section is safe. As always, please let me know if I miss any warnings.

Word Count: 155.2k

A/N: And here I present unto you, my beloved, the fruit of my labors these many past moons. Seven months in the making. My magnum opus.

Tumblr says this post has too many links, so for Chapters 27, 28, 29, and 30 (the epilogue), please use the navigation links in the first part of each chapter.

Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917

Part 1 (Posted 3/6/24) Part 2 (Posted 3/6/24) Part 3 (Posted 3/6/24) Part 4 (Posted 3/6/24)

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[astrow0rldx]

PAC Tarot: What is your seductive power🫧

COUNT LEFT TO RIGHT NOT VERTICALLY. while writing, the moon is in leo, time to shine!

pick an image it can be whatever your intuition calls to, the photography you find most aesthetically pleasing, or just the one that reminds/looks most like you (doesn't have to).

these were so random on my Pinterest homepage, and don't fit into any category, i chose them before the reading to. but lets get into the reading.. Listen to your song to understand your muse & extra messages. Click the link to understand the Seduction Type for your pile.

Pile One type: the natural

TAROT: 3 of pentacles, 3 of wands. ORACLE: Root chakra: Resilience + "enslaved, surrendering control"

Unpredictable, exciting, adventurous.

Besides your type as the natural, which is the least toxic archetype and basically about being genuine, playful & having a emotional connection that connects them with childhood nostalgia. Read more about it on the link + listen to your song.

Your seduction power is your strength to overcome things. Cope with hardships. Your deep lore, and trauma. People probably are seduced by the thought of you "taking it" & surrendering yourself to them. You having that strength. With the double 3 also signifying this growth & resilience, you seduce people by maturing kind of. The strength and confidence you come with from it.

People may be seduced when you are with groups of people too. 3 of wands is also about traveling, & expanding experiences. Heavy on the adventure part, adventures with you, your forward thinking & openness seduces people. Seduced by going places and exploring with you, like field trips, dates, parties, plans. The more you grow in life, that seduces people. Sexually people might be seduced by the fact that they can try new experiences with you, and grow/expand.

You definitely seduce people in school or work areas. People are seduced when they are working with you, again in a group. How you work with them & build connections and your teamwork that you put into it. The way you can collaborate and the way you make other people feel collaborating with them.

Pile Two type: the rake

TAROT: 3 of swords. King of Cups. ORACLE: Third eye: Merlin + Dominator

I did not talk about the rake in my seduction type post, because that seduction type is mostly used by men. I mean if you are a masc, or like women then hey. But at the end of the day the rake isn't as masculine. It's just the rebel, player bad boy type. But when he wants a girl he love bombs her to make her feel desired. So if your a feminine that dealt with that, you really can play the game on them. I suggest you look more into the rake archetype, & listen to your song! (yes it was shuffled, ironic how it's "promises")

3 of swords & King of cups, literally sound like your archetype. Heartbreaker Lover. King of cups is very emotionally intelligent, which most manipulative people have, but king of cups is not alwaysss manipulative. Very compassionate & understanding. They are emotional creatures, but balanced. Romantic, Charming, Sympathetic. Merlin is an old wise mediator. Very mature but balances people emotions. Emotionally intelligent asf.

But 3 of swords, takes 3 shots to heart and is betrayed, depressed, separated. Which is the effect you give to them. But you could also seduce people from the complex pain you been through, and your big heart with it. So your seduction power is definitely the rake. With dominator your probably the one that dominates the romance and affection within the relationship, so you can have the control to take it away and heartbreak. Sexually, people are seduced by wanting you to dominate them & take control.

I feel like you might accidentally give people false promises from just your vibe & when you separate, it breaks their heart and seduces them.

Pile Three type: the star

TAROT: Ace of wands, Page of Wands. Oracle: Solar Plexus: Centered + Sex toys

Your seduction type, which I hope you go to the link to really understand, the star is a blank canvas for people fantasies & dreams. They are idolized and put on a high pedestal and attract people who want to watch them. Listen to your song!!!! (Another song I channeled which is ironic because the one I shuffled is Homiesexual. the other song is Homie Bitch by Lil Durk) I bet you pull groups of men, and all their homies or something. Listen to the full song of both tho for extra messages.

Magnet, Magnet, Magnet. I know your sexy, get a lot of attention, or seduce people. If you don't think you do, you do & have a lot of present potential to. Your seduction power is turning people on. Your seduction power is quite literally in you in your sexual energy to. People like when your freaky. People might be seduced by the fact you using toys on yourself. Or quite literally look at you as a sex toy. You put people in that carnal, raw, curious, adrenaline, playful, thrilling sexual energy. You are looked at as a good fuck.. because page of wands is pretty immature and thinking with whatever they have between their legs. Are you like a hoe, or a thot?? If so, to my "thots" you seduce people that way.

Your seduction is you, just you shining in your energy, centered in yourself, your exciting self, your sexual self. Your vibrant, fiery self. EXPRESSING YOURSELF & BEING BOLD. spontaneous, playful, creative self. You seduce people by the way you spark excitement in others, or them.

Pile Four type: the dandy

TAROT: The Hermit, The Empress. ORACLE: Throat Chakra: Inner truth + Face

Go to the link to really understand. But as a dandy you are seductive in your individuality, uniqueness, weirdness, REBEL & DIFFERENT, ambiguous, gender fluid side. Dandy gives me a lot of Aquarius, Uranus Prominent energy.

By the picture you chose, the face & the empress card, your probably pretty and have a nice face card. That's a way you seduce people. The empress is a queen of all queens, top model energy so your femininity or just how people see you as a high valued woman is seductive to people. The way your out the mix, and go with your inner truth, and your OWN shit is seductive. People respect you a lot & your independence. Your loner vibe can seduce people, in a mystique, puzzling type way. People love to hear what YOU have to say & are seduced when you speak your mind. They love your honesty & transparency.

Pile Five type: the charismatic

TAROT: 10 of cups, 9 of cups. ORACLE: Third Eye chakra: Ancient Knowledge + Doggy

Since I didn't write about this one in my seducer type post: "A charismatic seducer is someone who is exciting and self-driven, and who can come across as someone most people want to be like. They may be leaders, visionaries, public figures, or great orators. Charisma is a presence that excites us. It comes from an inner quality, self-confidence, sexual energy, sense of purpose, contentment that most people lack and want. This quality radiates outward, permeating the gestures of Charismatics, making them seem extraordinary and superior. They learn to heighten their charisma with a piercing gaze, fiery oratory, an air of mystery. Create the charismatic illusion by radiating intensity while remaining detached. compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others."

Listen to your song for extra messages. Another lyric i channeled for this pile is "Is this the thanks that I get for putting you bitches on" by Nicki Minaj.

Your seduction type, with the tarot you got + your song is like your their ultimate ecstasy, wish fulfillment, need, satisfaction. Everything they want. You seduce people by the idea of worth you have, like if this was mine I would be soo happy. Your everything. You may be thick, don't have to be just a nice booty, & people are seduced by the idea of putting you in doggy. They like that idea of you, even by the picture you chose, your arch pics, the way you sit, or stuff like that that symbolize that position can seduce people.

You might be witches, tarot readers too. Or your special, ancient, or inner knowledge that you have to bring to the table seduces people.

Pile Six type: the siren

TAROT: 3 of wands, Page of wands. ORACLE: Sacral Chakra: Inhibitions + Dominator

The siren is the one that is so sensually appealing to all the senses, irresistible allure, and captivating. While also having a dream like experience on them from their push-pull manipulation tactic. Go to the link to understand more, & listen to your song for extra messages.

For this pile you might have been going back & forth on which one to choose. But a siren definitely has multiple archetypes anyways and is very seductive so that makes sense. You seduce people when having fun, Idk if you have life of the party energy, but when you are in that energy or just in your spontaneous energy that brings them back to maybe that age of 15-27 year old energy you know what I mean. Your adrenaline, or the adrenaline you give people. When you guys take trips and have fun that seduces people. The downtown vibe from your picture adds to it. Sacral Chakra is all about our joy & pleasures. But Inhibitions is someone who's shy & self conscious, reserved. This could be you, or how you make people feel that just seduces people.

People are seduced by your playful sexual side, maybe when drunk, twerking, dancing, thirst traps, etc etc.

Your dominance, and the way you take charge seduces people. Im channeling this song i seen used for a Kamala Harris Edit 246 something party girl, brat something. LMAO. But maybe Kamala Harris is a sign she's this fun easy going party girl, who's our future president of the USA. She's connected with her sacral chakra, inner child. But she can Dominate a room. Even the song choice of Nicki Minaj gives similar energy. Sexually, people are seduced when you do dominate them.

Pile Seven type: the coquette

TAROT: 4 of pentacles, The World. ORACLE: Face, Throat chakra: Divine Messenger.

The coquette as a seduction type, is not all lolita, baby girl aesthetic. Even though it could be. It's the ultimate female manipulator. Look at the link to learn more, but she seduces by making people jealous to compete. Distancing once it gets to good to delay gratification & make them obsessed with her affection. etc etc. Listen to your song for more messages to.

Going with your seduction type, you seduce people by making them feel whole with you. Like with you their complete, and your someone they want to hold on to, not let go & posses. With the divine messenger, people could feel like your meant to be, sent to them, wether its literally spiritual or they just have that emotional feeling. You also seduce people by your air of independence and the fact that your complete & whole in yourself and that you are very self-assured. You seduce people by being stingy, and fulfilled. You seduce people with everything you have, and how valuable you are and the things that you value. 2nd house/taurus energy. You could have a lot of material things, or things going for your self, you seem very achieved and that seduces people.

Your probably pretty, and your face card seduces people, or just your facial expressions, eye contact, etc etc.

Pile Eight type: the charmer

TAROT: 3 of wands. Ace of cups. ORACLE: Solar Plexus: Wholeness of self + Red Flag.

Charmer is the funny but empathetic inviting charming person. Look at my link to really understand the psychology behind this archetype. I channeled a lyric, "Come & touch me, let me know that your real". And it just goes with your archetype + red flag. People are seduced by the fact they can't trust you but want to trust you, because you seduce them. Listen to your song!! (Its so ironic how the most emo song got shuffled for the most emo picture)

People are seduced by the adventure & experiences you expand them to. Your thrill, and newness. Seduced by the love you have to offer and give, people are seduced when you first come in, your honeymoon stage or just they feel like that a lot because your affection and love/care you give is so seductive. People are seduced by the fact that your secure and safe within yourself, and you let loose with people. Your probably a calm, in the moment person. People are seduced by your too good to be true charm, and its like your a red flag.

