hiiiii love your writing so much i get so happy when i see you posted đ
can you please write a preference for dating the peaky blinders
a/n: finally ready to post this one⥠i'm not posting as much as i want to at the moment, and i'm kind of pissed off at myself for that. it's not a time issue either, i'm just not feeling very well mentally at the moment... hope i can find a good rhythm again. will work my way through the requests i received⥠anyway, enjoy reading âĄâĄ
Tommy Shelby; John Shelby; Arthur Shelby; Michael Gray; Alfie Solomons
°âąđ©âĄđȘdating Tommy Shelby is like loving a loaded gun that tries, every single day, not to go off in your hands. It is a war you choose to fight beside him, knowing full well that half the time heâll be fighting the war inside his own head even more than the one outside.
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe doesnât just fall in love, he decides to. One day youâre just another face in the smoke of the Garrison, and the next heâs looking at you like youâre the only thing in Birmingham that isnât already owned by the devil. Those ice-blue eyes narrowing like heâs weighing every risk, every consequence, and still choosing you anyway. Thatâs Tommy. He loves the way he does everything else: deliberately, dangerously, and with the full knowledge that it might destroy him.
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe's pragmatic about love. He knows his world is violent and short-lived, and heâll tell you outright that being with him makes you a target, that one day he might not come home. He says it like a warning, but his eyes beg you to stay anyway.
°âąđ©âĄđȘnobody tells you how lonely Tommy truly is. Not alone - lonely. He's surrounded by people constantly: family, employees, enemies... entire rooms stop talking when he walks into them. Yet somehow thereâs always a distance between him and everyone else, as if he's standing behind a pane of glass nobody can quite reach through. Even the people he loves most only get fragments, pieces, carefully measured portions of himself. That's why the moments where he genuinely lets you see him feel so significant. Because you donât see the gangster, the leader, or the Shelby everyone fears. You just see your Tommy: tired, quiet, human. Everytime he lets you in even a tiny bit you almost want to hold your breath for fear of scaring him away forever.
°âąđ©âĄđȘloving him means signing up for a relationship where you will always come second to something bigger. His ambition is a jealous mistress that never sleeps; he will choose the next deal, the next vendetta, the next rung on the ladder over your feelings more times than you can count. Youâll watch him walk out the door at midnight with blood already on his mind, promising heâll be back soon, while you sit alone wondering if âsoonâ means tomorrow or never. He loves you, yes - but the empire comes first, always. And he will justify every sacrifice with the same excuse: itâs for the family. Itâs for the future. Itâs for you.
°âąđ©âĄđȘTommy carries the war with him everywhere, even when heâs holding you. Some nights youâll wake to find him sitting on the edge of the bed, shoulders rigid, cigarette glowing in the dark, eyes fixed on nothing. The tunnels still live inside his head: the mud, the gas, the screaming. And he wonât always let you pull him back. He believes shielding you from that darkness is an act of love, even when it leaves you aching on the other side of the wall heâs built. Heâll disappear into the study for days, bottles emptying, maps spreading across the desk like battle plans. He thinks heâs sparing you, but he isnât. Heâs just terrified that if you see the full extent of his darkness, youâll finally do the sensible thing and run.
°âąđ©âĄđȘbut god, the way he loves you when the walls come down? Itâs the rare mornings he lets himself stay in bed, sunlight cutting across the scars on his back while he traces patterns on your hip and murmurs about horses and futures and the quiet life he swears heâll give you one day (even though you both know heâll never fully leave the empire behind).
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe is at his most dangerous when he's scared. Not angry, not vengeful - scared. There are very few things left in this world capable of frightening Thomas Shelby, vut you happen to be one of them. Because money can be replaced. Empires can be rebuilt. Enemies can be buried. But once he loves you, losing you becomes the one possibility he cannot calculate his way around, the one disaster he cannot plan for. Other people panic when they're afraid; Tommy becomes methodical. While everyone else is still reacting, he's already three moves ahead, deciding who failed, who needs to be moved, and what has to happen to make sure nobody ever gets close enough to threaten you again. The frightening thing isn't that he'd kill for you. It's how calm he'd be while doing it.
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe's infuriatingly protective; you will never walk into a room without him knowing exactly whoâs in it, whoâs looking at you too long, and who owes him a favour if they so much as breathe in your direction. He doesnât raise his voice when heâs dangerous; he lowers it. âThey wonât touch you,â heâll say, quiet as a razor blade slipping into a cap, and youâll believe him because the last man who tried still hasnât been found.
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe wants a family with you, but heâs terrified of it. Heâll trace patterns on your stomach at night and whisper about sons who wonât have to fight in trenches and daughters whoâll never know fear, and then heâll go quiet because he knows his world is too dangerous for children. If you do get pregnant, he becomes even more protective, almost suffocatingly so, but also softer than youâve ever seen him. The great Thomas Shelby, undone by a tiny heartbeat.
°âąđ©âĄđȘTommy hates people seeing that he's struggling. Not just because he's too proud - though he totally is - but also because somewhere deep down he still believes pain is something a man should carry alone. So he hides it: the sleepless nights, the headaches, the panic that sometimes grabs him by the throat when the room gets too quiet. He'll sit across from you with a cigarette between his fingers and tell you he's fine while looking like he's carrying the weight of the entire country on his back. Tommy has spent so long surviving that he genuinely doesn't know how to ask for help anymore, and some days loving him feels less like being his partner and more like standing outside a locked door, listening to him fall apart on the other side and praying he'll eventually let you in.
