#I seriously expected Neal to just appear | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cas-kingdom · 4 years

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Tricky

A/N: Because Neal Caffrey would be the best big brother.

Title: Tricky

Summary: You’re sick and tired of Neal constantly doing things to land himself in prison.

Words: 2390

You knew your brother was tricky.

You’d be an idiot not to know it.

He was Neal Caffrey, after all, and your entire life he’d been stealing and thieving, robbing and running, never really having the time to stop.

You’d asked him once why he’d never just dropped you off on the door of someone’s house and go on about his own life, free of his baby sister, free of the weight on his shoulders, but he’d told you to stop being silly and had moved onto another subject entirely.

Peter had asked him as well, though. Not when you’d been nearby. It’d been on a night the man had come over to June’s for a drink with Neal, and they’d gone out to the balcony and left the door wide open. They’d thought you had been asleep, but you hadn’t, and you’d heard Peter ask your brother more or less the same question.

“Because she’s mine,” Neal had responded, just loud enough for you to hear. “My sister. My responsibility. My kid, you know? She had no one else. I had no one else. And my life was a... crap thing for her to be involved in... I know that. But I couldn’t let her go, Peter. I don’t know if that was selfishness on my side, but I couldn’t. And I’m glad I never did. If I’m at all sane, it’s because of her.”

You’d been able to sleep peacefully after that.

It hadn’t been that you’d feared the answer. More that you’d simply wondered if the thought had ever crossed his mind. Living the crime-high life surely wasn’t as easy with a child tailing him every step he took. Of course, Mozzie and Kate had helped, especially when he’d gone to prison, but since he’d been out and he’d somehow managed to persuade Peter he was capable of caring for his sixteen-year-old sister himself, it’d just been him and you. And Mozzie. But Mozzie was always there.

In the four years you had been apart from your brother, however, you’d learnt a lot. The ideals of the human, crime-free life. What it felt like to live in one place, despite the fact that one place wasn’t with Neal. What it felt like to not be in constant fear of the police and FBI chasing you around the world...

So, somehow, much to Peter’s satisfaction, you’d been the one person keeping your brother on the almost straight and slightly narrow since his release from prison. Or, rather, escape.

In a way, his job working for the FBI and newfound life meant he’d been given a second chance. To spend time with you that wasn’t limited or uncertain. And it was something the both of them had not taken for granted.

But, Neal Caffrey was tricky, and you knew it.

You hadn’t seen him take the key to his anklet, but then you never did. He’d once taken a slice of birthday cake right out from under your nose and had been so good a liar you’d blamed it on Mozzie for five minutes until the slice magically appeared again, a bite taken from it.

You’d still blamed Mozzie.

Now, you knew better.

And you’d thought that after four years in prison, Neal would more or less know better, too.

But the moment he’d found out Fowler might have been the cause of Kate’s death, he’d taken his anklet’s key from his pocket. It’d been a waiting game for him. You hadn’t even known he’d taken it.

The both of you had been at home. You were sat at the table, scrolling mindlessly through irrelevant articles on your laptop to pass the time. Neal had been out on the balcony, but he’d strolled in a moment ago, and the second you absently flicked your eyes up to look at him, you saw him pull the key from his pocket.

“What’s that?” you asked, knowing full well what it was. You sat up straight in the chair.

Neal paused, turning his head as though he’d forgotten you were there. “Uh-” He lifted his foot- “nothing, Y/N.”

You shook your head, standing to your feet. “That’s the key to your anklet,” you said. “When the hell did you get that?”

Neal was quiet. He put the key to the anklet and slipped it off. “Look,” he said, putting it on the table, “it doesn’t matter. Just- stay here.”

You weren’t sure what made you do it, but you did. Your face was a picture of something between fury and disbelief as you took long strides until you were standing between him and the door.

“What are you doing, Neal?” you asked, and Neal gave your a look, clearly sighing through his nose. “Does Peter know?”

“Of course he doesn’t-” He shut his eyes for a brief moment and took a step forward. “Could you just-”

“No!”

“Y/N.”

“I said no!” Your hands were balled at your sides and your brother straightened, lips pressed tightly together. It wasn’t often you clashed. You were the best of friends. Peter often called you, including Mozzie, the three musketeers.

But when you clashed, you clashed.

“You can’t do this, Neal,” you told him, a harsh edge to your tone.

Neal didn’t have much of a temper, but it was rising by the second. “Do what, Y/N?” he asked.

“Risk your life! Again!”

“I’m not risking my life-”

“Yes, you are! You’re risking it all and you don’t realise you’re risking me, too!”

Neal was a little taken back by that. His eyebrows furrowed and he had no time to respond before you suddenly leapt towards the table and grabbed up the anklet. You also snatched the conveniently placed pair of scissors next to them, and held them up for him to see.

His frown deepened and his mouth dropped open the slightest bit.

“I’ll cut it,” you threatened, without him even saying a word. He was beginning to worry, and not because you were threatening to alert the FBI to his almost escape. “I’ll cut and then Peter will come here and you won’t be able to leave.”

Neal put both hands slowly up, watching as you tensed and drew the scissors closer to the anklet. He involuntarily rose both eyebrows and shook his head.

“Hey, hey,” he said, his tone hopefully a lot more calming than he was feeling. “Put the scissors down.” He was gentle, but for some reason you only grew more agitated.

“Go to hell, Neal!” you spat out. Your eyes were getting glassier by the second.

Neal’s confusion was etched so clearly on his face. No, he hadn’t thought you’d appreciate him stealing from Peter and managing to effortlessly get his anklet off, but he had not expected you to stand there like one of the clay statues he was working on, completely different to how you normally were.

“Y/N, sweetheart,” he tried, “what’s this about?”

You swallowed, lifting an arm to wipe at your eyes. “You.”

“What about me?”

“You want to leave me!”

“Leave you? Y/N, I-” He licked his lips and shook his head, eyes flicking around the room in utter loss for what to do. Fowler was still on his mind as they moved swiftly past the clock on the wall, but only barely.

Another thing you knew about your brother was that he was quick. And so when the door behind you opened, and you snapped your head around to see Mozzie, you stupidly didn’t account for suddenly being tackled onto the ground, the anklet and scissors knocked easily from your hands, head cushioned by his own hands so it didn’t hit against the wooden floor when you fell back.

The wind was knocked from you for a moment, and you took a moment to breathe normally, but when you did, and you opened your previously tightly shut eyes to see Neal’s, your face hardened again and you struggled.

“Get off!” you yelled, and Neal slipped his hands from under your head, grabbing your forearms.

He glanced up. “Not now, Moz,” he said, and you heard the door shut before you were forced still.

“Enough!” Neal rarely rose his voice at you. You were his pride and joy, and you were a good girl, and the two of you got on like a house on fire (“that’ll probably be literally, one day,” Peter had remarked once) so he’d never had need of it. But you were acting almost psychotic, and he’d never seen you in such a way.

Fortunately, you ceased your struggling at his voice, so stern and loud you had no other choice. You squeezed your eyes shut. You could feel his hands tight around your wrists, your own hands balled into fists.

“I have no idea what’s gotten into you, but you need to stop this.” There was still that edge to his tone, but he spoke lower this time. “What happened to talking, huh? Like normal people? We do not pick up sharp objects and threaten each other! What the hell, Y/N?”

He wasn’t angry. He was confused. Which was why, when your face scrunched up, and tears began leaking from your eyes, he sighed and let your arms go. A rattled breath ripped from your throat and he shook his head, dropping to lie beside you and gently grasping you to pull against him.

“Please don’t go,” you all but choked out, your balled hands tucked under your chin.

His hand automatically came to the back of your head, legs bent at the knees. “If Fowler killed Kate-”

“But you don’t know that!” You raised your head, staring down at your brother with red eyes, and Neal pressed his lips together, his hand dropping beside him. “He-” You sniffed, swallowing back further tears- “He could be innocent, and you would be risking everything on something that doesn’t matter. You’d be risking us on something that doesn’t matter.”

It clicked like the last puzzle piece, and he mentally called himself a fool a hundred times over. Of course he’d known you had grown into somewhat of the personification of super glue in the years he’d been in prison. He’d returned, and suddenly the little girl he’d raised and taught to pick pockets and stand and look cute while he slipped into a top security building had grown up, and you’d thrown out any inkling at all that you would become like him. He wasn’t complaining. He’d never complain. If anything, he was thrilled you were further from the criminal life than him. But you hadn’t been that far before he’d gone away, and it’d been something for him to get used to. He doubted he’d be so lucky sticking to the right path if he didn’t have you nearby, but it seemed at times you took your so-called job a little seriously.

Not that it was a job.

You just wanted a normal life with him.

How could he fault that?

He’d stolen from an FBI agent, escaped his tracking anklet, and murder was on his mind. You knew him, and so you knew that. No wonder you’d said all you had. He was a terrible influence, and everything he’d done and was thinking of doing could garner him more time in prison than either of you would’ve able to handle. You knew that. And you’d somehow deducted that, minus the hypothetical murder, perhaps alerting Peter to the fact Neal had broken free would save your brother some time. Time with you. Time he shouldn’t have been taking for granted.

“Y/N...” He brought a hand up to cup the back of your head, shifting. An imploring love melted into the blues of his eyes as you simply stared into them. “I’m- I’m sorry,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “I’m sorry.” He pulled on your head and you rested it on his chest, silent save for the occasional quiet sigh.

“I just don’t want you to have to leave me again,” you muttered.

Neal nodded, closing his eyes. “I know. I don’t want to. I-” He grit his teeth and shook his head. “Sometimes I forget you’re not thirteen anymore.”

The corners of your lips lifted a little and she rubbed at your eyes. “I didn’t mean to pick up the scissors like that.”

“Thought I’d have to drop you off at a psychward,” Neal commented, claiming victory when you breathed a short laugh. It was a quick victory, however, when his face sobered a moment later and he stared aimlessly at the ceiling. He could just about hear the clock ticking behind him. Time was running short.

“I gotta do this, Y/N,” he said slowly. Quietly. His fingers rubbed circles on the back of your head. He wondered briefly if you’d grab the anklet and scissors again, but you stayed exactly where you were.

“I have to- to know if Fowler killed her. It’s the only way.”

You blinked before sniffing and sitting up. You turned to face him, crossing your legs, and absently bit at your lip.

“Then I’m coming with you,” you said.

Neal sat up. He had half a mind to say no and tell you you were to stay home, but he knew it’d likely send you off in another frenzy. Sighing barely audibly, he leaned forward and wiped at a tear track on your pink cheek.

“Okay,” he said resignedly.

“And never do it again.” You posed it as more of an innocent question, and you glanced down at your fidgeting hands after you said it.

Neal gazed at you. “C’mere,” he said, pulling you into his arms. “I’ll try, but you know me. Can’t make a promise like that.”

You shut your eyes against his chest, wrapping your arms around him. You knew he couldn’t promise a thing like that. But it made you feel better to know he’d at least try.

“Uh, you guys done being sentimental?”

You glanced up as the door opened again and Mozzie stuck his head in. Neal turned slightly.

“Yeah, Moz,” he said. He pressed a kiss to your head and the both of you stood up. He looked at you, a hint of a smile on his lips.

“You ready?”

You shrugged, sparing another glance at the anklet and scissors, and smiled back. “Not at all.”

#white collar #neal caffrey #neal caffrey x reader #neal x reader #mozzie #mozzie x reader #mozzie x neal #neal x mozzie #peter burke #peter burke x reader #peter burke x neal caffrey #neal caffrey x peter burke #peter x neal #neal x peter #sister reader #sister!reader #teen!reader #teen reader #mine

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elizabeethan · 3 years

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Watch the Sunlight Fade: 10 / 17

Emma Swan finds out that her boyfriend has been hiding something from her: he’s in a gang and trying to get out. Reluctantly, she decides to support him, sticking it out with him until they have enough money to flee to Florida. All she has to do is wait and ignore that feeling in her gut that something is seriously wrong. With the help of a kind and handsome stranger, she just might make it out alive.

Or, alternate summary: I’m horrible at summaries, please just read it.

Something of a cross between a What Still Remains AU and a Sons of Anarchy AU.

A/N: Don’t come for me. I was just way too excited, and my patience is wearing this. This is definitely one of my favorite chapters!!!! Hope you like it :)

Warnings for some violence read: murder.

As always, you can message me if you want more information!

Rated M

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He couldn’t get out of the bloody bar fast enough. Watching her walk out after what appeared to be a difficult conversation with Neal was hard enough, especially with his apparent complete lack of understanding of her emotional state at any given time. The fact that he couldn’t tell how upset she was is troubling. But the fact that Killian couldn’t follow her out immediately and take her in his arms to hold her until whatever Neal said to upset her melted away feels impossible.

By the time he got outside, weaving through the crowd and pushing through the doors as she had, she was long gone. He’s not entirely surprised that she’s walking home, but it was only about five minutes between them leaving, and as he speeds down the quiet streets searching for her, she’s nowhere to be found.

It isn’t until he reaches their building and parks his bike that he notices her, catching her cowering in the lobby as he assumes the sound of his bike startled her. He feels bad about it, but puts the thoughts out of his mind as he sets the kickstand in place and rushes towards the front doors. When he swings them open and forces his way inside with too much enthusiasm, she gasps.

“Swan,” he breathes when he sees her, rushing to stand in front of her and placing his hands on her upper arms. “It’s alright.”

He watches her face shifting quickly, moving from relief to fear to anger to heartbreak at a nearly imperceptible pace. When tears break over her eyes and rush down her cheeks, dragging with them streaks of black mascara, he reaches for her and she pulls away. “Did you know?” she asks, her voice shaking and her bottom lip pouting out before she bites it into her mouth.

“Know what, love?” he asks, and with his words, he sees anger taking over.

“Don’t play dumb,” she insists, shoving past him and reaching for the door before throwing herself out into the chilly evening air.

“Emma… Emma!” He hurries behind her, grabbing her by the elbow and regretting it when she flinches away and turns towards him, giving him a look of angry disgust. He never wants to make her flinch from his touch. “Tell me what he said.”

“Like you don’t know!” she accuses. “Is this why you were acting weird when Gold came in the other day? You figured it out and didn’t tell me.”

“Emma…”

He’s angry with himself, for being too afraid to tell her what he’d suspected. She’s right, of course; he had figured it out when Gold mentioned her being important for the club’s future. But his fear that it had been true, that perhaps Neal had succeeded in his goal to impregnate her without her even having a clue, was too overwhelming. He’s angry with Neal, too, but he shouldn’t expect much from him. He couldn't even begin to imagine being the one to tell her something so horrific and seeing the look on her face when he did.

But the look on her face now, when she’s realized his betrayal, is far worse than anything he could have conjured in his mind.

She shakes her head and lets out a soft, pained sob before turning away from him again and starting down the street. With her back turned towards him, he notices her backpack and panic sets in. She can’t run.

“Swan, please. Just wait. Please!”

“No! I trusted you, Killian! I told you how desperate I was to know what he had planned so that I could prepare for it. And then you figured it out and you didn’t tell me!” She pushes him against his chest and he steps back as she lets out another sob. “Why wouldn’t you just tell me?!”

“I’m sorry,” he nearly whispers, his voice seeming too loud against the still night. She shakes her head again and laughs, although he’s certain she sees no humor in this situation. “Love, I'm so sorry. I should have told you; I know you’re strong enough to know the truth and I should’ve seen that. I wasn’t strong enough to tell you.”

“But I’m not, though,” she cries, shaking her head and pushing tears away from her cheeks. “I can’t handle this.”

“Emma, please,” he begs again, taking her hand in his carefully and, when she lets him, pulling her towards the alley beside their building. He can’t risk them being seen by a passerby so he hides them in the cover of darkness. “Please, love, please stay. You can survive anything, I promise you. But if you leave, they’ll hunt you down. If we run now, they’ll find us and kill us.”

With another sniffle, she leans back against the brick wall of their building in defeat. He takes a bold step forward so that he’s practically embracing her, leaning his hands against the wall behind her in an attempt to hold her together somehow, and she drops her head down against his chest with another sob. “Killian,” she cries, and he feels her breaking down as she wraps her arms around his waist. “If I’m pregnant, I’ll--”

“Hush, love,” he quiets as soothingly as he can. His hand moves from the wall to the back of her head, cradling her to his chest and stroking along her scalp as the other presses against her back. “Just try and relax, Emma. We’ll worry about that soon, but for now, you’ve got to try and calm down.”

“I can’t do it. I can’t.”

There’s nothing he can say, and he knows it. Anything he says will sound like he’s making it up to make her feel better. She’s completely right in assuming that this is bad. So he simply holds her, continues to try to calm her labored breathing as she breaks down in his arms once more and again at the fault of a man who claims to love her.

“What did you mean?” she asks after a few moments, once her breathing has evened slightly. “When you said they’d kill us?”

He pulls away from her just slightly and uses his thumbs to brush the tears off of her cheeks and the hair out of her eyes. “Well, they’re… a rather violent and vengeful bunch, love.”

“No,” she shakes her head, letting it drop to the side slightly into his palm. “I mean… you’re acting like… Like you’d come.”

“Of course I would,” he answers immediately without a thought to the contrary. The idea that he would let her go off on her own is too absurd to even consider. “I could never leave you. I could never let you go through this on your own. If you’ll have me, I’ll always fight to be with you, and that includes running away with you even though it’s a bloody daft idea.”

“Killian,” she whispers, looking into his eyes so that he can see every facet of her. She shows him the deepest and darkest corners of her soul in her eyes and he loves every inch of her.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I figured it out and I should’ve told you then, but I was scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Scared for you. I’m terrified of what they’re doing to you, love. Every day I see the light fade from your eyes and it breaks me. I was too scared and selfish to be the one to make it fade even more by telling you.”

She shakes her head, but she maintains her strong and meaningful stare into his eyes. “You're the only one who cares. I can’t wrap my head around it.”

“Of course I care,” he whispers.

“Why?”

He lets his mouth hang open for a moment too long, drawing his brows close together in thought as he brushes his thumbs beneath her eyes again. “Don’t you know, Emma?” he asks, genuinely surprised that she doesn’t. “It’s… you. It’s because I love you.”

Her gaze conveys so much to him, and it almost breaks his heart. She tells him she’s in disbelief, that she doesn’t believe she’s worthy of having someone love her, without speaking. In silence, she tells him that she’s overwhelmed, but her small, almost imperceptible smile tells him that at least she isn’t angry. “You do?” she asks in doubt.

“Yes,” he whispers. “I love you. I’ll do anything to get you out of this, Emma. I promise you, I’ll get you away from him. But we can’t run now, Swan. It’s far too dangerous to run now without a plan of where or how to go.”

She shakes her head, seemingly barely able to comprehend his words, and repeats, “you love me?”

“Aye,” he smiles softly. “Is it so hard to believe?”

“No, I-- I’m surprised because I do believe you. I’ve never heard those words before and actually believed them.”

He can’t seem to catch his breath, not while she moves her head just slightly enough to bump her nose against his, her lips so close to his that he can taste the fruity chapstick she applied earlier. He tells her, “I'll never stop working to ensure that you believe me, then,” and is met with an audible gasp, her fingers finding the lapels of his jacket and pulling him to close the small gap between them.

The kiss they share is fire, a white hot blaze burning between them as he moves his hands from her cheeks and down to her neck, cradling her face to his and refusing to let her go. He can’t imagine ever being apart from her now. Her own grip leaves his jacket and trails to the back of his head, lacing her fingers through his hair as she parts her lips against his. It’s an invitation, one he accepts as he slides his tongue along the soft skin of her bottom lip and then along the inside of her top.