Pile Nine type: the ideal lover

TAROT: ten of cups, 3 of wands ORACLE: crown chakra: spiritual awakening + spooning

The Ideal Lover archetype is a seductive who can mold into people ultimate soulmate fantasy. Look on my link to understand more, and listen to your song for extra messages.

okay so many piles get 3 of wands & i shuffle really good. 3 of wands might be an extremely seductive power, the way people can expand experiences, have adventures & escape. That's definitely your power. The fact that you got 10 of cups as a Ideal Lover Archetype. You are the Ideal Lover, people feel happy ever after, marriage, kids, ecstasy with you. You literally bring them to a whole new world. Especially with the spiritual awakening card. Your song picture perfect, its like your literally a walking fantasy. People are grateful to have you, but with seduction power you can use that to your best advantage that you have a gift to morph into being your target soulmate romance fantasy. Spooning is such a romantic sexual oracle card. People just want to be under you, hug you. Your like marriage material!

[astonmartinii]

witchy business | oscar piastri social media au

pairing: reader x oscar piastri

oscar's gf is a lil kooky but she puts solstice to good use and mainfests some luck for her bf

yourusername

liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris and 31,094 others

yourusername: you're not really sisters if you've never done a ritual together ...

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user1 she's so mother

user2 i can't wrap my head around how her and oscar came to be but i love it

oscarpiastri don't have too much fun without me :(

yourusername tell your team to take out the no ritual clause from your contract i swear they're safe landonorris i heard your latin once IT IS NOT SAFE yourusername falsehoods !!

user3 does this girl have a job or is she just cosplaying ahs coven full time

yourusername i'm a florist, do you want my social security number and tax returns too?

danielricciardo any way you could like turn me into a real honey badger for a couple hours that sounds fun?

oscarpiastri

liked by yourusername, landonorris and 490,568 others

tagged: yourusername

oscarpiastri: some time off well spent with my love

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user10 i am once again asking - how did this happen?

user11 it's actually a really cute story they apparently went to school together and she still does a weekly bouquet for his mum and grandma. they're og sweethearts all that opposites attract jazz

landonorris don't even get a photo credit with all the trauma i experienced for that pic

oscarpiastri bro you barged into my room and took a photo? landonorris i didn't see any sock on the door oscarpiastri it was my own house?

yourusername i love every moment together with you

oscarpiastri that sentiment goes both ways xx user12 god i am so alone

f1teaandgossip

liked by 14,098 others

f1teaandgossip: with lando and oscar being reported as frustrated, how long do you think it'll be until they're linked with moves elsewhere and do you think the updates will improve the car?

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user15 they don't deserve this

user16 i don't wanna be that person but this is karma for what they did to daniel

user17 i honestly think magic might be our only chance

user18 @yourusername pls work some magic

yourusername on it 🫡 user19 now that's my favourite wag

yourusername

liked by landonorris, oscarpiastri and 58,451 others

yourusername: the full moon is here and i'm bringing some luck to my baby

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user20 mother is here to save the day i know that's right

landonorris if this works i'll never say you're scary ever again

yourusername *when it works have some faith in the moon lando landonorris yeah i don't think i wanna mess with the moon

user21 that moment when the mcl60 is so bad that you start to believe in witchcraft

oscarpiastri i love you so much (p.s. thank you to the girls as well, i'll cover the next candle order)

yourusername i love you too honey - we're rooting for you yourbff1 we love you oscar yourbff2 i don't understand your sport but i love the wages cause candles !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

charles_leclerc so are you adept in curses? asking for a friend....

maxverstappen1 sure. yourusername i don't (but i can give you a good luck crystal) charles_leclerc i'll take anything at this point

mclaren

liked by yourusername, oscarpiastri and 808,458 others

mclaren: WOOOOOOOOOOOO WE TAKE A 2 - 3 FINISH IN HUNGARY 🇭🇺 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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user26 i am bamboozled

user27 so .... it worked?

landonorris i have never said a bad word about y/n's hobby NEVER I LOVE YOU Y/N AND I LOVE THE MOON

oscarpiastri she's still MY girlfriend mate landonorris i am aware i am merely stating my appreciation for her

user28 i know the team just finally got their shit together... but YAAAAS WITCH SLAY

yourusername so so happy for you guys

oscarpiastri i love you so so so so much xxxxxxxx

user29 y/n is my driver of the day

yourusername

liked by oscarpiastri, logansargeant and 68,349 others

tagged: oscarpiastri

yourusername: i love you so. forever proud.

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user31 fave couple FOR REAL

landonorris fine yall are so cute

oscarpiastri finally, only took a few months

user32 i need something like this in my life

oscarpiastri i love you more.

yourusername anything for you. even asking the moon for help with cars.

danielricciardo once again i am asking to be turned into a real honey badger for a couple hours

maxverstappen1 i think it's time to give up danny

note: idk what this is but lol i had fun - i shall get to the requests next, hope you enjoy !!!

[awritesthings1]

All The Things We Don't Say

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x Female Reader

Summary: An anthology of your life with Tommy, from friends to strangers to lovers, and all the little moments in between.

Warnings: 18+, implied DV, substance abuse, childhood trauma, ptsd, overprotective tommy, swearing, brief smut, longfic oneshot, feminist themes (motherhood & being a wife in the 1920s).

ao3 link

-

Smash!

“Pick it up!”

Your daddy was a drunk. You remembered the fact since you could walk. He stayed home while the working men left for the factories, then disappeared in the late hours of the morning until his eventual return when the slam of the front door woke the household up. Mother used to hold you at night as she curled up in your bed. She was sick a lot. Always sniffing into the back of your neck when you were asleep. Sometimes the sleeve of your nightgown would get soaked while she muffled her hiccups.

She looked sad, too. In the morning, she kept the curtains drawn and stayed away from the outside world. She told you it was to keep nosey Mrs. Gretel away from her family affairs. But Mrs. Gretel had left Birmingham two months prior.

By seven years old, you were the 'man' of the house. You had gone to sleep one night, and when you awoke, your mother had vaporized into the air like a rabbit in a hat.

“She left because of you,” your father slurred at you.

You hated him.

She left behind her long-sleeve dresses, scarves, and wicker hats that covered nearly every inch of her skin. They were far too big for you then, but when your father came home at the end of the week with a stack of cash, you ran to your mother’s closet, which had remained untouched until then, to find only cobwebs. Gone. Every single one of her dresses. You looked out at the moon in those early hours of the morning and swore to it that when you were bigger, you would get him back so much worse.

And so you were left to clean up his smashed glass bottles and scrub the alcohol out of the gritty carpet. Your little hands struggled to pluck the glass from the floorboards. In a year’s time, they were covered in little scars.

On your tenth birthday, you decided you were grown enough to take matters into your own hands. When he was passed out on the floor from whatever he managed to fill his pipe with, you grabbed the small bottles he hid under a loose floorboard and poured them into the gutter at the back of your house.

You turned to run back to the door when the contents of the bottle were empty, but a ball almost tripped you over. You gripped your tattered skirt before you could lose your footing and snapped your head around with a fierce pout.

“That’s my ball,” pointed a young Thomas Shelby.

You put your small hands on your smaller hips. “You kicked it my way on purpose!”

You weren’t entirely sure, but you suspected it.

“Maybe I thought you were pretty,” he grinned.

You noticed his two front teeth were missing.

“Ewwww! I would never go out with you!” You squawked.

At ten years old, you knew better than that.

Seemingly unaffected by your distaste, he continued. “Do you live there?” He nodded to the house whose roof was falling apart.

“What’s it to you?” You frowned stubbornly, not wanting to admit that, yes, that was your house.

“The curtains are always drawn,” he answered, walking over to pick up his ball from your feet. He was the same height as you were at the time. “My brother Arthur said it’s haunted. He saw a ghost in the window once. He said it was a woman and that she starved to death.”

Your nose scrunched up. "Well, he’s a phony!”

You ran inside said house and slammed the door shut.

He kissed you down by the docks that winter. It was your first kiss, and a clumsy one at that, so you didn’t remember much of it.

By thirteen, you had given in and sold the rest of your mother’s belongings to support yourself. You hated yourself for it, and that nagging voice inside your head told you that you were no better than your father. Oh, and your father? Your father lost vision in his left eye from a bar fight. Too bad it wasn��t both.

Sometime later, a boy two years older than you saw your wandering hand in someone’s bag at the fair and threatened to teach you some manners ‘the hard way’. You bit anxiously on your nails and pleaded with him because he was bigger than most boys his age, when Tommy’s brother Arthur (who you’d seen hanging around the Garrison) came passing by and threatened to ‘toss him about’. The other boy, not all believing in Arthur’s temper, rushed forward, and the two ended up rolling in the dirt, but by then you were gone with a stolen pocket watch in your fist. Nearly two legs and an arm deep in poverty, some quick cash, or a hero complex? You’d take the penny.

At fourteen, a lady knocked on your door. It was a lady of the night who had come to inform your father that he had fathered a son with her. You were glad it was a boy. A girl wouldn’t have stood a chance in the slums of Birmingham. Life was hard, but Birmingham was harder. Your father had refused to listen to the young woman and shooed her off. You never saw her teary-eyed face again.

At fifteen, your father attempted to wash his hands of you by marrying you off to the highest bidder. There was no real auction, but just about anyone who suggested a handsome sum of money did the trick.

“His name is William,” you exhaled, kicking your legs over the edge of the dock.

Tommy laughed. “You won’t marry him.”

“What choice do I have, Tom?”

Your finances were getting tight, and the gloomy pressure to take up working at night like many young ladies was beginning to loom closer and closer. You hated being a woman. Boys would never have to worry about selling themselves to survive.

“I’ll put a gypsy curse on him,” he decided, squinting his eyes from the bright reflection dancing across the water.

You hit his shoulder.

“No, you won't, because then you’ll be cursing me.”

The severity of your situation began to dawn on Tommy. No amount of pestering Polly for change to spare would relieve you of your burden any longer.

“That’s it, then?” He gulped, shifting his glassy eyes to the harbor.

You sighed and followed his gaze.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad. I’ll never have to see dad again, and William promised to take care of me.”

Tommy scoffed.

You frowned at him. “What?”

He shook his head.

“What! Tom—”

“Don’t marry him.”

You rolled your eyes. “Oh, here we go, why?”

“You know why.”

You were engaged to William on the eve of your seventeenth birthday. He was a very proper man and never dared to go any further than hooking an arm around yours on formal occasions. You were never attracted to his thin mustache nor the thick lenses he wore. In fact, he was incredibly awkward at social occasions, always checking his pocket watch and avoiding eye contact with whichever circle he stood in.

Tommy began to fade out of your life around that time. Margaret—a lady who had taken you on to help with the sewing of her family’s tailoring business—told you that Tommy was spotted arm in arm with another girl that week. You expected to feel jealous, but you felt nothing. You knew love would never be your right. Love was for the more fortunate.

You spent that year learning how to be a wife. Surprisingly, it wasn’t too different from what you did as a child—cooking and cleaning up like you did when your father came home, that is. It was comforting to have a routine in place. It meant finality—no one walking in and out of your life as they pleased, and certainly no more growling stomachs. Perhaps being a wife was a skill your mother never learned. You were grateful for William’s mother, who seemed to be more than enthusiastic to show you the reigns.