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe rarely apologizes. His version of âsorryâ is an expensive gift or a night of intense closeness that feels more like compensation than repair. He struggles with genuine emotional accountability because admitting fault feels like weakness - and weakness gets you killed.
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe calls you âloveâ in that low, gravelly voice when heâs exhausted, âdarlingâ when heâs warning you not to push him on a bad day, and âmy wifeâ - even before you are - when he needs the world to understand that touching you means signing your own death warrant.
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe will manipulate you. Not always out of malice, but because control is the only language he fully trusts. Small things at first: steering conversations away from topics he doesnât want to discuss, using that velvet voice and those piercing blue eyes to make you doubt your own anger, framing his decisions as inevitable so resistance feels childish. He plays people like chess pieces: family, enemies, and yes, sometimes you too. When he says âtrust me,â itâs as much a command as a reassurance. He needs to know every variable, including your heart, and heâll pull strings to keep it predictable. The worst part? He does it because heâs convinced it keeps you safe. The razor blades arenât only in his cap.
°âąđ©âĄđȘTommy is fiercely proud of your intelligence. If you have opinions on business or politics, he listens. Sometimes he even changes plans because of something you said; you are the only person whose counsel he truly values outside the family. It's how he says "i love you" without actually saying the words out loud.
°âąđ©âĄđȘthere are days when he looks at you like you're evidence in a case against fate itself. His gaze lingers just a second too long, and suddenly there's something unbearably sad in it, as though he's looking at a life he was meant to have but somehow missed. A version of himself untouched by trenches, blood, and grief. A man who came home from the war and stayed home. He never talks about it because he doesn't waste words on things he can't change; but sometimes he'll pull you closer for no reason at all, press his lips against your hair, or stay in bed an extra ten minutes on a morning when he should already be gone. And you'll realize that Tommy Shelby doesn't just love you - he mourns you a little too. He mourns the future the two of you might have had if the world had been kinder to him.
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe wants to give you the world, but only on his terms. Expensive dresses, a house with gates and guards, influence that makes doors open before you even knock. He shows love through power and provision because softness was beaten out of him a long time ago. Yet every gift carries the same promise: âNo one will ever give you more than i can.â
°âąđ©âĄđȘdating Tommy Shelby means loving a man who has already decided your future before youâve even fully understood his past. He moves through the world like a strategist, and you were claimed as his the moment he let you past the sharp exterior he puts on.
°âąđ©âĄđȘitâs not sunday picnics or handwritten notes left on the pillow. Itâs the low rasp of his voice in your ear at 3 am when the rest of the world is asleep and heâs wide awake, cigarette burning down to his fingers, telling you things heâs never told anyone.
°âąđ©âĄđȘhe does not love lightly, and he does not love halfway. Once heâs decided you belong to him, itâs less like falling and more like a quiet, irreversible acquisition. He studies you the way he studies a rival gang - every habit, every weakness, every strength - until he knows you better than you know yourself. Heâll anticipate your needs before you voice them, clear obstacles from your path before you even see them coming, and weave you so tightly into his empire that leaving him would feel like tearing out half your soul. Thatâs the danger of loving Thomas Shelby: he doesnât just take your heart. He rearranges your entire life around his.
°âąđ©âĄđȘTommy Shelby will never be the man who gives you a white picket fence. But he will burn the whole world down to keep you warm inside the ashes. And you'll let him. Because once he decides youâre his, there is no leaving - only staying. Only loving him in the way he needs: fierce, patient, a little bit mad. Just like him.
°âąêšdating John Shelby is like running full speed into a summer storm: wild, electric, a little bit reckless, and so full of life it makes your heart race. Heâs laughter and gunpowder, warm hands and sudden chaos, the kind of man who makes ordinary days feel like an adventure.
°âąêšheâs the most affectionate Shelby by a mile. This man cannot keep his hands off you; heâs always pulling you onto his lap, kissing your neck whenever he can, sliding his hand into yours while walking down the street, or spinning you around the kitchen like you're still two teenagers hopelessly in love (and, honestly, you are). Physical affection comes as naturally to John as breathing, and half the time he doesn't even seem aware he's doing it because to him, it's instinct. Habit. Proof that you're there. Proof that you're his and he's yours. Thereâs something almost boyish about it, the way he lights up the second you walk into a room, the way his entire face softens when you lean into him. In a world where people disappear overnight and tomorrow is never guaranteed, he loves like every embrace might be the last one. Like if he lets go for too long, his world might finally catch up and steal you away from him.
°âąêšJohn's loyal to the bone. If someone hurts you, he takes it personally. If youâre upset, it ruins his mood too. Your happiness becomes tangled up with his so completely that he doesnât know how to separate the two anymore.
°âąêšheâs ridiculously proud of you and brags about you to anyone whoâll listen; his brothers, his mates, random people at the market. âThatâs my girl. Smartest fuckin' woman in Birmingham, she is.â His chest puffs out every time you stand your ground or make his family laugh, and he shows you off like youâre the greatest prize heâs ever won. And lets face it: you totally are.
°âąêšheâs got a massive praise kink and nobody can convince me otherwise. Compliment him once and this man is insufferable for the rest of the day. Tell him he looks handsome? Heâs smirking for hours. Tell him youâre proud of him? Youâve just unlocked the softest version of John Shelby imaginable. Underneath all the bravado, he desperately wants to feel like heâs doing something right.
