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goingsllightlymad · 4 years

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Blinded By Your Light - Part 6. On Changing.

Pairing: Tommy Shelby x reader

Summary: Y/N is the definition of ordinary. Studying at a medical school as far as she can get from her rainy hometown of Birmingham, she never expected to be shipped off the Flanders when the war was at it’s peak. Much less to meet a handsome young patient with the most beautiful pair of blue eyes she had seen in her life who as fate would have it would fall into her lap.

Wordcount: 6415 (I’m busy as hell with studying so I decided to publish the chapter I was writing as two shorter parts, this is the first so calm down that the ending’s pretty shit, I am going to resolve it with the next chapter and it’s allllllll gonna be chill).

Warnings: poorly written ANGST. You’re all gonna hate hate me for this one, looking directly at you @captivatedbycillianmurphy.

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And so the months came and went through the grey streets of Small Heath like the shadow of some endless night, ebbing and flowing with the tides of time, and for the first time in your life the world did not change at all. Only the warmer days warned you that this long winter could not last forever, and all of a sudden it was over and the days were longer, bright with the flowers that came to the bakery door every morning. You gave them with the bread as you made your rounds past houses where every day the memories came creeping back, softer and sweeter and there was no pain here anymore. And in the evenings there was dancing in the upstairs rooms of the pub, you and Ada and a million dresses laid around the chairs and bed and mirror as you spun and dipped into the ecstatic dream of freedom. You were a child again, and all the world was yours once more and he was not a part of it anymore and that was just fine.

It would be a lie to say that you did not think of him, but it was only in the late nights when it was just you and your candle, looking out over the buildings at the trains as they wound away, a path you didn't take and would spend forever wondering what might have happened if you had. And when the spring fell away to summer you saw again the sunsets on the city that pulled you to the rooftop so many times before, wide-eyes wondering at the world you had not seen, ghosts of former lovers hanging onto your sleeve as you spread your arms like wings to fly away and knew you never could. Never would, because for the first time you could see no world but here outside your windows, and it suited you just fine.

And there was you and Ada, and you and Polly, and sometimes you and John, sitting and having tea in the summer sunlight, chasing round the market in your shawls and coats and painting in your mind all the colours of the apples and carrots and plums like they meant everything in the world to you. No blood, not even in those nights when you could hear the guns ringing through the darkened streets and wondered almost where Small Heath ended and your tortured mind began, the memories of a war half-left behind and somehow never left. You were safe and you were happy, and everything was going to be just fine.

Polly was opening up to you more and more as the winter melted away; by summer she was your mother, clasping your hands in hers and telling you to be wise and brave and sure of all you did, and all your stories were hers to read and note and read again whenever she saw your face and it was strangely comforting to see her everyday the same, even when she knew. She knew you, knew all you did and all you had done, and every time she looked at you there was no fear at all, and you wished for nothing more. Ada had become a friend and then a sister, she came to you at night when she could not bear to be alone with all the gunshots pounding out from their street and you both knew you'd never ask, never force her to tell what was best left unspoken, out of sight and out of mind. And there were the days when you returned to the church and there was John with your father in the little kitchen where the sun never seemed to reach all the way through the window, and you could not remember laughing as much as you did in those afternoons alone together when there was no world at all outside of your window and nothing at all between you and him.

And soon July was ending, and you were sitting in the Garrison as usual, only now the sunlight was warm and calming on your face, streaming in in glorious waterfalls of melted gold through the front windows and bathing you in soft yellow glow. The room was silent, as it often was these days as the three girls sat thoughtfully, staring into your teacups and smiling softly, lethargically. These long summer days brought hot nights, the town shimmering in balmy heat and all the world a little crazier. There were fights in the evenings, hot blood on hot stone. Each night you hurried home a little earlier to find your away from the bubbling anger of the Garrison, where blood boiled by the bar. There was a storm brewing in the distance, dark and ominous as the clouds of cold autumn rain that hovered now in the early mornings, watchful as the eyes of God, and summer had lasted too long.

At the sound of the door flung open, all three heads jerked up, the comfortable silence shattering instantly as the room was filled with heavy footsteps, the screech of the door where the oil had dried up in the heat of days gone by. Into the room there came a crowd of men in sharp grey suits and the familiar flat-cap, brims glittering and you really meant to ask what there was about it that made you so uneasy.

"And make sure it's done by tomorrow, mind. We're not exactly rolling in spare time."

And there he was, the crowd clearing around him and all you saw was him in front of you, beautiful as the moment you had left and he was so beautiful it took your breath away. And you thought you might cry, your eyes fixed on him and your cup of tea dropped back into its saucer on the table, and then his eyes met yours and suddenly he knew.

"Go." he waved a hand and the men went, just like that, and Ada reached out to touch your arm and you held her hand tight, holding her in place because if you were left here, alone once more with him as though no time had passed at all, you weren't entirely sure what you'd do.

"Tommy," it slipped out of your mouth, a whisper so weak he might not have heard it, but he did and his eyes were so cold. His face hard as stone and crueller still than that cold winter spent without him and without even his letters, promised as they were. The way he looked at you, you thought you might never have met him at all, for in those brilliant blue eyes there was an icy hatred you had never seen before, cold as the grave and unfeeling as he stared you down, willing you to speak or willing you to leave, you knew not which. Looking on at him in the hope of a sign, something small to tell you that this was indeed the same man who had kissed you on the train station, promised you a lifetime you knew he could not give, it tore you apart to know that you did not recognise this man at all.