After a year-long engagement, you caught your fiancé, William, locked in a compromising position with another man.

“Oh,” was all you got out before leaving his house.

You lacked the special ingredient that marriages needed: love.

You sat down at the fountain across the street. William and his lover’s silhouette were visible behind the blinds he had drawn on the second floor, which peered over the sidewalk. You watched their shadows fluster their feathers around the room like headless geese, and for a moment your head surfaced above water and laughter frothed out between your sealed lips. Perhaps Birmingham made you a little mad.

You didn’t go through with the marriage. You suspected William was relieved.

That week, your father left. You never knew whether he left on his own accord or just never made it home one night. Either way, you never really cared to find out.

With nothing left to lose, you knocked on the Shelby family’s door at Watery Lane. Finn appeared around the other side of the door a moment later.

“Is Tommy home?”

Finn nodded, spinning on his heel to alert his brother. When Tommy did appear, his shoulders were tensed. Disheveled hair never looked so stylish on him. When you saw his suspenders (which were hastily thrown on), you wanted to ask who he expected to be at the door that he planned to answer dressed in such fashion but then thought better of it. He peered down at you, then checked over his shoulder before ushering you inside and up to his bedroom.

“It’s… smaller than I thought,” you landed on, taking in his room.

After all these years, you had never stepped foot into the Shelby home. You weren’t the type of person to come door-knocking.

You turned around to face Tommy after hearing him click the lock on his door.

“Are you hurt?" were the first words he had spoken to you in a year.

“No.” You pressed your lips together, eyeing everything from the bed to the view out the window.

Silence followed closely after.

“Then why are you here?” Tommy sighed.

Your vision began to blur then. “I don’t know,” you said honestly, trying to stop your bottom lip from trembling.

Desperately, you pushed your hair back and straightened up, attempting to hold yourself together. You must have looked like a puppet being held together by a string, given how poor you looked.

Tommy’s boots pad across the wooden floor. “You love me?”

Did that word truly exist? How could you answer if you never knew what it meant to love?

You don’t meet his eyes. He licked his lips, pushing your head up to meet his with his thumb. His eyebrows rose expectantly.

“I don’t know what to do, Tom,” you breathed, avoiding his question. “I’m all alone now. No William, no father…”

His lips parted, and you watched with fascination as the cogs turned in his head. “Yes… that is a problem." His breath fanned over your face.

You gagged, a reaction you yourself had not expected, before rushing to his door, only to remember that, yes, he had locked it, before turning to the nearest silver bucket in the corner to empty your guts.

The first thing you heard when you caught your breath was, “are you pregnant?”

No, but when you stand so close to me and I can smell the cigarettes you smoke and your freshly washed skin, I can imagine a future where we are married, and I see your face growing more disappointed as we age together because you married a woman who never knew how to be a mother to your children nor a wife who knew to tend to you with affection by your bedside when you’re ill.

“No,” you choked, spitting out the vile taste in your mouth. “We never did anything.”

You wanted him to know that. You wanted him to think that you never let William touch you because you never loved him, not because William wasn’t interested in girls.

A moment later, Tommy sat beside you on the floor and quietly combed your hair away from your wobbling lips.

“So, if you’re not pregnant and you don’t love me, why are you here?”

You wiped your mouth with the back of your hand. How were you supposed to answer that? After letting your guts loose in his room, you thought he would surely have booted you out the door.

A knock came on the door: “Tommy?”

“A minute, Finn!” Tommy growled at the door, refusing to back away from your trembling frame.

You were so hungry. Margaret had to cut back your hours ever since her husband fell ill. She spent more time by his bedside than keeping the store open, which meant you were making less than usual. The imminent closing of the store hung over your head like a taunting crow, gouging your insides like you were Prometheus. Birmingham your chains, a woman your fate, and the bird your punishment for thinking you deserved more.

“I should go.” You shivered at the draft inching towards your skin from the open window.

Tommy’s intense gaze stuttered, falling to your lap, where you picked at the dead skin around your nails. He cleared his throat, fishing out the key from his pocket. Although it was dull and muted from the years, it gleaned brightly in your eyes as if it were the reward you came for. Flushed, you grabbed it out of his hands without sparing a glance. Electricity sparked in those precious seconds, igniting a deadly fire in your belly.

“You’re cold." Tommy flinched at your touch.

You retreated as soon as the key slid into the hole and unlocked with a click. In your haste, you left the most valuable thing you owned there in his room.

Your heart.

The months went by, and summer arrived. The stories your mother told you left you expecting a bright gleam of air that would wash over the streets and paint each tree and every patch of grass a frighteningly bright green that would even encourage grumpy Mrs. Gretel to come out to preen her stubborn roses that would just not grow. Birmingham left less to be desired. The summer days never came, and that persisting bitter bog thickened, albeit with slightly less rain. There were gray clouds, smoke from the factories, and a shivering north westerly, which pushed said clouds at breakneck speed as if they had somewhere to be. You looked to the sky one day and said a prayer for blue breezes and sweltering sun, but the sky was empty.

Sometime later, men marched the streets armed with guns in their ‘dashing’ uniforms. A war, they said, a great one. Queues lined the street for the post offices and grocers. Rain rivaled the bustle of the city. What did it feel like to love someone so much as to stand in the pouring rain next to the gutter? You wanted that kind of love. Not the love you could only give yourself because even you didn’t want your own love.

One of the soldiers decorated in medals stood on a crate at the port, yelling something supposedly inspiring that captured the attention of many young men. The words honorable and patriotic were tossed in there like a delectable salad, enticing them in the way farmers held a carrot to a pig’s snout.

You pitied their mothers. Their daughters were married off, and then their sons were swooning over the idea of dying. Birmingham was filthy, rotting, and disgusting. You needed to leave.

You kissed Margaret goodbye on the cheek one Tuesday morning. Ever since your pockets turned out empty, you had been working as a bedside nurse for her ill-stricken husband. They were good to you, and they were probably the only people you could consider family.

She patted your cheek and said, "you're doing good to serve this country.”

You hadn’t had the heart to tell her you were leaving because the city was marring your flesh, so you slipped her the sugarcoated lie of wanting to join the war effort so that you might help others who were bedridden, just like her husband.

At the train station, you stood with your suitcases held tightly in both arms. You had to set one down to hold onto your hat as a train full of men waving their caps out the window pulled into the station. Some children weaved between the crowd, wagging a newspaper above their heads, hoping to make a quick penny. To your side, women wept for their brothers, husbands, and lovers.

“Who are you wishing off?” asked an elderly woman who was clutching her cane.

“Oh, I’m not. I’m boarding the next train.”

She laughed, and you wondered how old your mother would be now. Would she have grown wrinkles and settled into a deeper laugh like this woman?

“My dear, you have a bright imagination if you think they will let a woman on any of these trains.”

A sudden anger filled your blood. “Why not?”

“These men are heading straight for London, where they will be shipped away to France to fight,” the woman explained as if it were any other day.

“I’ll catch the next train then.”

She shook her head, and her frail hand curled tighter around her cane. “They’ve stopped the trains so they can transport soldiers to London.”

You frowned. “Then how will I leave Birmingham?”

You’ll never forget her dismissive laughter.

“My dear, you won’t.”

Men boarded the train, clapping each other on the back with a wink and a laugh. When a line of men on the platform thinned, the train whistled, and you looked over just in time to see Polly, Ada, and little Finn standing with their hands crossed over their hearts as they waved to the train.

No. It wasn’t possible.

But it was because you caught the gleam of the razors sewn into their peaky caps. Tommy, Arthur, and John all stood aboard the train, sticking their heads out and waving to Polly and Ada with a grin that wrung your stomach like a wet cloth.

Those countless daydreams you spun, the intricate webs you wove, began breaking down to thin fibers. In one pathway, you stayed there in his room and told him the truth you always denied yourself. You loved him. In another, you stood next to Polly, close to tears, as you begged him to come home safely. There was a resounding click in that moment as your breath stuttered. You had been the person who wiped away those futures, thinking it was nothing but an annoying spiderweb. Oh, how wrong you were!

“Tommy!” You left your suitcases behind and stepped around the old woman as you ducked under hugs and tearful goodbyes.

“Tommy!” You cried again with the gusto of someone who certainly shouldn’t be as concerned as they were considering you left him in his room that day.

Thankfully, his eyes eventually found yours as you pushed through the last line of people. You stood there and stomached all your regrets head-on. It was funny how, up until that moment, you managed to squash every seed of doubt. Why was it that you only realized what you had when it was slipping out of reach?

He never called your name back. He just stared at you blankly as the train pulled away, unlike you, who clung to the image of his frame even as the train disappeared from sight and the crowd began to disperse. You stood there unblinking, hoping to soak up the last of him before you forgot the intensity of his eyes or the humming rumble of his voice. Because the idea of something you held dearly becoming a memory meant that it could as easily be forgotten, and that terrified you. Your eyes were watering now, against your best wishes.

You overheard Polly ushering Finn and Ada off. Finn rushed home without protest, but Ada stopped in her tracks when she saw you hunched over your knees in tears. She smiled weakly before chasing Finn home. It was then that Polly’s shadow approached your huddled frame. She didn’t say anything, and for a moment, you weren’t sure if she expected you to stand and apologize for being such a mess. That’s when a penny clattered to the ground beside you. She squeezed your shoulder once before disappearing.

You kissed that penny as if Tommy would feel the power of it across the country, then ran back to Margaret’s, having forgotten your suitcases.

“Oh…” She exclaimed, slapping her tea towel on the counter when you walked into the kitchen. “You missed your train?”

Dread made your stomach tender and your breath short.

“I’m enrolling in the Red Cross.”

-

Throughout the war, you thought of Tommy every day until your stomach lurched. Would it have worked if you had stayed? Would you both have grown old together instead of subjecting yourself to the spray of dirt when a bomb went off nearby?

A day ago, your supply rations never came. It wasn’t like hunger was anything new, but when your mind was too focused on surviving the perilous weather, it was hard to save other lives. You made work with what little supplies you had left. The morphine went stint within hours of its arrival, and the cries of pained soldiers filled the medical tent all night. You did what you could, wiped sweat from their foreheads, and wrote letters to their mothers and lovers with what supplies you could scavenge. Some were written on cardboard from shell packaging, others on torn pages from the bibles they kept over their hearts. Pens were useless—the ink ran in the rain—so you scribbled everything down in pencil.

Before you left for France, you were warned of the bullets. No one ever warned you about the shrapnel, nor the bombs or grenades. They shattered soldiers’ bones beyond repair and left bodies unrecognizable. There wasn’t much you could do when most of their flesh was missing.

Keeping faith became an impossible task. Supplies were depleted, and nurses were dejected. Sally, who had been writing home for news of her brother, recently had her letters returned with the black stamp. Death—return to sender. She spent only an hour sitting on a trunk, letting her tears fall, before she got back to work. Grief privileged those with time, something no one could afford in these conditions.