His rings tangle in her hair and tug slightly, making her gasp and tighten her own grip on him. He almost worries that he’s hurt her, but she refuses to break away from him and lets out the softest moan when he lets one hand slide down to her waist and pull her even closer to him. He doesn’t know if he’s making up the way her hips press firmly against his, but he hopes to whatever god might be listening that he isn’t.

“Emma,” he whispers when they finally stop for a breath, her pants coming out forcefully and her lips parting tantalizingly, making him want nothing more than to capture them in his again. “My love--”

“Well, what have we here?”

~~~~

The way things shift gives her whiplash.

She can’t keep up with the back and forth, one moment feeling terrified of the direction her life is headed, the next feeling more loved than she ever has before, and the next feeling as though her world is crashing around them. They couldn’t have been seen. They only just found one another, she only just learned the truth of how he felt for her. It can’t end so soon after it began.

Killian loves her. In all her years, after countless betrayal and heartbreak, she never thought she would find herself in a position like this. She never thought a person could tell her that they love her and that she would believe them. After Neal, after his farce and his attempts at coercing her by offering love as a bargaining chip, she thought herself completely closed off to love, never again willing to accept it.

But Killian loves her. And she knows that he’s being truthful when he tells her so.

She loves him, too. It’s a fact she’s been slowly but surely coming to terms with over the last few weeks and months, and hearing his confession will only make it easier for her to tell him so. But they won’t ever get the chance.

They’ve been caught. It’s over before it can hardly begin.

“Rufio,” she hears him growl, stepping to the side and standing in front of her, blocking her view of the man who is surely about to ruin everything for her.

“Just imagine the look on Neal’s face when I tell him I caught his girlfriend making out with Hook.”

“Mate--” She steps away, anxiously holding her hands up in surrender, ready to beg this man to leave them be. “Emma--”

“Think he and Peter will give me a front row seat to watch the two of you getting slaughtered?”

She tries to stop him. She takes another step forward. “You can’t--”

“Emma! Come back.”

“I can, and I will. In fact, maybe some photographic evidence will help.”

The bright light of his camera flash blinds her, and she realizes that, even though they aren't in each other’s arms anymore, his picture of the two of them standing in a dark alley together will be incriminating enough. “To think, Cassidy’s whore is actually in bed with someone else.”

“Don’t you dare speak of her that way.” His voice sends chills down her spine, and she recalls what he’d told her once about his violent past.

“Or what, you’ll gut me like a fish? I don’t see your precious hook anywhere,” the man goads. He laughs before he says, “Don’t worry. Peter and Neal will probably give you the same treatment you gave to all of our rivals. Or maybe Neal’ll smash you over the head like he did your brother.”

“Shut up,” he warns. She sees Killian reaching behind himself, and when she looks down, he’s lifting his shirt and exposing a small gun that she didn’t know was resting at his hip. Her eyes widen and she gasps softly.

“As for the whore, I’m sure they’ll find an appropriate punishment. Maybe we'll all get to see her work with your other girlfriend after all. A whore like that, I’m sure she’s down for a couple of group scenes, and I doubt any of the guys will turn down that opportunity.”

“I’m warning you,” he says, his hand hovering over the gun but not yet gripping it. “If you go now-- if you stay silent-- I won’t kill you.”

He laughs condescendingly, stepping forward. “Honestly, even if they don’t go in that direction, I think I'll take the liberty myself. She’s whore enough to deserve it.”

Rufio lunges for her quickly, Killian’s shouts breaking through the darkness as her back is pressed against the brick wall. She chokes out a cry as one hand grips her throat and his other yanks at the waist of her pants.

The oppressive nature of his touch is interrupted as Killian yanks him away from her before his hands can wander and throws him to the ground. “Get the fuck away from her,” Killian growls, aiming his gun right at her attacker’s head.

“Why, so you can have a go at her?” She watches Rufio shift, his hands reaching behind himself until she hears the cock of his own gun. “I know you want a taste of that pret--”

His words and movements are cut off by a loud crack echoing through the air, nearly deafening her and stunning her to a state of violent rigidity. She can’t move, her muscles tense and nearly painful as she stands behind Killian’s broad form, refusing to look beyond him and meet what she knows will be lying on the ground.

The silence is deafening, her ears ringing and no other sound perceptible until she hears him say, “Fuck.”

“Killian,” she breathes through a whisper. She places her hand on his shoulder and jumps when he does, her eyes wide and her hands shaking.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he says again, tossing his gun to the ground with a crash and thrusting his hands into his hair. “Fuck!”

“Killian,” she tries again, a bit louder this time, and her voice sounds foreign as her ears continue to ring. “Killian!” she tries again when he doesn't answer. He turns to her suddenly, his eyes wide and startled, and she sees tears leaking from the corners.

“Emma, I-- I didn’t mean to.”

“It’s okay,” she tries to promise, but he shakes his head and starts pacing, walking in circles around her.

“Fuck, I-- I promised I wouldn’t. I said I won't do that anymore after Liam-- and then you-- but he--”

“Stop,” she tries, holding her hands in front of herself and dying to grab onto his own. “Please, just… Killian…”

He drops to the ground, sitting on his feet and resting his elbows on his knees, dropping his face to his hands. “Emma,” he mumbles into his palms, and before he can say anything more, she hears a sob breaking out of his throat. “Fuck, Emma--”

“It’s okay,” she says again, squatting to his level and putting her hands on his shoulders. “Killian, he would’ve told.”

“He threatened you. He attacked you-- he said he would… He pointed his gun at you.”

“I know,” she whispered. “He would’ve told Neal.”

“No,” he insists, finally looking up at her, and she’s met with such painful desperation in his tearful eyes that she can’t hold back her own tears. “He called you… the things he said he would do to you… he grabbed you. I couldn’t take it, Emma. When he pulled out his gun, I snapped. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“We didn’t have a choice, Killian. He would’ve told and we would’ve… he’s right. Neal and Peter would’ve killed you. And who knows what they would’ve done to me.”

She takes his face in her hands just as he had done for her mere moments ago. Things have changed so quickly. They went from anger to bliss to fear, and she has whiplash. She can’t keep up. All she wants is the joy that came from being with Killian. Kissing him and being in his arms let her fears melt away, and now that she’s had a moment lacking in terror, she wonders if she’ll survive long enough to feel that way again. She doubts it.

“We have to clean this up,” she murmurs, her nose inches from his.

“We…?” he asks slowly, and although he previously refused to meet her eyes, unable to through his shock, he does now. All she sees is clarity and truth.

“Yes, we. We have to move… him. And then we have to go upstairs and make a plan, because I can’t stand to spend another day here.”

“Emma…” he starts, but she feels her own sense of urgency creeping up on her and she shakes her head.

“We have to go,” she whispers, pressing a soft kiss to his lips if only to prove to him that she isn’t going anywhere. He did this, and although it wasn’t right, he did it for her. He did it to protect her, whereas Neal threw knives at her for sport. Killian loves her. Neal never has.

They stand together, Killian swaying slightly in shock when he sees what he’s done to Rufio. She takes his hand in hers and squeezes it, looking up at him and nodding in a silent vow that she’s here with him. He did this for her, and she’ll help him out of it. They find his phone and delete the photo he took of them. She takes his feet and Killian takes his hands, and together they hoist him over the side of the dumpster and let the top slam shut.

Tagging: @courtorderedcake @kmomof4 @stahlop @klynn-stormz @laschatzi @emelizabeth88 @lfh1226-linda @kday426 @elisethewritingbeast @timeless-love-story @captain-emmajones @gingerpolyglot @ebcaver @ilovemesomekillianjones @teamhook @superchocovian @itsfabianadocarmo @tiganasummertree @gingerchangeling @jrob64 @onceratheart18 @xhookswenchx @winterbaby89 @swampmedusa @ultraluckycatnd @dancingnancyy @love-with-you-i-have-everything @shireness-says @snowbellewells @hollyethecurious @ouatpost @daxx04 @the-darkdragonfly @donteattheappleshook @therooksshiningknight @eeteeaytay @xsajx @itsfridaysomewhere @alexa-fangirl-forever @jonesfandomfanatic @wefoundloveunderthelight @qualitycoffeethings @rapunzelsghosts @spaceconveyor @badcats-andmice @batana54 @sailtoafarawayland @deckerstarblanche @zaharadessert @xarandomdreamx @hookedmom @pirateprincessofpizza

#watch the sunlight fade #captain swan fanfic #cs ff #sunlight ff #captain swan au #cs ff au #modern au #see warnings #cs hurt comfort #captain swan angst #emotional hurt/comfort

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thesschesthair · 4 years

Text

A Night Off: 1/?

Just a little bit of late S2 self indulgence where Emma and Hook take a night off and leave the battle behind, instead choosing to share a drink and see where the night takes them.

Rated T.

Emma licked her lips as the golden liquid threatening to spill out of the tall glass was placed in front of her.

She wasn’t a regular patron of the Rabbit Hole, but with all the revelations, new visitors and just plain crazy events occurring in town lately… she needed a drink.

She needed more than a drink- she needed Neal to disappear again, for Mary Margaret and David to back off a little, and for the residents of Storybrooke to get a clue and figure things out for themselves for once, but she knew she never got what she wanted hence settling for an ice cold glass of beer.

She offered the barman a polite smile of gratitude as she picked up the glass, not caring that the barman barely acknowledged her- too busy eyeing the froth floating at the rim.

“Swan, what a surprise.”

The voice startled her, not expecting to hear him of all people.

Turning, she spotted Hook, smiling at her from a dimly lit booth in the corner of the bar. She could tell he was being welcoming and yet he somehow seemed to naturally project a whole other type of invitation with his captivating eyes and devilish smile.

She shook her head and released a smile of her own before heading over to his table to join him.

“A whole new world you’re in and of course you manage to find the- you call it a tavern, right?”

“Aye, love.” he grinned as she sat across from him, “it seems some of the pirate platitudes remain true.”

“What are you doing here, Hook?” she sighed, not bothering to beat around the bush.

He raised a half full glass of beer of his own and slanted it in her direction.

“Merely enjoying a beverage and the ambience.” he smirked before taking a sip, “Yourself?”

Emma took a mouthful of her own before answering him.

“A little of the same… I guess it’s good you're here, though. Means you’re not out trying to kill anyone.”

She didn’t miss the flash of shame that fell across his face at her flippant words. His head hung a little as he looked down at his hook. She was surprised but he deserved it, especially after the crap he’d pulled lately. It didn’t last and the shame was soon replaced by a bitter smile.

“I guess even villains need to take a night off every once in a while.”

She matched his smile as they came to a stalemate and lapsed into a comfortable silence for a beat.

“So how’ve you been, love?”

“Seriously?”

“Humour me.”

“In that case, that’s a question for another time.” she explained with humour.

He nodded in understanding. “That bad?”

“Well, not as bad as it could be now that your friend Cora’s been defeated.”

“You defeated Cora?” He asked, pride edging his question.

“Snow killed her.” Emma explained, feeling a sheet of sadness for her mother’s situation fall over her.

“I see.” He sobered at the news, “While I can’t say I'm shocked, it seems the world is a better place without her in it I suppose.”

Emma eyed him suspiciously as he took another swig of his pint and signalled the barman.

“Don’t give me that crap, Hook, you were working with her at one point-” she paused and realised she was tensing at the topic, feeling frustration at once again being unable to escape the troubles of the town, “you know what? This is exactly what I was trying to avoid tonight. Forget it.” She ranted, deciding she’d had enough of fairytale drama.

She was just about to bid him goodnight and find another corner to drink in, when the barman appeared at the table with two fresh pints. He set them down in front of her and Hook as the pirate in question handed him some form of coin and mumbled to keep them coming.

“What’s this?”

“A drink.”

She studied him yet again as he rolled his eyes slightly in irritation.

“Swan, unless it is not already clear, I quite like you when you’re not hitting me or tying me up.”

Emma felt a surprise jolt go through her at his unexpected confession, choosing to ignore it and let him continue.

“And seeing as how we’ve both declared it our night off, perhaps we can forget Cora and I can get the pleasure of your company... and you can explain to me some of the rather unusual devices in this town of yours.”

Emma took a moment to think about his proposition. Her lie detector was screaming at her that he was genuine, and a huge part of her wanted to stay. If it wasn’t for the feeling of being her old self again for one night, then she could at least assure herself that this could very well work in her favour if he ever decides to double cross her again in the future.

Emma wanted to spend one careless night sharing a drink with Captain Hook and getting to know him a little better.

“Don’t tell me Captain Hook can’t handle a little indoor plumbing.” She teased as she accepted the drink, letting him know she was staying.

“We’ll get to that.”

He began rummaging around inside his coat pocket before pulling out a small slim box. “But first, care to partake in a game of dominoes?”

She stared at him in disbelief.

“Is that coat magical or something? You gonna pull a set of dice out of your collar next?”

“Don’t be daft.” he scoffed before smirking, “Dice are kept in my back pocket.”

Emma finally let out a chuckle and felt herself thrum with excitement as he began placing the small ivory game pieces on the table, grinning from ear to ear.

Killian watched her from under his lashes with amusement. She was finally relaxing as he observed her fingertips tap gently against the table top, waiting for him to set up the game. Hopefully she’d let her defenses down and he’d be able to get to know a little more about the woman behind the title of ‘saviour’...

#captain swan #cs ff #captain swan fanfiction

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searchingwardrobes · 4 years

Text

Start of Time: 9/9

Here it is! The end of this journey! This has always been a gift for @teamhook, and my dear, I hope this ending brightens your day after all you have been through! I always knew this was where it would lead, with these exact bits of dialogue inspired by the song by Gabrielle Aplin that you shared with me. I even incorporated some lines from the song into the closing scene for you. Sending you lots of love, my friend!

Summary: Killian and his son are driving through a bad snow storm when they find a disoriented woman walking down the road. The question is, how can they help her get home when she has no idea who she is? Written for @teamhook on her birthday.

Rating: T

Trigger warning: Alice Jones appears in this fic and Alice and Henry are both Killian’s adopted children with Milah. Henry isn’t Emma’s. Positive past Millian. No Neal.

Words: about 3k in this chapter

Also on Ao3

Tagging: @snowbellewells @kmomof4@jennjenn615 @kday426 @let-it-raines @bethacaciakay @profdanglaisstuff @resident-of-storybrooke @thislassishooked @tiganasummertree@whimsicallyenchantedrose @snidgetsafan @delirious-latenight-laughs @winterbaby89 @distant-rose@shireness-says @xhookswenchx @optomisticgirl @spartanguard @branlovestowrite @welllpthisishappening @stahlop @hollyethecurious @ekr032-blog-blog @scientificapricot @wellhellotragic @vvbooklady1256 @sherlockianwhovian @superchocovian @nikkiemms @lfh1226-linda @ultraluckycatnd @ohmakemeahercules

It was awkwardly silent in the elevator. Honestly, it had been awkwardly silent the majority of the time between her and Walsh ever since she got home. Yet it seemed to hang even heavier between them since the doctor’s appointment earlier.

The elevator stopped at her floor, and the ding when the doors opened only punctuated the silence. Emma dug in her purse for her keys, and wished like every other time Walsh rode up with her how to politely send him away. He hadn’t pushed her for anything physical - mostly. He just whined like an oversized baby about it, constantly asking her when things would get back to normal.

In that sense, today’s appointment was almost a relief.

“Well, thanks for walking me up,” Emma told him as she grasped her keys.

Walsh gave her a smile that he must have thought was charming. It wasn’t.

“Come on now, Emma, you can’t let your fiance in for a few minutes?”

She pressed her hand firmly to his chest as he leaned in. “You’re not my fiance.”

“Of course I am. You just don’t remember.”

Emma narrowed her eyes at him. “Well, first of all, you heard the doctor today. Chances are, I won’t ever remember.”

“Chances is the word. You heard him, there’s always a chance. Especially if I jog your memory.”

He went to put his arms around her, and for the first time, Emma had to shove him off. It sent her heart beating erratically, and not in a pleasant way. It also sent anger flaring through her veins.

“God, do you even listen to me?” she shouted. She had tried so hard since she got back to New York to cooperate, hoping that following the lead of Walsh and Regina would bring her memories rushing back. Now she was sick of it.

“Actually I do,” Walsh snapped, “which is why I know you aren’t even trying to remember.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “You act like I’m doing this on purpose. And no, you don’t listen, because I wasn’t finished. Second, I don’t have a ring, Walsh.” Emma waved her hand in front of him.

“People don’t need a ring to get engaged.”

“I also listened to your message,” she bit out. “You proposed, but I never accepted. You may not need a ring, genius, but the girl has to actually say yes.”

“You didn’t say no.”

“Well, I am now.”

Walsh blinked. “Emma, seriously, this isn’t you.”

“No Walsh, it is me! Maybe this whole experience has changed me, maybe I’ll never fully remember who I was before, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have always been hesitant to marry you.” Emma pressed her fist, still clutching her keys, to her chest. “I know you and Regina keep treating me like a wounded puppy, but I do remember some things clearly. I was getting away to Maine because I was stressed and confused. I was unsure of so many things, including us.”

Walsh’s face fell, as if he were finally beginning to understand. “But I thought we were so good together.”

Emma was able to smile at him. She stepped closer, and laid a hand on his arm. “You were comfortable - safe. Being with you didn’t risk my heart because my feelings were on the surface. Your proposal brought all of that into focus.”

“So what you’re saying is, you were always going to say no.”

Emma nodded, truly feeling sorry for Walsh for the first time. “I’m so sorry. I don’t remember our first date or how we met, but I do remember that.”

Walsh nodded slowly, his shoulders slumping. He gave her a platonic hug, and Emma accepted it. Then he walked away from her, and when the elevator doors closed behind him, Emma sagged with relief against her door.

The phone in her jacket pocket vibrated, and she pulled it out to see text messages from her bandmates pop up one after another.

How did the appointment go? - Elsa

Did the doctor have good news? Are you getting your memories back? I’m dying with worry here! - Anna

Calling to check on you. And don’t take this the wrong way, but have you dumped Walsh yet? - Ruby

I wanna hear more about this hot vet you were snowed in with. And don’t tell me he wasn’t hot, I can read between the lines. - Ruby

Emma smiled as she scrolled through the messages. It was strange the way a brain injury worked. The moment she walked through her front door and saw her three best friends waiting for her, memories had flooded her. She didn’t remember anything but confusing feelings where Walsh was concerned, she couldn’t remember this supposed solo career Regina kept going on about, but she did remember these three amazing women. She couldn’t remember performing, but memories had returned of the times they spent together both on the road and before they hit it big. She also remembered the words to every single one of their songs. The doctor had explained to her that the brain was a complex organ. His theory was that she had retained her emotional memories, but not the details of her life.

Bizarre didn’t begin to cover it.

Emma locked the door behind her, toed off her shoes, and dropped her keys in the catch all by the door. She collapsed onto a couch that was too hard in a room that was too cold. The view of the city skyline outside her window seemed foreign. With a sigh, she moved to her bedroom, shooting off texts to her friends as she went. She slipped into a pair of comfortable pajamas, collapsed onto her bed, and grabbed the tv remote.

This was apparently her life, and she simply had no idea what to do with it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Checkmate!” Liam crowed with satisfaction, but his face fell when he looked across the chess board to find Killian staring absently at the chess pieces. “Little brother? I beat you. Again.”

Killian sighed and knocked over some of the pieces in frustration. “Sorry. I guess I’m just not in the mood tonight.”

Liam frowned. “This is still about Wendy, isn’t it?”

“Emma,” Killian corrected him as he ran a hand wearily down his face, “her name is actually Emma. Emma Swan.” His hand dropped to his lap, and he studied his brother warily. “And please spare me the I told you so.”

Liam leaned back, both hands lifted in the air in surrender. “I’m not going to say that, trust me. This is a situation where I hate being right.”

Killian arched a brow. “My brother? Hates being right? Who are you and what have you done to my real brother?”

“Haha, very funny. Seriously though, I liked her. I liked how happy you were when she was here. If the situation had been different -”