"(Y/N)." he spoke finally, voice flat and disinterested as if you were just another business proposal that he had no care to consider, the least wonderful thing he had seen all day. He remembered you - for a moment you had wondered if any of this had ever been real, if he simply did not know you at all, and in a way this was so much worse. He knew you, and even you could tell from his detached expression that he did not love you. "I wasn't expecting you."

"Yeah, I gathered." through the agonising sadness that was pounding in your head and in your heart and ripping you into pieces there came a rush of bitterness, anger because hadn't he said that he would write to you until he could find you again, and wasn't he here in front of you now, a little taller and a whole lot crueller than the last time you had met? You let your hand slip out of Ada's and she and Polly stood quietly and disappeared into the backrooms. It was only you and him now, along with all the universe in between.

"So where've yer been?"

"In the hospital. Some of us couldn't leave." you muttered, breaking eye contact and taking in the pub, suddenly aware that where you had been waiting for this one moment since the moment he had left, now you would rather be anywhere on earth but here with him. This was anything but the sweet reunion you had dreamed it to be in all those lonely nights in the hospital and the days when you couldn't help but see his face in every beautiful thing around, and he was anything but the sweet man you had fallen so in love with in those days when you could almost forget that love was there at all, so hateful was the world behind you.

"And now you're back. Funny how the world turns out." he sounded so much like his aunt had, that first day when she was so far from you, reading you like you could fall apart before her, your deepest secrets spilling unto her watchful eyes, and you wondered could he see himself written upon your aching soul the way you could feel it each night, eating you alive? And if you never learned from him, waited for him forever and became only the shreds of how his love had left you on that dreadful day on the platform, would he see that too? Or were you now too far away for him to find you, as you feared he was to you.

"I'm not back for you." but yes you were, and both of you knew it. Your footsteps would always lead you back to him, unknowing as you were as you followed blindly into the pits of destiny's shame. You were here for him, and if you stayed you'd do that for him too. "You'd know if you'd written."

"And why would I do that?"

And there it was, the great and terrible blow that sent you reeling, his voice so harsh it cut into you with all the force his love had never borne for you. You laughed bitterly, and when you looked at him again all you saw was the cold and broken body of a man who had once loved and now could love no more. He never wrote, he never loved, was there anything this man could do? A kinder girl than you might have pitied him, but after everything you had done in these last years you were so much more than kind. You were proud, and you were furious.

"Because there was a part of me that was so sure you loved me." your voice broke at that, and you prayed he wouldn't notice. He did, of course he did, he was Thomas Shelby and he noticed everything he could use to his own gain and suddenly you were realising that, but only after you had become yet another ploy he had slipped into his hands so easily. He had smiled at you and you used to feel special, but now you only felt like prey. You had been sure he loved you, just like you were sure that summer would come once the winter melted away, and that the sun would rise each morning and chase away the night, the simple certainties of nature, but now all you knew was that this winter was going to last a very long time, and the sun would be a long time rising. Outside the Garrison window the sun had passed behind a cloud; the room was quiet and grey, the colour gone away.

"Don't be ridiculous." he grinned like his aunt, cold and cruel and utterly malicious, but there was no softness behind his eyes like you had caught in hers, and it made you shiver despite the warmth of the days. This was not the man you knew, but this was the man you had always feared he might become, for this was the man that you had seen a million times before in the faces as they returned from the war, older now and irrevocably changed.

"More ridiculous than running away and never having the fucking nerve to write so much as one letter to explain?!" your voice was higher, louder than you had expected, thick with furious emotion that threatened to overwhelm you as you stood so close to him, throwing your hands up as you shouted. You took a moment to breathe, in then out, then turned to him slowly, words appearing in your head already steady and emotionless, the worst things you could think and you knew you had to say them now or else you'd see them every time you closed your eyes, taunting and true. "You know, I thought you were a fool, but I never took you to be a coward."

He straightened, squaring up and his jaw locking, and in that moment the last shred of the man you had loved finally fell away, and in the man it left behind you wondered how many people he had killed. He had that easy malice that made you think he'd lost count. "Watch it."

"Or what? Far as I've gathered, you don't care about me at all. Don't see why we should change that, now should we?" you were taunting him now, stepping closer to hiss it against the hot skin of his throat and you could still see the faint lines of scars you'd dressed, out of place as though they were not his past at all, stolen words from someone else's love-story and wasted in his tale of woe. Tommy Shelby was a poet, Thomas Shelby a murderer.

"You shouldn't be here." he gritted his teeth, breathing out through his nose and biting back the anger that was burning through his face and fists and every cell in his body. You were so close he could almost taste the soft, sweet perfume you had always used in those empty days in the hospital when you were the only thing keeping him from going insane, his saving grace and now you were before him and against him and you had never hated him so much before.