Then it came—the day Arthur Shelby was carried in on a stretcher. You were making your rounds around the beds when a truckload of yelling men pooled through the entrance of the tent.

“Nurse!” They all yelled, some limping, others setting down stretchers of men on the dirt between the filled beds.

You and two other nurses dropped everything and ran over to attend to the wounded. They were all covered head to toe in dirt, groaning and clutching limbs that were twisted the wrong way. One in particular coughed and huffed while he fought against hands, which were fruitlessly pushing him back down on the stretcher.

“Let me go!” He yelled, wrestling against an older nurse.

“It’s alright, Mary. I’ll handle this one,” you patted her shoulder as you swapped places.

You dunked a washcloth into a bucket of water to wipe away the dirt in his eyes. “Calm down; you're safe here,” you said, starting your usual script of reassurances.

When the striking blue eyes squinted up at you, your blood ran cold. You froze before taking his head in both your hands, despite his protests. “Arthur? Arthur, it’s me!”

He loosened his grip on your wrist. “Huh?”

“It’s me! Where’s Tommy and John?”

He spat blood and gritted his teeth. “Fucking hell, where’s the whiskey?”

You laughed despite the smell of blood encompassing the tent. You quickly fetched the alcohol you had been using to clean wounds and pressed it to his lips. You weren’t sure if it was whiskey or not, but you reasoned he was in too much pain to be able to tell. He drank it with a groan of pleasure. You didn’t try to snatch the bottle away as he emptied it down his palette; you just sat and grinned at the way he suckled it like a newborn baby while you cleaned away his cuts.

“I’ve never been happier to see you, Arthur.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled, his lips still wrapped around the bottle.

You tried to stay by his side for as long as you could before the second wave of patients came tumbling through the flaps of the tent. One of them lost their grip on the stretcher, and the patient went sliding into the dirt headfirst.

“Fuck!” They all swore, abandoning the stretcher to drag the limp man further into the makeshift hospital.

You rushed to help when a hand gripped the back of your neck. You yelped in pain as your hair got caught in a fingernail when they turned you to face them.

And there he was: Tommy Shelby, covered in a thick layer of dirt, heaving for air.

“Nurse! Nurse!” Voices cried for you, but between the ringing in your ears and the wrath in Tommy’s blue eyes, you were frozen in place.

“The fuck are you doing here, eh?” He yelled over the anguished men.

You suddenly felt stupid standing there in your Red Cross uniform.

“I was looking for you, I—”

His dirty hands cupped your cheeks—something you were painfully aware of from the uncomfortable itch from the mud on your flushed skin—and pulled your forehead to his.

“You think this is some fantasy?” He squinted. “You think there’s any fucking moonlight to kiss under here, eh?” He spat.

His eyes held that haunted look you had seen on many soldiers that passed through the medical tent. Your eyes watered. Perhaps it was from the humidity and dirt being kicked up as nurses and patients scuffled around, not because you could hardly recognize the man in front of you. The blood smeared above his eyebrow worried you, so you reasoned that he was mad because it had been leaking into his eyes. Dutifully, you reached to wipe it with the back of your hand. He grabbed your wrist harshly, bringing it down to your side. He was in shock; you scolded yourself.

“Where’s John and Arthur?” Tommy swallowed, flexing his hands.

You led him to Arthur, who had been left in his corner while the nurses attended to more serious cases. It hurt watching the brothers reunite after their ordeal, so you left them alone no matter how much you feared them being discharged before your return. After all, everything you ever wanted sat in that corner, but it would be selfish to coddle Tommy all to yourself. Still, you couldn’t help sparing a glance when you walked up and down the tent, attending to patients.

Later that night, he came to you under the candlelight of your tent. He cleared his throat upon entry. You were lying face-up on your cot when he cleared his throat and peeled back the entrance to enter. The candlelight painted the mountain peaks of his face in a dull amber and the valleys in a frightening shadow. You sat up, pulling the thick cover over your shift.

Tommy kneeled next to you, resting on the heels of his boots. He licked his chapped lips and itched his nose. “You don’t belong here.”

Your grip on the cover loosened. “Huh?”

Nothing prepared you for when he swung his brooding stare towards you. He exhaled loudly before running a hand over his face.

“You should have stayed in Birmingham.” He said it like a warning.

“And done what?”

Vulnerability never looked good on Tommy. His head hung and his fingers itched at the back of his head—a tick you used to love; now you weren’t so sure. Because your Tommy was never afraid, but this man in front of you was alarmingly tense despite the clear efforts to mask it.

What have they done to you, Tom?

Under the dim light of your tent, you barely recognized him. A stranger’s eyes were blown wide in a frightening state of shock, something most soldiers mirrored. War washed out the sweet blue pair you knew, refitting them for a steely weapon. You hated seeing him like this, so still, so unsteady, cocooned into the corner as if afraid to take up space.

You feared you looked no better. Having worked till the point of exhaustion, you usually found yourself awakening against a wooden crate or trunk to the cries of patients who demanded your attention despite your body not having the strength to stand. Today you had been lucky and found yourself crawling distance to your private tent when your knees started wobbling and your head lulling.

The wooden reinforcing of your private tent fought in vain to shelter your bodies from the elements; it still flapped and whipped about, sometimes rocking your cot. Yet Tommy remained still like those life-size stone statues you’d find outside an important building, brooding at the dirt and locked in an internal battle. You shifted to the edge of your makeshift bed and leaned close enough that you saw how the top buttons of his dirtied uniform were missing and most of his clothes were torn.

His arm, which was breaking out in goosebumps, lay heavily across his knee so that he could rest his forehead there limply. He looked in a bad enough condition that you feared the possibility of him succumbing to the wasteland threatening him outside your tent. You wrapped your arms around the scruff of his hair and pulled his face into your stomach, where he could hide from the terrible world. On instinct, his arms wound around your waist, and you felt his warm exhale against your skin through the thin fabric of your slip.

His tin water bottle clanged against the satchel he wore, which made you wonder if he had any time to rest at all if he still had all his equipment tied to his uniform.

“I didn’t…” His voice was muffled by your slip. He cleared his throat again, shaking his head.

When he dropped the thought, you spoke up. “Have you eaten?”

He slapped your thigh haphazardly. “No, do you have a cigarette?”

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, instead gently pushing him away so you could kneel beneath your bed and fish a cigarette from your satchel. You pinched one from its tin case, then thought better of it and tossed it on Tommy’s lap. Gratefully, he collected one from the case and lit it with a nearby candle. You watched his chest rise and fall as he took an especially deep drag. His eyes shut as the nicotine rushed to his head.

“Fuck, that’s good,” he muttered under his breath.

“How are you here, Tommy? One of the night nurses should’ve been on watch.”

“Oh,” smoke puffed out of his mouth, and he raised his eyebrows, “there is.”

“Then how—”

“I had to see you.”

The butterflies in your stomach dove. The blue in his eyes appeared translucent as they hazed over like a ghost. His shoulders were slumped dejectedly, and he had a hand pushing through his greasy, unwashed hair to relieve his neck from the weight of his thoughts.

He pointed to you then, with the cigarette nursed between his fingers. “I need to know why you changed your mind.”

“About what, Thomas?”

His voice slurred and slipped into a deeper register from the lack of sleep. "Why you came back. Why you came to France.” Tommy shook his head lazily. “You expect me to believe you had a sudden change of heart? What? You a patriot now?” An amused exhale curled out while he took another drag. “Well I don’t believe it.”

You began shivering despite the way your body flushed.

“How’s Arthur?” You tried to avert the conversation.

“Bloody drunk off his ass.”

“And you?”

Tommy held your stare and swallowed dryly. “Trying.”

“You can go join him if you wish.”

He looked at the entrance of your tent as if he were weighing his options, then shook his head and took another drag before clearing his throat. “It’s different now.”

Naïvely, you sank to the ground beside him and rested a hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be.”

He sighed.

“I wish that were true.”

-

The next time you saw Tommy, you were working a shift at the hospital. After the war, you received a medal for your efforts, which easily got you a job in Birmingham. You pleaded with them to send you to any other hospital—London, Manchester, Liverpool—you didn’t care. Anywhere but Birmingham.

“You should be honored to work for me!” Exclaimed the head nurse at Birmingham Hospital, who didn’t seem too pleased with your distaste for the city.

You thought the job would be the final nail in the coffin, but you surprisingly got along well with the head nurse once you had put your animosity aside. So much so, she offered to lease you a room upstairs from hers.

Then came that dreaded night where you were finishing the filing of some documents when a patient was being rushed in. Your ears perked up, and you looked through the blinds of the office to see a man being rushed by. Something small and round had fallen off the stretcher while the nurses paid no attention, pushing him around the corner and down towards the operating theater. Curious, you exited the office.

And there on the ground was one of those peaky caps Tommy and his brothers used to wear. You knew this because you picked it up and nearly cut yourself on the blade that was sewn into the seam. You spent the next hour gnawing on your nails. Your imagination sparked ideas about the beaten man who was lying in an operating room two doors down in surgery. Was it Tommy? Arthur? John? The shadows under your eyes darkened at the thought. No, it was probably some other Peaky Blinder. The Shelby brothers were too careful. Still, you knocked over your coffee in a mad dash to the bathroom, where you heaved up your dinner.

You volunteered to stay until the morning, but the head nurse on duty for the night refused and sent you home. You didn’t sleep at all that night.

The next morning, you arrived early and made a beeline for the emergency ward. You grabbed the admission form and scanned the patient list. There were only two emergency patients who were listed under the final hour of your shift, a woman and a man, which made it easier to narrow it down to the man who was admitted at quarter to midnight in ward four, room seven.

When you peaked through the crack in the door, you knew you had been worried for a reason. Tommy lay under the covers, battered and bruised, with a swollen eye and a nasty scar where he had reportedly received surgery for trauma to the head.

You slipped inside quietly and closed the door. Tommy’s eyes were closed, and his mouth hung open, stealing miniscule amounts of air into his lungs. He looked as good as a ghost.

“Tommy…” You clutched his peaky cap (which you meant to return) between your fingers.

He didn’t move an inch, so you set the cap down by his bedside table, carefully watching the rise and fall of his chest.

What have they done to you, Tom?

On the second week, he woke up while you were cleaning the windowsill. He coughed, and you whipped around in shock.

“Nurse?” He asked hoarsely, blinking away the blinding light.

You rushed to his side, tears bursting like the fountain you passed on your way to work.

“Don’t move,” you urged when he tried to sit up.

“I have to get to London,” he slurred, only half awake.

You weren’t upset that he didn’t recognize you. You weren’t upset that he didn’t recognize you.

“Tommy… it’s me.”

He shrugged your hand off his shoulder with a hiss. “Fucking hell.”

Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

“Please don’t move; I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” You couldn’t hide the way your voice broke.