°âąêšhe would propose in the most emotionally chaotic way imaginable because this man does not know how to experience feelings normally. Thereâs no carefully rehearsed speech, no perfect moment planned weeks in advance. It happens the second the idea becomes unbearable to keep inside. Heâll just look at you with sudden intensity and say it like a fact: âMarry me.â Not will you? Just marry me. Like the thought of you being anything other than his wife has become completely ridiculous to him. And when you laugh in shock or ask if heâs serious, he gets almost offended by the question. âCourse iâm fuckin' serious.â Because to John, marriage isnât some formal arrangement - itâs permanence. Itâs waking up beside you for the rest of his life. Itâs your kids carrying his name. Itâs coming home bloody and exhausted and knowing thereâs still one good thing in the world waiting for him with the lights on.
°âąêšJohn carries the fear that heâll never be enough. He jokes about being the least clever Shelby, the one who uses his fists instead of his head, but late at night when the house finally falls silent, it slips out of him. Heâll hold you against his chest, fingers tracing your spine, and confess how scared he is of failing the kids, of not measuring up to Tommyâs ambition or Arthurâs strength. In those moments heâs not the loud, cheeky gangster - heâs just John, vulnerable and desperate to be worthy of you. And all you can do is kiss his worries away and remind him that his big, golden heart is more than enough.
°âąêšfights with him are pure fire. Heâs hot-headed and stubborn, quick to raise his voice and say things he doesnât mean when his temper gets the best of him. Youâll scream, heâll slam doors, and for thirty dramatic minutes it feels like the world is ending. But John can never stay away from you for too long; heâll come back with those big, remorseful eyes, flowers in his bruised hands and a sheepish smile, mumbling âi'm a fuckin' idiot, love. Canât do this without you.â Making-up is always intense; desperate kisses, clothes torn off, laughter breaking through the heat because even when youâre angry, you canât stay mad at each other for too long.
°âąêšhe is incredibly impulsive, and that impulsiveness will test you daily. He makes big decisions without talking to you first: spending money you donât have, picking fights he shouldnât, promising the kids things you both know you canât deliver. Youâll often feel like youâre dating a grown man with the impulse control of a teenager, and it gets exhausting.
°âąêšJohn has this way of making you feel like you're the best thing that's ever happened to him, because he loves with pure wonder. Sometimes you'll catch him looking at you across a crowded room with this almost boyish disbelief, like he still can't quite figure out how he got so lucky. And it never really fades, either. Years into the relationship he'll still grin when you walk into a room, still pull you onto his lap like he hasn't seen you all day, and still introduce you to people with pride in his voice. As far as John's concerned, he won something the day you chose him, and he's never stopped celebrating it.
°âąêšhe talks about your future constantly and with zero shame. Big houses, more kids, horses, sunday dinners that never end. He paints the picture so easily, so excitedly because he canât wait for it to happen. âYou, me, little versions of us⊠proper family. Thatâs what i want with you, love.â
°âąêšheâs going to be the most incredible father to your children. You can already see it in the way he lights up when he talks about it: big dreams of a loud, chaotic house filled with little ones running around. He wants to fill your home with laughter, muddy boots, and the sound of kids calling you both mum and dad. The thought of getting you pregnant makes his eyes go soft and hungry at the same time; John wants a big, wild, beautiful family with you - and he wants it yesterday.
°âąêšboy, does this man get jealous; the second another man gets too familiar with you, John changes. His smile sharpens. His posture stiffens. And suddenly heâs all over you: hand on your thigh, arm around your waist, kissing your temple mid-conversation like he needs everyone watching to understand exactly who you belong to. And god help the poor bastard flirting with you, because John gets mean when heâs jealous. Smirking insults, territorial touches, picking fights he absolutely does not need to pick just because somebody looked at you too long. The worst part is that underneath all the possessiveness is insecurity. He genuinely cannot understand why someone like you would stay with someone like him forever, so jealousy hits a nerve deeper than pride.
°âąêšhis temper is as quick as his smile: he explodes, loud and sudden, like a grenade with the pin pulled. He yells, storms out slamming doors hard enough to shake the walls, and says cruel things in the heat of the moment that heâll regret almost immediately after. Youâll hear words that sting for days, spoken by the same mouth that laughs with you and calls you âmy love.â Dating John means learning how to stand in the fire without getting completely burned.
°âąêšJohn can be suffocatingly overprotective. He doesnât want you walking alone at night, doesnât like you getting too friendly with certain people in the Garrison, and has started full-blown fights because someone âlooked at you funnyâ or smiled for half a second too long. It comes from fear - the terror of losing you in his dangerous world. Some days it feels like youâre dating a man who wants to wrap you in cotton wool and keep you locked away from everything except him and the family. His protectiveness is loud, overwhelming, and at times makes you feel more trapped than safe.
°âąêšhe never stops courting you, no matter how long you've been together. Years into the relationship and he's still showing up with flowers every week, still looks unbearably pleased with himself whenever he manages to make you laugh, and still kisses you like there's no tomorrow; he loves being your husband, loves being the man who gets to call himself yours. The world has made John many things, but it never managed to make him cynical about love.
°âąêšJohn has zero filter and even less shame. Heâll tell you exactly how stunning you look while youâre still half-asleep with messy hair, or whisper the filthiest compliments in your ear while youâre trying to have a serious conversation with Polly. His mouth gets him in trouble almost as often as it makes you weak in the knees.