Killian cut him off. “But it wasn’t. She has a life, a career, a fiance somewhere else. God, I was such a fool.”

“No, you weren’t. You were generous in offering your home to her. I was wrong, Killian. You did the right thing. I can’t believe I was so callous towards her.”

Killian drummed his fingers on the table as he regarded Liam. “You never seem to realize what an ass you’re being to the women in my life until it’s too late.”

Liam leaned his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his fisted hands. “With Milah, you’re right. When you adopted Henry, I still gave her hell. I worried a child was just another novelty to her. But then she was such a wonderful mother, then you got Alice, and . . . .”

Liam trailed off with a long sigh. Killian’s brow furrowed in shock.

“I thought you didn’t soften towards her until she got sick. Why didn’t you say anything? Try to mend things with her?”

“You know how bloody stubborn I am. I’m sorry, Killian, I would do it all differently if I had the chance.”

“I know.” Killian could never stay angry at his brother for long. He loved him too much.

“Besides, who says it's too late with Wendy - I mean Emma. She may be missing you just as much as you’re missing her.”

Killian absentmindedly picked up a pawn and twirled it between his fingers. “Doubtful. She’s a bloody rock star, for God’s sake.”

“The kids miss her too, don’t they?” “Aye.”

“She said she’d keep in touch.”

“People always say that. Then they never do.”

“Give her time. None of this can be easy.”

Killian was about to counter that Emma had no reason to think of them now that her memories had most likely returned, but before he could, there was a knock at the door. He gave his brother a confused look. It was late, and the kids were already asleep. Who could possibly be knocking? He hurried to the door, looked through the keyhole, then swore under his breath to find the view blocked by greenery. Alice had made a wreath for the door, and he couldn’t see a damn thing past her handiwork. He wrenched the door open, expecting it to be a local farmer with a livestock emergency.

It wasn’t a farmer.

“Emma,” he breathed in awe.

She smiled, and it was like the sun came out.

“You have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you call me that.”

Killian chuckled as he scratched behind his ear. “Well, I’m a bit embarrassed that I didn’t

recognize you. Let’s just say it’s mostly Radio Disney around here. And something about K-Pop which I don’t really -”

“I was never engaged,” Emma blurted out.

“Oh?”

Emma twisted her hands nervously and shrugged. “He proposed, but I never accepted.” She trailed off, her gaze darting to her feet. “It felt important for you to know that.”

“There’s no need to explain,” he told her gently. “I’m just glad you’re getting your memories back.”

“I’m not,” she said, her gaze flying back to lock on his.

“What do you mean?”

She bit on her lower lip. “I mean, I don’t have my memories back. I remember bits and pieces, feelings mostly.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Look, there’s something I just gotta say, alright?”

Killian nodded. He’d been sort of speechless anyway since he opened the door.

She licked her lips nervously before plunging in. “The doctors say I might never get my memories back. Not all of them, anyway. But I’m okay with that because what little I remember either isn’t that great or it’s fantastic.” She winced as she closed her eyes for a second. “I’m not making any sense, am I?”

“Not yet,” he admitted, “but I’m still listening.”

She returned his smile with a wobbly one of her own. “Right. So, I remember that I was a foster kid. I must have been since I was a baby because that’s all I remember. I don’t remember any of the places I lived or who I lived with. All I remember is that I never had a home.”

His heart broke for her and the sheen of tears in her eyes, but he didn't interrupt.

“I remember I ran away all the time. I just figured that when you really have a home, when you leave, you just miss it. So my whole childhood, I just kept running waiting to feel that, but I never did. Then I found my band. And I got to keep running, on the road you know? But it was okay because my family was running with me. I think that’s why they’re the only people I remember. Except -”

She paused, and a look of fear flashed over her face. He took a step closer and took her hand. “Except?” he prompted.

“Except you. And the kids.” She winced again, shaking her head and laughing. “Not that I wouldn’t remember you, I mean I met you after. What I’m trying to say is . . . I miss you. When I left here, I missed it all so much. My band - the people in it - were home, but that was ending. And then I met you - and Alice and Henry. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s like my life got a reset that day you found me. I want to start time, right here. With you.”

Killian searched her face, scarcely daring to believe this was real. He reached up with a shaking hand and traced her jaw with his finger.

“What about your career?” he asked softly. The last thing he wanted was to take advantage of her while she was in a vulnerable place.

She smiled at him as a single tear slipped down her face. “I never wanted that career. I loved the band - the people, I mean. But not the performing or the limelight. I just want to play and write songs on my guitar. I can do that anywhere.”

He let hope expand his heart for the first time. He cupped her face with both hands, catching her tear with his thumb.

“Stay with me?” he asked her.

Emma’s eyes crinkled at the force of her smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

Killian bent slowly to press his lips to hers in a tender kiss. She sighed and tilted her head, allowing him more access. He threaded his fingers through her soft hair as his tongue lazily explored her mouth. Emma pulled back and smiled with such blinding happiness, he could hardly take it in. Then her eyes fluttered closed, and she captured his lips again. He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her close. He never wanted to let her go.

I'm an atom in a sea of nothing, looking for another to combine. Maybe we could be the start of something. Be together at the start of time.

Rolling Stone Magazine - Two Years Later:

. . . The Grammy’s this year brought one big surprise: Emma Swan Jones, former member of the female rock band Wendy Sewed it On, took home the Song of the Year award for penning Ruby Lucas’s number one smash hit “The Song in Your Heart.” The romantic power ballad was a slight departure for the normally angst-filled alternative rock Swan-Jones was known for when she was part of Wendy Sewed it On. Yet her new hyphenated last name along with her acceptance speech may give her fans a hint for the change. In her speech, she thanked “my true love, my husband Killian. Words can’t say enough how much you mean to me or how you’ve inspired me. I wouldn’t have this award without you, babe.” Judging by the baby bump she was proudly showing off beneath her Elie Saab couture gown on the red carpet, Emma Swan Jones is very happy with her man which may mean more romantic ballads from her in the future . . .

#cs ff #cs modern au #snowed in #start of time #daddy killian #amnesia #knightrook #angst #pining #for teamhook

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captain-emmajones · 4 years

Text

Love, Emma (6/7)

(Art by the wonderful @carpedzem <3)

Loosely based on Love, Rosie (2014).

Killian and Emma are best friends and neighbors. They’ve always been – until he leaves for the Navy when his brother dies. When he comes back, nine months later, summer has begun and childhood is ending. Emma can tell something is changed in him, but she doesn’t know what. Until she does. He’s fallen in love with someone else.

And then, suddenly, they’re kissing on her nineteenth birthday. When she asks him to forget their night out, and never talk about it again, Killian thinks she means to tell him she regrets the kiss they exchanged. Except she has no memory of it.

Killian and Emma will dance around each other, until their heads spin and their legs hurt, and everything becomes blurry and it has to stop – for both of their sake.

A huge thank you to @profdanglaisstuff who beta’d this and gave me her precious thoughts <3

Friends to Lovers - Mutual Pining - Angst - Fluff - 6000 words - ao3

Part 1 - MIRRORBALL, Part 2 - AUGUST , Part 3 - HOAX, Part 4 - PEACE, Part 5 - THIS IS ME TRYING, Part 7 - INVISIBLE STRING

Note: Everyone gives a lot of love to @carpedzem who drew this wonderful art for this fanfic :’))

Quick Summary: Last chapter ended on Neal finding Killian's love letter to Emma. This chapter opens on Emma, a week after Killian and Emma's kiss.

Reminder: Present time is Emma’s wedding to Neal, and that scene on the balcony during which Killian congratulates Emma on her wedding -- although he’s mostly dying inside. The words “I love you” slip out of his mouth, however he’s quick to add “as a friend” which leaves us with two very sad individuals who are both committing a grave mistake.

PART 6 - CARDIGAN

Six months before Emma’s wedding, a week after Emma and Killian’s kiss.

Emma tosses and turns in her bed. She does not want to glance at the clock sitting on her bedside table. It’s probably joyfully, painfully displaying a horrendous number set between 1am and 5am and Emma wants nothing to do with it.

There is not a spark of light in the room she shares with Neal, the heavy window shutters closed down.

Emma wishes there was some kind of light. Perhaps then the weight over her chest would feel less terrifying, would feel less like the terrible, dark blue waves of a tormented sea she watches swallow her alive and spit her back onto the sand.

She’s battered between the waves, back and forth, back and forth, skin rocking against water, until she manages to reach the surface and breathes in deeply.

But she’s only inhaling sea water and it fills her lungs and brings her to tears and it’s bitter, and it’s shit, and she cannot forget the taste of Killian’s lips.

Another turn, a grunt of anger and despair.

How dare he kiss her and let her leave him when he was in pain. How dare he.

It was inevitable, whispers another part of her, but that part she ignores diligently.

Nothing is inevitable. Especially cheating on her future husband. With her friend whose feet were barely out of the surgery block.

Well, she didn’t properly cheat if he was the one to kiss her…that would have been true, had she not furthered their kiss.

Had she not backed him into his chair and sucked his breath away and marked his scalp with her fingers and tugged on his hair and filled his entire being with her, and her only. It was long overdue, after all.

She turns, more aggressively this time, nearly knicks Neal out of the bed, her right foot whizzing past him.

She kissed him back because he was clearly seeking support and comfort and because a part of her will always love him, has always loved him and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Horseshit.

It is wrong. Utterly, completely, wrong.

Nobody deserves to be cheated on. Nobody. Period.

She’s just a piece of shit, now, is she?

She glances on the side. Neal is still laying on his back, peacefully snoring, one arm flung across his face. She nearly hates him for it. She totally hates him for it.

His chest raises up and down, comfortably, peacefully. What would Emma give for just an ounce of peace in her veins.

Her breath is coming out in short puffs.

It was inevitable, stammers once again her inner voice.

“NO.”

And the scream she thought only existed in her mind causes Neal to startle next to her, and this time she’s thankful it is complete darkness in their room, because he cannot see the flush on her cheeks.

She can make out the shadow of his head lifting in the dark, and she imagines his features groggy with sleep. “You okay, Emma?”

She turns back, grumbles. “Yeah, don’t worry. It’s just a nightmare.” And she definitely sounds like she’s blaming him for it.

A long, tortuous week flies by. Emma’s under-eye circles darken with each passing day, and she is alarmly pale when Graham asks her in a weary tone: “You’re sure everything’s okay, Emma?”

She nods and glances down at where Graham has been looking, and she realizes she’s been holding the files upside down.

Well.

“Shit. Yes. Sorry, Graham. I’ve been having a rough couple of days, is all.”

And then Graham does this thing where he leans into her space, with his big brown eyes, and this kindness in his smile, and he inquires again: “Everything okay with Neal?”

And Emma nods a bit too abruptly for it to be believable, and she knows Graham is smart enough to see it, but she nods harder, it’s the only movement her brain seems to know. “Neal? It’s never been better.” And a quick, lively chuckle to seal the deal.

And really had she laughed harder she would have choked on her fears.

(Her fears have blue eyes and are missing a limb now, and she does not dare to send him a text, to ask him “How are you?” because he must be feeling like shit, and in part it is because of her, she left him, but he had no right to kiss her like this and she had no right to kiss him back.)

She has David on the phone later this week.

“Hello, Emma. I’ve arrived in Portsmouth. I’ll be spending the week with him.”

She hates the feeling of guilt that circles her heart, even as she sighs her biggest sigh of relief.

“Thank you, David, it means the world. I would have come, you know, but I’m so busy with the wedding and the sheriff station and—”

“Sure thing, Emma,” he blurts out and Emma thinks he sounds so accusative, it nearly knocks her out. She is convinced she deserves it. “I’ll take care of him, don’t worry.” A few words more, and he hangs up.

For the first time in ages, Emma feels like Killian and she are on opposite teams, and David has chosen his.

She swallows a lump down her throat.

Emma caves in on Saturday night. Outside, the rain is pouring heavily against her windows. The wind is also howling, curling around the walls of the house and threatening to crush it under its strength.

Neal is out at Granny’s watching a soccer game with friends when Emma sits down on the hard wooden floor of their living room. Her legs are crossed and her heart is drumming in her ears, and she calls him. There’s a bottle of red wine in front of her, and it’s looking at her with a lot of judgement in its glassy eyes but Emma doesn’t care.

She cannot go on like this. She needs to know that he is alright, and that this was all a grave, stupid mistake, and she needs him to say something like “I’m fine, Emma, I’ll survive this” but also “I meant to do that for years” and then it would be her cue to nod under the ceiling light, tears in her smile and she’d say some stupid shit like “Oh god, I’ve been waiting for you to say that” and then she’d drop everything to fly back to him and they’d be happy together or some shit.

Ring, ring, ring.

That’s a lovely dream indeed.

Ring, ring, ring.

And just as Emma gets impatient, not to say she gets scared, a voice answers her. It’s a groggy, foggy voice, and it does not belong to Killian.

“Hello, what is it?” The voice echoes, chuckles, as music resonates behind it, and it is the voice of a woman.

Emma figures they must be in some kind of pub, just like Neal is.

“Is this Killian’s phone?” attempts Emma, fingers clutched onto the phone, and heart on her sleeves.

“Yup...” Another giggle. Emma decides she hates the voice. “But he is currently unavailable. Do you want me to give him a message?”

And then Emma hears his voice, emerging from a twirl of songs and other talks. “Why are you using my phone, Tink?”

Emma thinks Killian’s voice irrupts into her empty house just as a gust of wind rattles her shutters. She flinches. And for a minute, glances above her shoulder, afraid that he might appear behind her back.

But silence is her only companion. And this house is so impressively, distinctively silent.

Something clicks inside of Emma’s brain. Tink. She knows Tink. What’s her real name? Mary something. They went to high school together, and she had a disgustingly big crush on Killian, and, and –

“I dunno, some chick.”

And Emma barely has time to hear Killian’s “Which chick?” before she hangs up on a whim.

She heaves, hands trembling around the phone, and something grotesque disfigures her face.

She was worried about him and he’s been having the time of his life with this Tink, and, and – what was she expecting?

She stares at the floor as though she is able to distinguish the broken bits of her heart spilled there, and the bloody marks they leave, and it’s such a goddamn mess, and how could she allow herself to feel this way after all these years, after having been shown all the goddamn reasons why Killian Jones will never love her back a hundred fucking times.

Rose-Mary, of her surname Tink, tosses and turns in Killian’s bed. He is fast asleep next to her, one hand thrown across his face. He snores lightly.

Tink has this tingling desire deep within her, this desire to grab the phone he left on his nightstand and delete Emma Swan’s call from it.

“Give me the phone, Tink!”

Back in the bar, she was quite lucky to find out in the shape of his raised eyebrows that Killian Jones wasn’t actually serious, that he was seriously hammered and couldn’t have cared less for his phone if he had tried. As her only answer, she had simply locked her lips to his and pressed his phone’s home button to switch it off.

Because Tink knows Emma Swan.

Killian Jones was already in love with her when Tink asked him out, during their senior year. She cannot forget the look on his face, as she was standing in the middle of the hallway, risking her heart. Behind her, Emma Swan was leaning against a locker with Mary Margaret and Ruby, and Killian simply, positively wouldn’t look Tink in the eyes.

“I’m sorry, love,” he said, “but my affections lie elsewhere.” And Tink remembers thinking he surely didn’t have to sound like he escaped from one of Shakespeare’s plays, and she turned to discover the pretty blonde smiling at Killian, waving with mischief, and his arm around her shoulders as soon as he reached her.

Some things were truly unfair.

As luck would have it, Killian’s path crossed hers years ago – when he moved to Portsmouth to join the Navy whilst she began Nursing school. But even then, he didn’t seem interested, was dating an older woman.

And then, finally, two days ago, their paths crossed again in a bar. He is missing a hand now, but he is still the same handsome guy she crushed on in high school. Perched on a stool, he looked disheveled, desperate, nose in his rum glass, and he welcomed her into his warm, solid arms.

“Still in contact with Emma Swan?” she asked, and it wasn’t like she cared. She didn’t want more than he could offer. But still, she asked.

“Emma? Who’s Emma? I only see you.”

Although she knew that to be a lie, she still decided to kiss him back, knowing the instant Killian Jones heard Emma Swan’s name again, well then, he would find a very gentle, delicate way to make her go away.

And that’s fine. But if she can prevent it, well –

Tink stands up as silently as she can, and like a feather in the wind, grabs his phone. He casually gave her his pin number earlier during the night — change this bloody song Tink will you — and Tink deletes Emma’s call in the blink of an eye.

Satisfaction sparkles in her heart. No one will bother them anymore.

As Neal and Emma go on tasting wedding cakes, Emma thinks about how Killian never called her back. Not the morning after her conversation with Tink, not the night after, not the day after, he did not call. Period. It’s the only answer he is willing to give, and she accepts it.

He doesn’t care about her. Not like she cares, anyway.

“The chocolate one,” Emma mumbles, trying not to spit crumbs of cakes out of her mouth and failing, “it’s perfect.”

Delicacy remains a skill she has yet to learn.

But Neal doesn’t seem to mind when he chuckles and kisses her cheek. Emma grabs his face and doesn’t care that there are still chocolate chunks in her mouth and she kisses him, hard, to forget the taste of Killian Jones’ lips.

Killian stares at the picture of Emma and himself on his fridge. It’s been a month, stammers his heart. She will not call, now.

Tink is still sleeping in his bed. He needs to call things off with her as well. She’s too attached, he’ll break her heart. That’s one too many hearts to be responsible for.

He swallows stone, but he takes the picture off the fridge. It’s too painful to stare at what ifs.

A few minutes before Emma and Neal say “I do”.

Taking a picture off a fridge is simple enough. Not racing towards the town hall of Storybrooke to try, one last time, and stop Emma’s wedding, isn’t nearly as easily done.

Hope and denial are, after all, two very close kingdoms and both of them inhabit Killian’s heart.

At least he’s got that going for him. However, Mary Margaret and David – who are also running beside him – really have nothing going for them except for their foolishness.

How dare they show up in his home and tear him out of his cobweb of misery and self-pity. How bloody dare they.

“There’s no use arguing, I’m not going!” he yelled, and then Mary Margaret had this very dangerous smile, and before he knew it, his ass sat on a plane between the two of them and he was wearing his most expensive tie.

“And look sharp, Killian.”

Which is why, as Killian races down that street corner, and up that small hill by Granny’s, and then down again Main street, towards the town hall, Killian no longer expects Emma and Neal to come out of the building, holding hands, married.

But that’s exactly what happens.

They come out as a crowd of strangers surrounds them, and they look like the sun has set all of its rays of sunshine on them, they are shining, shining, much like the waves of fear down Killian’s belly because he is too late. Of course he is.

And he wants to turn around and hit David in the face.

But what’s the use of fighting anymore? The war is lost. Lay your weapons down. Bring the soldiers home.

And in that moment, as the sun seems to align with some divine power and its golden beams shine on Emma’s eyes, glittering green lakes, she gazes at him and he holds his breath. In spite of everything, he still thinks she is the most beautiful woman on earth. He smiles, as his heart shatters to the ground, as Neal kisses her open mouth.

What is there else to do but smile?

“Fuck,” exclaims Mary Margaret next to him, and Killian sure does nod.

“Aye. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Present day – Neal and Emma’s wedding reception.

Neal watches as Emma shuts the large French windows that lead to the balcony behind her. He puts down his glass of champagne on the white table in front of him. The bubbles fizz inside, as if to mock him.

For there’s not the shadow of a smile on his wife’s face. In fact, she looks utterly devastated. Her complexion is pale, her cheeks have lost all the colors they gathered during their dances, and there is not one sparkle of happiness left in her green eyes.

A frown. Why does his wife look devastated at their wedding?