"Oh really? And where, pray tell, should I be? Sticking it out in an empty hospital after the war has fucking ended in the hopes that you would write so much as once?!" you tried not to cry, tried not to scream as it hit you all over again that you had stayed there, long after you could have left, could have been done with all the blood and all the torture you put up with for him. War was hell and you had walked through it gladly, past turning back, past reason, because once he'd asked you to and now he only left you there to burn. You stepped back, pushing him hard with one hand and he caught you by the wrist, holding you in place, feeling your heart beating strong and fast and knowing you were real.

"It's not fucking safe here." he muttered under his breath and you wrenched your hand away, turning around and grinning like a madman, all your anger, all the rage that had been boiling in you for all these months alone finally rushing up through your head and into your mouth, thick and sour and burning like the hot summer sun inside you.

"I was in a fucking war! Don't you fucking dare tell me what's safe and what isn't!" now you were screaming, shoving him and swearing like the rest of the house couldn't hear you, or simply didn't matter. All that was gone now, only you and him and how much you could hurt him before he would push back. You couldn't help but think of when you'd loved him endlessly, you and him and, far away, the nurses knowing nothing, and now there was only hate.

"Oh you were in the war, were you?!" and he was angry, angrier than you had seen him, even in those days when vengeful fate was crushing his broken body in the hospital bed a million miles away. He was burning, the fire behind his eyes brighter than you had ever seen it before, and you wondered if he had ever loved so furiously, so strong it brought the gods to tears and how beautiful he might have been if he had had a heart at all. "Funny, as far as I could see you were just some middle-class university girl playing at doctors and pretending she wasn't just kidding herself she was actually important to someone!"

And then the silence, the awful waiting as you looked at him, tried not to cry as the tears welled in your eyes and he had never been so lovely as he was when you could not see him at all. In the blur of all the pain he sent your way, you could almost kid yourself he was the man you'd thought he'd been. But he was ruthless, he was cold, and you saw it in his eyes that all those medals, all the stories, had made a sense you'd never seen before. The war was won by men like him and all the awful things they did.

"Get out." you could not find the voice within you that you had had before, only the hoarse whisper that shook and broke with that sad hate that you thought would last forever.

"It's my fucking pub!" he threw up his hands. You stood still another moment, breathing deep and shaking with the rage that coursed through you, livid as the summer heat and bright as all those nights alone when you wondered if you would ever see him again. You almost wished you hadn't.

"If I ever see you again, I'll fucking kill you, Thomas Shelby." You reached for the frame of the open door, looking out into the street as you heard him laugh, insidious and dreadful as the winter creeping in, behind you in the pub. Your voice was steady, your words heavy with a truth that both of you could see, and there was not a part of you that doubted that you would, you really would. This town had got to you, and you were not like you were before. Things were so very different. You couldn't help but take one last look at him, praying that he could see what he had made of you and knowing he had eyes only for himself.

"If you think I'm coming after you then you're very much mistaken, (Y/N) (Y/L/N)." and there was that emptiness in his eyes that made you think you weren't going to see him again, and you were just fine with that.

"So dark and brooding. You know, I think I might have loved you for that. But now? Right now I just think you're pathetic. Someday you'll come home and there'll be no one there anymore. And I think you're fucking terrified. Come after me or don't, just know I won't be waiting." the last words dropped to a choked sob, a curse upon him and upon this whole damned town, pull you together as it was always made to do. Your uncle once told you that when you loved someone, really loved them, every road would lead you back to them, and now all you wanted to do was set fire to every last brick until the whole city went up in flames. If your fate was written, so help you you would find the book and not rest until you had pulled each last word from its cruel pages.

As you stormed out of the Garrison, teeth gritted to try and stifle the tears that pricked at your eyes, you slammed into someone. Apologising and trying to make them out through teary eyes, all you could see was a smudge of blonde hair, a slim figure and a pretty green dress. You rolled your eyes and slid past her. You had spent too long in the neighbourhood to ask her what she was doing here. You thought you'd rather not know.

You didn't entirely know where your footsteps were leading you - not to the church, with its false pity and God still falser, the secrets in the crypts that whispered to you your life was empty, loveless. Nor to the bakery, with your aunt's loving arms and the hatred you would leave at the door. You didn't want to leave it; you wanted to feel it coursing in your blood, hot and true like nothing you had felt for months. It was only when your world came whirling in a rush that you knew it turned at all, and it was only when your heart was pulsing to explode that you know it beat at all. All these months, thinking you were barely alive, but now you knew. You were, and you would remain forever, very much alive and very vengeful indeed.

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Without knowing it entirely, your footsteps lead instead to the Cut, the abandoned warehouses where you had used to hide in years gone by, waiting excitedly for your aunt and uncle as they came home from work in the early evening, baskets of bread and sweets for you as you ran out into their arms. Sitting on the riverbank, looking down into the distorted reflection of your face upon the water, you wondered if you could close your eyes and have it all gone. You had never asked for this, you had never wanted this. Boys, men, the endless heat of this godforsaken city, a grim horizon that you had never seen looming before you, and now here you were at the ends of the world as you knew it and you had nowhere left to go. Leave the town and leave it all unfinished the way you swore you never would again, or stay and fight and know that nothing would ever be quite as good as it was in that other, sweeter, eternity.

The water-line was low, and you slipped off your shoes and stockings, dipping your legs into the river as you shook your hair out of its plait and breathed out. It was calm here, calmer than anything else in this tumultuous city where every silence carried a hundred thousand words you couldn't begin to understand. France was simple, but France was far away, and you knew there was more than just a sea between you now.