°âąêševen when heâs being an absolute idiot, his love never wavers. Youâll never have to wonder where you stand with John Shelby. He may mess up, he may be loud and reckless and stubborn, but his heart has been completely yours since the moment he decided you were the one. Heâll pull you onto the dance floor at the Garrison even when youâre tired, spin you around like youâre the only two people in the room, and kiss you like heâs trying to memorize the taste of your laughter. With him, you will always know - because heâll shout it, show it, and prove it with every beat of his heart.
°âąêšhe loves with his entire body and soul. Heâs the kind of man who wakes you up with kisses down your spine, picks you up and spins you around when he comes home happy, and holds you like youâre the only safe thing in his violent world. Thereâs nothing half-hearted about him; when heâs in love, heâs all in - teasing you, adoring you, fighting for you, and building a life with you.
°âąêšdating John means accepting that your life will never be quiet again. The house is always full: of children running through the halls, of his brothers shouting in the kitchen, of loud laughter and doors slamming and the constant chaos that follows the Shelby name. But in the middle of all that noise, John becomes your anchor; heâll come home covered in dirt and blood, scoop you up like you weigh nothing, and kiss you so hard you forget whatever worries were weighing on your mind. With him, love is loud, physical, and so fiercely present that you feel it in your bones every single day.
°âąâżËdating Arthur Shelby is like loving a wounded wolf whoâs just as likely to tear you apart as he is to curl up at your feet. He is raw, bleeding emotion wrapped in muscle and razor blades - a man who laughs like itâs his last day on earth and cries like the war in his head will never end.
°âąâżËwhen heâs in a good mood, Arthur is pure sunshine. Heâll pick you up and spin you around, laugh that big booming laugh, tell terrible jokes, and dance with you in the middle of the street. These moments feel like stolen heaven because you both know how quickly they can disappear.
°âąâżËthis big, violent man, all scars and muscle and barely-contained rage, becomes almost childlike with you. Heâll pull you into his lap without warning, bury his face in the crook of your neck like heâs trying to disappear into you, and stroke your hair with those large, scarred, trembling hands. He clings so tightly you can feel his heartbeat hammering against your chest, like heâs terrified that if he loosens his grip even a little, youâll vanish. Touch is his language when words fail him; itâs his salvation, his proof that heâs still human, still capable of something soft.
°âąâżËArthurâs scared of being too much for you. Some nights heâll pull back suddenly, convinced his intensity, his moods, his need for you will eventually drive you away. Heâll sit on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands and whisper, âi'm a lot, aren't i? Too fuckin' much.â It takes a lot of time and care to make him believe that you actually want to stay.
°âąâżËhe loves hearing you talk, even when the subject itself doesn't interest him in the slightest. You could spend fifteen minutes explaining something completely mundane and Arthur would still sit there listening like you're telling him the secrets of the universe. Sometimes you'll stop halfway through and ask whether he's actually paying attention, and he'll repeat the last three minutes of the conversation back to you almost word for word. Because it isn't really about what you're saying - it's about you. Arthur's entire life is noise: shouting, gunfire, arguments, business, violence. People are always demanding something from him, always pulling at him. But your voice is one of the few sounds in the world that doesn't ask anything of him. It doesn't require him to fight or lead or prove himself. He can simply exist beside you and listen. Some nights he'll deliberately ask questions he already knows the answer to just so you'll keep talking a little longer. Just so he can sit there and enjoy the feeling of peace while it lasts.
°âąâżËArthur calls you his angel. Not as a cute nickname, but because he genuinely believes it - youâre the one good thing in his blood-soaked life. When the darkness gets too loud, heâll whisper it against your skin like a prayer: "My angel⊠you're too good for this world. What are ya doin' with a man like me, eh?"
°âąâżËif anyone speaks to you disrespectfully, looks at you too long, or makes you even slightly uncomfortable, he sees red instantly. Thereâs no warning, no calm conversation, just pure, explosive rage. Heâll break bones and spill blood without a second thought, all because someone dared to threaten or disrespect whatâs his. The same man who falls apart in your arms at night, trembling and whispering your name, will destroy anyone who tries to take you away from him; itâs born from deep, animalistic terror and the constant fear that the cruel world he lives in will try to rip away the only good, pure thing heâs ever had.
°âąâżËhe's loyal to the bone. While his brothers will always come first in the business, in his heart you sit on a throne above everyone else, and he would burn the whole world down if it meant keeping you safe. Heâd go against Tommy, hell, against his own name if he had to. You are the one thing he refuses to lose, even if it costs him everything.
°âąâżËArthur genuinely believes heâs the stupid Shelby. The mad one. The disappointment. The brute who ruins everything he touches. The world sees a dangerous man with heavy fists and an even heavier temper; Arthur sees something far worse. He sees every mistake he's ever made, every person he's hurt, every moment he lost control. He carries them all around with him like stones in his pockets that weight him down step by step until he's literally drowning in self-hatred. And no matter how much love you give him, there are days when he simply cannot understand why you're still here. And late at night, it spills out between sobs: how he's scared he'll destroy you without meaning to. How he thinks you'd be safer with someone kinder, calmer, better. How sometimes he looks at you and feels guilty for loving you at all because he can't shake the belief that everything good eventually gets ruined by having his hands on it. Arthur doesn't just fight enemies; he's at war with himself every single day. The cruelest part is that the man who sees so little worth in himself would give away every last piece of his heart to make sure you never doubt your own.