He sees her glance down, seemingly lost, and she does this thing when she doesn’t know where to put her hands, so she folds them in front of her. And she plays with the bracelet around her wrist, twists the little charms, twists, twists his heart.

And then he realizes. She’s waiting. But for what? Or rather, for whom?

He wishes the answer didn’t come quite as soon, not quite as sharply, he wishes the room did not start spinning as Killian Jones leaves the balcony in his turn – devilishly handsome as he’d say and looking entirely like a mess.

What a picture. They both look devastated. They look like the bride and groom, him in his white shirt and her in her white dress. Two bleeding snowflakes under a golden chandelier.

Neal watches as Emma risks a glance back, but Killian doesn’t look up, only stares at the hard wooden floor, Neal watches as she presses her lips together and straightens her back, but still glances back at him.

Always back at him. Of course.

And that’s when one realization hits Neal quite hard.

His wife… His wife is in love with someone else. He just married someone who is irrevocably and for all of eternity in love with someone else.

Why did he do this to himself? For the longest of times, Neal thought it didn’t matter that Emma’s gaze was filled with green, shimmering clouds of pain whenever Killian Jones’ name was mentioned in a conversation, he really thought it didn’t matter that her cheeks would always flush whenever she received a text from him, because he was the one kissing her lips and sleeping between her sheets.

He was such a fool.

He married a woman in love with someone else.

Such a fool.

Neal grabs his glass of champagne again, downs it in a few angry mouthfuls, and gathers courage and legs to stand and stride towards his wife.

Emma might be in love with Killian, but she loves him too, surely she does, or she wouldn’t have agreed to this marriage, right?

And there is something very scary vibrating in his chest, fear, a green and viscous fear, he’s losing her, she’s slipping between her fingers…

“Neal,” Emma’s voice is very soft as it greets him, but her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

How dare she, how dare she be in love with Killian, when Neal gave up everything for her, when he…

From the corner of his eye, Neal can see Killian lean against the wall. He is looking at them. Perfect. Now watch, you little fucker.

“Hello, baby,” two words, and Neal dips Emma and savagely presses his lips onto hers.

A burst of applause rattles the crowd.

Neal tries his best to muffle the voice inside his head that sneers that the only thing their guests are cheering at, is the end of their love.

“I’m going back to our room, I’m really tired” mumbles Emma over her empty mojito glass.

The sea whispers behind her back. Neal doesn’t look up from his piña colada.

On the terrace of this luxurious hotel by the French Riviera, Neal and Emma are sitting and everything sucks.

It is the third day of their honeymoon, and for Neal, it is the last straw. There is no way in hell he can keep up this charade. They both deserve better than this.

She’s been looking miserable since they arrived here – it isn’t for a lack of trying to conceal it. Actually, no, it’s worse than that. She’s been looking miserable since Killian Jones left their wedding without a look back at her. Should have seen her face, Eurydice left by Orpheus in the depths of hell.

It’s killing him to see her like this, to know there’s nothing he can do to make things better. Purely and simply because, as much as he’s tried to, Neal Cassidy will never replace Killian Jones in Emma Swan’s heart.

And as she bends towards him to give him a quick peck on the lips, a very vicious sentence tickles his tongue and he lets it out without a second thought.

“Bet you looked more eager to kiss Killian.”

It is a dick move, yes, but after all he isn’t the one who cheated on her, and Neal thinks she deserves a little karma.

The look she darts on him then would have probably killed him, had there not been empty glasses standing between the two of them to shield him.

“What the hell are you talking about?” she spits out in a sharp, defensive tone.

Neal is surprised she tries to deny it all.

“Your lover sent you a letter,” he hisses back.

Satisfaction sparkles in his heart at the sight of her face turning crimson under the moonlight.

He watches as she angrily gulps a last mouthful of rum, watches as her knuckles whiten around her glass and her jaw clenches. “Who are you talking about?”

“Who the hell do you think I’m talking about?”

And then the god forsaken, sacrilegious name. “...Killian sent me a letter?”

And from guilt to anger, there is only one, treacherous step. And she seems eager to jump it.

“Oh yeah, he did. Said it all about your kiss and loving you, and I nearly vomited…”

And then it is really upsetting because he wants to be mad but her face does that thing where it just freezes, mouth open wide and eyes even wider, and it would have been funny had he not been putting an end to their short-lived marriage.

“He…he loves me?”

She cannot possibly not know it. She can’t be that oblivious to reality.

“I’m telling you I know you cheated on me and that’s your only reaction?” A roll of eyes, his voice coming out shriller, to mock her, mock her pain, because he wants to hurt her like she hurt him. “ “He loves me?” Of course he loves you, Emma!” he blurts out, because the entire world knows it except for her, apparently.

He can’t have married someone as oblivious.

Well, you did marry her knowing she was in love with someone else.

And she stands up, cheeks hot and burning and red, and she isn’t making any sense anymore. “What the hell are you talking about? Killian doesn’t love me, he never has.”

And seeing her wrath, the way her body trembles and shakes, he knows she is truly convinced Killian Jones isn’t in love with her.

But how…

“You really don’t know, do you?”

“Where is that letter?”

“I got rid of it, of course!”

“Then you have no proof! How convenient.”

He wants to stop her then, to yell “Hey YOU cheated on me,” but he can tell that in her grand order of things, her cheating on him has nothing on Killian Jones possibly loving her.

And then a small, mad chuckle jolts out of her mouth. “Killian would never write a letter. You made that up.”

“But how would I know about the kiss?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care, and I, I—” A turn, and then she is gone, disappearing in a tornado of anger and guilt and sand.

Neal doesn’t try to hold her back, remains very still on his seat, lets her go, much like he should have years ago. He glances down at the empty drink between his fingers.

The waves crash against the sand, whoosh, whoosh, and Neal feels terribly lonely.

But at peace.

But mostly lonely.

Damnit, she is stubborn, and she is lucky he’s in love with her. That he’ll always be, somehow, even if he is a fucking idiot who probably blew his only chance at love when he stole those watches.

Later that night, Neal finds her sitting on their king side bed and its perfectly white blankets, hands folded in front of her like he knows them to, shoulders down and head bent towards the floor, and Neal desperately wants to hug her.

There is not an ounce of anger left in his body. Only sadness.

There’s not a flicker of light in their room as he sits down by her side. The rustle of the waves can be heard from their room. It’s the only reason why he chose it. He knows she loves that sound.

(He doesn’t know she loves it because of him, but that’s fine.)

“Hey…” he begins softly, and his shoulder gently bumps against hers. “You okay?”

She’s twirling her wedding ring around her finger. Of course she is. She always has been. And that should have been a clue, too.

“Are you being sincere right now?” she asks, and her voice is nothing like the voice he’s grown to love.

Emma’s voice has always been soft, but vibrating with a very triumphant confidence as well.

“What do you mean?” he asks, because precisely he doesn’t know what she means.

He’s never understood her like Killian can, in spite of how much he loves her. And while he spent most of the beginning of his adulthood hating him for it, he realizes now it is simply a battle he cannot win.

She lifts her face up, and he makes out her shimmering eyes in the darkness.

“I cheated on you. Aren’t you mad?”

A gigantic sigh shakes his shoulders as these past six months flash before his eyes.

“I was angry, Emma. But it’s been too long, I’m not anymore.”

“Too long?”

Oh, right, that. She’ll hate him, but well, she deserves the truth. He winces, fidgets with the collar of his shirt.

“I might have been hiding this letter from you for a good six months now…” he whispers, and forces a smile on his face as an apology.

“You what?”

She doesn’t sound nearly as angry as he expected her to. In fact, she doesn’t sound angry at all. She sounds defeated, hopeless.

“I was so scared that if I confronted you, you would just run and never marry me, and I thought I could hold on to you by not telling you…But I was wrong. There was no holding on to you.”

And something terrible rattles her body then, as she cups her face and disappears even more in a small, scared puddle over the bed.

“Fuck. I’m sorry Neal. I ruined everything.”

And he shakes his head then, grabs one of her hands. “There’s no need to apologize, Emma. We both fucked up. I should have let you go a long time ago.”

His throat is tight, but he knows this is the right thing to do.

“What are we going to do now?” she whispers, just as one of his arms comes to wrap around her shoulders.

She muffles a sigh in the crook of his neck while he gently brushes her hair.

“I don’t know. Is there some kind of three weeks wedding notice?”

She chuckles then, but he can clearly imagine the tears rolling down her cheeks as she sniffles into his neck.

“You’re an idiot.”

“I am.”

Silence. By then, it’s somehow raining in the room and his shirt is soaked.

“I’ll always love you. You know that, right, Emma?”

She nods in the darkness, her hand clutching onto his shoulder, and she seems to him a firefly caught between a child’s chubby hands.

“I know, Neal.”

“Good.”

Moving out of this house is one of the weirdest things Emma has ever had to do.

“Emma, you’re not coming?” calls David’s voice, and Emma looks up to see his head peering from the driver’s seat of his old, orange truck.

Safely packing all of the pieces of furniture was a collective effort. Mary Margaret, Ingrid and Ruby also came to help, and Emma is quite thankful. It’s such a blinding, sunny day of August, and if not for the fresh breeze that swirls between the tree branches, it would be unbreathable.

Emma simply shakes her head. “No, don’t worry. I’ll join you guys later at Granny’s.”

Her right foot nearly knocks out the small cardboard box at her feet, sending a loop down her stomach.

This one she’ll carry herself.

Neal and Emma agreed to sell the house and the furniture, and Neal – well Neal decided to move to Boston, and Emma cannot quite blame him.

This last month has been…weird, on so many levels, and Neal wasn’t the weirdest thing about it.

“Alright. Call us if you need anything.”

As David drives away, Emma stares back at the house. Her feet seem buried into the doormat, the door still open wide, and her fingers clutch onto the keys.

It is a bittersweet sight, those empty walls.

She thinks life has a funny way of coming around. She thinks she thought she’d have a family there, with Neal, she thinks she thought this was what she wanted, what she could bear to have and risk losing.

She’s glad that Neal showed himself braver than she ever could. That he refused to settle, for both of their sakes.

She inhales deeply.

Exhales.

And lets it go. All of it.

Click, she locks the door, and turns her back on her past.

A summer breeze greets her face, swirls around her legs and tangles her hair, and she closes her eyes into the warm embrace. It carries childhood smells, this smell of burnt wood, and Rocky Road ice-cream, and Killian’s cologne.

“Heard you needed help moving out?” Her eyes snap open. Her heart skips a beat.

It’s August in Storybrooke, Maine, and anything is possible again.

The wind carries the first fallen leaves to her feet and his scent to her heart. Something mystical splits her face as she takes a step towards him. She nearly trips on the cardboard box at her feet, again, grunts and picks it up in a blink, and she hears it – his laughter in the wind.

As she looks up, a flower blooms in her chest, carries blood to her heart and her face with its roots, and her lungs are soon filled to the brim with petals.

“Yeah.” A quivering whisper, it is hard to breathe when the sun drops golden and blue beams into his eyes. “Thank you, Killian.”

And in a few strides he imprisons the cardboard box she held against her chest, the one containing memories of her childhood, and his eyes are so warm on her face that he steals her breath away.

“Any baggage left?” he asks, and it is a hoarse whisper as well.

She swallows hard.

She shivers beside him. She’s a fallen leaf herself, caught in a whirlwind. Her eyes are open wide and she feels completely swallowed by his gaze but it is a wonderful kind of fear.

“Not at all.”

And he smiles then, and it is one of the most gentle smiles she’s seen on his face, and at last, he is Killian and she is Emma.

“Good.”

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@yasbio2015 @bubblegum1425 @daenerysmyhsa @dancingnancyy @elizabeethan @farewell-courgette @beca0912 @stina-g @tenaciouskittynightmare @noensnaringnet @klynn-stormz @sekretny13 @tiganasummertree @vvbooklady1256 @brustudyblog @peggyyswan @thisonesatellite @ohmightydevviepuu @courtorderedcake @snowbellewells @kingofmyheart14 @teamhook @mariakov81 @folkloreismylullaby @officerrogers

#cs ff #cs fanfics #captain swan #my stuff #love emma #thank you guys again for your support <3

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barnesandrogersfanfics · 4 years

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Rose Coloured Glasses - Part 7

A/N- Thank you to all of you that are showing this Fic love! It means the world to me! ILY 💕

**From here on out expect spoilers from Defending Jacob**

I found it hard to sleep last night, my mind just wouldn't switch off. The thought that there was someone out there that killed a kid..... was this the start of something bigger or just someone with a grudge against Ben Rifkin?

God i wish Frank was here... i really didn't want to be home alone right now. But I hadn't heard from him since i said that i couldn't make drinks, i had sent a few texts but got no reply to any of them. Then my mind would wander to Andy, wondering how he was coping with everything, id seen a different side to him yesterday, a vulnerable side.

I gave up trying to sleep around 5am, had a shower and dressed for work. I decided to stop at the coffee shop on the way to the office today, so left a little earlier than usual. As i was walking towards the coffee shop i saw Frank walk out with his arm around a little blonde's waist nuzzling her neck and smiling, that same panty dropping smile he gave me. After the initial shock i shook my head and scoffed.... how could i have been so stupid to think he meant the shit he said?? Andy was right, Frank was a fuckboy.

When Frank looked up and saw me he looked a bit like a deer in the headlights.

"Morning" i said as i casually as i carried on walking into the coffee shop. It was far too early to deal with shit like that.

I ordered my coffee and something for Andy then grabbed a couple Cinnamon Rolls. As i waited for my coffee's i was approached by Neal Logiudice, he worked for the DA, Andy's protege from what i heard, i hadnt really had much dealings with him to be honest.

"Hi" he said "your Y/N right? Andy's new assistant?"

"Thats right"

"Im Neal Logiudice, i work at the DA's office"

"Yeah i've seen you around" i nodded.

"Its awful about that kid isnt it?"

"The worst, i cant even imagine what his parents must be going through"

"Me either. Im actually surprised Andy isn't doing more you know?"

"No, i dont know!..... what more do you want him to do?? Andy has done everything he can in this case...."

"You see i dont think he has, i think his too close to this one to see clearly"

"Well your wrong Neal, Andy is doing everything he possibly can..... dont try and use this tragedy to further your own position!" I snapped feeling my blood boil at his shitty accusations.

"Two coffee's for Y/N" was called and i turned to go grab them without another word to Neal.

When i got to work i headed straight to Andy's office to give him his coffee and pastry.

"Knock, knock" i said with a smile holding up the coffee's, Andy was sat at his desk looking over a file.

"Hey, come on in" he leant back in the chair and gave me a smile.

"I brought you the good coffee and a Cinnamon Roll" i placed them on his desk in front of him and sat in the chair opposite.

"You angel!"

"I was up early so i had time to stop" i shrugged taking a sip of my drink.

"You okay?"

"Im fine, just..... it doesn't matter" i scoffed shaking my head as i thought about seeing Frank with the blonde and the weird encounter with Neal.

"You know you can talk to me"

"Yeah i know" i nodded quickly "just been a weird morning...."

"Already? Damn that doesn't sound good" he smiled pulling out the cinnamon roll and taking a bite.

"Actually, there is something i feel like i should mention, it just seemed odd....."

"Okay...."

"When i was getting the coffee Neal came over to me"

"Logiudice?"

"Yeah..... he started saying how he thinks you should be doing more on the case, that your too close to see clearly"

"Thats bullshit! I barely even know the Rifkins!" Andy said shocked at what i was telling him.

"I know that, i told him you were doing everything you could. I also may have told him not to use this tragedy to further his own career before walking out" i admitted nervously "i'm sorry.... i just got so pissed when he started talking about you like that"

"Why are you sorry? I would've said a lot worse than that"

"It was unprofessional of me...."

"Neal was the unprofessional one, I wouldn't worry too much about him"

"Okay, i just thought id give you a heads up.... i dont know if his planning to try and get you pushed from the case"

"Probably, sounds like something he would do, his a little shit".

"Creep more like. Anyway, you all set for the interviews at the school? You need me to do anything?"

"We're all good, i'm meeting Duffy at the school at 9 and we'll probably be there all day.... if you can just keep on top of things here for now and i'll call if i need anything?"

"Sounds good"

A knock on the door made us both turn in our seats to see who it was.

"Andy, Lynne's asking to see you" Lynne's assistant Abby said quickly before rushing off on her way.

"Great, i better go. I'll catch up with you later, thanks for breakfast" he winked on his way out.

It was about 20 minutes later when Andy came marching out of Lynnes office, he stopped at my desk when he reached me.

"You were right about Neal, little prick!"

"Oh god, what happened?"

"He went to Lynne and offered to take over the case, he apparently has concerns about the appearance of conflict! which Lynne agree's with!" Andy was trying to keep calm but i could tell how much this was pissing him off.

"He says i'm dragging my feet with the case..... i cant help it if its going slow! We have no evidence except for a partial print!" He sat on the edge of my desk and rubbed his hands over his face "im not just going to indict someone just to make it look good"

"Of course not!"

"He wanted to know why we hadn't already started to talk to the kids at the school.... half the parents there are lawyers, he knows that. We had to do things right.... every single detail had to be negotiated before we could even attempt to talk to the kids"

"So are they taking you off the case??"

"Not yet, Lynne accepted my argument for staying on. For now anyway."

"Thank god!"

"I gotta go meet Duffy....." he sighed as he checked his watch.

"Okay, good luck, i hope you find something that helps. Call me if you need anything?"

"Sure" he nodded giving me a tight lipped smile "thanks for the heads up about Neal"

"Of course, we've gotta stick together right?"

"Right" he smiled giving my hand a quick squeeze, a minute later he was pulling on his coat and heading to the elevators.

Frank: Hey, can we talk?

Y/N: Im working

Frank: Y/N please?

Y/N: I dont have time right now! Haven't you heard whats going on??

Frank: U mean the kid in the woods?

Y/N: Yeah! things are crazy here.

Frank: I bet. Maybe i can come by tonight? I can explain....

Y/N: There's no point, its obvious what was going on. It was all just casual fun with us anyway right? we weren't exclusive or anything.

Y/N: I think its best we don't see each other for a while

Frank: seriously??

Y/N: I gotta get back to work. Take care Frank.

Everything taglist: @jesseswartzwelder @dumblani @barnesandrogersworld @patzammit

Rose Coloured Glasses taglist: @readermia @princess-evans-addict @jennmurawski13 @matsumama @ex-bloodjunkie @kaithezaftig

#sebastian stan #chris evans #eb!frank #eb!frank x reader #andy barber #andy barber x reader #defending jacob #endings beginnings #reader insert #rose coloured glasses

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stahlop · 4 years

Text

Once Upon a Time 3x06 “Ariel” Review

Reviews 1x01 1x02 1x03 1x04 1x05 1x06 1x07 1x08 1x09 1x10 1x11 1x12 1x13 1x14 1x15 1x16 1x17 1x18 1x19 1x20 1x21 1x22 2x01 2x02 2x03 2x04 2x05 2x06 2x07 2x08 2x09 2x10 2x11 2x12 2x13 2x14 2x15 2x16 2x17 2x18 2x19 2x20 2x21 2x22 3x01 3x02 3x03 3x04 3x05

So secrets is what this episode is all about. It seems like it should have more to do with the Little Mermaid who is introduced, but it’s not. And by the end of this episode everyone is pretty much mad or upset at everyone else, because that is what happens when you keep secrets. But everything is out in the open, so hopefully we can start moving past those secrets and start healing.

Summary: In the Enchanted Forest, Snow meets a little mermaid named Ariel, who Snow helps to win over the prince she’s in love with. In Neverland secrets are revealed when Emma, Hook, Mary Margaret, and David go to rescue Neal from the Echo Caves.

Opening: Ariel on a rock

New Characters:

Ariel/Eric: We meet Ariel when she saves Snow from drowning after she jumps into the sea to escape the Evil Queen’s guards. After she brings Snow to shore, they bond over the craziness of love. Ariel is in love with a human prince that she rescued from a shipwreck. She shows Snow an invite to a ball that is happening that night, and then turns her tail into legs, courtesy of the Sea Goddess Ursula who allows mermaids to have legs on land during the highest tide once a year. Ariel asks Snow to keep the fact that she’s a mermaid secret from Eric so that he can fall for her first. At the ball Eric is immediately smitten with Ariel and they share a dance (after Ariel trips over her heels walking over to him). Eric immediately recognizes her as the woman who saved him, but Ariel denies it. Eric backtracks and says that Ursula saved him and that she gave him a vision of his future with Ariel. If Ariel wasn’t already completely infatuated with him, I’d think she’d be creeped out by that. But she’s not. She tells Eric she’s in his kingdom because she wants to see the world. Eric wants to see the world too, he’s leaving on a grand expedition in the morning. Ariel seems disappointed in this, which is weird because she’ll be a mermaid, so it won’t even matter. But then, Eric invites the girl he just met, but believes she’s a vision of his future, with him on his travels. Thanks to Ariel’s shocked expression, Eric thinks he may have misread the situation. Ariel is confused because she wants to go with him, but she can’t because she’s a mermaid. Eric tells her he’ll wait for her the next day, and if she shows up he’ll be overjoyed, and if not he’ll be heartbroken, but understand. Ariel goes to talk to Snow. She’s upset because she can’t let Eric give up his dream to be with her. I’m confused. How can Ariel do anything with Eric being a mermaid? How would he give up his dream to be with her? She should just tell him she’s a mermaid and swim alongside his boat to all the places he’s going to. Win-win for everyone. Snow tells her she’s afraid of what his choice might be if he has to choose between her and his travels. Again, why does he have to choose? Snow tells Ariel to be honest and lay everything out for Eric. Ariel decides she needs to go and think by the water. She asks Ursula for guidance, and gets it from the Evil Queen pretending to be the Sea Goddess Ursula. Ariel is in complete shock. The Evil Queen convinces Ariel that telling Eric the truth will only make him reject her. The Evil Queen tells Ariel she can keep her legs and never have to tell Eric the truth. Ariel jumps at this. Ariel finds Snow and tells her she has a way for them both to be happy. For her to be with Eric and for Snow to escape the Evil Queen. She clamps a bracelet on Snow which turns her into a mermaid and allows Ariel to keep her legs (not cool, Ariel, you need permission before you do those kinds of things to people). Snow is freaking out, especially because Ariel tells her Ursula gave her the bracelet. The Evil Queen decides to make her entrance then, and Ariel feels very betrayed that the Evil Queen lied to her. She’s confused and wants to help Snow, but both Snow and the Evil Queen convince her to go be with Eric instead, so she leaves. But it’s just a ruse! Ariel stabs the Evil Queen with the fork she pilfered earlier in the neck, takes the bracelet off of Snow, and they swim away. Once they reach safety, Snow tells Ariel to go back and find Eric before he leaves. Eric is brooding forlornly on his balcony waiting for Ariel to arrive. It looks like it’s going to be a happy ending for these two when Ariel surfaces, but the Evil Queen steals Ariel’s voice so she can’t call out to Eric. The Evil Queen mocks Ariel and she swims off crying.

We don’t see Ariel in Neverland until almost the end of the episode. Regina calls her through a shell and gives her back her voice so she can retrieve something for them from Storybrooke to trap Pan. She does not want to help Regina, but Regina tells her that she can give her legs (without giving her tail to someone else), and that she’ll find Eric where she’s sending her. This, of course, intrigues her, and she agrees to help.

Character Observations:

Snow/Mary Margaret: Snow really annoyed me in this episode. She seemed wildly out of character. From what we’ve seen in previous episodes, Snow was hardened by having been on the run for many years at this point. She’s obviously met Charming by the way she speaks of love with Ariel, but hasn’t yet been forcefully separated from him by King George. I don’t know if she’s supposed to be so giddy in new found love or what, but she’s acting like young Snow, and not the bandit thief she is supposed to be at this point. Snow is running from the Evil Queen’s guards and jumps into the sea to escape them. She is rescued by Ariel. Snow seems rather in awe when Ariel reveals she’s a mermaid. She’s confused when Ariel tells her she’s in love with a human prince, and she’s completely flabbergasted when Ariel turns her tail into legs. I get this is probably the first time she’s met a mermaid, but she’s acting like how a young child would act when meeting a mermaid, not a somewhat jaded woman who has only just met ‘the one’. Anyway, Snow decides since Ariel saved her life she’s going to go with her to the ball and help her out. Ariel wants Snow to keep the fact that she’s a mermaid a secret from Eric, which Snow isn’t too happy about, but she goes along with it for now. At the ball, she literally pushes Ariel to dance with Eric. Ariel is upset because she thinks she has to have Eric choose between her and traveling the world, his dream, but Snow thinks she can be his new dream. Snow thinks that Ariel is afraid, if given the choice, that Eric won’t pick her. And I still don’t understand this argument because Ariel is a mermaid and can’t go with him, and he can’t join her in the sea, so why does he have to choose anything? Snow tells Ariel to be honest with Eric so he can have all the facts when he makes his choice. And she tells her that love is worth the risk, and at least she’ll know she’s tried. If I’ve placed this right on the timeline, then Snow and Charming have only been exchanging letters at this point, so she hasn’t risked anything yet. Unless she just means the adventure they went on. Ariel needs to think things over. Snow is on the docks when Ariel finds her with amazing news on how she can stay human and how Snow can escape the Evil Queen. Snow wonders how that’s possible (with seriously the worst line reading I’ve ever heard; she sounds like a middle schooler saying that line on stage, and as a former middle school drama teacher I can confirm that is exactly what they sound like), and Ariel shows her the bracelet, before putting it on Snow and turning her into a mermaid, which Snow is not happy about. Snow sounds like she’s about to cry (once again in a child-like way). Ariel tells her that Ursula gave her the bracelet and that Snow can now have a wonderful life under the sea away from the Evil Queen. All Snow gets from that is that Ursula, the supposedly mythical Sea Goddess gave Ariel the bracelet. Snow is getting a little hysterical that Ariel is getting presents from a not real person, but that’s when the Evil Queen appears and sheds the ruse of pretending to be Ursula. Snow informs Ariel that it’s the Evil Queen. Considering Snow jumped into the sea to escape the Evil Queen’s guards, she doesn’t look that frightened at all of what the Evil Queen might do to her. She even helps convince Ariel to leave and pursue Eric. While the Evil Queen is belittling Ariel, Snow just sits there and watches. She doesn’t even try to escape (I know she’s having trouble with her tail, but she is literally just sitting there watching the conversation). Snow tells Ariel she’s tired of running and to just leave her (what?), and to go find happiness with Eric, and why isn’t the Evil Queen tearing out Snow’s heart right now? Why is she just letting her sit there and tell Ariel what she should do? And when Ariel does go, Snow is just sitting there like, ‘oh, well.’ This is not the feisty Snow we’ve come to know and love. I don’t even know who this Snow is. And then the Evil Queen starts choking her and Snow seems surprised. Surprised! Why is she surprised that the Evil Queen is trying to kill her? Maybe she expected her to take her heart instead. I don’t know. Luckily, Ariel saves her and they swim off in the sea in the slowest swim getaway I’ve ever seen. They make it to safety and Snow tells Ariel to go after Eric.

Mary Margaret also doesn’t like keeping secrets. Hook comes to the Charmings to tell them about Neal being alive and on the island. They’re both hesitant, but Mary Margaret’s tracker skills come in handy and she notices signs that someone has been at the camp. She automatically wants to tell Emma, but David and Hook want some more proof before telling Emma. Mary Margaret remarks that secrets seem to always keep us from the people we care about. Is she speaking from experience? Is she referring to some of the evil things Regina and Cora have done? I don’t understand what this is in reference to as Mary Margaret always seems to tell the truth (except when she was dating a ‘married’ David). Of course, when Emma asks where David and Hook are going, they can’t even agree on a simple cover story, so Mary Margaret blurts out that according to Pan, Neal is alive. Emma is, of course, skeptical, but Mary Margaret tells her that just because it’s too good to be true, doesn’t mean it is (I don’t think that’s what Emma is worried about, learn to read your daughter Mary Margaret). And then she brings out the big guns, telling Emma she owes it to Henry to find out if his father is still alive. Sigh. While following the drag marks, Emma tells Mary Margaret that she kissed Hook and Mary Margaret seems frazzled about it. Mary Margaret thinks Emma is telling her this because of the fact that Neal may be alive. She tells Emma to open herself up to the hope that Neal is alive and Emma wants to know why she should risk that. Mary Margaret tells her she deserves a happy ending. Well, it’s not with Neal. Again, learn to read your daughter. Emma’s obviously distressed by this and Mary Margaret is not getting this at all. She thinks that Emma doesn’t want to be happy. Of course, not knowing about how Neal put her in jail isn’t helping in Mary Margaret’s Neal love. Mary Margaret tracks the drag marks to the Echo Caves. Hook tells them they’ll have to reveal secrets to get to and rescue Neal. Mary Margaret actually looks a little scared at this revelation. They see that Neal is inside the Echo Caves, but they can’t reach him. Hook starts them off with his secret and a bridge starts forming. Mary Margaret goes next and reveals that she wants to have another baby. This is a secret because she doesn’t want to hurt Emma by essentially replacing her, but she feels cheated out of getting to experience motherhood. Of course, this won’t happen because of David’s secret that he can’t leave the island due to what happened in Good Form. Mary Margaret is pissed that David kept the Dreamshade poisoning a secret from her. That secret is enough for Emma to get across and rescue Neal. After they leave the cave, David tries to apologize to Mary Margaret, but she is not having it. And she has every right to be mad, because he lied and he dashed her dreams in one second when he revealed the truth.

The Evil Queen/Regina: Once again she is spying on Snow through a magic mirror. At least there’s another mirror for her to be looking through this time. She catches her talking to Ariel and her guard identifies Ariel as the woman who rescued Snow due to her unmistakable red hair (he also thought she had a tail, but he might have been mistaken). The Evil Queen is mad because he let her get away because he thought Snow was dead, so she kills him instead. The Evil Queen comes up with a new idea, which is apparently imitating a long thought dead Sea Goddess, complete with Caribbean accent. Ariel is gullible enough to believe that this is truly Ursula, or maybe just desperate enough. And I’m really wondering what the Evil Queen is doing with her arms, because it looks like she’s swimming even though she’s on top of the water and it’s really weird. After rolling through some Little Mermaid references, Ariel says she needs to tell Eric the truth, but the Evil Queen disagrees. She tells Ariel that Eric will never accept her as a mermaid, but instead offers her a gift to let her live as a human. After Ariel turns Snow into a mermaid, the Evil Queen appears and reveals that she tricked Ariel. She is reveling in the fact that she finally has trapped Snow and mocks Ariel until she finally leaves to go find her true love. She starts choking Snow instead of just ripping out her heart and crushing it. Unfortunately, Ariel comes back and stabs her with a fork and she and Snow escape. Now she’s really pissed, so when Ariel comes back for Eric, the Evil Queen takes her voice as punishment and leaves a heartbroken Ariel under the sea. But then, she’s confronted by the real Ursula through her magic mirror for pretending to be her, leaving the Evil Queen just a little bit frightened.

Regina is trying to teach Emma magic by using her anger. I think that works for Dark Magic, but for Emma’s Light Magic, I think she needs something different. But she does manage to light the fire on accident by yelling at Regina. And Regina is all smug about it. After they find out Neal might be alive, Regina leaves the group to go find Henry on her own. She won’t be distracted by whatever game Pan is playing. And she doesn’t like that Emma is going to go after Neal rather than their son. She comes across Gold with Belle and starts choking her. She’s pissed that Gold is falling for Pan’s games as well. Gold tries to stop her, but eventually Belle turns into Pan’s Shadow. Now Regina is raving mad at Gold for falling for Pan’s trap. She tells Gold that she needs him to get Henry back. He tells her the only way for him to stop Pan is to die himself. Regina tells him she’s the only one who gets to kill him. Gold is insistent, so Regina brings up that maybe they can find another solution that doesn’t require killing him. Regina starts talking out what they might be able to do and Gold realizes he has something in his shop in Storybrooke that could work. Regina rightly asks him why he didn’t bring this device in the first place, but Gold tells her he was planning on dying so it didn’t matter. Regina laughs at him because she doesn’t believe that would have ever happened. She talks about his survival instincts as well and how he would never kill himself. Gold agrees. Regina says they need to get back to Storybrooke to get the item and bring it back to Neverland. Gold says they can’t just cross realms, but Regina knows a way. They go to the water and Regina calls for someone through a shell. Gold asks if she’s going to call a giant squid, but instead she calls Ariel. Regina says Ariel is going to help them and Regina realizes that Ariel still can’t speak and gives her back her voice. Ariel doesn’t want to help, but Regina tells her she can give her legs and the place she’s sending her to is where Eric is.

Emma: Regina is teaching her how to control her magic, but she doesn’t want to go dark doing it. Regina riles her up until she gets mad enough to start a fire. Emma is slightly impressed with herself. Emma notices the men about to leave camp and asks where they’re going. Mary Margaret can’t lie and tells her Neal is alive. At first she doesn’t believe it, but she realizes that it may be the truth. You can see a whole plethora of emotions going across her face as she processes this information. Mary Margaret shows off more evidence that someone was dragged off, and Regina is getting pissed at Emma for believing Pan’s BS. Regina decides to leave the group and Emma isn’t happy about it. But Regina isn’t going to waste time looking for Neal over her son. Emma looks conflicted. She tells Mary Margaret that Regina could be right and Pan is lying to them, but Mary Margaret gives her whole hope speech and convinces Emma to look for Neal. She also guilts Emma into going after Neal because she ‘owes’ it to Henry. While they’re following the drag marks, Emma tells Mary Margaret that she kissed Hook. Emma is viewing Mary Margaret more as her friend than her mother here. You can tell she’s telling her almost as if she were a teenager telling a friend about a crush, something she obviously didn’t get to do as a teen. Mary Margaret starts asking the hard questions (Why? Did it mean anything?). Emma gets flustered trying to defend why she did it. Mary Margaret takes this to mean that Emma isn’t sure how Neal will take it. Emma reiterates that they don’t even know if he’s really alive. Mary Margaret tells her she should open up to the hope that he’s alive. Emma gets all defensive, but Mary Margaret tells her she deserves a happy ending. I’m sure Emma is thinking more about the fact that she’d never have to deal with the guy who broke her heart and sent her to jail pregnant, but of course, Emma still hasn’t told Mary Margaret any of this. They get to the Echo Caves and Hook explains that you have to tell your darkest secret to get to its treasure (Neal). Emma thinks this whole thing is ridiculous. They enter the cave and clearly see Neal on a cliff in the middle of a deep ravine. Emma looks terrified that he’s actually alive. I’m sure she was hoping this was all a trick. She even backs up a little when Neal calls to her. Hook goes first in telling secrets. He tells them he kissed Emma and she rolls her eyes since she can’t believe that that would be his darkest secret. He tells her that he’s realized he can move past his first love because of meeting her. Emma looks frightened of this as well. Mary Margaret goes next and starts heaping praise on Emma, who looks very uncomfortable with all of it. After Mary Margaret and David’s secrets, Emma is able to get across. She tries to hack away at the cage, but Neal tells her she has to tell a secret to get him out. You can tell she really doesn’t want to admit her secret. Neal swears she can tell him anything, so she does. She admits to being terrified when she found out he was alive. She realized she’ll always love him, but she really hoped he was dead so she wouldn’t have to deal with all the pain he’d brought to her all over again. That makes the cage disappear. And this was a totally missed opportunity for Emma to tell her parents about Neal framing her and putting her in jail. I feel that’s a much darker secret than how Emma feels about Neal, because I also believe that Pan probably has rigged the bridge to appear at certain secrets that he knows will hurt the group. Neal hugs Emma now that there is no cage in the way, and Emma looks conflicted again. Outside of the cave, Emma attempts to apologize for how she feels to Neal, he tells her it’s okay, but she tells him it’s not. She can’t change how she feels and she’s trying to be strong and fight back tears the entire time. He says he doesn’t blame her, and he has a secret too. He’ll never stop fighting for her. Here’s my take on what Emma said to Neal in the Echo Cave. She says she loves him and she always will. But just as I’ve said previously, they don’t know each other anymore. They were 17 and 23 the last time they were together (technically older for Neal). How many people can say they’re the same people they were 12 years later? Not to mention that Neal was engaged to Tamara less than a week ago! So Emma may say she loves him, but that’s 17-year-old Emma talking. The one who hasn’t experienced love since because she walled up her heart. No way do I believe she is still in love with him today, in the here and now.

Gold: He is attempting to see the future to help him. Pan appears and tells him that he can’t see the future there because time doesn’t move in Neverland. Gold tries to threaten Pan, who just laughs at him. Pan has made him his favorite breakfast. Gold is trying desperately to hold it together against Pan. He’s taunted by Pan about losing Neal, again, and not being able to rescue Henry because he’d have to go through him, and he can’t. Gold is getting fed up with Pan, who tells him he’s just trying to point out the silver linings. Gold tells him that by killing him all their troubles would end. Pan tells him that they both know that won’t happen. Pan tells Gold he can leave the island, but Gold won’t go without Neal and Henry. Pan tells him they’ll never forgive him. Gold says he can’t know that, but Pan asks him if he’s forgiven his father, and therein lies the truth, because he hasn’t. Pan tells him to go back to Storybrooke, and Belle, start a new life, a new family. Leave everyone else behind as that’s the only future he can have. Pan leaves and Gold is visibly shaken. Gold is looking at his doll when Belle appears to him again. She tries to convince him to go home to Storybrooke and start a new family, the same things Pan just said to him, but Gold doesn’t see that. Belle says she’s really there and Gold just has to take his hand and they can go back to Storybrooke together. He’s about to take when Belle starts choking and Regina appears and basically tells Gold he’s an idiot. He’s actually shocked when Belle turns into Pan’s Shadow. Regina lays into him for believing that was really Belle, but Gold just wants to know why she’s there bugging him. She wants his help finding Henry. They argue because the only way Gold knows to stop Pan is by him dying. Regina thinks with their combined magic they can beat Pan, but Gold tells her she’s never faced Pan, so she doesn’t know what she’s dealing with. Regina wonders if they can figure out a way to contain him instead of killing him. Gold remembers something from his shop that can help. Regina can’t believe he didn’t bring it with him. Gold reminds her that he came here to kill Pan and die in the process. Gold mocks Regina when she talks about crossing realms to get back to Storybrooke (and he has every right to as he helped her enact the Dark Curse just to cross realms), but Regina has a plan. They go to get Ariel to help them. I have to admit, Gold has been a lot less sinister and a whole lot more angsty since they’ve gotten to Neverland, and it’s weirding me out. He’s such a strong character, he shouldn’t be about ready to cry every time he sees Pan. I guess we’ll find out soon why he’s so weird around him.

David: He’s worried about Regina teaching Emma magic. Hook comes and tells David and Mary Margaret about Neal being alive. David wonders why Pan would tell Hook. Both David and Hook think they need to keep it a secret from Emma until they have more proof. Mary Margaret doesn’t like that idea. David tells her sometimes keeping secrets helps protect the people you love (well he is speaking from experience). But David and Hook suck at lying, so Mary Margaret ends up telling Emma. They end up at the Echo Cave, they have to tell dark secrets to get to Neal. He’s upset when Hook confesses to kissing Emma, but Mary Margaret tells him this is not the time. Mary Margaret pours her heart out about wanting another baby, but unfortunately, David’s secret is that he was hit with Dreamshade and now can’t leave the island because of the cure. He looks absolutely devastated when telling this to Mary Margaret, because he’s basically told her to go find someone else to have a baby with since he can’t be there for her. He tries to talk to Mary Margaret after they rescue Neal, but she’s not having it right now.

Hook: He immediately goes and tells the Charmings that Neal is alive. So glad he didn’t sit on that information. He and David both agree not to tell Emma yet. They tell Mary Margaret that they just want confirmation before telling Emma. But they suck at cover stories so Emma finds out. They end up at the Echo Caves and Hook’s secret is not just that he kissed Emma, but that her kiss sparked something inside him that made him realize he could move on past Milah. And that he could fall in love again (presumably with Emma if she’d let him). After they rescue Neal, he overhears Neal telling Emma he’ll always fight for her, and Hook looks heartbroken, since they just shared that amazing kiss a few hours ago.

Questions:

How did Mary Margaret manage to get a haircut while in Neverland?