You weren't going to cry - not here, not in front of all the world you could not see, waiting in the dockyards because work never stopped in this city of dust and ashes. Instead you threw a stone at the gentle grey water, felt the cool splash against your burning skin, tried to breathe when screaming came so easy, blinked and blinked again as your vision swam in watery uncertainty, felt the emotion draining out of you and fading away into the heat all around. You weren't prepared for this, any of this.

It was childish to expect that nothing would have changed, that you would come back and everything would be the way he had promised it would be from the window of the train as it carried him away. War was nothing more than a bleak and empty promise by men who knew no better way to kid themselves that they would be just fine, and his words could do no better. But what were you meant to do when he was there and he had been so beautiful, and now all you felt was shame. You hated him for everything he said and did, hated him for leaving and for coming back and for being there at all, but most of all you hated yourself for doing what you did. You knew even then that if love were ever real in this land of hate and death, then that was and would ever be the closest you would come.

Wrapped in your fantasies of love and life left behind, you didn't notice the footsteps behind you until they had stopped beside you on the muddy riverbank, the hem of the floral dress swirling in the gentle breeze.

"Rough day." the soft voice you knew, the voice that had got you into this mess because you didn't know when to walk away. There was a time to be brave and a time to call it quits, and you had missed that point a long time ago.

"Jesus Ada, give me some warning." you murmured, more to yourself than to her as she sat beside you. You'd known she would come after you - the whole town must know by now, a million voices in the streets with your name on everyone's lips and suddenly you knew what a fool you'd been to try and keep it secret. This was the last thing that was truly yours and now they knew, now the things you'd carried with you like the last chance you might someday get out of here, spilling out into the river as you grabbed at memories of the way he'd kissed you as he'd left you, the way he'd loved you when you'd thought he really did. This was the worst thing that could happen, and this was the way you dealt with it. You didn't think you had the life within you to run away again.

"I was worried about yer." she was looking at you, but you couldn't quite brig yourself to meet her eyes. Beautiful eyes, so deep and brown, nothing like her brother's at all. She didn't look liker her brother: she looked kind. She looked like she cared, and you knew that was the most dangerous thing of all.

"The whole world is worried about me." You sighed slowly, gazing out across the river at the bird wheeling around the tired beams of the warehouses not so far away. You were tired, tired of secrets and tired of your tiny little life, so big until right now. You'd spent so long thinking you'd never be big enough to fill the aching void of all the lives that you could live, and now the walls were pressing in and suddenly you were big and bad and filled with righteous anger. You were tired of Shelby's and tired of Birmingham and tired of the world beyond the grimy walls because nothing you could ever do would shout louder than the fact that even when you ran away you had never left at all. Everything you did was kept within this damned neighbourhood, and you thought it wasn't any wonder they murdered as they did, because here was Earth and here was Hell, and Heaven was not there at all.

You chuckled bitterly, tears stinging at the back of your eyes, hot with summer rage and the aching in your hands that longed to hit him for what he had done to you and longed for the justice that would come after. The man you loved, he would kill you for sure, for these were men who ruled a world of blood and death and your sweet Tommy was their god. You curled you hand into a tight fist around the smooth rock you held, and threw it into the water just to watch it sink.

"I didn't know." Ada's quiet voice shook you, brought you to her as it always did, and you turned to face her, to see the pity as it overwhelmed her pretty face. She pitied you, the child of pain and fate, she had seen what she had seen and she pitied you most of all, and for all these dreadful things you cried at least for that. What beautiful sins had her brother done that made her so unhappy, made him so damn cold?

"Because I never told you." you shook your head at her. You never told her, you never told a soul, because this was yours and yours alone. Yours to dream and yours to cherish, the one last thing about this goddamn town that no one else could know, the most beautiful moments of your whole life because sometimes you could close your eyes and pretend that he didn't exist at all, that it was all inside your head and the world would never have to know. No one would ever have to know.

"I wish yer'd told me. I could've-" she took your hands desperately, clasping them between her own and begging you, scanning you over like she had never known you at all. You wondered if she really blamed you for never telling her about you, about her brother. She didn't, she wouldn't; she had her secrets and you had yours and the rest of the world had its own, and no one seemed to know anyone these days. Not really, not anymore.

"The damage is done. There's nothing left to say." you slipped your hands out of her hands, smiled at her sadly as she grasped at words to say. There were no words to say, you'd said them all. Your words were crashing in the main room of the Garrison, filling the air until there was not air to breathe, and here the world was empty and you thought she might just catch a glimpse of your darkest soul if she looked hard enough, if she were looking hard enough. With shaking hands you took a cigarette out of your pocket, lit it and took a deep pull and passed it to her, lighting another for yourself.

"You 'aven't said anything at all." she pressed, and you knew she wanted to know a little more, and you also knew she deserved to know a lot more, but truly you weren't ready. She deserved the truth but no one got the truth, not when lies were so much more beautiful and so much more kind. The truth was only for those who had the wealth and confidence to not care what the truth was at all, for soldiers in the trenches and for politicians in their stony towers. It was 1919 and the truth was obsolete.