°âąâżËsome days, the war wins and he becomes a ghost of himself. Heâll go quiet for hours or days, eyes distant, barely speaking, lost somewhere between the past and the present. In those moments he barely lets you touch him, convinced he doesnât deserve your comfort. But eventually he always cracks. Heâll crawl back into your arms like a broken child, shaking, clinging to you as if youâre the only thing keeping him from disappearing completely.
°âąâżËhis rage is terrifying. It comes out of nowhere, like a switch flipped too fast, too violently. One moment heâs laughing with you, the next furniture is shattering, his voice is cracking the walls, and heâs saying awful, cutting things heâll regret for weeks. Then comes the guilt - crushing, suffocating, vicious. Heâll disappear for hours or days, get blind drunk, pick fights, or hurt himself just to punish the monster he believes he is. When he finally comes back, he looks like hell: bloodshot eyes, broken voice, sometimes still shaking. Heâll drop to his knees if he has to, begging through tears, âplease donât leave me⊠iâm so fuckin' sorry.â Arthur expects you to walk away. Some days he almost wants you to, because heâs convinced heâll destroy you eventually.
°âąâżËbut when heâs steady? When the light breaks through? Arthur Shelby is one of the most tender, devoted, and adoring men alive. Heâll dance with you in the kitchen at 2 am, sing horribly off-key just to hear you laugh, and proudly parade you around like youâre a miracle he canât believe is real. âThis is my woman,â heâll declare to anyone listening, chest puffed out, eyes shining with pure pride.
°âąâżËhe sees you as his last remaining piece of light in a world thatâs gone almost completely dark. Arthur has done terrible things - things that haunt him, things that make him sick when he looks in the mirror. You become his proof that maybe, just maybe, he hasnât been completely damned. Loving you is the only thing that makes him want to keep breathing when everything inside him wants to stop.
°âąâżËhe wants to marry you so badly it makes his hands shake when he thinks about it. He doesnât dream of a big fancy wedding; he dreams of standing in front of you, promising forever, giving you his name like itâs the only good thing he can offer you. âMarry me, love. Let me call you my wife before i fuck it all up.â To Arthur, marriage isnât just love - itâs safety. Itâs proof that you chose him even knowing how broken he is.
°âąâżËhe talks about the future with you like a man whoâs never really believed heâd have one. Heâll lie in bed with you at night, painting pictures of a small house far from the noise of Birmingham, somewhere with green fields. He dreams aloud about waking up next to you without the weight of the empire on his back, about growing old together, about maybe even finding some kind of peace. But thereâs always a tremble in his voice, because deep down heâs terrified heâll never be able to give you that life. Still, he keeps dreaming. Because imagining a future with you is the closest thing he has to hope.
°âąâżËbecause for all the violence in him, Arthur has always secretly wanted a simple life. Not an easy life, just a simple one. The kind of life he sees in passing through train windows or while driving through the countryside. Small houses, laundry hanging outside, children playing in gardens - ordinary people with ordinary problems. But reality always catches up eventually. Tommy needs something. Business calls. Violence returns. But every now and then you catch him staring into the distance with that look in his eyes, and you realize Arthur isn't imagining a different place. He's imagining a different version of himself. One that never had to become the man he is now.
°âąâżËArthurâs love is heavy. Itâs desperate. Itâs worshipful. You are his reason, his religion, his last shot at being a good man; he will never be easy, and he will never be stable. But no one will ever love you with the same broken, ferocious, all-consuming intensity as he does. Because even when he hates himself, he loves you more - and that love is the one thing that keeps pulling him back from the edge.
°âąâżËArthur sees you as his last chance at being a good man. Youâre his proof that thereâs still something worth fighting for inside him, even when he feels rotten to the core. Loving you isnât just love to him - itâs survival.
°âąââ§dating Michael Gray is like falling in love with a man who has spent his entire life trying to prove himself. He's ambition wrapped in expensive suits and carefully controlled emotions; the sort of man who walks into a room already planning three moves ahead. But beneath all that confidence is someone still searching for a place where he doesn't have to earn his worth. Loving Michael means slowly becoming the one person he stops performing for.
°âąââhe is incredibly difficult to read when you first meet him. Michael has perfected the art of looking calm, composed, and entirely in control of himself. Even when he's furious, nervous, jealous, or heartbroken, very little shows on the surface. Then you start dating him and slowly realize he's actually feeling everything with surprising intensity; he's just far better at hiding it than most people. Loving him means learning to read the emotions he never says out loud - because they're there. They're always there. He just guards them like state secrets.
°âąââhe doesn't chase people. He never has. He's used to being the one pursued, the one people gravitate towards. That's why it's so obvious when he's genuinely interested in someone; suddenly he's finding reasons to see you, stretching conversations longer than necessary, and looking for excuses to keep you around.
°âąââMichael likes certainty. He likes numbers that add up correctly, plans that unfold the way they're supposed to, and conversations where he already knows where the other person is heading before they've reached the end of the sentence. Then he falls in love with you and discovers that loving someone is, perhaps, the least predictable thing he has ever done. That's what unsettles him so much; not the feeling itself, but the complete lack of control that comes with it. For a man who has spent most of his life trying to secure his place in the world, there is something deeply frightening about handing another person the power to break his heart. But he does it anyway. And then one day he realizes that somewhere along the way, your happiness started influencing his own.