He looked up at you, then, through bloodshot blue eyes. You wished you knew what was going through his head. Happy or sad?

“Am I dead?”

“No,” you smiled weakly as a tear fell.

“Can I have a smoke then?”

-

“I don’t know how to love, Tommy!”

“Yeah? Yeah? That’s bullshit! Why do you keep coming back then?” He pinched your chin, glaring furiously into your eyes. “Eh?”

He stood so close that he blocked the light from the chandelier, which mournfully hung from the ceiling. You shivered in his shadow.

“I shouldn’t have come tonight.”

“But you did!” He accused, pointing in your face.

“It was a mista—”

“You fucking did!”

“Tommy!”

“I’ve had it! If you want to leave, then fucking leave; otherwise, don’t stand there all righteous waving empty threats over my head because I know you won’t leave.” He shook his head with a wild look in his eye. “No… You won’t leave. You won’t leave because you love me. You keep coming back,” he pointed matter-of-factly.

Tommy’s eyebrows danced between being terribly furrowed and alarmingly raised during his passionate monologue. It was rare for him to emit so much emotion these days. The war changed men, and Tommy was no exception. A chilling stillness framed his presence, which even you weren’t excused from. No more laughter, no more dreams of working with horses, because he was above all that now, wasn’t he? It was ambition that ground his teeth together and hollowed his eyes. Still, you couldn’t forget that the anger came from vulnerability, because it took a lot for someone to get under Thomas Shelby’s skin.

You moved to grab your purse, to make good on his word, but he halted your movement by grabbing your shoulders, roughly at first, before loosening his grip. You softened at his frantic demeanor. He was scared—oh,  so afraid of you walking out that door again. But how could you ever explain it to him? You were never born for love. You would never know how to love him properly the way wives were supposed to because what you felt for Tommy was sickeningly deep. So much so that the mere impression of him sealed off your ribcage and ruined any chance of your heart beating for any other soul, so much so that you carried the weight of him in your bones because you could never shake him off.

When you looked back at life, all you saw was the absence of love. You used to imagine yourself growing up and falling in love with a handsome stranger, then getting married in a proper white dress to go live in your proper house. But when you looked in the mirror, you saw a ghost. The pathway of your life was laid out before your eyes once, and what you saw didn’t match the reflection. The man you were supposed to marry couldn’t even look at you, even if you cleaned and cleaned and cleaned until your fingerprints turned white and pasty.

Because what it all came down to was simple. You never got to become the person you envisioned. Instead, you were cursed to live as a blank slate and be consistently reminded of what you were supposed to be and of who you were: no one.

Tommy exhaled in a quick huff, pressing his forehead to yours so that he saw you clearer, without all the tension and bullshit in the way.

“Here it comes, Tommy.” You took a shaky breath. “I love you, but I could never be the perfect wife to you, and I would be a terrible mother.”

There, in all its ugly colors and shades, you hung yourself with the truth.

He shook his head as if he too couldn’t believe your words.

“Fuck’s sake! Forget about all that." His eyes watered out of frustration, but he was still puffing in anger. “I need you. You. Not some whore.”

You bit your lip to muffle the god-forsaken cry ready to erupt from the volcanoes you suddenly found roaring in your stomach. An earthquake overtook your hands the more you fought the inevitable eruption. You grabbed both his hands to stop yours from shaking.

“I have to be cursed; there’s no other way!”

“No!”

“My life slips through my fingers like grains of sand—”

“You’re not cursed!”

“And I can’t stop it, Tommy!”

“You’re not fucking cursed, and I’ll tell you why." Tommy cut you off. He leaned in, licking his lips, which had turned dry from all the shouting, and squeezed your hands. “Because my ancestors charmed dogs with their magic, they didn’t scare little girls with curses,” he paused. “But you… You waved a hand over my head, and now I’m no better than a dog.”

He closed the space between you, pressing his forehead against yours, and stroked both your cheeks, wiping at your tears. You held him there in a meek attempt at reciprocation.

You wished the world were ending so then you could grab Tommy’s hand and say, ‘I’m ready, Tom. The world is ending, so let’s kiss and love each other under the flames without any fear because the world is ending.’

But you were never good at expressing yourself with words, so you sealed it with a kiss, hoping he could taste the unspoken words on your lips the same way you tasted the tears. He responded in earnest, gripping you roughly by the scruff of your neck to seal the promise laden between your lips; no more running.

-

It was just your luck that you would bump into your ex-fiancé, William, while visiting a bar in London with Ada. You were buzzing from the warmth of three sweet liquors and whatever else Ada insisted you try, and everything was starting to seem a little funny by the time he approached you.

He engaged in pleasantries, swishing his wine around the glass and sniffing it occasionally, like many pompous older men tended to do. There was only so much smiling you could afford before you caught your reflection in the freshly wiped bar and realized how poorly your acting skills were. Ada was no help, muttering something about finding a phonebooth and then slipping into the belated and boozed crowd. It was then that the supposed nectar in your glass began to taste like the cleaning products—that nose-scrunching stench. Thankfully, William was too involved in some tangent to notice you muffle a gag into your palm.

The dazzling hum in your ears muffled out all his words. In your drunken state, William appeared to be more confident than what you remembered, but you were unable to decipher whether it was from a change of heart or if he was trying to fall back in your good graces. Otherwise, you were blinded by the roaring bustle of the bar and the delicious swell of music that seemed to reverberate across your being.

Growing a little bored with William’s story, your attention wandered over his shoulder, still being sure to nod every now and then as if you were deeply pondering his words. Not far away from his side, a man seemed to linger—a man who was careful not to reach your eye. You must have laughed a little harder than usual because William turned sharply to the man at his side, gave him a quick once-over, then returned his attention to you, but by then it was too late, and you knew exactly what William’s relationship was with this man and where William’s confidence had come from.

“You’ll make a fine wife and a finer mother someday,” William quickly added.

You cursed the witch inside you, who laughed from her stomach and used his shoulder to steady herself. Once upon a time, that was all you longed to hear, but now, with a half-spilt martini in hand, you couldn’t care less. Both of you had found happiness despite your unconventional circumstances, and there was no more to it. You could close that chapter without any loose threads.

A little drunk, you thanked him, disappeared, and never thought of him again.

-

“I can’t do it, Ada,” you stressed, beginning to feel uncomfortable with the baby in your arms.

Motherhood came rumbling into your life like a rusty engine spitting out oil. ‘Instinctual’, the mothers down the lane from Arrow House had said, ‘it’s like your body has been preparing for it your whole life.’ How awful, you thought, and by the time one of them finished speaking about their experience with their first, your nose was so scrunched in disgust that you would need an iron to flatten out the wrinkles. It wasn’t until now that you longed to be in their shoes, because nothing came naturally to you.

“He’ll latch eventually; he’s just a little fussy,” Ada reassured.

“Is it supposed to hurt?”

“It’s perfectly normal.”

Then, after an hour of rubbing your sons back on the verge of tears, he finally began feeding from you. Ada soothed your back the whole time and cooed softly to calm both you and your unruly boy. Sometimes she brought Karl. He would obediently sit on her lap, playing with his wooden horse, while your little Charles fussed.

One time in the early morning, when you were up attempting to feed Charles, Tommy rushed in alert with disheveled hair and sunken eyes.

“Sorry,” you mouthed, deflated your hardworking husband had been disturbed from his sleep.

He ran his hands over his face and sighed. You mistook his action for frustration and desperately tried to hush your baby. Tommy moved over to the rocking chair where you sat, trying to feed little Charles in your arms.

“Don’t be sorry,” he whispered into the crook of your neck. “How is he?”

You flushed under the moonlight, suddenly embarrassed that your husband had caught you in this vulnerable position with the top of your slip peeled down. Your exposed skin hissed when he pressed a kiss against your pulse.

“I don’t think he likes me very much.”

Tommy inhaled sharply against your neck before resting his chin on your shoulder to peer down at Charles. Charles had settled since Tommy walked into the room, acutely aware of his father as his little hands made a grabbing motion for him. Diligently, Tommy relieved your arms of Charles and cradled him close to his chest. Within minutes, the little baby was gurgling happily and blinking in a way that suggested sleep was on the horizon after all.

Your husband didn’t dare make any sudden noise as he gently set Charles in his cradle. Once he was surely asleep, Tommy guided you up from the rocking chair and into your shared bedroom.

“See?” you hissed, still maintaining a soft voice, “he only wants you.”

Tommy wouldn’t hear any of it, pulling you into his arms as he sat on the edge of the mattress. Your slip was still pooled around your hips, so he took the opportunity to plant a kiss above your breasts, where your heart was.

“He loves you,” he drawled in that husky voice of his. “I know he does because I do.”

Your head ached, but you couldn’t help the way your body reacted to his words and touch. Tommy’s wandering hands teased the silk fabric that clung to your hips as you felt his nose trail down to your breast, where he kissed one of your aching nipples delicately. Suddenly hot, you hummed in delight, the back of his shorn scalp pleasant beneath your nails. A grunt, bathed in that musk of his devours your senses. Inhaling sharply, he took the bud between his full lips, sucking, licking, and nibbling gently while his hands explored further down. Your head lulled back from the pleasure, gasping and withering under his skilled tongue.

The next thing you knew, Tommy was tugging the rest of your silk slip off and reminding you of just how much he loved you.

-

“Charles! Come here!” Tommy called.

Your little boy loved to play in the backyard of Arrow House. Much like his father, Charles adored horses. Big ones, small ones, black ones, white ones—but most of all, he favored his Shetland pony. Tommy had brought it for Charles before he could even walk. He said something about it being important for his son to be raised around horses from a young age. And while you didn’t necessarily disagree, it still stressed you out to hold your baby so close to such a large, muscular animal. You knew the Arabian breeds spooked easily, so you steered clear of them and were able to keep Tommy and Charles happy.

But now he had grown up so fast and was able to run around on his own two legs, climb trees, and bruise his knees on the way down. The sun beat lovingly on the apples of his cheeks as he dirtied his trousers, kneeling by the fence to feed his Shetland (affectionately named Biscuit) hand-picked grass through the gaps.

“Charles! We’re leaving!” You called when he ignored his father.

Stubbornly, Charles spun around to pout his lip and cross his arms. He glared at you as threateningly as a five-year-old could. You bit your lip to hide your smile because he really did look like a little Tommy with those big blue eyes. It would only be a matter of time before he perfected his father’s stare. With a sigh, you shifted your daughter into Tommy’s arms before approaching Charles, who was picking angrily at the grass.

You reached a hand out toward him, "let's go.”

“No!”

“All right,” you said decisively, spinning around, “Ruby will have all the fun then.”

“No!” cried your little boy.

You stuck a hand up in surrender and started walking back to Tommy. “No, it’s all right.”

“No, no no no!” Came his protest, chasing behind you as the gravel crunched beneath his boots.