"I don't think I ever will." your voice was dreamy, and your heart far away. You thought you might have dropped it somewhere in the river that last morning, poured it into your coffee and left it there in the square as his face was already fading. What need had you of a heart if he would not let you love him as you did, if he tore it out and left you bleeding every time he looked your way with those cold dead eyes you loved more than life. There were no words to describe Tommy Shelby, and no feelings with which to do him justice, and even now your petty anger paled before him. It was like shooting at the tides and trying to stop them coming back and back and back to pull you out to sea. At this you drew your legs up out of the water, pulling your knees up to your chest and wrapping your arms around yourself, a little colder than before, despite the bright heat of the morning, a little less certain. You turned away again and blew a trail of soft, sad smoke over the water, and for a long moment there was only the silence of the river and the secrets in between.

"You loved him, didn't yer." It was quiet, almost not there at all, and you caught it through the lull of the water like the whisper of some dream slipping past you as you woke, and like a dream it stopped you in your thoughts, wrapping around your throat and keeping you from saying what you wanted to say. No, of course not. A summer fling, but it had lasted so much more than just one summer. A handful of months, a short eternity, and you thought you might have loved him all your life if you had only known his name. Certainly you had loved him since the moment he had smiled at you, the moment you had seen his eyes, the moment you had left him. You had fallen in love with him a million times, and you had loved him a little more every time.

"Who can ever say. I went to war, Ada. I did what soldiers do. I do what I do to keep myself alive." He kept you sane every single day, he saved you every time you saw his face. He had saved so many, and you had let him save you too, and that was all there was to say. And suddenly you were wondering if all the others fell so sweet, all those pretty girls and angels who he'd write to every day, he promised. You wondered how many knew he never would, and if it made any difference to them. You wished more than anything that you could be the sort of girl who kissed and never told, who could turn around and walk away with all your heart inside of your chest instead of leaving little shattered pieces along the way. Memories of you and him that you thought you must have dreamed up in your lonely mind, because you knew at least he didn't love you know.

"Are you alive?" she frowned at you and you really didn't know what to say. You'd stopped being alive a long time ago, and Tommy Shelby had absolutely nothing to do with it. They used to tell you that it was all some grim lottery, that some would die and some would live and some would spend the rest of their life dying, but no one survived this bloody war, only the horses. Who lived, who died, and everyone died and such was the world and such was the war and such would it always be. There'd be another war and more people would die and you would go on breathing and you'd like it a little less every day, because that was the way you did things when you were only made to die and all the world lived on alone.

"Are you?" you quipped back and put out your cigarette on the jagged stone that jutted out over the river, a road of stone but mostly dirt, tied with blood that ran like veins down the streets, the silvery threads of Tommy Shelby's spiderweb of crime. You turned to her and saw her breathe in and out - how nice to say that she was human when all you were was this tangled mass of broken bones and no soul left at all - and rested your hand on her shoulder to take in all the pallid skin, the emptiness behind. You felt the need to feel every inch of her and know that she was not a name like that sad boy you'd tried to love, she was yours, forever and ever and always, and she wasn't going anywhere.

"Doesn't matter about me right now, does it." she took a piece of your hair and twirled it in her fingers, leaning your forehead against hers and sighing against your skin, so close that you could taste the sweet perfume on her neck and the smoke that lingered on her tongue, like waking up beside her and knowing she was yours. "I should've told yer. Might've saved us all this trouble."

"It's not your job to keep your brothers in line, Ada." you placed your hand over hers, You were right: it wasn't her job. It was her job to find a nice boy, an honest boy with no blood on his hands, and fall in love with him and get married and get away from here, because no one else seemed to do that here. Something about her told you that she would be the first to have all this and more, and something else told you that she already had. Not for the first time you had the unmistakable feeling that there was so much in her you didn't know. "I appreciate the effort, but I made this mistake. I think I have to figure this one out myself."

"I'm here." she squeezed your hand, twining her fingers with yours and bringing your hand down to your lap. She pulled away a little to look into your eyes, send you a sympathetic gaze that meant nothing more than she would be here when all the world had burned away and nothing else was certain, because she knew that you would do the same, no matter what you did, no matter what her brother had done.

"I wouldn't have it any other way." you grinned lopsidedly at her, taking the chance to stand up and pull her up beside you, smoothing down her dress and leading you down the alleyway with a hand on the small of your back.

"At least let me bring you to the Garrison. Meet the rest of the family, make sure there 'en't any other nasty surprises, eh?" she gave you those big brown eyes that she knew made you melt, and you sighed dramatically, already knowing that you would give in.

"Fine. Just a drink, mind. Think I've 'ad enough of boys for just about the rest of my life." you rubbed your eyes wearily, half to make her laugh and the other half to make her look away from the bright tears that had not quite gone away since the moment you sat down, brushing them away quickly as if you thought she couldn't see them. She caught your hand, swinging it in hers and pressing a short kiss against the back laughingly. Check one, see you cry. You realised that it had been the first time. You realised how drastically okay it felt.

And there she went ahead of you, and your hand was in her hand, and it was enough to make any pretty girl forget the world of Tommy Shelby, but not you. Not you.