°âąââhr likes feeling like the two of you are a team against the rest of the world. He wants partnership in the truest sense of the word; someone who stands beside him, challenges him, supports him, and understands him without needing endless explanations. He loves those moments where the two of you exchange one glance across a room and immediately know what the other is thinking. Thereâs something deeply intimate to him about being understood without having to perform.
°âąââMichael falls hardest when he realizes he respects you. Attraction gets his attention. Intelligence keeps it. But respect? That's what ruins him. The moment he starts seeking out your opinion before making decisions, listening when you challenge him instead of dismissing it, genuinely caring what you think of the choices he's making, he's already in deeper than he intended to be. Michael admires competence. He admires people who can stand on their own two feet. And once he realizes you're someone he can learn from, someone whose judgment he trusts as much as his own, the walls come down faster than he'd ever admit. Because for Michael, love isn't just wanting someone. It's respecting them enough to let them influence the direction of your life.
°âąââhe hates looking weak in front of anyone. The world sees a sharp suit, a clever smile, and a young man who always seems to know exactly what he's doing. What the world doesn't see is how hard he works to maintain that image. He wants to be respected. Admired. Taken seriously. Which means dating him often involves peeling back layer after layer of carefully constructed confidence until you reach the person underneath. The man who's scared of failing, scared of being ordinary, scared that one day you'll look at him and decide he isn't enough after all.
°âąââhe spoils you rotten. Michael loves seeing you dressed up, loves taking you places, loves watching heads turn when you walk into a room together - there's a certain pride in it. Not because he sees you as a possession, but because he genuinely thinks you're the most beautiful person there and wants everyone else to realize it too.
°âąââhe has no interest in a woman who needs him to survive. What captivates him is watching you hold your own in a room full of dangerous men, voice your opinions without hesitation, or build something for yourself. The more self-sufficient you are, the more obsessed he becomes; he doesnât want to be your saviour. He wants to be your equal - and your partner in conquest.
°âąââhe has an ego. A massive one, actually. Most of the time it's charming; sometimes it's absolutely insufferable. He likes being good at things, likes being right, likes impressing people. And if you're dating him, you'll quickly discover that he loves when you are impressed by him too; it's part of his identity. He'll pretend not to notice, of course. Act completely unaffected, maybe even roll his eyes if you compliment him. But the tiny smirk that creeps up on his face afterwards gives him away every single time. The truth is that for all his confidence, thereâs still a part of Michael that craves recognition from the people he loves. Not because he needs constant praise, but because your admiration means more to him than anybody else's. He wants to be impressive in your eyes. Wants to be the man you look at and think, yes, that's him. That's my Michael. He'll act nonchalant about it, but internally he's preening.
°âąââone of Michael's biggest flaws is that he assumes he can fix everything. Bad situation? He'll handle it. Financial problem? He'll solve it. Relationship issue? Give him a day. It comes from confidence, but also from fear. Because if he can solve the problem, then he doesn't have to sit with the possibility of losing something he loves.
°âąââhe loves seeing you wear his clothes. If you walk into the kitchen wearing one of his shirts half-buttoned, this composed, intelligent man forgets how conversations work. Heâll just stare for a second too long before pulling you into his lap with that smug little smile.
°âąââhe can be frustratingly stubborn when he thinks he's right. The kind of stubborn that turns a simple disagreement into a two-day debate because he refuses to surrender a point before he's exhausted every possible argument. He'll sit there looking infuriatingly calm while you're ready to throw something at his head, picking apart your reasoning with that smug little smile that makes you want to kiss him and strangle him simultaneously. The worst part? Half the time, he'll eventually realize you were right. But instead of admitting it, he'll quietly change his position three days later and start repeating your argument back to you as though it was his idea all along. And when you call him out on it, he'll have the audacity to look genuinely confused and ask, "didn't i say that from the beginning, darling?"
°âąââMichael is one of those men who somehow always looks composed, even when he's furious. That's what makes his anger so unsettling; while other people shout, Michael gets quieter. His jaw tightens. His eyes go cold. His words become sharper. The temperature in the room drops, and suddenly you'd almost prefer yelling.
°âąââhe pretends he doesn't need reassurance, but he's lying. For all his confidence, there is something almost painfully vulnerable beneath it. He wants to know you'll choose him; not the Shelby name, not the money, not the future he promises you. Him. Michael spends so much of his life trying to prove he's worthy of a place in the world that being loved by you becomes the one thing he never stops hoping he's earned.
°âąââMichael has a habit of shutting down emotionally the second he feels too exposed. The moment an argument stops being intellectual and starts becoming genuinely vulnerable, you can almost watch the walls go up in real time. His expression smooths out, his voice turns colder. Suddenly everything becomes about logic instead of feelings because logic is safer. Easier. Controllable. Meanwhile youâre standing there wanting honesty and getting careful restraint instead. Loving Michael means understanding that his distance is rarely indifference; itâs fear disguised as composure.
°âąââhe has a habit of looking at you when he thinks you arenât paying attention: across crowded dinner tables while everyone else is talking, from the doorway when youâre busy with something and havenât noticed him yet, late at night when youâre half-asleep beside him and the rest of the world has finally gone quiet. Michael spends so much of his life observing people, reading them, calculating them, that sometimes you catch him doing the same thing with you. But with you, there's no strategy in it - just fascination. As though he's still trying to understand how someone like you ended up becoming such an important part of his life. But the moment you catch him staring, he immediately looks away and pretends he wasn't. Though every now and then he's too slow, and for a split second you see it clearly: terrifyingly intelligent, ambitious Michael Gray, bound to stare at you like youâve personally hung the moon just for him.