You paid no attention to him, keeping your eyes trained ahead, silently relieved that your ploy worked. Tommy watched on in amusement while Ruby suckled on her thumb, curiously watching her brother storm closer.

“You hear that, Ruby? We’re going to spoil you,” a short smile played on Tommy’s face as he adjusted her so that she sat comfortably on his hip.

“And me!” Charles added and gave his best pout.

“No, Charles, you said you didn’t want to go,” you reminded him, raising your eyebrows.

“I do! I do!”

“Hmm,” you thought aloud, and held a finger to your chin while looking to the sky in exaggerated contemplation. “Very well, but only if you get in daddy’s car right this instant.”

He climbed into the backseat of the Bentley without further fuss.

When all the bags were neatly packed in the back for the day’s festivities, Tommy came around your side to sit Ruby on your lap. Quickly, he leaned in to kiss you and pinch your cheek, which swelled into a glowing grin.

He smiled back and whispered low enough for only you to hear, “got him wrapped around your finger, eh?”

You laughed. “Him and a few other Shelby’s I know of.”

-

The thundering sound of music could be heard from outside the theater on the corner of Old Pauls. Inside, patrons mused between champagne, dancing, and making a display of their wealth by bidding on little trinkets. It was one of the many charity galas Tommy had to attend because of his new move into politics. Usually, you enjoyed dressing for those sorts of things, but tonight you simply weren’t feeling up to it. Maybe it was the drape of your dress not sitting right or the new leather shoes that still needed breaking in.

Your shimmering smile faded into the crowd as you snuck through the back door in your satin bordeaux dress. Old Pauls sat perched above the cemetery it was named after. Conveniently across the street from the buzz of the theater, it was airily quiet and stuck out from the rest of industrial Birmingham. Your heels clacked across the pavement as you wandered up and down the garden, glimpsing at stone angels and silver plaques. All you had to light your path were the streetlights and the moon.

Your diamond wedding ring twinkled under the stars as you stopped to trace a name. It was the same as your mother's, but with a different last name. Still, you always wondered what happened to her. Had she gotten married to another man and taken his name? You expected to shiver at the idea, but you found that thinking of her no longer unnerved you. She packed up the title of mother when she left you all alone in that cramped house.

Light spilled out onto the pavement across the street when the entrance to the theater swung open. A few men flew down the steps and split off in different directions. Thinking it odd, you remained crouched until they disappeared around their respective corners. That’s when you saw Tommy exit through the same doors, throwing a cigarette and wiping at his brow while he looked up and down the street. Quickly, you stood and waved your arm to get his attention. When he noticed, he stormed down the steps and stalked across the street and through the gates of Old Pauls over to you.

“I needed some air,” you spoke up before he could get a word in.

His eyes wildly flickered back and forth from yours in a frenzy. Under the moonlight, they looked almost translucent, and, save for a ghost of blue, his pupils were wide.

“Why the bloody hell are you out here, eh?” He demanded, gently shaking your head between his hands for emphasis while his eyebrows rose expectantly.

“It’s quieter.”

When he tilted his head to the sky and exhaled, your stomach dropped at the sight of blood. Your ears, which had been tuning out the music, flinched when a shrill cry from a woman rang out the theater doors. The music was gone, now replaced with screams as all the patrons rushed out, tripping over each other like it were a race. You turned back to Tommy, now as worried as the others.

“What the hell happened? Are you hurt?” You urged, gripping his white collar, now red, to inspect where the blood was coming from.

“Not mine,” he cleared his throat, grabbing the hand on his collar to tug you down the street.

The frame of your world stretched a little wider, like light pouring in through open shutters. Car doors slammed, and drivers honked at the agitated crowd who ran this way and that across the road.

“Where’s the fucking ambulance?” Shouted a man who took no care to avoid bumping into you.

You stumbled back, your hand slipping from Tommy’s on impact. Rage flickered across his features briefly, having noticed the man push through you, but he reconnected your hands and continued walking fast. When he reached the Bentley, he urged you inside, holding your hand the whole way until you were seated in the passenger seat.

“What the hell happened, Tommy?” You repeated as he slid into the driver’s seat.

“Someone got shot.”

Your eyes widened. “Are Polly and—”

“They’re fine.”

You sank back into your seat as the engine roared to life. Peaky Blinder’s followed the frenzied crowd, moving together like a pack of wolves onto the streets. They only parted to let Tommy’s Bentley through. Out the window, people were fighting and throwing fists as they all tried to escape the mayhem.

“Why aren’t they letting people through?” You asked after witnessing a Peaky Blinder block the road and refuse to let a car pass.

“Doesn’t matter.”

He never told you anything when it came to business. And although you suspected this was much more than the doing of the Shelby brothers, Tommy’s face never betrayed him. Simply put, if he didn’t want you to know, you wouldn’t.

“Would anyone want to follow us?”

“No.” He exhaled deeply, cleared his throat, and then reached to give your thigh a squeeze.

You knew it was a lie when his eyebrows rose. He only did that when he was worried. Your tongue remained pressed to the back of your teeth the entire ride home.

-

The howl of the wind whistled down into the valley of the gypsy camp Tommy had brought you and the children to.

“Pack your things,” he had said one night after storming through the front door of Arrow House, “we’re going on a trip.”

Charles and Ruby cheered, but you suspected something sinister beneath his intentions.

So, there you were, picking at the grass by your feet while you perched on the bottom step of the gypsy wagon Tommy parked beneath a tree for shade. He kept quiet for most of the ride, absorbed in leading the horse around loose gravel and stones, or rather, he led you to believe he was lost in concentration. Because, when it came down to it, you knew Tommy better than to assume nothing was wrong.

The past week, he had been acting different, jumpy even. He ran into the nursery during the early hours of the morning on edge, as if expecting something to be amiss. You tried interrogating him, but he brushed it off, insisting things were fine. Fine—you began detesting that word. Fine this, fine that, but if things were really fine, then why was he on edge?

Then came the bloodshot eyes and the slamming of his desk drawer when you entered the office. Only this time he couldn’t deny the unmistakable jingle of a bullet, which rattled in the wooden compartment like some sort of airy death chime.

A black hand. One for each Shelby. And since you were now one too, that meant neither you nor the children were subjected to any special treatment. A week, he said, a week for his family to clear up the business while he stayed here watching over you like a shepherd to his flock.

And watched he did, standing next to where you sat, he found peace observing Charles and Ruby as they chased each other around the overgrown field. There he remained for an hour or so, frighteningly still, the only motion being his sharp jaw chewing on a mint leaf, somewhat reminiscent of the soldier in your tent all those years ago. Next to him, tied to the tree, the black steed filled the silence with snorts and grazed favorably on the loose roots and grass patches.

“Ruby was crying this morning. She’s scared, Tom." You sighed.

Tommy hadn’t been there when you woke up that morning in the caravan. He returned shortly after, ominous as ever, just as Ruby had begun to settle.

He tossed the stalk of his mint leaf into the grass and offered you his hand. You looked up at him in question for a moment, slightly suspicious of his intentions. Nevertheless, you slid your hand into his, and he stood you up, sat down on the higher step, and pulled you between his legs to sit on the lower step. He hugged you from behind as he slouched to rest his head on your shoulder, then exhaled deeply.

“We will be home soon,” he whispered in your ear, brushing your knuckles tenderly.

“For how long? Until we get another bullet in the post?”

Tommy’s throbbing forehead found solace in the warmth of your neck.

“You’ve never been one to run,” you continued, “what’s bothering you? We took a vow that we would share everything.”

He nuzzled his nose deeper into your pulse.

Frustrated, you tried to get up, but he held you firmly against his chest.

“Italians.”

“Italians?”

“Italians sent the black hands.”

You waited in silence for more information, but more did not come.

“Speak to me, Thomas.”

“I don’t want you any more involved than you are.”

“They’ve sent death knocking on our door; how more involved could I be?”

Tommy moved methodically, licking his lips and clearing his throat. He squinted his eyes up at the glaring sun.

“It’s nothing you should be concerned about. I’ll keep us safe.”

“Nothing I should be concerned over, Thomas? Just how many people are we at war with?”

He didn’t answer, so you turned your head away from him. Charles and Ruby had since settled by a patch of flowers. Charles was crouched over, helping his sister gather all the yellow flowers for her yellow dress.

The tension broke the surface then.

“Why are you still fighting, Tom? Is this,” you nod to your children and breathe in the fresh air, “not enough?”

You pictured Arrow House and its lavish garden, one to compete with all the wealthy families down the lane. You thought of Arthur, John, Polly, Ada, and all his family that lived to see his success. Everything, from the thoroughbreds in the stable to the fancy cars. The money itself was a testimony to his drive. What more could the gangster of Birmingham want when he already had everything?

You had gone and worked yourself up now because the world seemed blurrier than before.

Tommy, still on his guard, guided your chin to your shoulder so he could kiss the tears away. “It is enough.”

“Then make it enough. You’re respectable now, so stop the fighting.” Your voice broke at the end.

He hung his forehead on your shoulder. Like a flower sheltered away from the sun, Tommy wilted when he was away from his business. Usually, you were a strong enough light to keep him going, but whatever business he had gotten himself into was poisoning him, and ever the addicted flower, he kept running out to the fields, continuing to drink in the sunlight until it was too much and turned his leaves brow. Because business was what occupied his mind day and night, he was unable to turn the cogs of the engine off and let the air out of the tires.

A hand brushes your hair away to kiss the spot beneath your ear, airing out the destructive thoughts.

God, you loved him anyway. An overpowering feeling that ruled over calculating minds like Tommy’s and faint hearts like yours. You were no better than him—both addicted to a little sunlight.

-

The framed photographs on the wall shook as your third-eldest slammed the door to her room closed.

“I hate you!” She cried from the other side.

Your husband, Tommy, sighed to the ceiling, then stalked past you to his study, no longer interested in anything your daughter had to say. They had been at it for the last ten minutes arguing over some boy she was seeing, and your ears were just about ringing having witnessed it from the sidelines. You were left there in the hallway, an unwilling participant in the unspoken feud between father and daughter, and you understood that whoever you went to console would take it that you were siding with them, even though you just wanted to keep your family together.

Going to your daughter was the instinctive answer, but you knew she needed time to cool off. Tommy was the only reasonable choice.

You knocked on the door to his office before letting yourself in.

“Come to lick my wounds, eh?” He mused while smoking a cigarette.

Your lips wormed into a thin line. “This needs to stop, Tom.”

“Yeah,” he said, tapping the ash into his tray, “it will fucking stop.” He points with his cigarette, “I’ll make it fucking stop.”

You sighed. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

The chair screeched as he stood. “I’m her father, and if I say she can’t see that boy, she can’t. It’s only a childish fling; she’ll get over it.”

He poured a whiskey and downed it by the time you walked around his desk so that you were face-to-face with him.

“They’re in love, Tommy.”

“Yeah?” He scoffed. “Well, that can be undone.”