Taglist:

@actorinfluence @captivatedbycillianmurphy @stressedandbandobessed7771

#peaky blinders #tommy shelby #ada shelby #polly shelby #john shelby #tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby #thomasshelbyxreader #peaky blinders x reader #readerinsert #fanfiction

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kittenwithsecrets · 5 years

Text

Still broken.

I lied to myself, when I said I’d stop thinking about you. When I told myself I wouldn’t write about you anymore. When I told myself I had to let you go. The only thing I’ve managed to stay true to was promising myself I’d never cry over you again. But who knows, it’s still early days… Maybe that’ll also be a lie.

It’s been one month since I last saw you. I thought it’d give me the closure I needed. I hoped it would. I won’t lie, it did help a lot. At the very least it stopped the anxiety attacks I was experiencing every single waking moment. Meeting you that day finally allowed me to breathe freely again. That crushing, oppressing weight on my chest was finally gone.

But I keep replaying that last conversation we had, over and over and over again. I’m struggling to accept it. I’m struggling to understand it. The problem with me is that I can never process things on the spot. Sometimes it takes awhile, and for the conversation to keep replaying in my head before I’m finally able to articulate how I really feel.

Part of me wishes I can have another conversation with you, but seeing you again might kill me. Part of me wishes I could have a do over, having the knowledge of what I want to really say when I finally learnt what was going through your mind.

I want to force you to answer my question, when I asked you if all your friends or all the girls you were fucking constantly gave you things every time they saw you. Telling me you didn’t understand our culture, that you weren’t sure if it’s the norm in Singapore; feels like such a poor excuse. The way you answered makes me think that no one else did what I did for you. So how could you have been so oblivious to the fact that you meant so much more to me? It’s not even about the money that I spent on you. It’s the time and effort that went into these actions that were completely lost on you. That they meant so much more to me than it ever did for you. That you couldn’t even recognise any of it for anything more than just a cultural norm. Honestly, now I regret de-seeding the rambutans for you so that you’d never get the disgusting peel when you eat them, so all you’d get was the perfect flesh. You’ll never have any idea how difficult it is to do that.

When you told me that most girls who see you on a regular basis end up falling in love with you, I wish I told you that you’re the problem. The one constant is you and seeing the way you treated me, if you treated any of the other girls the same way, I don’t blame them for falling in love with you. I blame you for misleading us all. I blame you for sending all the wrong signals.

I wished I asked you earlier on about the ‘heartbreak’ that you experienced. I never imagined that the story would seem so insignificant… So juvenile. It’s so difficult for me to accept that you’re the way you are because of that. But what affects me the most is coming to the realisation that you seem to have led your life solely to prove your younger self wrong. That you can talk to girls, that you can be charming to girls, that you can kiss them, fuck them, and make them fall heads over heels in love with you. Is that what you were after? Making girls want you. Did you enjoy it every time a girl showed you how much they needed you? Did your ego grow every time a girl would choose you?

I keep thinking about you telling me that you were excited for the JB trip as well, but I don’t think you truly understand what it meant for me… To me. You’ve clearly enjoyed our time together and you seem to have pleasant enough memories. But we’ve clearly been on completely different pages this entire time. I wish you could understand and feel what it meant to me. What every second we spent together meant to me and the potential for any additional time we’d have together. Maybe then you’ll understanding how devastating it was for me to get that early morning text on that fateful Wednesday. The tonality of your messages so flippant… Did you even realise that? Or were you your usually oblivious self. I think you couldn’t have chosen a more cruel way to let me know.

Everyone tells me that I need to move on, that I need to want to move on. Do they think I want this? I feel absolutely awful. I feel like you’ve sucked the joy out of my life. Things I used to love to do doesn’t bring me the same kind of happiness that it used to. It feels like someone has thrown a filter over my world and its been muted or dimmed and nothing is as vibrant as it once used to be. I don’t know why anybody would want to feel this way if they could help it. I don’t want to feel like this. I don’t want to keep thinking of you. I don’t want to keep dreaming of you. I don’t want to keep agonising over all the possible ways that I wasn’t good enough for you. Losing you has left a profound hole in my life and I don’t know how to fill it.

My boss told me that the healing process will take 2 weeks but it’s been a month and I feel nowhere near healed. I wish you could feel the amount of hurt you’ve inflicted upon me. I wonder if you feel guilty. A part of me wishes that you’d see something and be reminded of me and when you think of me, you’d feel a stab of pain, of loss, of guilt. But that would mean that I meant something to you and honestly, who am I fooling?

I wonder if you ever think of me at all, because I think about you all the time. Did you know the hungry ghost festival just ended? It reminds me of how you used to laugh at my strong belief in the spiritual world and the traditions we observe. Do you know that it’s the Mooncake Festival season now? It reminds me of when I introduced mooncakes to you. Every where I go, everything I experience; I keep thinking of you. I went to the opening of a showroom and I wonder if anyone has explained the significance of a lion dance to you. Or if you’ve ever seen a barrel of sake being smashed open. I went to Golden Mile and I wonder if you’ve ever been, if anyone will bring you and introduce you to all the amazing Thai food that you can find there. I saw the passengers waiting to board their buses to KL and I thought of you flying to KL and paying a lot more than if you were to take a bus. Did you know you could buy a bus ticket for $10?