°âąââhe doesn't propose on impulse. By the time he asks you to marry him, he's already spent a lot of time thinking about it. He's imagined the house, the future, the life you'll build together. He's considered every detail and every possible risk because that's who he is. So when the proposal finally comes, it catches you off guard precisely because of how calm he is: no grand speech, no dramatic performance. Just Michael looking at you with complete certainty and saying, "i'm going to marry you, my love." Like it's the most obvious thing in the world. Like there was never going to be any other outcome. And somehow that's infinitely more romantic than any rehearsed declaration could ever be.
°âąââhe is deeply loyal once he commits, but that loyalty is earned, not given freely; heâs seen too much betrayal in the family to hand his heart over easily. But when he does decide youâre his person, itâs absolute. He will choose you over business if it ever truly comes down to it - though heâll move heaven and earth to make sure it never has to come to that choice.
°âąââyou become the one person who makes him feel like he finally has a real place in the world - not just a seat at the table, but a home.
°âąââthe thing nobody tells you about loving Michael Gray is that beneath all the ambition, all the confidence, all the carefully constructed composure, he's still just a boy who spent years wondering where he belonged. That's why he loves so fiercely once he finally lets himself. Because home has never been a place to him. It's a person. And somehow, against all odds, that person became you.
°âąâ”dating Alfie Solomons is like falling in love with a thunderstorm. Heâs loud, unpredictable, half-mad, and strangely tender; one minute he's threatening a man over a business deal, the next he's handing a stray dog half his lunch because "look at the poor little bastard⊠eyes all big like that. Starvin', innit? Proper tragic."
°âąâ”he falls in love by accident. That's the problem. Alfie is prepared for enemies, betrayal, bullets, and god himself showing up to collect a debt. What he is not prepared for is waking up one morning and realizing he cares whether you've eaten today. Realizing he listens for your footsteps. Realizing your bad mood ruins his. Love sneaks past every defense he has because it never occurs to him that you're a threat until it's far, far too late. At first he tells himself it's temporary, a distraction, a habit he'll break when it becomes inconvenient. Then one day somebody mentions your name and his entire attention shifts before he can stop it. That's when the panic sets in; because Alfie can handle almost anything, but caring about someone means they can hurt you without ever intending to - and that's the real danger.
°âąâ”he trusts very few people. Not because he's incapable of loyalty, but because life has taught him exactly how expensive trust can be. That's why the first time he tells you something genuinely personal, it feels enormous. Alfie doesn't hand people pieces of himself - he buries them. If he's showing you one, it's because he's already decided you're staying.
°âąâ”Alfie's infuriatingly good at reading you. You can walk into a room determined to hide your mood and he'll take one look at your face before sighing dramatically. "Oi. Who's upset you then, eh? Tell me who's got you lookin' all sour." He notices every tiny shift in your voice, every nervous habit, every forced smile. You can lie to almost anyone else, but not to him.
°âąâ”he talks constantly, but very rarely about himself. You will know his opinions on politics, religion, dogs, whiskey, human stupidity, and approximately four thousand unrelated subjects before you learn anything truly personal about him. Every conversation is a maze, and every answer leads somewhere unexpected. And then one night, half asleep beside you, he'll casually mention something heartbreaking from his childhood like it's the weather. But before you can say anything, he'll immediately change the subject. Because that's Alfie: willing to discuss the meaning of life for three hours but allergic to genuine vulnerability.
°âąâ”Alfie has an entire love language built around bread, and it's ridiculous how seriously he takes it. Most people buy flowers or write apologies; Alfie starts kneading dough. Had a bad day? A fresh loaf appears on the table still warm from the oven. Feeling anxious? He somehow decides the solution is baking something complicated that takes hours to make. Got into an argument? You'll find him in the kitchen the next morning, sleeves rolled up, covered in flour, aggressively working his feelings into dough because that's apparently easier than admitting he was worried about you. To Alfie, feeding someone is practical, necessary, and one of the simplest ways to say i care about you. And whenever you sit down and eat something he's made, there's always this tiny shift in him; a quiet satisfaction, a subtle easing of tension. Like some stubborn part of his brain finally relaxes because you're here, you're fed, and for the moment, everything is alright.
°âąâ”he loves listening to your laugh. Not just because it sounds pretty, though it absolutely does. But because there's something about your laughter that settles him, that makes the constant noise in his head go quiet for a minute. You'll catch him deliberately saying outrageous things just to hear it, starting arguments he has no intention of winning, or telling stories that get increasingly ridiculous every time he tells them. Entirely for the selfish purpose of hearing that sound again.
°âąâ”Alfie is one of the only men you'll ever meet who can make an insult sound suspiciously like a compliment. "You're a nightmare, you are." Then he'll pull you closer. "Lucky for me Iâve always had terrible taste, yeah? Thank god for that." The trick is learning to hear what he's actually saying.
°âąâ”Cyril liking you is far more important than Alfie will ever admit. The dog is family as far as he's concerned, one of the few living creatures on earth he trusts without reservation, so the first time Cyril chooses your side of the sofa instead of his, Alfie looks genuinely betrayed,and he'll spend the next week claiming you've bribed him somehow. Yet every single time Cyril curls up beside you, Alfie gets this oddly pleased look he can't quite hide. Because as much as he'll complain about being replaced, there's something deeply comforting about seeing the two beings he loves most getting along.