Why do the dresses in Eric’s kingdom look like 1990’s Homecoming Dance dresses? They definitely don’t match any of the other kingdoms we’ve seen women’s wardrobe-wise.

Where and how did Ariel and Snow get dresses for this ball? Did Ariel have something of value in her collection for them to sell?

How does Ariel know the dance that she and Eric dance to?

The Evil Queen’s guard tells her that he recognizes Ariel as the woman who rescued Snow, but the Evil Queen implies that the guard thought Snow was dead. So which was it? Did he think she was dead or did he think she was rescued by Ariel?

Why does Mary Margaret ask Emma who she kissed? There are two men in their group and one is her father.

Why does Gold have to die to defeat Pan? Is that because of the prophecy, or because it’s actually the only way?

Why does Ariel change out of her dress into her on land ‘mermaid’ outfit to go think?

Is Ariel the mermaid the Evil Queen had gone to make a deal with Rumpelstiltskin about in Skin Deep?

Was Belle Pan’s Shadow the whole time, or was Belle really just a figment of Gold’s imagination and Pan just took advantage of it this time?

Why doesn’t Gold mention that Neal is on the island to Regina? Why doesn’t he mention that he and Neal rescued Henry and then they were separated? He doesn’t know Neal was captured. And for that matter, why doesn’t Regina mention that the rest of the crew is looking for Neal because Pan told them he was alive?

How do the drag marks Mary Margaret is following lead to the Echo Cave when Neal was put in the box and taken to the Echo Cave later on?

How did Hook lose half his crew to the Echo Caves? What were they searching for in there?

Were the waters Ariel lived in part of what Cora put in her bubble? If not, why hasn’t she aged? Do mermaids age differently than humans?

Why does Ariel try to speak when Regina calls her? Hasn’t she been without a voice for almost 30 years now?

Observations:

Those are definitely a stunt doubles’ hands saving Snow in the water. And they seem to be very masculine as well.

Apparently rescuing people is something Ariel does.

Items in Ariel’s collection: pocket watch, mini ship’s wheel, belt buckle, fork.

Oh, look, both Snow and Ariel still have perfect makeup on despite being in the water.

Ursula is a Sea Goddess.

Once again, someone transforms and they’re automatically wearing clothes.

No one has seen the Sea Goddess Ursula in over 1000 years.

From the way Snow talks about love, I’m assuming she’s met Charming during Snow Falls, but we haven’t reached where she has to break Charming’s heart in 7:15 AM.

Rumplestiltskin’s favorite breakfast is eggs in a basket.

Snow has attempted to teach Ariel about forks and other human things.

I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a nod to how Sebastian pronounces Ariel or the Evil Queen just misheard through the mirror, but she completely pronounces Ariel’s name wrong.

Regina mentions they’ve been on Neverland for a week.

There is no blood on the fork when the Evil Queen pulls it from her neck, nor is there any blood (or puncture wounds) on her neck.

Mermaids can travel between worlds.

This and the past two episodes (Nasty Habits and Good Form) have all taken place over one day.

Ugh! I’m not happy that Neal is now with the group. Hook is upset because he just bared his soul to Emma and now he has competition. Snow is pissed at David because he lied to her and is now stuck on Neverland, so she’ll either have to stay with him or live without him. And Gold is hopefully now back in the right headspace to defeat Pan now that Regina has gotten rid of his Belle visions. Looks like Ariel is on her way to Storybrooke, so hopefully we’ll get to see the real Belle and a few other Storybrooke citizens.

Please leave comments and reblog! Let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future reviews.

@searchingwardrobes @thisonesatellite @justbecauseyoubelievesomething @laschatzi @profdanglaisstuff @mariakov81 @lfh1226-linda

#once upon a time #once upon a time review #once upon a time rewatch #once upon a time 3x06 #once upon a time ariel

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mashitandsmashit · 4 years

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America’s Got Talent: Season 15 - Judge Cuts

Well, this pandemic's making a mess out of everything, isn't it?

I guess Simon wasn't a fan of the format for this round from the previous seasons...But whatever format it's going to be in the future, let's...NOT go with this one...As it is, we only know the fate of, like, HALF the acts...And I'm still processing some of them! (Though I can tell that I spoke too soon on some of the acts we didn't see much of before...)

As usual in this round, some decisions I agree with, and others...Well, Thomas Day and Kameron Ross both made it, among other singers that didn't excite me before, so this may not bode well for some of my favorites...But I should still give them credit for sending ALMOST all of my favorites from the auditions through...Some are still pending, and others...well...We can only hope for some good wildcards this year...

Anyway, only ten acts actually performed, so let's rank them...

10: Simon and Maria. Look, these kids are perfectly passable, but you seriously expect me to believe they deserved to advance over some of the other acts!? That said, I guess they have a yearly quota, and part of that quota is a child dance duo...

9: Ryan Tricks. You know, while watching the show, I actually found Ryan to be the superior magician BY FAR, but taking a second look, I do see the staged nature of it all...Where are these magicians making all these connections!? Alesha Dixon, David Hasselhoff, Shin Lim, freaking Tape Face!? This guy definitely has the advantage in charisma, but I do feel like he's being held back from his full potential, by circumstances beyond his, or anyone else's control...

8: Max Major. So everything said...There was nothing from this trick I haven't seen before...But unlike Ryan, he did his trick live with the judges, which scores him some points...THAT being said, Shin Lim Effect is in full swing with this guy! He's gonna need to give us something original for future rounds if this act is to really work out...

7: Craig Reid. Fun...But not enough to stand out...

6: The Ninja Twins. Two annoying schmucks performing one of the most annoying songs in recent years by one of the most unlikable pop musicians? That sounds like something I would reject on the spot! ...And yet these two managed to find their groove through a REALLY creative homemade set and fun choreography! The out-of-breath vocals only added to the appeal...That said, I am glad they didn't go through, because even if you look past the immense backlash such a decision would garner, I don't see myself liking them in the long run...(PS, I missed a perfectly good chance with their previous appearance to make a reference to the “Ninja Rap” by the legendary Vanilla Ice from the cinematic masterpiece, “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze”, and for that I apologize!)

5: Ty Barnett. I guess the comedian category WAS getting a little crowded, and I have no real arguments with their selections...But I dunno...I still like this guy, even if the set wasn't quite as funny as before...

4: Brothers Gage. Make these guys a wildcard, NOW! Yes, I won't argue that this wasn't as good as their last appearance, but it's still so much fun! And I'm all for them mixing in some other instruments and even vocals...But the harmonicas are still the heart and soul of the act, and they must never forget that! It's hard to say what's next for them, especially if they DO come back...But I wish them the best!

3: Shaquira McGrath. I guess she abandoned a bit of her unique identity by dropping the country from the act...But “Wake Me Up” is one of my favorite songs, and her rendition of the song really “made it her own” as they say...We'll see if she goes back to country in the next round...

2: Nolan Neal. I would have loved to hear another original song, but I don't see why singers can't mix it up between originals and covers on this show...Still one of the best vocalists of the season, if not THE best! He's got the love!

1: Jonathan Goodwin. Well, all we saw of this guy before was catching an arrow...But he looked badass when he did it, and he continues to be a badass tonight! Not much else to say...This guy's just a badass!

I guess things could have gone better...But...Yeah...

So next week is gonna be another special...I GUESS we'll be going live the week after, but we'll wait and see...

Until then, let's partake in the yearly tradition of choosing our own Golden Buzzer acts! While they haven't revealed all of the live acts yet, I feel I don't need to wait, as none of the TBD acts quite measure up for me. (Actually, Wesley Williams was one of my favorites, but he doesn't rank quite as high as who I'm selecting...)

I almost wanted to select Nolan Neal, but I think I'd rather pick another variety act this year...

So my Golden Buzzer selection this season is...

(Drumroll...)

The Spyros Bros!

It's hard to say how well they'll do in this game, but I think if they play their cards right, they could go very far! They have the story, the personality, and the coolness to potentially do well!

(I also considered Malik, but I felt it would get repetitive if I kept picking the innovative instrumentalists every year...)

Once again, FrankDoc is allowed to make a selection as well! Just remember, it has to be an act that has made the live shows, isn't a wildcard, and isn't anybody else's GB...(Also, you can wait for them to announce the other live acts if you want...)

I'll see if I have anything to say next week with the...I guess compilation of AGT winners...But I doubt it...Otherwise...Well, life has been pretty crazy for me lately...Honestly, I'm not even sure if I can continue posting these blogs for a while...But I'll keep going as long as I can, and will continue to watch this show regardless!

...So much for that livestream idea though...

RIP, Regis: The original AGT emcee!

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thejollyroger-writer · 5 years

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What Happens in Berkshire {{1/2}}

SUMMARY: When Emma’s boyfriend leaves her for the woman he’s been cheating with, she accepts an offer from her hospital to move to England. While she is out celebrating her thirtieth birthday with her friends before they head back to America, she drunkenly kisses the statue of Captain Hook in front of Eton College, and he comes to life. Together, he and Emma try to figure out what this curse means for them by searching for the witch that cursed him in the first place — are they really True Love, as he wants to believe they are, or did Emma’s magic go awry?

a/n: IT’S HEEEEERE! IT’S STATUE FIC TIME! it all started with this post (via @write-it-motherfuckers and it’s grown into this beautiful, monstrous two-shot about magic and True Love and tight pants and magic. Thanks to the always-lovely @cssns mods AGAIN for hosting events like this one, that allow us to roll with all the weirdness that comes to us – without you, we certainly wouldn’t have this story, to @shireness-says for constantly talking me out of overthinking, and to @profdanglaisstuff and @thisonesatellite for helping me make this story into what is appears before you as. Seriously, it wouldn’t be the same without you. Also, check out Meredith’s ( @captainsjedi ) amazing art for this story and many others! Somehow she is always able to capture the ideas floating around in my head and pin them down long enough to make aesthetics.

RATED G // CURRENTLY 12 K AND COUNTING // ALSO ON AO3

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Emma Swan does not get stupid drunk.

Usually.

Most of the time, she can down a few beers, a mixed drink or three, and even after adding a few shots in there, she can still have full memory in the morning. Besides, getting that drunk usually means losing control of her magic, and while the time she made it snow in August in their sweltering apartment or when she procured a mini fireworks display in the palm of her hand were both fun, it’s never been something she felt comfortable doing, always waking the next morning with a pounding headache and the harsh warnings of Ingrid, the woman that helped her hone her powers, howling at the forefront of her memory: only use your magic when necessary, and never for fun. She’s almost never lost her head, and even fewer times than that has she lost her memory. Sure, there was that one time in college with the jungle juice, and Ruby’s 25th birthday when all they did was shots, but both of those times, she was already in her apartment.

But today was her thirtieth birthday, and her goal was to get drunk — especially after everything else that led her here. They are out not only to celebrate her birthday, but also her move to England after her decision to accept the position offered to her by the Princess Margaret Hospital, which just happens to be in the same town Belle’s university is in. The move that she decided to take because she wanted something new — and because Neal decided after four years that he wanted something new, as well.

Only for him, it was breaking up with her and dating one of the women from his office, telling her that she “wasn’t good enough” for him anymore, even though she was at least a hundred times better than he was in the first place.

Ruby’s pretty sure he was cheating on her anyway, but she was always too blind to see it.

So she accepted the position from the hospital headhunters and packed up everything she owned, using Belle to do apartment walkthroughs, though she decided just to take the apartment next to the one Belle shares with her colleague. Two weeks later, she was on a plane all by herself, wishing she didn’t have to wait a month for Ruby and Mary Margaret to help her — but that month has passed, her apartment now filled with her things and fully furnished, and now they’re all out to celebrate before Ruby and Mary Margaret fly back home.

But it’s her birthday, god damn it, and she is going to celebrate. She’s already been here for a few weeks, but she’s already loving Windsor, loving England, how different it is from Boston, from New England, but still a little reminiscent of home. She’ll be just fine here on her own.

Neal would have hated it here anyway, if he would have decided that he cared enough to come with her. If he actually loved her. Emma doesn’t need him, doesn’t need anyone, just needs to take some time and take care of herself.

Neal can go fuck himself. Or fuck that woman from his office that he was already fucking.

Alright, she might already be pretty drunk. But she wants more. She wants to forget, forget him enough to celebrate even more, and she’s maybe almost there.

But it’s two in the morning, last call at the only bar Belle had ever been to in this part of town, and she’s run out of time.

So Ruby buys them another round of shots, of whatever the strongest alcohol that would affect Emma the most — and, even wincing as much externally as she is on the inside, she knows the answer is tequila. One more, a double after Ruby insists, a small orange juice chaser, and they’re out, the smiling, greying bartender locking the door behind them.

The weather in Berkshire is far from perfect, though perhaps better than it could have been at the end of October. Instead of the regular downpour that Belle told them to expect, it’s simply drizzling, the air around them wet instead of drenching. So, of course, they decide to go for a walk.

Which just gives Ruby another reason to gripe.

“You can’t even, just, make us a protective bubble? Or a big umbrella?”

Emma rolls her eyes.

“You already know that I can’t,” she says, though she feels the way her magic hums through her, just itching to be used.

Ruby groans, loud enough to be heard by the whole group. “What good is it to be best friends with a witch, if she can’t even use her magic to keep us dry?”

Emma rolls her eyes. Again.

“I’m not going through this with you again,” she snaps. “I can’t just use my magic. It doesn’t work like that.” Of course, she always wished she could, but this is a thought that she chooses to keep to herself.

What’s the purpose of having magic if she’s not allowed to use it?

Thankfully, Belle changes the subject. “Did you know that Berkshire is where — where the original Captain Hook was from?” Belle asks, her words coming slowly and slurred.

“Really?” Mary Margaret seems genuinely interested, the only one of them that has stayed fully away from alcohol on their trip, mainly because of the ever-growing baby bump, though she never was one to get anywhere beyond tipsy since that first margarita experience during her sophomore year of college, where Emma had to talk her out of streaking across campus.

“Yeah, there’s a statue of him and everything.”

“Let’s go see it!” Ruby suggests, arm wrapped around Emma’s shoulders, though she seems to miss the fact that Emma seems to currently be having trouble standing on her own as it is.

The walk is only a few blocks, all of them thankfully sporting waterproof coats that Belle insisted they all bring with, even though Ruby had to sit on her suitcase to close it before the jacket was added. How that woman seemed to wear so little clothing but still have trouble fitting everything into a suitcase was beyond all of them. Their walk is quiet, all of them trying their hardest not to let the drizzle get to them any deeper than their coats.

But then they see it, lit up by a light recessed into the sidewalk before him, and he’s… well, he’s perfect. The most incredible-looking man Emma has ever seen, and he’s made out of damned stone. Just her luck.

Of course, it’s not the first time Emma has seen the statue – in fact, she’s gone the past month eating her lunch on a nearby bench without even knowing it was supposed to be Captain Hook.

In hindsight, the hook that he has in place of his left hand probably would have been a good clue.

She remembers the first time she walked past this statue, meeting Belle for lunch in her office in the library. She had been taken aback by its perfection from that very first moment, the world seeming to slow around her as she stared at him. Something about him seemed to comfort her, bring the chaos of her life to a pause, just long enough for her to catch her breath and focus on something else for a little while at a time.

So she kept coming back. Eating lunch on the bench beside him has been a regular occurrence for her, and she’s spent a few days a week just sitting there, looking up at his anguished face. Sometimes she even talks to him, as long as no one is around to hear — which isn’t very often, given it’s the middle of a college campus in the beginning of the fall.

He’s become… a friend, of sorts. Someone she can talk to without using her international minutes to call Mary Margaret. A confidant, who she knows won’t go around spewing her secrets.

Because, you know, he’s a statue.

Belle is saying something in the background, explaining to them the history of the statue, of the story of Peter Pan and how the town believes that Barrie’s villain is based off of this statue that has been here for as long as anyone can remember. Emma is trying to listen to the story, she really is, but there is just something about the statue standing in front of her that steals her attention, just as it has every other time she’s found herself near it. Every time she tries to focus on his features, it’s as if the rest of the world around them goes silent.

It’s just a weird side effect from the tequila, she tells herself, but even the voice in her head is muffled as she stares at him.

He’s gorgeous, even for a damned statue.

“I thought he was an old, skinny guy with a handlebar mustache?” Emma asks, realizing halfway through her sentence that she cut Belle off in the middle of a thought.

“Why, because of that animated movie?” Belle asks, turning her attention to Emma, but Emma’s eyes are still glued to the statue.

“Well, yeah.”

“The version of him in that movie is nothing like the Hook that Barrie described. People have given him a black perm and bushy eyebrows, but Barrie himself described our villain as ‘in a word, the handsomest man I have ever seen, and he was a magnificent pirate and not wholly unheroic.’ He had black hair, yes, but it didn’t have to be a perm, and there is nothing in Barrie’s description to say that he is a tall, thin old man.”

Ruby comes to stand beside Emma, her eyes trained on the statue in the same way. “This is a perfect specimen of a man, and he’s made from a slab of marble.”

“Do we know the artist who made it?” Mary Margaret asks from the back of the group, always interested in artists.

Belle is silent for a moment, then turns to face the group, her eyebrows forming a low ‘v’ on her forehead. “Actually, I’m not sure about that. From what I know, the statue has been here for longer than the college has.”

“So no one knows where it came from?”

“Well, there’s an old wives’ tale that he used to be a sailor, a pirate, who watched the woman he loved die in his arms and was cursed for not doing anything to save her, cursed to stand here and wait for his True Love to save him.”

“But obviously that’s not true,” Mary Margaret comments, perhaps not sounding quite as convincing as she was hoping to.

“No,” Emma replies, and Belle shakes her head. “No, of course not.”

A beat of silence passes between the four of them, each of them staring at the statue from a different angle, overcome by the spell he has them under.

And then, suddenly, Ruby starts laughing. Cackling, almost, unable to stand up straight until she takes a wheezing deep breath, clapping her hand against Emma’s shoulder.

“It’s your birthday, Swan!” she barely gets out, cackling again. “Go up and give him a kiss!”

“Ruby!” Mary Margaret scolds from the other side of the statue, leaning to the side to stare at her around the man’s perfectly sculpted legs, so realistic that they can actually see the curves of muscles beneath the marble britches.

But Belle and Emma are just drunk enough to join in with the laughter, also thinking it’s a good idea.

“What the hell,” Emma says, shrugging. “I’m thirty years old and my boyfriend just broke up with me. It’s probably safer than a one-night stand.”

Belle thinks this is particularly funny, and her laughter, echoing around the courtyard around them, drives Ruby into another fit of laughter herself.

“Come on, guys, help me up!” Emma yells, hooking her arm around the leg of the statue, trying to use it to hoist herself up on the pedestal. Mary Margaret, the only one of them sober enough to give her any actual assistance, walks over to her, understanding that it would do more harm to try to talk her out of this than to just help her.