I went to Sydney and thought it’d be a good distraction from thinking of you. But everything reminded me of you. Seeing the packets of Pods in the supermarket broke my heart a little bit more. Seeing the chocolate store in the Rocks market made me think of my promises of buying them for you broke my heart a little bit more. I went to a little coastal town and it was breathtaking and I wanted to share it with you, then I remember I can’t. I saw so many wild dolphins and I wanted to share it with you and I can’t. I got to take a boat ride around Singapore and visit a Kelong and I wanted to share the whole experience with you and I can’t. I see so many different things throughout my day that I want to share with you and it breaks my heart that I can’t. Not anymore.

The most horrifying thing is that I’ve started seeing you and thinking of you when I’m with other guys.

Why can’t I get you out of my head? Why are you so difficult to forget?

I hate that you’ve ruined so many things for me. I don’t want to go back to Dempsey because I took you there for your birthday. My friend mentioned Sami’s curry the other day and I think whatever’s left of me died a little bit more. I don’t want to go to Springleaf. JB, KL and Tioman bring back bad memories because we were supposed to go there together one day and that’s now never going to happen. The wedding at the end of the year in KL will now be tainted by the memory of you and the potential of you having been there and it’s something I can’t not attend.

I hate that you were the first guy I brought to MBS, the first guy I brought home to my bed. How can I escape my own room?

I hate that you’ve made me feel less than. That I can’t seem to get out of my own head. To stop thinking about all the things that I’m lacking in and why I wasn’t good enough for you to choose me. I hate that you’ve made me feel like I’m worth less, that I don’t have enough value. I hate that you’ve made me feel more alone than ever. I hate that I’ve done things in the past month out of desperation that’s made me feel terrible inside out. That has made me feel so ashamed of myself and the levels that I’m willing to descend to. I would have never imagined the power you had over me, to reduce me to what I am now.

I dreamt of you last night. That you weren’t happy in your newfound relationship. That you think you might have made the wrong choice. I woke up happy before I realised it was only a dream. But small mercies, after a month of barely any sleep, I’m finally able to sleep through the night again. At one point I thought I’d never be able to sleep again.

I wish I had a stronger mind. I wish I wasn’t so weak. It’s killing me to imagine you continuing your life with her, talking to her over the phone, spending time with her over the weekends. I wonder what kind of couply things you’d be doing and it absolutely wrecks me that I’ll never have any of that with you.

But I can’t stop. I don’t know how to stop. I’ve tried cigarettes, vaping, drinking, sleeping pills, sleeping around… Nothing has worked.

What will? I just want someone to give me the answer. I want to be cured of you.

There’s a chance that I’ll be going to the F1 weekend and I know you’re going as well. Part of me hopes that I’ll bump into you. I want to make sure you know how you’ve completely ruined me. I want you to live out your entire life with the knowledge that you’ve completely destroyed another person through your actions. But it’s a 3 day event so really, what are the chances…

At the very least, I hope you see the Alfa Romeo cars and when you do, you get reminded of me. I’ll never be able to tell you this, but they offered me the job. I couldn’t take it. It reminded me too much of you too…

#heartbreak #i need help #how do you move on

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taronfanfic · 5 years

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Chapter 16

You’d actually done it. Befriended, dated and now slept with the man who was once known as ‘the cute guy’, and it turned out there was a whole lot more to him than just being very good looking. As you lay in bed blissfully, with his arm still draped around your shoulders, you struggled to believe your own luck. Your body was heavy and tired from the earlier action and yet your mind was still running at one hundred miles an hour. The slow rise and fall of Taron’s chest was helping to calm it but you still wished you could trade places with him. He looked so comfortable, peaceful and content. He looked like he belonged too. Thoughts of a future with him started to play out in your mind. It wasn’t like you hadn’t imagined them before, but now you actually knew him and how he behaved when he was around you everything felt that bit more realistic and attainable. You found yourself placing a soft kiss to his skin, almost like you were checking that he was actually real. Taron’s hand gently squeezed the top of your arm at the feel of your lips on his skin again.

“Go to sleep.” He whispered softly before pulling his arm out from under you and turning onto his side. You turned with him and took up the offer of a spoon, happily closing your eyes as he tucked himself in behind you and let his hand rest on your outer thigh.

***

“Oh, is that a sign of life?” You heard him before you’d even opened your eyes and the tingling rush that flew around your body instantly erased your morning grogginess.

“Mmm, hello.” You replied sleepily as you turned onto your back and tried to prepare yourself for the sight of his naked body all over again.

“I made you a mug of tea but it’s probably nearing the cold side by now.” The feel of Taron leaning over you gave you your moment and you opened your eyes to see his white t-shirt covering his chest. It was slightly disappointing but as he smiled down at you and handed you your mug you weren’t in any position to be complaining.

“You been awake for long?” You sat up and took a sip of your tea, too used to it being too hot to drink, so pleasantly surprised to find it at the perfect temperature. “Thanks for this.”

“You’re welcome, and no not too long. I thought I might have woken you up from rummaging around in your kitchen but you were still sound asleep when I got back.”

“Last night was tiring.” The smirk fell naturally to your face so you hid behind your mug.