°âąâ”he has an annoying habit of acting as though your presence doesn't affect him nearly as much as it does. You'll walk into a room and watch him continue whatever conversation he was having without missing a beat; same tone, same expression, same endless stream of commentary. And yet somehow, within thirty seconds, you've been pulled into the conversation, handed the better chair, given the last biscuit, and positioned within arm's reach. He'll spend an entire evening pretending he isn't paying special attention to you while unconsciously rearranging the world to keep you close. The worst part is that if you point it out, he'll deny it with the confidence of a man arguing before a judge. "What are you talkin' about, heh? You're sat there because that's where the bloody chair is."
°âąâ”he is unbelievably stubborn. Catastrophically stubborn. There are arguments where he knows you're right. You know you're right. The dog probably knows you're right. But Alfie will continue debating the point out of pure commitment to the bit. Sometimes hours later he'll suddenly agree with you in a completely different conversation and act as though he'd held that opinion from the start; it's enough to make a saint violent.
°âąâ”Alfie is stupidly proud when you match his madness. Not because he wants you to be reckless, but because he's spent most of his life surrounded by people who either feared him or tried to control him - then you come along and somehow manage neither. The first time you stand your ground in a room full of dangerous people, he notices. The first time you refuse to be intimidated, he notices. The first time you come up with a solution so completely unhinged that even he has to stop and stare at you for a second, he notices that too. And god, the look on his face. Pure delight. Alfie loves intelligence, loves nerve, loves people who can think on their feet, and nothing makes him happier than realizing you're every bit as formidable as he suspected. Because for all his talk, for all his confidence, nothing captivates Alfie quite like someone who can keep up with him and occasionally leave even him speechless.
°âąâ”he likes when you steal his things. His coat. His scarves. His books. He'll complain about it, of course; "unbelievable behaviour, this." Yet somehow he never actually asks for them back. In fact, he'll start leaving things where he knows you'll find them, entirely by accident, obviously.
°âąâ”he can be maddeningly dismissive of his own wellbeing. Sick? Doesn't matter. Injured? Fine. Exhausted? Irrelevant. You'll spend half your relationship trying to convince this man that bleeding is, in fact, a valid reason to sit down for five minutes.
°âąâ”Alfie is not a jealous man in a loud, explosive way. He doesn't immediately start fights or throw punches; no, that's far too simple. Instead he'll stand there quietly listening to some poor bastard flirt with you while slowly developing the expression of a man considering several highly illegal solutions to a minor inconvenience. The man won't even realize he's made a mistake until Alfie casually inserts himself into the conversation and starts asking increasingly uncomfortable questions. By the end of it, the poor soul will practically apologize for existing.
°âąâ”nobody warns you how protective he becomes once he truly loves someone: Problems disappear before they reach your doorstep. People who cause trouble suddenly decide to cause it somewhere else. Doors open. Obstacles vanish. And whenever you ask how it happened, he looks deeply offended by the question. "What dâyou mean âhowâ? It sorted itself out, didnât it? These things have a way of..." - gestures vaguely with hands - "resolvinâ themselves when you apply the right amount of pressure in the right places. Simple as, darling."
°âąâ”Alfie doesn't protect you the way other men might; they post guards outside your door, Alfie becomes the reason nobody wants to go near the door in the first place. You won't always know he's handled a problem because he rarely tells you. You'll just notice that the man who was bothering you suddenly crosses the street when he sees you coming. And when you ask Alfie about it, he'll blink innocently and say, "what? People move about, donât they, sweetheart? Itâs London. Thatâs the game, yeah?"
°âąâ”he isn't the sort of man who showers you with poetry. He's the sort of man who notices your favourite flowers at a market three months ago annd then somehow they keep appearing in the house just because.
°âąâ”there are very few people capable of making Alfie feel safe. That's the funny thing about men like him: everyone sees the danger and forgets the vulnerability underneath it. But some nights you'll find him half asleep beside you, tension finally gone from his shoulders, breathing steady and peaceful in a way he never is around anyone else. And you'll realize something that makes your chest ache: for perhaps the first time in years, he's resting because he trusts someone else to keep watch.
°âąâ”the thing nobody prepares you for is how startling the difference is between the Alfie the world gets and the Alfie you get. Everyone else gets the businessman, the gangster, the man who can make an entire room nervous just by walking into it. You get the version that comes out when the door closes behind him. The version that immediately loosens his tie, drops heavily into the nearest chair, and asks how your day was before he's even taken off his coat. The version that remembers tiny details nobody else would notice, that reaches for your hand without thinking about it, that occasionally falls asleep halfway through one of his own stories because he's finally relaxed enough to stop performing. It's not that he's pretending with everyone else; those versions of him are real too. But with you, he doesn't have to be on. He doesn't have to dominate the room, control the conversation, or keep one eye on the nearest exit. The rest of the world gets Alfie Solomons - you get the man underneath all the noise.
°âąâ”Alfie Solomons is not easy to love. He's stubborn, secretive, impossible to argue with, and entirely too clever for his own good. But if he gives you his heart, he gives it completely; piece by piece, day by day. Until one morning you wake up and realize you've become the safest place in the world for one of the most dangerous men in it.
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