One foot up on the pedestal, then the other, grasping her free hand around the curve of his arm, the hand of which is wrapped around the hilt of his sword. She almost loses her footing as she tries to move her grasp from his leg to his other arm, finding a hold on his hook. Finally, she has reached the platform, standing almost face to face with the statue, though it stands a few inches taller than she does. He really is a magnificent piece of art, from the individual strands of hair on his head to the stubble covering his chin to the embroidery work on his vest — amazing detail, she realizes even in her drunken haze, for a statue that has been standing for longer than the college around it, details surviving the wind and the rain that she has already discovered are regular for England. For a moment, Emma is overcome with compassion for the man standing before her, for the sadness visible not only in his eyes, but that’s written across his whole face.

Christ, she thinks, I must have had more to drink than I thought.

“Just kiss him, damn it!” Ruby yells, laughing at her some more, and Emma stares back at him for another moment before pulling her face to his, pressing her lips hard against the cold, wet stone.

For a moment, nothing happens.

Then, suddenly, a flash of lightning strikes on the other side of the building beside them, startling Emma enough to almost lose her footing, so focused on keeping her balance that she does not notice the spark of magic that erupts from her fingertips at the same time another flash of lightning hits just a few feet from where they are, the thunder from both of them rolling almost simultaneously in the charged air around them.

“Emma, get down from there!” Mary Margaret yells, just as Emma feels the stone beneath her fingers start to change, and when she looks up, the statue has turned into a man. A real-life, living, breathing man with twinkling eyes and a bright smile.

“Hello, love,” he says, his voice dark and deep.

Taken aback, she moves to take a step back, forgetting for a moment where she is, and the edge of her boot slips off the edge of the pedestal. For the briefest moment, she believes this is how she dies — falling to her death after kissing a statue and hallucinating. But when she feels a warm, hard arm wrap around her waist, she automatically moves her arms around his neck.

He smiles.

Everyone is quiet for a moment, still trying to piece together what has happened in front of them. While the rest of the girls share glances, though, Emma finds herself only able to focus on the man in front of her, the very real man who has come to life under her fingertips. Or, to be more specific, she can only focus on his eyes. They are unlike any color she has ever seen, lit up only by the streetlights around them and the few recessed into the pavement, specifically there to light up the statue, a bright blue that reminds her of the brightest, clearest sky, but at the same time somehow also the dark blue of the depths of the ocean.

“How did—” she starts, somehow more sober than moments before, but the words get lodged in her throat even further when he smiles at her. Swallowing her nerves, she takes a breath and tries again. “What happened? How are you… not a statue?”

His smile grows, somehow, overtaking his eyes as the brightest feature on his face, since it seems to radiate its own light.

“I have my suspicions, love, but I do know that I am forever grateful for it.”

“I’m not your love,” she mumbles, the words coming out much less defiant than they sounded in her head.

But what if… Belle’s comment from earlier suddenly comes rushing back to her: ‘cursed to stand here and wait for his True Love to save him.’

That’s insane.

This whole situation is insane.

“Emma,” Ruby says from below them, and both Emma and the statue-man turn their heads towards her. “What in the hell just happened?”

“He's…” Belle tries, then shakes her head. “That’s damn impossible, that is.”

“You must have done it with your magic, Emma,” Mary Margaret says matter-of-factly, the obviousness of it all washing away any memory of what Belle may have said earlier.

“Is it really…” Belle starts again, snapping her eyes to the man still standing against Emma, holding her against his hard, sculpted chest, the ridges of his muscles almost as prominent as when they were made of stone.

Not that she really notices that. Of course not.

“Are you really Captain Hook?” Belle asks, and Emma thinks it’s a joke at first, until she looks down at the seriousness painted across her friend’s face.

“Captain Killian Jones, at your service,” he says, nodding down towards Belle, then quickly flitting his eyes from her to Mary Margaret, to Ruby, and back to Emma, a sparkle in his gaze that was not there before. “In every way imaginable,” he mutters, pressing his lips closer to her ear so only she can hear it before leaning back again and quickly winking at her. “Though, yes, you seem to have heard of me by my more colorful moniker, Hook.” Finally, he unwraps his hands from her waist and moves to step off the pedestal, which he accomplishes with the help of Mary Margaret before reaching his own hand up to assist Emma. When she reaches the ground beside him, he leans in towards her again, his breath warm against her cheek, and he whispers, “I was hoping it would be you,” before turning his attention back to the half-circle of women now gathered around him.

“What are we going to do with him?” Mary Margaret asks.

Ruby is the first to respond, failing to even attempt to hide the way her eyes take in his whole body. “I have a few ideas.”

For some reason, Ruby’s comment makes Emma’s stomach sink, but she ignores the feeling, just as she chooses to ignore the quickening rain falling all around them. “We can’t just leave him here.”

“I appreciate that, love, truly,” the man says. Killian. The statue that has come to life has a name.

“The couch in my apartment is still unclaimed,” Emma suggests quickly, before Ruby can add another of her comments. “As long as it’s okay with the rest of you, he can stay there for the night. And we can figure out what to do in the morning when we’re all in a better shape.”

They all silently agree, and when Emma turns to face Killian, to see if he has anything to say about their plan, he simply smiles at her, his hook resting in the guard of his sword and his other hand propped on his hip.

“Can I at least have the name of my savior and her lovely acquaintances?” he asks, reaching his arm out in hopes of shaking their hands, starting with Mary Margaret. While Mary Margaret and Belle remain casual, Ruby sways into his body, pressing her free hand against his chest.

Though she cannot figure out why, this causes heat to rise to Emma’s cheeks, but it is nothing compared to the rush of warmth that Emma feels over her body when, instead of simply shaking her hand, Killian raises it to his lips, pressing a soft kiss against her knuckles. His lips are soft, warm, welcoming — though she has no reason to notice that.

What the actual fuck?

“I thank you, again, Swan,” he says, choosing her last name for some reason, his eyes still shining bright, and she has to turn her gaze down to the sidewalk to stop herself from getting lost in them.

“We should head back,” Belle says, and Emma has never been more thankful for the quickening rain before in her life. “The rain will probably just get worse.”

“Can you tell us what happened to you, Killian?” Mary Margaret asks as they all begin to follow Belle back down the road and to Emma’s apartment.

“I would really rather not go into detail as of yet,” he says softly, his eyes turned down to the ground. “But the much-shortened version of it is that I fell in love with another man’s wife and she chose to run away with me, though her husband came after us and—” Emma hears his voice falter, can see the bobbing of his Adam’s apple as he struggles for a moment, the rise and fall of his shoulders as he takes a deep breath. “He killed her,” he says finally, though he has not completely pulled himself back together. “And then convinced a witch to cast a curse to turn me into a statue until my True Love came and broke it.”

“And, uh, how long ago was this?” Emma asks, filling the silence that settled at the end of his story.

“What year is it now?”

Emma’s eyes grow wide, and when she doesn’t respond right away, Ruby fills in with the answer: “2019.”

She hears him take a sharp breath, rubbing his hand over his mouth and his scruff before pushing his fingers through his hair. “Bloody hell,” he mumbles, though Emma is fairly sure she is the only one that heard him. “It was just upwards of four hundred years ago.”

Silence settles around them again as they all think about this statement. Emma has so much more she wants to ask him, questions about his love and this witch and how the hell she broke the spell the witch cast on him.

But half-drunk and surrounded by her friends, all three of whom will overthink her growing interest in him, is not the right time to bring up these questions. So, instead of voicing the concerns that cloud her already-clouded mind, she reaches out and finds his hand with her own, turning to him just in time to see the soft smile that spreads across his features, so different in contrast with the rest of the persona he has shown them over the past few minutes.

By the time they make it back across the small town and to their apartment, the drizzle that was in the air when they left the bar has turned into a torrential downpour, which isn’t as much of a problem for the girls as it is for Killian, who has been wearing the same outfit for four hundred years — that very outfit which now is dripping puddles in the entryway as the girls dig through their suitcases for clothing for him to wear until they can go out the next morning and get him something more modern.

“I have a pair of sweatpants?” Emma offers, running from her room with them and another towel to where he is waiting. “Though I do have to apologize, you’ll have to… uh…” She is useless against the blush that rises to her cheeks, even more so when she raises her eyes to find a knowing smirk on his face. “I have nothing for you to, uh, wear under them.”

He leans in towards her, adding a smile to his smirk as his lips almost graze her ear. “No different than usual, love,” he murmurs, pulling away to watch Emma’s eyes widen in realization before he says, “Now, where should I go to change, unless you would like to offer your assistance?”

“Take off your boots,” she responds, trying not to let the effect he has on her show on her face. “The bathroom is on the other side of the fridge.”

His smirk disappears in a second. “The what now?”

“Oh, shit. Right, four hundred years,” she says, then points to the appliance in question, waiting for him to step out of his boots to follow her. “That large silver thing is the fridge. It’s where we keep cold food.”

“Ah.”

“I guess the world has changed a lot over the last four hundred years, huh?” she asks, trying to fill the silence again.

“Aye, love, it seems it did,” he says softly, swaying into her space again. “Though I will say, I am thankful for the assistance you and your acquaintances have to offer. And incredibly indebted to you for breaking my curse. Even if you’re a tad wary of believing what that means about you and I.”

Crossing her arms over her chest, she takes a step back from him, needing to put more space between them. “I’m not wary of anything, Jones.”

“I beg to differ, love. You’re a bit of an open book.”

I’m not your love, she moves to snap back at him, the words on the tip of her tongue, but they don’t come once she turns her gaze up to his, once she sees the sincerity in his sky blue gaze. Her next breath doesn’t come, either, lodged with the words halfway down her throat and unable to budge.

“I found a shirt that might fit him!” Mary Margaret yells, running into the hallway before Emma can step away from him again, her friend’s eyes widen for a moment before she takes hold of herself.

“Good,” Emma says quickly, shoving the sweatpants into his arms as she backs away from him, her hands finding the hallway wall behind her. Her breath is still stuck in her lungs, though, and she’s not sure if she’ll ever be able to dislodge it if he keeps looking at her like that. Turning to Mary Margaret, she points to the bathroom as he reaches out to take the shirt from Mary Margaret. “Now he can go get changed, and we can all go to bed.”

Not even waiting for a response, she turns and rushes down the hallway into her bedroom, practically slamming the door behind her.

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It takes her much longer to fall asleep than it should after all the alcohol she consumed. Usually, her body is ready to pass out, barely having the energy to scroll through social media before sleep overtakes her; but tonight, she does not even worry about trying to use her phone. Instead, she lays still, her eyes set on the ceiling but her mind set on anything but, small sparks of magic tingling between her fingers.

What the fuck even happened today? ‘True Love’s kiss’ is absolutely insane, and there’s no way that was what happened with Killian. It must have been her magic, gone awry with her drunken stupor, mixed with the weird weather and that story Belle put in her head.

Except…

Except his story wasn’t that far off from the one Belle told them. Cursed by a witch. That’s impossible. Or, there was a point in her life where she would have believed it was impossible. But then she turned twenty and learned that she was a magic-wielder. And if she was a magic-wielder — a witch, by all senses of the word — then why was it so hard for her to believe Killian’s story?

She already knows the answer to that. It’s because of what it would mean if it’s true. What it would mean about her. About them.

Maybe if she hadn’t just gotten out of a relationship, especially the relationship she believed was never going to end, it would be a little easier to comprehend. Maybe. She seriously doubts it, she can’t even kid herself with that. But maybe if she hadn’t been so blind and put everything she had into her relationship with Neal, she would not have been as destroyed. And maybe — maybe — if her heart hadn’t been that destroyed just a few days before she moved across a damned ocean, she may have been more open to letting someone else in. Instead, she had decided to bar her heart from more hurt, had decided not to let anyone else in.

And then Killian came back to life.

It would be a completely different story if she didn’t feel so drawn to him, if she didn’t actually enjoy his company so much after so short a time. (And, who is she kidding, if he wasn’t so gorgeous.)

There’s far too much to unpack there, so she tries to close her eyes — only to see his shining blue ones staring right back at her, sparkling with mischief when he is not being terribly forward.

What is happening to her?

She tries to quiet her mind, and when sleep finally does overtake her, all of her dreams are filled with tight leather pants and shining ocean blue eyes.

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“This is the most terrible swill I have ever tasted,” he comments, setting the mug of coffee back on the saucer in front of him, his face contorted into an expression of pure disgust. He’s tasted a lot of things in his time, especially over all the years he’s spent on ships — hard bread, half-purified saltwater, more kinds of fish than a man should have to endure, but this — it’s all nothing compared to whatever the infernal black liquid in the mug before him is.

“Alright then,” Mary Margaret says, and Emma rolls her eyes as she pulls the mug back in front of her. “Mark it down, Killian does not like coffee.”

“For a man who hasn’t eaten for four hundred years, you sure are pretty picky, Jones,” Emma comments, and when she turns to jeer at him, he narrows his eyes, and points the end of his now-hookless brace in her direction.

He’s still not quite sure why he had to leave his hook behind this morning. Belle tried to tell him that he wouldn’t need it, though he barely agreed with her; it had always proven useful to him in the past, and there was no way for him to know if he was going to need it in this new world. Emma had just told him that it would draw attention to him, which was probably slightly more valid, though it took him years to get past the insecurity of having a hook in the first place.

And then Mary Margaret, apparently their voice of reason, pointed out just how much easier it would be to try on new clothing without the hook, and he saw the sense behind this and agreed.

“A man knows what he likes.”

“Or, more appropriately, what he doesn’t,” she jokes.

He is already enthralled with her. She’s utterly brilliant in every way that entices him the most: her smarts, the way she is not afraid to speak her mind, how she does not hold back from putting him in his place, not to mention the way he is drawn towards her. Beyond the fact that she has broken his curse, he is thankful for her, to say the very least, though she does not yet seem ready to feel the same about him.

The waitress drops a plate in front of him and a glass of orange liquid in front of Ruby. He does not miss the way the woman’s eyes scan him, or the half-smile that she offers before turning away — but he also does not miss the flash of anger that crosses Emma’s face at the woman’s attention. He has never had trouble winning affections of women, but the last thing he wants to do is lose what little affection the blonde goddess before him has for him. So, after she takes another sip from the mug, apparently liking the brown liquid — coffee — much more than he does, he smiles warmly at her, picking up the pastry on the plate before him, trying to work the cogs of thought rolling through his head into that one expression before he takes a bite.

“Oh!” he exclaims, his momentarily-closed eyes missing the way Emma’s eyes go wide at the sound. “This, however, is a confectionery delight.” He takes another bite, closing his eyes again as he quickly chews the mouthful he has just taken. “What do you call this again?”

“A muffin.”

“Muffin,” he repeats, liking the way it feels on his tongue, though before he has a chance to say anything else, a loud rumble from his stomach takes the place of any words he may say. “I did order more food than this, aye?”

Emma smiles at him. “I ordered you waffles. If you think your muffin is good, wait until you get to those.”

“Thank you, love,” he says, then turns his attention back towards his muffin, though it takes everything in him not to focus on the bright smile that is still spread across Emma’s face.

▫️▪️▫️▪️

“What is the next thing on our to-do list, Emma?” Mary Margaret asks, signing the bill from their breakfast as everyone gathers their things to leave.

“Well, Killian needs some clothing that isn’t leather and sopping wet, or scraps from some suitcases.”

While Emma assumed this wasn’t going to be the easiest feat for a man who had never even heard of denim (and who admitted to her the night before he never wore any sort of undergarment), she didn’t expect it to be fun.

It started when she was standing beside him surrounded by packages of boxers and briefs (after, of course, winning the argument against Ruby of who should help him make this decision), trying to keep her cool and not let the heat she feels rushing through her body show on her cheeks.

“Why do we need to start with these again, love?” he asks, reading over the words on the back of the boxer-brief package as she does the same with the boxers, if only to avoid his eyes.

She sighs, wondering how in the world she found herself in this situation. “Because you’re going to need to wear these when you try on pants, so we need to buy them first so you can take them out of the package.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she watches him nod as he turns his attention towards the package in her hands.

“And, uh, what —” he tries, then takes a moment to cough before starting again, trying to hide his own embarrassment. “What seems to be the difference between these again?”

Wetting her bottom lip, Emma shakes her head and closes her eyes, still not entirely sure this isn’t just a big, embarrassing dream. “The ones you’re holding are tighter, so they… hold you in place better.”

“Aha.” A beat passes, and he gestures the end of the brace towards her. “So those…?”

“They’re looser, yes.”

“What if, uh…” he starts, darting his eyes towards Emma, but the moment she meets them, he turns his gaze back down to the package in his hand. “What if I choose one of these and decide I do not like them?”

Emma reaches over and pulls the package from his hand, holding them both at her side as she turns to look at him. “We’ll just buy both and I’ll keep the ones you don’t want, okay?”

At this, his eyes go wide, his cheeks even redder than they were before, and he fails to hide the way his eyes snap down to her hips before returning to the package in his hand, seemingly needing to avert his gaze. “You wear these, as well?”

“As pajamas, Killian. I wear them as pajamas,” she replies, rolling her eyes, but she can’t help but smile at him. “Let’s go buy these so we can move on to pants.”

As they turn away from the aisle and head towards the cash registers, Killian bumps his arm into hers, and when she turns to him, he wags his eyebrows across his forehead. “Are you going to help me with those, too, love?” he asks, his voice deep, embarrassment completely melted away as if they hadn’t been discussing the benefits of boxers versus boxer-briefs just moments ago.

“Uh, no,” she replies cooly, watching his face fall. “You can handle pants on your own, though I will help you with the fun part, if you need it.” His face lights up in an instant, an almost-inappropriate response on his lips, but when she adds, “The shirts,” it almost disappears again.

“Putting clothing back on is hardly the fun part, wouldn’t you say, love?”

“Jesus, Killian,” Emma breathes, rolling her eyes. “We’re here to buy you clothing.”

He shrugs, swaying away from her again, and she immediately misses the warmth where his skin pressed against her own, though she tries her hardest to ignore it, even as a chill passes through her body. “Your loss.”

But watching him come out of the dressing room in the first pair of jeans he deems to fit him reasonably enough is definitely not her loss.

Though the fact that Ruby is sitting beside her when he comes out wearing the first pair takes some of the excitement away.

“What do you think, Swan?” he asks, coming back around the corner, and before he sees them sitting there, he catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror and gets distracted. “I could get used to this denim,” he comments, his eyes going wide as he admires his reflection from multiple angles.

Ruby lets out a low whistle, and Killian’s eyes snap towards her, his face reddening a few shades when he realizes she’s there. “So could I,” she comments, and Emma elbows her hard.

“They look great,” she comments, trying her hardest to not make it obvious that she is most definitely amazed with how the dark denim moulds to the curves of his ass. Emma is fairly sure that she’s never stared at a man’s ass with the severity she’s trying to avoid staring at his. “Do they fit you? Are they comfortable?”

“Well, not as comfortable as my leathers, I will say, but I see why they’ve become more popular.”

“Did you try the other sizes?”

“The first was definitely too small, since I struggled to even squeeze my thighs into them. But I’m so used to the tightness of my old breeches that I think any looser would make me uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, me, too,” Ruby mumbles, and though Emma tries to ignore her, she fears the anger she feels still shows on her face. Still, though, she tries to push it down.