“Stop it.” Taron giggled. “I’m fully aware that you’re still naked under there so I do not need to be tempted any more than I already am.” You pulled the covers up and away from your chest so you could look down your own body, causing Taron to reach out and push your hand straight back down again. A pout of intrigue should have told Taron your next move but he didn’t seem to follow. You reached out to his side of the bed and pulled the covers down to reveal he’d already put his boxers back on.

“Well you’re no fun.” You joked as you flung the duvet back over him.

“If I had the time I would definitely be down for some morning sex, so don’t you go thinking otherwise!”

“You can’t stay?”

“Afraid not. Places to be, people to see…” He kept it vague. “But I had a really good time last night, and hopefully you did too.”

“Yeah, I did. Really good.”

“Good.” He smiled. “It made for a nice change.”

“It did.” You felt your nerves and awkwardness creeping back up to the surface but there was nothing you could do to stop them. The morning after the night before was usually a speedy exit with little chat so the longer this lingered on the less you knew what to say. You could only sit and watch as Taron got dressed into last night’s clothes again; clothes he’d clearly collected and brought back in here along with yours whilst he waited for the kettle to boil. “So, ermm.” You started to speak without knowing what you were going to say.

“One last kiss before I go?” Taron asked and you nodded simply, waiting as he knelt on the side of the bed and leant across to meet you. It was a simple touching of lips to start with but you couldn’t resist asking him for more, teasing your tongue against his lower lip and then feeling him smile. He opened up for you and let you kiss him properly, taking his sweet time before pulling away and backing off the bed without taking his eyes off you.

“Have a good day.” You spoke softly

“Yeah, I’ll see you around.” His smile lingered for a few seconds before he finally turned and left you, closing the door behind him gently on his way out.

“Have a fucking good day!” You mocked yourself out loud with a shake of your head. The dregs of your tea swirled gently around your mug as you placed it down and picked up your phone instead.

First one to call me gets all the details ;)

You knew it would reignite the group chat and leave two of them with an agonising wait, but their speculation would only add to your enjoyment. It was less than 30 seconds before your phone started to ring with Rosie’s name appearing in the centre of your screen. You swiped in her call and put her on speaker so you could lie back down in bed and get comfy again.

“Spill!” She didn’t even start with hello.

“So, erm… he’s literally just left mine.”

“Ahh, he stayed for a sleepover!” She squealed back in delight, still using your teenage code for sex.

“… or two.”

“Two! Y/N!”

“I know.” There was no hiding your smugness.

“You need to tell me your secret, how to stop them from falling asleep straight after.”

“Make sure number 1 doesn’t happen in the bedroom.” Rosie gasped before firing out her next question.

“Where?”

“Sofa.” You bit your lower lip as you waited nervously for her reply.

“Remind me not to sit there next time I’m at yours.” You both laughed. “So come on, was he any good?”

“Urgh, so good. He was a bit nervous to start with but it just made him even more irresistible. Round 2 was all him though and… wow. Even just thinking about it again is doing good things to my insides.”

“Why do you think he was nervous?”

“He had a bit of a wobble during the date, thought he was going to fuck it up somehow. I don’t know, I think the pressure of the first date setting just caught up to him. It was sweet though. Showed that he cared about what I thought.”

“Oh god, he’s adorable and hot!”

“I know, right.” You sighed.

“And you’re totally smitten, I can tell just from your voice!”

“I can’t even deny it.” Nothing was going to stop the smile on your face from fading.

“Y/N, this is amazing. So nerves aside how was he on the date? Was he saying the right things?” The barrage of questions continued.

“He was perfect. A gentleman, flirty, funny, cute… God, Rosie. I already want him to be back here with me.”

“I know you do, but promise me you won’t act on it.” You stayed quiet. “Y/N, please?”

“How do I not though?”

“You’ve got to give him time to miss you. You can’t bombard him with messages else he’ll get overwhelmed and back off. You need to keep up the resistance and tension if you want to make this work.” You could only groan back in pain as you knew Rosie’s advice was spot on. “Every time you want to message him, send it to me instead.”

“But what if he’s doing the same and waiting for me to message him first?”

“I’m not saying ghost him! Just leave it at least 24 hours.”

“What if he texts me first?”

“Then it’s game on, but don’t get your hopes up on that one!”

“He might surprise you.”

“How did you leave things this morning?”

“With a very nice kiss, a longing look and tempting thoughts of morning sex.”

“Hummmmm.” Rosie replied.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Maybe he’s more into you than I first thought.” Rosie thought aloud. “I mean, he’s obviously into you… but you’re pretty much head over heels and it would be unlikely for him to be feeling the same. But I’ve only got one side of the story to judge it from so it’s hard to know.”

“Well how about, after a few days, I try and organise something casual for next weekend with our lot and his group of friends. It’s something he’s already suggested before, but that way you can see how we are together and then tell me, honestly, if I’m being blinkered by his charm.”

“Plan! Hopefully some of his friends will be fit as well.”

“Leave it with me.”

“24 hours though, Y/N. Trust me.”

“Okay, okay!”

“I’ve got to go, but fill the other two in before they start hounding me instead.” You said your goodbyes and ended the call with Rosie. 24 hours wasn’t that long to wait, you could keep yourself busy and you’d be at work tomorrow morning. You just had to make it until your lunch break.

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#taron egerton #taron egerton imagine #taron egerton fanfiction #taron egerton fanfic #taron x reader

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