You held his glare, a challenge lighting in your own. “So easily, you think?”

He paused mid-drag, catching onto the underlying meaning in your words. “No,” he said, setting the cigarette down in the ash tray and grabbing your shoulders. “Don’t act like that.”

“Act like what?”

“Like you’re threatening our love over some fucking boy that’s charmed our daughter. They’re too young.”

“He’s sweet.”

“Oh, sweet and nice, I’m sure. But he’ll have no place in this house.”

“Why?”

“Why? Because I fucking said so!” He spat.

“Don’t yell at me.”

“Or what? You’ll leave me?” He huffed in amusement. “You won't; you love me too much.”

“You’re so certain?”

He paused for a moment and stared at you as if he couldn’t believe what you had said.

“Yeah, because we still fuck like two people who love each other, eh? And you’ve not told me no before, so if the day comes and your body no longer wants mine, then I’ll be worried. But until then, don’t test me with empty threats." His face hardened.

He knew you like the back of his hand. All bark, no bite. You loved him inexplicably, even after all these years, gray hairs and all. His face, body, and soul nourished you until you were satiated and full. And even if his eyebrows furrowed at times, you were willing to bet that it was for aesthetic, a shapely shadow gathered over the years from being the stoic leader the Peaky Blinders and Shelby family needed. How could you fault him for it?

Because, at the end of the day, you were a team. Even if he played the role of an overprotective father a bit too convincingly, he only ever wanted what was good for your daughter. Everything he worked for, ultimately, was for his family. A family man. And that came with its virtues and vices because, despite what Tommy thought, he wasn’t perfect; no one was.

Shrinking under his hands, you breathed a sigh and appeased him. “End this feud, Tom. Find peace with her. I don’t care what you do, but by the end of it, I expect to be able to sit down at the dinner table without having to beg my husband and daughter to look up from their plates.” You stroked his hands, which held your shoulders, and finally blinked up at him.

A haze of softness swept across his glare and melted the glaciers to a thin sheen of blue. The seams of exhaustion frayed one by one through his muscles. He nodded, licked his lips, and leaned down for a kiss of absolution. Not entirely prepared to surrender, you tilted your head so that he found the corner of your mouth instead.

“It will be done, love.” He brushed the apples of your cheeks tenderly. “And by tonight,” his voice lowered, “I promise you’ll forget all about it.”

Only then did you accept his kiss, eager to put the grievance to rest. Tommy, on the other hand, had other plans and stepped forward so that you were pinned between his desk and hips. He quickly began to gather your skirts above your waist, but you pulled away just as fast at the hiss of air against your exposed skin. An unsolicited gasp escaped his mouth when your knee brushed him there, and you sucked your bottom lip between your teeth, looking deep into his eyes.

“Promise me you won’t break her heart. She might not be old enough now, but I don’t want you to put her off love forever,” you caressed his jaw.

“No,” he agreed, breathier than usual, flexing the hands that were still caught up in the fabric of your skirt.

“And our Daisy may never say it, but I know she loves you dearly. So please, Tom, be gentle with her. I don’t want her to grow up despising you. Tell her you love her, kiss her forehead, hug her.”

He deflated, and you watched him swallow his pride. Cogs turned against the sweltering lust, threatening to deplete the clever thoughts in that powerful head of his in favor of your careful touch. Please, please, please, you begged without uttering a word; agree with me on this, Tom.

Tommy leaned back down to rest his forehead on yours; his face gave nothing away. You were sure he had found something to say, which would make you feel like a fool for asking. However, when you embraced those faint subtleties of emotion flickering across his face like candlelight, so miniscule you might blink and miss it, you found nothing of the sort to suggest any hostile nature. Because Tommy loved you.

“I will.”

-

A/N: Tried doing a long one shot, what does everyone think? Yay or nay? Comment to be added to the tag list!

Taglist: @maliceofwonderland , @fairytale07 , @goblinjnr , @ilovepeoplesdads , @multidimensionalslut

[pseudowho]

Post-ShibuyaAU! Grey Nanami Kento Headcanons, Part 2

(help me find the Nanami artist in the banner, for crediting and thanks/permission!)

As an accompaniment to my story, Grey (link here); an AU where Nanami survives Shibuya exploration because I'm never going to be over his loss.

Part 1 of Greynami Headcanons, link here

Christmas Greynami Headcanons, link here

Warnings: Severe injury (burns, eye loss), PTSD, alcohol use, depression, light smut, angst, AU headcanons

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Before he met you:

AU!Nanami Kento who takes up smoking again, a habit he had while working as a salaryman. His voice becomes rougher, more gravelly, irritated by the tobacco.

AU!Nanami Kento whose parents weep and stroke his healed burned face the first time they see him post-Shibuya, devastated by the suffering their little boy has experienced.

AU!Nanami Kento who sees that pain in his mothers' eyes every time he visits her. She can't help it. She's just heartbroken she couldn't keep her baby safe.

AU!Nanami Kento who begins to screen his parents' calls, not visit for dinner like he used to, and sends birthday gifts in the post instead of in person. Causing them distress by exposing them to his brutal injuries is a stress he's too fragile to cope with.

AU!Nanami Kento who listens to his fathers' long voicemails every night after a few drinks.

AU!Nanami Kento who often doesn't go home between missions, sleeping against walls in old buildings instead, a cold uncomfortable sleep preferable to a deep sleep with nightmares.

AU!Nanami Kento who alters his wardrobe after his tie, which he was unusually fond of, was destroyed by Jogo's flames. He can't find the tie for sale anymore. His beige suits just don't feel the same without it.

AU!Nanami Kento gives the last vestiges of his emotional energy to Yuuji, knowing he needs support, not wanting Yuuji to know he's struggling, not wanting to add more to Yuuji's already full plate.

AU!Nanami Kento who used to daydream about being a father one day, but now, being loved and giving love in return feels so remote and unlikely

After he meets you:

AU!Nanami Kento who tries to hide his trauma at first, afraid it will be too much baggage for you.

AU!Nanami Kento who is grateful to the very depths of his soul when you make it clear that he could never be too traumatised to be loved; you are each others' therapist, confidant, and sexy best friend.

AU!Nanami Kento, who struggles through reducing his alcohol and cigarette intake, with your steadfast support.

AU!Nanami Kento whose home screen photo is one of you asleep, snuggled into his chest, drooling; you hate it, he absolutely refuses to change it.

AU!Nanami Kento who confesses to you on one snowy evening walk; he tells you the moon looks beautiful tonight and you're on tiptoes kissing him before he can even finish his sentence.

AU!Nanami Kento who takes up baking bread overnight if he can't sleep, the process cathartic and soothing. You know he's had a bad night when you wake up to warm bakery smells.

AU!Nanami Kento and you, whose home becomes a refuge for all the kids who know where the spare key is hidden.

AU!Nanami Kento who has made up the spare room for Yuuta, Inumaki and Nobara at separate points in just one week.

AU!Nanami Kento, who makes sure you buy extra bottles of burn ointment, and delivers them to Maki when he gets the chance.

AU!Nanami Kento, stood at the bathroom counter which you sit on, facing him, your legs wrapped around his hips, as you gently shave around his scars. Kento rests his hands on your waist, slipping his fingers under your shirt, just to feel your skin.

AU!Nanami Kento, whose towel comes loose and drops to the floor, staring into your eyes in challenge. You last a few seconds before your eyes flick down, drinking in the beautiful nudity of him.

AU!Nanami Kento who immediately throws you over his shoulder, and carries you to your bedroom while you squeal and laugh, being promptly de-clothed by him.

AU!Nanami Kento who behaves the second time you sit on the counter, to finish the job you started; he looks at you with a naughty glint in his eye.

AU!Nanami Kento who, with your support and continuous company on his missions, finds his power grows rapidly; he manages five black flashes in a row, and feels he may be nearing domain establishment.

AU!Nanami Kento who, after a rocky start with Higuruma Hiromi, becomes his firm friend, forming an intensely unstoppable duo. Ino is only a little bit jealous.

AU!Nanami Kento who finally calls his parents with your encouragement. He can't help but tell them about you immediately. They're thrilled, and want you round for dinner as soon as possible.

AU!Nanami Kento who is mortified as you and his mother coo over his baby photos.

AU!Nanami Kento who is stunned into silence when, in the car on the way home, you wonder out loud if your babies will look more like you or him.

AU!Nanami Kento who throws you into bed the moment you get home, face between your legs and drunk on the taste and sounds of you, until you're begging him to come closer; he graciously complies, his mind full of your future home, tiny footsteps and laughter as you cling to him in bliss.

AU!Nanami Kento who goes looking for rings on his days off; it's a huge decision, and one he ponders over for months, so in the meantime, he buys you a watch which perfectly matches his own.

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More love for Greynami. I'll do some bigger stories at some point too.

Part 1 of Greynami Headcanons link here

Thanks as always to @silkspunweb for being my muse and fellow unhinged friend.

[sundrop-writes]

Protective

Isaac Lahey x Fem!Reader

Summary:

During his first full moon, Isaac needs to think of something to ground him - to keep his newfound powers from getting out of control. Derek suggests that he use anger, and he knows that Scott grounds himself with his love for Allison.

Isaac finds something in between - thinking of the anger he feels when you get hurt.

Isaac Lahey x Fem!Reader. Pining Best Friends. Hurt and Comfort. Set during Season 2, Episode 9.

Word Count: 2,300

Teen Wolf Masterlist | AO3 Link

Full list of warnings and author's notes below the cut.

Warnings: canon level violence - mentions of Isaac, Erica, and Boyd having to be chained up on the full moon (to avoid hurting themselves and others), mentions of Isaac's abusive father (somewhat graphic descriptions of the abuse that Isaac experienced); Isaac has a self deprecating inner monologue because of the psychological effects of his father's abuse; mentions of Isaac being injured by his father's abuse; the reader also has an abusive father and it's a point on which they related and bonded (and how they became such close friends); at one point the reader describes her abuse as being 'not as bad' as Isaac's abuse (but that is psychological trauma speaking); mentions of the reader experiencing physical and emotional abuse; reader is described as 'pretty girl' at one point in the fic (again, this is very self indulgent); Isaac has a crush on the reader but has never voiced it (it's implied that the reader feels the same way); Isaac and the reader exchange friendly physical affection; emotional angst - Isaac feels powerless for not being able to stop the reader's abuse; I think that's it for this short fic? The themes are on the darker side, but it comes from a personal place for me.

A/N: If you've been following me for any amount of time, then you know I have a thing for sad, abused characters. If you have read my Ellie fic 'My Heart Is The Worst Kind of Weapon' - then you would know why. Isaac is the kind of character I immediately connect to for deeply personal reasons, so watching the entirety of Teen Wolf through for the first time, I couldn't resist writing a fic about him. There will likely be more to come about him, but for now - here is this deeply self indulgent moment inspired by Season 2, Episode 9. If you don't relate to this, I hope you can enjoy it as a distant whumpy fiction, and if you can relate to it - I hope that Isaac can bring you some comfort like he has for me. Much love, happy reading.

