god is a woman (arthur shelby.)

sixteen.

☾

Rowan, still in her silk nightdress, pulled her messy and sweaty hair into a bun atop of her head and tied it tightly. She had a cigarette hanging from her swollen lips and her flushed and rosy cheeks were chunkier than usual.

"Get back in here." Arthur grumbled from the room next door.

"I'm fucking coming, calm down." She rolled her eyes as she walked into the room, leaving in the doorway.

"How is it possible you've got even sexier in two years?" He asked rhetorically.

Arthur was laying on the bed, completely naked and spread like a starfish as he regained his breathing. Rowan had kept her promise she'd made, and Arthur felt obliged to return the offer. Being with Rowan once more, he realised how much of a hole she'd left in his life when she left.

"Who fucking knows." She clambered onto the bed and wrapped herself around his chest, lying on top of him. "Here."

She removed the cigarette from her lips and placed it on his as he took a drag.

"I take it you're not angry with me anymore." She smirked.

"I am. I'm fuming." He breathed out the smoke as he watched it dissipate into the air. "You walked out on me."

"No I didn't." Rowan sat up and crossed her legs as she traced shapes onto his stomach delicately. "So much went on you wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Try me."

Rowan hesitated as she sat, contemplating how she could articulate the fantastical story. She raised herself onto her knees and delicately lifted up her nightdress. Not only was her slender frame on show to Arthur, but so was the one inch circular scar that was located north west of her belly button. Her freckled stomach had been so mutilated it had left a wine coloured shape on her skin, still sore for her to touch after two whole years.

Arthur leant forward and traced his thumb over the scar, knowing instantaneously that it had come from a bullet. He felt Rowan flinch under his gentle touch and he glanced up to look at her. She was wincing as his finger grazed the spot, although she tried to hide it.

"I was in the shop, busy working like usual. Then everything became a blur when the police arrived. They arrested me and threw me into the back of their van and drove me away before I could even comprehend. One of them tried to come onto me-" Rowan began to explain the tale.

"And he shot you?" Arthur leapt in.

"No! Stop trying to spoil it." Rowan slapped his arm as she smiled before continuing more sombrely. "We arrived at the train station, and there was my dad. He wanted to take me back to Ireland. We fought on the platform and he threatened to shoot me. You'll never guess who tried to rescue me."

"The blond one, Grace?" Arthur asked ever so slightly in disbelief. "I thought you hated her."

"She shot my father before he could shoot me. Thing is, when he got hit by the bullet he clenched hold of the trigger on his own gun and the bullet hit me here." Rowan revealed. She held his hand and guided his index finger over the uneven section of her belly.

"What happened then?" Arthur urged her to carry on.

As she went to talk, he pulled her down so that she was lying next to him. She rolled on to his chest and sat up, straddling him.

"I asked Grace not to let me die and she kept her promise. I still got shipped back over to Belfast though. It was awful." Rowan outlined the tattoo on his chest with her fingertips.

"We heard." Arthur solemnly noted.

In the two years Rowan was back in Belfast, violent riots erupted in the city. Murders of police officers and detectives had sparked a low level of warfare between the two separated sides of the city. Catholics and protestants became more divided than ever before, thousands of people lost their jobs and hundreds were killed. It was no longer the city she knew and cared for, it was now a city that made her heart sink.

"I stayed there for so long. I tried running back here and even tried running to Galway, but every time he caught me and dragged me back by the scruff of my neck. Thank fuck he's crippled." She bitterly whispered.

"Need us to finish him off?" Arthur offered with a sly smile.

"Trust me, there's nothing I'd wish for more." She leant down and pecked his swollen lips softly. "Does that make me a bad person?"

"Hating a bad person doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you human." He sighed. "Plus he's just an all round cunt isn't he."

"That's my father you bastard." Rowan mocked offence and slapped his chest hard.

Arthur scooped her up and flipped the pair of them over, pinning her underneath him. Her brown hair spread across the pillow so effortlessly, and her soft hands interlinked with his as she gazed up at him. He still fell deeply into her large brown eyes, just as quickly as he did when he first met her.

Arthur kissed her deeply, the pair of them tasting of cigarettes and whiskey. She slipped her hands free, and threw them around his neck as her long curated nails lightly drew on the nape of his neck.

"Arthur - oh fuck." Finn flung the bedroom door open to be faced with his brother's bare bottom.

"At what fucking age are you going to learn how to knock?" Arthur calmly turned his head to his little brother and sighed.

"Family meeting? That's the whole reason I fetched you and then I lost the two of you." Finn explained.

At fourteen years old, Finn hadn't had the most experience with women. Whilst he tried to shield his eyes from Arthur, he was simultaneously trying to peek a look at Rowan.

"If you don't stop gawping, I'll remove those eyes so that you physically can't even attempt it." Arthur flung the nearest object he could find at Finn, a pillow, as Rowan laughed.

"He'll be there in five minutes." She yelled as Finn slammed the door.

She watched as Arthur layered his clothes and got dressed, his fingers quickly working his bow tie and buttons on his shirt. He ran some grease through his hair and put a coat on before leaning over to kiss her once more.

"Don't leave me this time, understand?" Arthur tucked her hair behind her ear. Whilst she could tell it was meant as a joke, she could sense the feeling of unnerve he had as he spoke.

"I promise, I'm going absolutely no where." She beamed brightly and kissed his cheek. "Have fun, no fighting!"

Arthur slapped her bum as he stood up, causing her to gasp loudly.

"That hurt!" She indignantly scoffed.

"You weren't complaining ten minutes ago when I did exactly the same thing, were you sunshine?"

☾

a/n: was this chapter cute?? fluff?? sexual?? who the fuck knows because it certainly isn't me x