...

While the chains rattled against the abandoned subway car and Isaac tried to ignore Erica’s groans of pain from having several large bolts bored into her head, he couldn’t help the question that was rattling around inside of him. 

“How do you do it?” Isaac asked Derek as he arranged the chains around his limbs. He was trying to push down the sickly familiarity of it - being restrained. He was trying to tell himself that it actually was for his own good this time, not just a sick punishment given to him by a powerless, unhinged old man. “How do you keep it under control?” 

“You have to find an anchor.” Derek told him, firm, determined. 

It was nice to focus on the conversation instead of the anxiety rising in his chest, so Isaac pressed on. 

“An anchor?” He questioned, unsure what Derek meant. “Like what?” 

“Yeah. Something else for you to focus on. For me it's anger.” Derek paused. “But it's not like that for everyone.” 

It was immediately obvious to Isaac who Derek was speaking of. 

“Scott.” 

He had Allison. It was some dreamy romantic bullshit - using his love for his girlfriend to keep from wolfing out. But apparently, it worked well for him. 

Derek gave a subtle nod. 

Isaac didn’t have anything like that. He didn’t have some cheesy romance to fall back onto. He didn’t have someone declaring a love for him so openly - because he wasn’t worth loving. Even with his father gone, the world had made it very clear that he was just a piece of shit stuck to the bottom of someone’s shoe - a problem being passed around that nobody could seem to solve. 

“It just has to be something strong enough to keep your mind present. A strong feeling you can hold onto. Anger, love, resentment, regret, rage. Just find something that works for you.” 

Isaac nodded, and Derek went to check that Erica and Boyd were secure as the moonlight came to its full brightness. 

… 

It got Isaac thinking about you. 

You were probably the one person in his life who didn’t think he was a problem. The one person in his life who loved him, even if you didn’t say it out loud. 

He had felt all of those things - anger, love, resentment, regret, rage - the last time he had been with you. When he had been sitting in your bathroom, perched on the closed toilet seat lid after an argument with his father. Naturally, the argument had ended with Isaac having a black eye, and a large cut on his cheek from his father's ring colliding with his face. 

You were the only person he ever went to. No matter how bad things got, you were the only person he ever told. You were the only person who ever understood. Isaac had found out the hard way that your own father was much the same as his. On the first day of freshman year, he had seen you wearing a sweater when it had been a balmy, sunny day, and he had volunteered to be lab partners with you - partially to get closer to a pretty girl and partially because a gnawing feeling was going off in his stomach. 

Even back then - even when he was scrawny and powerless, his instinct to protect you had still been so strong. Even if all he could offer you was a shoulder to cry on and the chocolate bar out of his lunch, he looked at you and he felt the world turning on the simple hope that he could make your day just a bit better. Because he knew, even without words, by the tiredness in your eyes - that you suffered like he did. And he wanted so badly to make it better. 

When the two of you were doing an introductory experiment of baking soda and vinegar to cause the classic foaming volcanic reaction, the rubber gloves you had been wearing caused your sleeve to ride up, revealing a menacing purple bruise on your wrist. Isaac spotted it instantly, and when you locked eyes with him, he held nothing but deep understanding there - not shock or even pity. Nothing but deep understanding and warmth. 

He held your hand under the table for the rest of class, and you had never wanted to pull away. You felt a unique kind of mourning when the bell rang and you had to part ways. 

At lunch that day, you found him under the bleachers by the lacrosse field. Without so much as a word, only a cursory glance around to make sure that nobody else was watching, he pulled up his shirt, revealing an array of horrifying bruises to you - some purplish, some green, some faded yellow - all collected from different points throughout the summer. The time when he had been trapped at home with his father, having nowhere else to go as the man got more aggravated with his presence. 

You ran a gentle touch along the wounds - the most gentle touch he had been greeted with since his mother's death, something that easily brought him to tears. And from that moment on, the two of you had a silent understanding. You spent the rest of the lunch hour exchanging ‘war stories’ and laughing with a tainted dark humor about your separate twisted patriarchs. And the next time he was bloodied and bruised, he texted you to meet him under the bleachers in that same spot, and you didn’t hesitate to rush out of bed at three in the morning to get to him. 

It became a sacred place for the two of you to escape to when you needed it. 

The two of you became a sacred comfort to each other - knowing that there was little escape in telling the police or a guidance counselor, because you had nowhere else to go. 

Today, when Isaac called you, you found your house luckily empty. Your mother and your father were away visiting relatives in another state, so when Isaac told you that he needed you, you texted him the all clear to come over to your house for a reprieve. He was lucky to be able to spend the night somewhere else - to get to sleep in your bed, cuddled up close to you for comfort, without fear. 

He tried not to wince with pain as you dabbed disinfectant on the large cut across his cheek. He hated seeing you flinch with empathy every time his expression wavered even slightly. He could handle the pain. He could be better than this. 

“Isaac.” You sighed his name pitifully, clearly on the edge of tears. 

Both of you knew the thoughts that were pulsing thickly through your head, even without you having to speak them. 

Isaac didn’t deserve this. You wanted to hurt his father in return. You wished you could take away his pain, you wanted to help him escape from it. 

It was a ‘wishful thinking’ conversation that the two of you had dozens of times before. It always ended with you both more upset than when it started, so you swallowed up those thoughts now. But Isaac knew them too well, written across your face and swollen on your lips like the tears brimming your pretty eyes. 

You put down the cotton ball you had been using and turned your back to him, poorly hiding your crying as you stiffly wiped off your cheeks. 

“What do you want me to say?” He replied, hating that this whole thing had to upset you. “You know how it is.” 

To an extent, you didn't. Your father was a screamer. He yelled loud enough to shake the walls, but he rarely escalated to physical violence. You found that you were lucky if you escaped a fight with death threats and tears rather than having hands laid on you. Isaac came to school with fresh bruises every other week - you had to feel that he was worse off than you were. 

“We should just go.” You said, feeling bold in your suggestion. It felt obvious - escaping. “We should just run away. Get the hell away from all this.” 

You whipped back around, still feeling a terrible twinge of pain and sadness inside you at the bruising across his face, the fact that his cheek was definitely swelling up now. 

Isaac frowned. It was a nice dream, and he hated to be the one to dash right through it. 

“You know we can't do that.” Isaac sighed. Ever the realist. Of course. “Where the hell would we even go? With what money? No offense, but the couple hundred dollars you have saved up from babysitting isn't gonna get us anywhere.” 

“It's over fifteen-hundred.” You told him honestly. 

It was a nest egg that you had been sitting on since middle school, hoping to escape your father and never look back. When you met Isaac, you had another thing anchoring you to Beacon Hills, keeping you from buying the bus ticket you had always wanted. 

“But you're right. That'll get us - what? A couple of nights at a motel?” You let out a harsh, dry laugh. Trying to relieve some of the tension. “Well… we could go on a vacation? Escape for a few days?” You suggested, sounding hopeful. 

The idea of spending time alone with Isaac - a getaway where the two of you could pretend none of it was happening, even for a few days - it sounded like paradise. 

Isaac’s mind went to a dream-like vision - having you alone in a hotel room. A bed just for the two of you. Even just getting the chance to sleep peacefully with you, cuddle you, it sounded like a dream. 

He had to pull himself back before his mind went to places a friend shouldn’t stray. 

“A last hurrah before my dad kills me for running away on him.” Isaac sighed. 

The consequences of it would be inevitable. The two of you would have to come back home eventually. He knew that your father would likely feel much the same. He would never forgive himself if you ended up bruised and battered because of something he had encouraged you to do. 

You let out a sob then - the thought of Isaac dying by his father's hands had been all too real to you at times. A horror you imagined in your mind over and over again, especially after times he had come to you with half his torso nearly bruised black and he had been unable to move properly for days. His father was a monster, and you didn’t doubt that he would be capable of murder. 

Isaac rushed to stand up, and pulled you into a hug. His warmth, his arms surrounding you tightly - it was the only place you ever felt safe. You eagerly gripped him back, missing the wince he let out when you squeezed a bit too hard over one of his bruised ribs. But no - he would never fault you for holding onto him too tightly. 

Holding you like this - he felt like he had the world in his arms. Something tight in his chest, telling him that if anything ever happened to you, he would become the same kind of monster that his father was. But in the same way any threat to you made him boil over with rage - you made him gentle. You made him soft and loving. You were the only person in the world who made him feel okay to weep. 

He kissed the top of your head, not a stranger to comforting you with affection even though the two of you remained strictly as ‘friends’. As much as he yearned for more - you were a life vest while he was drowning and he wouldn't risk fucking that up just to kiss you and call you his girlfriend. He wouldn't throw any messy feelings into the mix. 

“It'll be okay.” He told you. 

Coming from his lips, you had to believe it. 

“Thank you, Isaac.” You sniffled. And then, something hit you. “You came over here for my help, and now you’re comforting me.” You let out another dry chuckle, clearly resisting the urge to scold yourself. 

“This is helping.” He told you, hugging you tighter. “This always helps.” He said the last part quieter, a dropped whisper that you could barely hear. 

It was a truth he was afraid to confront just yet. 

… 

But in the present, it was a truth that was helping him more than anything. 

Isaac hadn't spoken to you since he had gotten the Bite. He had been terrified of hurting you somehow. The last thing he ever wanted was to become the thing that you feared. It would have been his worst nightmare to be the one to make you cower in a corner and cry rather than to be the one giving you comfort from it. 

As the moon came to a full wane overhead, and the mighty rage and power pulsed through his veins, Isaac thought of you. He thought of using that power to tear apart anybody who had ever hurt you - to finally free you from those tears. He thought of giving you the same relief he had felt when his father died. He thought of his love for you, even if it was a silent love that he had never gotten the chance to voice. 

“I see you found your anchor.” Derek remarked to Isaac later, after he had gotten Erica and Boyd back in their chains, tightening Isaac’s binds once again, if only as a precaution. 

“I did.” 

Derek looked at him with intrigue, as if waiting for him to explain. 

“Well, you said that you use anger. And Scott uses love.” Isaac told him. “I guess that mine is… some combination of both.” 

“Protectiveness.” Derek explained. “That's what wolves call it.”

...

A/N: This is a oneshot, and I wrote this to be a closed off story/its own little moment inspired by the show. This is a complete story, however, if there is enough interest, I might turn this concept into a longer oneshot and expand on the idea. It would not be me writing a 'part 2' of this, it would be me using this concept and writing a longer oneshot. I do have a personal vested interest in writing about powerful characters defeating abusers, but currently I don't have the time to turn this into something longer, so this is all I wrote. Please do not harass me about making this longer or posting something more, and if you're going to leave a comment asking for a continuation, please also tell me what you liked about this current story. Though I have something else in mind, I do consider this to be a completed story on its own.