“Ready for the next part of the adventure?” she asks, needing to change the subject.

Killian’s face lights up, smiling at her as he slips his hand into his back pocket. “The fun part, aye,” he says, winking at her, and she avoids Ruby’s glare as she follows him back into the dressing room.

▫️▪️▫️▪️

“Holy shit,” she breathes, the words slipping past her tongue without her permission, and once Killian has tossed the long-sleeved shirt Mary Margaret loaned him on the bench of the dressing room, he turns to her. His eyes have darkened to a stormy blue-grey, his brows low on his face.

“What?” he asks, a hard bite to the word that Emma feels in her stomach.

“Your tattoos,” she says quickly, trying to alleviate the tension between them, at the same time Killian angrily asks, “My scars?”

“What?”

“Your tattoos,” she says again, reaching out to gently run her finger along the one furthest down his forearm, a heart with a dagger through it, all behind a ribbon that reads “Milah” in elegant letters, though she finds herself unable to contain the sparks that shoot from her fingertips at the contact and pulls her hand away quickly, clutching it to her chest.

When she turns her eyes up to his, they are slowly turning back to a less angry shade of blue. “You have… you have so many,” she whispers, moving just a touch closer to him so she can take a better look at the art that covers his body, for some reason feeling the need to touch them all, though the way her magic responded to his touch simultaneously makes her want to recoil and lean into him all at once.

“Aye, love,” he answers, and she takes the chance to reach her fingers out once more, only a few sparks this time as she begins tracing the circle of the compass on his right bicep that has Greek letters at the compass points and is surrounded with lettering in a different language beside flowers that turn into intricate, swirling linework leading to a skull and crossbones on the front of his right shoulder. “That’s what years spent on the seas will do to a man.”

“What do they all mean?” she asks, her eyes falling to the very top edge of an anchor in a sea of swirling blue that peeks out over the top of his newly-acquired jeans.

“They don’t all have to mean things, you know?”

Her fingers ghost across his chest, both emitting and filling her with a warmth she has never felt before even though she is barely touching the dark chest hair that covers him as her fingers move towards his left shoulder, where the corner of the intricate piece that covers his back comes around with a kraken’s tentacle, tangled with the leather straps that hold his brace on his arm.

“But some of them do?”

“Aye,” he breathes, her fingers reaching over his shoulder. Here, he reaches up to hold her wrist, stopping her fingers from moving any further. Pulling her hand away from him, he moves it back to his right shoulder, to the compass. “This one is my first, for my brother. His initials are the north, and the most important lesson he taught me before he was taken is what it says around it.”

“What language is it in?”

“You can’t read Gaeilge?” he asks, a touch of humor to his voice, as if he’s joking; but when he looks down at her, at the confused expression on her face, she knows he’s serious. “It’s in Irish, since that’s where my brother and I were born. It says ‘a man unwilling to fight for what he wants, deserves what he gets.’ And the flowers are for my mother, Alyce, since lilies and daisies were her favorite.”

“How old were you when she passed?” she asks, her voice barely a whisper as she traces the outline of the compass with her index finger.

“Six. And Liam was ten. We only stayed in Ireland long enough to bury her before father found us passage to England on a ship.”

“Where you joined the Navy?”

“Obviously not right away, but yes. England was…” his eyes fall to the ground, rubbing his hand against the side of his face. “Let’s just say Liam and I did not have the nicest childhoods, but we — we don’t have to get into that today.” When he looks back up at her, he tries to pull the corners of his lips up into a smile. “The skull and crossbones explains itself, though,” he continues, as if he weren’t talking about the death of his mother and his rough childhood. “Handsome British Naval Lieutenant turned pirate captain. The Jolly Roger became my life. The ship became the only home I ever had.”

A beat of silence passes between them, Emma’s eyes still set on the intricate flowers around his compass, her fingers lightly tracing the lines and trying to ignore the soft warmth that continues to slowly fill her body, the soft hum of her magic more intense than it has ever been before.

“Can I see the one on your back?” she says, her voice barely above a whisper, but when she raises her eyes to try to gauge his response, she realizes that he has been watching her intently. It is not until she meets his eyes, almost losing herself in the oceans she finds there, that he slowly nods.

“Just, don’t… don’t touch it, please,” he mumbles, as if he is ashamed of it — and when he turns around, Emma sees why.

The artwork is incredible, of course: a ship, bright yellow and brown, caught in the middle of a dark storm, with the tentacles of a kraken coming up out of the sea, some wrapped around the ship and others wrapping around his body.

But that’s not what Emma’s focus is on.

If Killian had said nothing, she probably would not have noticed them, but with his whispered words on her mind as she looks at the colors covering the muscles there, she can also see the mangled lines of scars running in every direction, casting small shadows over his back from the harsh fluorescent lights off the dressing room.

She has nothing to say. There is nothing she can say that would do anything except thicken the tension that lies between them. She watches the rise and fall off his shoulders as he takes a deep breath, then meets his eyes in the mirror. His face is set, hardened, the muscles of his jaw ticking as he grinds them together.

“Let’s try on one of these t-shirts, yeah?” she asks, smiling softly at him. Of course she wants to know what happened to him, was interested in the story behind his scars, but he is obviously ashamed of them. She has scars of her own, both physical and mental, so she understands the fear that he’s trying his best to hide. If he ever decides that he does want to tell her, then she will be thankful for that day. Maybe someday, she’ll do the same thing for him, let him in enough to learn of her past, her parents that left her on the side of the road, the foster families that never liked her enough to keep her. Getting the hell out of Maine as soon as she was able.

Maybe someday.

For now, she just reaches behind her and picks up one of the folded t-shirts that he picked out, a soft blue color that reminded her of his eyes as soon as she ran her hand against the soft fabric.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, taking the shirt from her hand but avoiding her eyes. “This is the part you said you’d help me with, aye?“ The sadness in his eyes is completely gone, every trace of the past conversation replaced with a single wink.

Emma can’t help but let out the soft chuckle that rises through her chest as she reaches out to bunch up the material so she can help guide it over his head. He gets his right arm through on his own, but seems to be struggling with the left, not sure exactly how to guide the brace through the hole, so Emma reaches out to help.

But when she wraps her fingers around the edge of the leather strap between his skin and the cool metal, he tears it out of her grasp, his eyes wide and angry when she snaps her eyes to meet his.

“I can only help you if you let me, Killian,” she says softly, and the longest moment she has ever felt passes before the angry lines on his face smooth away, and he nods. She reaches out again, purposefully trying to avoid contact with the brace.

“Sorry, love,” he mumbles as they work together to get the tip of his brace through the arm hole, but smiles at her as she helps him smooth down the front of the material. “What do you think?”

She takes a step back to let him look in the mirror, joining him to look at his reflection. “I mean, it fits. And I like the color. But what I think doesn’t really matter as much as what you think.”

He smooths the material over his stomach before reaching down to pick up the next t-shirt on the bench. “Is this one smaller?”

“Yeah, we started with the bigger one.”

“Can we try the smaller?”

Emma nods, reaching out to help him take off the large, not even meaning to brush her fingers along his ribcage, but suddenly becoming very aware of the hitch of his breath when her fingers run along the rigid muscles of his chest. And then she makes the mistake of looking up at his face, meeting his eyes in time to watch them darken for just a flash, turning from the bright midday sky to the deep depths of the dark ocean.

“Sorry,” she whispers, her voice much weaker than she anticipated, and she finds herself wondering if his lips are as warm as his skin, as soft and gentle and welcoming as she originally thought they might be.

So she takes a step back, pulling away from him and letting his shirt fall back into place.

“No, love,” he says gently, reaching down to pull the fabric up as far as he’s able, only needing her help to slide the brace out. “It is I who should be sorry. It’s not your fault I’ve been without a woman’s touch for four hundred years.” She helps him pull the fabric up over his head, taking it from him to refold it but continuing to avoid his eyes.

Until he reaches out and places his index finger under her chin, pulling her gaze back up to meet his. “I’m truly thankful for all your assistance. I missed four hundred years, I would be lost here without you.”

The faintest beginning of a smile passes across her face, but that seems to be enough for him, and he holds the next t-shirt out between them. He helps as much as he’s able with this one, though it proves itself to be much more difficult than removing it on his own. The medium is much tighter across his chest, clinging closer to the ridges of his muscles and the sleeves cropped short enough to reveal all but the very top of the compass on his bicep.

This time when he looks at himself in the mirror, he smiles. “I like this much better, do you agree?”

She rolls his eyes at him again, but when a smile begins to grow across her features this time, she lets it. She’s faced again with the absurdity of it all, the fact that he’s real, that he’s here beside her — that he’s so absolutely full of himself — but also because damn does she agree. She keeps her mouth shut as he tries on some other colors, keeps her jealousy to herself when every single color he puts on compliments him somehow — the black bringing out the brightness of his eyes, the red his light complexion, the white v-neck a stark contrast to the dark chest hair that peeks out from below the collar while barely doing anything to hide the muscles it is hiding.

But when he slides a charcoal grey button-down shirt over the crisp white t-shirt, leaving the top three buttons undone as he turns to face the mirror, Emma loses her ability to keep her mouth shut any longer.

“Is there anything you don’t look good in?” She tries to pull the words back, clamping her hand over her mouth, but it is too late — and when he turns to her, eyes wide with surprise as he runs his tongue over his smiling bottom lip, there is nothing she can do to hide the embarrassment that rises up her cheeks.

“No, darling,” he replies, which just makes her redden more. “I would like to believe not.”

They leave the store with three pairs of pants, a handful of t-shirts, a few long-sleeved Henleys (that are, in her opinion, the most unfair-looking on him, though she manages to keep it to herself this time), two button-downs, and a pair of black leather boots.

As she swipes her debit card through the machine, Mary Margaret leans closer to her, mumbling in her ear, “I thought that money was for emergencies?”

Sliding the card back into her wallet, she turns to Mary Margaret. “Are you saying that randomly bringing some man to life and being responsible for him isn’t what you would classify as an emergency?”

Mary Margaret has no response to this.

▫️▪️▫️▪️

Belle signs them into a study room in the library of Eton College before leading them to the section in one of the back corners where their special “Captain Hook” collection resides — because researching Killian is the next thing they need to do. There are books on J. M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan ; carefully-bound original versions of Barrie’s play and of the original novel form. There are books on what has been learned about Hook, collections of papers written on him, on the fables about the statue, about what can be proven about these fables — which begins, and ends, at the existence of a British Naval Captain, Killian Jones, born in the 1580’s and whose love was killed in front of him and his left hand chopped off on the deck of his ship a few years prior to his disappearance in 1618, according to his discovered Captain’s Logs.

But that’s it. They spend the next few hours mulling over a few shelves’ worth of materials to discover anything they can about Killian, and all they get is a speculation about his birth and death.

Though, after Belle reads the last of these findings out loud, Emma rests her forehead against the table in front of her, Mary Margaret and Ruby turn to her, waiting for a response.

Emma pushes herself to her feet, her breath heavy in her chest. “I’m sorry,” she tries, coming out barely a breath. “I need — I need some air.”

Before anyone can respond, she is out of their study room and around the corner.

Thankfully, no one follows her for a few minutes. She finds a bench, her eyes closed as she focuses on the slowly-slowing beat of her heart, on the measured draw of her breath. This is all so much, too much, far too much to handle on top of everything else happening to her recently, and she pushes herself away from the bench, beginning to pace back and forth in front of the shelf, her head flooding with too many thoughts. The break up, the move — all the way across a fucking ocean — and now stories of True Love, corroborated by academic papers and things from this… shelf.

She turns on her heel, turns back towards the shelf, slowly running her finger along the spines, one shelf and then the next, top to bottom, until she is sitting on the floor beside the shelf.

Except the bottom shelf is empty, so she can see behind it, where the shelf meets the wall — and there, she sees it: a small, leather-bound book behind the shelf, stuck between the metal and the wall. She reaches back, curling her fingers around the leather binding, and when she finally frees it, she feels the air leave her lungs, suddenly lightheaded and simultaneously weighed down in ways that she has never felt before.

Jones

Etched into the cover, surrounded by the same intricate, swirling linework around Killian’s Jolly Roger tattoo, is his last name. She opens to the first page, covered in perfect calligraphic penmanship, and reading her slow translation of the old-fashioned spelling certainly doesn’t make it any easier to breathe.

22 June 1604

Todaye, as the first day of my posytion as captain of His Majestie’s Jewel of the Realm , I, Liam Jones, do begyn here the Captain’s Logs for saide vessyl, where I will hence-forth keep reckord of alle pertinent informatyon. Here, I shal keep track of the dailie happenyngs withe and around the ship, begyning todaye with my taking over as Captain.

There are more pages of the same, of Captain Jones recording the journeys and missions of the Jewel of the Realm. Until, one day, it changes to a less-perfect script, fewer loops and curls and more ink splattered across the pages.

04 March 1607

Todaye, our greate captain was takyn from us, kylled on a mission comissyoned by our kinge. As per his last entrie, the kinge sent us to fynd a flower on a smal northern islande under the gyse as a medicinal herbe that would help overcome a great syckness that has spread through the lande. In hopes of provieng me wrong, Liam Captain Jones cut his own arme wyth this plante and was quicklie kiled by this herbe, which turns out to be not medicyn, but poisyn. In his deathe, I, Lieutenant Killian Jones, have taken up his posytione as captain of this vessle.

Because of the coruptyn of the kinge, the kynd of man that would send his naval officyr to collect this poisyn for him, I have decyded to sail this ship not in the name of the kinge, but insted now in the name of pyracy. This shyp is no longer the Jewel of the Realm , but wyll hence-forthe sayl under the name of the Jolly Roger , flying pirate colors.

She continues to flip through the pages, reading clips here and there as Killian describes the workings of a pirate ship.

Slowly paging through it, Emma can’t believe what she is seeing before her very eyes. “This is… impossible,” she whispers, running her index finger down one of the pages that catches her eye.

12 April 1610

Milah’s husband founde his waie to the JR todae. The whole crewe tryed to fight him offe, but were useles agynst whatever forms of Blacke magyk he has at his dysposal, and as I was dueling with him, I tooke a particularle bad blow to my left hande, cleaved clean offe, whych the Crocidyle tooke with him when he disapeard. We could not act in tyme to save Milah from his Evil, either, and there was nothyng I could do as he crushed her hearte before mye very eyes and she crumpld to the deck, pledging her love to me wyth her last breathe as the vyle man dysapearred into a cloud of ashe and smoke. I vowed to her that I would avenge the wrong that her wycked husband did againste her, and even as her bodie now lay on the bottom of the Sea, it is a vow that I feare wyll follow me to the grayve.

“Impossible,” she breathes again, knowing that the words corroborate the story he recalled to her with more detail than she could have imagined. So she turns to the end, and though the last few pages are blank, there are a few covered in a script other than Killian’s, she assumes after he is cursed and his First Mate takes over.

18 Jan. 1618.

Captain Jones was todaie deceivd by a member of hys own crewe, believed now to be working undere the orders of Rumpelstiltskin, the Dark Magicyan marryd to the Captain’s love Milah. Folowyng the directione of this man, he and Jones, along with meself and Lt Humphrey, ventured into the foreyst northe of the English towne Berkshyre to fynd a wytch said to have a spelle to lead him to his enemie and help defeat hym once and for alle. Instead, folowing the wytch’s instruction, we watchd helples-ly as his bodie instead transformyd into stone before our eyes. Instead of transcrybing, I have included it in the backe of this booke in hopes that one daye we may fynd a way to sayv our goode Captain from the wytch’s kurse.

Quickly finishing the end of the page, which turns out to be the last written page in the book, Emma turns through the remaining pages until she finds what the First Mate said he left in the book, though it seems to be by some sort of miracle that it is still attached.

Stuck between two of the last few pages, Emma finds a small piece of paper, no more than two inches wide, which was probably rolled up at one point, though it has since then folded flat; when she unrolls it, she finds it to be around a foot long. The writing on it is more calligraphic than the script from the Captain’s Log, parts of it more difficult to read with age and part of the bottom corner torn off, but at she reads it, she feels the breath leave her lungs.

Captain Killian Jones, cursed synce the d———s brother’s lyfe-less body into the Sea, now fynds himselfe cursed for alle eternity to watche the World move around hym, use-less agaynst the kurse of time that will ——— of the villainous blakness that filles hys heart after —————— untile the daie his One True Love saves hym with True Love’s Kyss.

Using the shelf behind her to help her back to her feet, she rushes back around the corner to the study room, the leather-bound book clutched between her hands. She wants to just reveal what she has found, but she has another plan, one that would allow her to corroborate this story of Killian’s.

“Killian!” she yells, pulling open the door, and every eye in the room is wide as they turn towards her.

“Yes, love?”

“When — when was Milah killed? What day?”

“Emma, you can’t really expect— “ Mary Margaret says, but Killian holds up his hand, silencing her as he speaks.

“The twelfth of April, sixteen hundred and ten.” His answer comes immediately, not even needing a moment to pull the answer from the back of his mind.

“And what about — what about the day Liam died?”

“The fourth of March, four years prior. Swan, what is this about?”

In response, Emma tosses the book down on the table, where it slides across the surface and lands in front of him.

Killian’s eyes go wide, a smile spreading across his face as he runs his thumb over the embossed leather cover — but everyone else in the room is utterly confused.

“What is this?” Ruby asks as Killian flips open the cover and begins to read over the pages in front of them.

“This is the Captain’s Log from my ship, though how this library managed to get their hands on it is a bloody miracle. It has — it has everything in it. It starts during Liam’s time as a Captain, the mission the king sent us on that got him killed. The turn to piracy. Milah. It’s all there.”

Mary Margaret and Belle turn towards Emma at his words, Ruby’s eyes set on the script from across the table.

Emma nods. “I read through it, and it’s all there. It has Milah’s death, Killian losing his hand, getting deceived and visiting the witch.”

“Where did you find this?” Belle asks, turning to look at the pages over Killian’s shoulder.

“It must have fallen behind the shelf at some point, it was wedged between it and the wall all the way at the bottom.“

"Brilliant,” Belle whispers, and when Emma turns to Killian, he is brightly beaming at her, as if he can tell that this find brought her so much closer to actually believing all the madness that is happening around them.

“And,” she says, holding up the slip of paper that she has kept between her fingers. “I think I know what to do next."

They make a plan — and not one that the rest of the girls like. Killian still has the map in his satchel that he used to find the witch’s cabin the first time around, and even though the town has changed a lot over the past few hundred years, they can get a general idea from natural landmarks and as soon as they are out of the town, Emma will cast a locator spell on the witch’s parchment from the journal to take them the rest of the way there.

"I just don’t understand why just the two of you are going,” Mary Margaret argues, and not for the first time. “You don’t have to go alone, so I don’t see why you’re insisting on doing just that."

"Admit it, darling,” Killian says, leaning closer to bump his shoulder against hers. “You just want to get me alone."

Emma rolls her eyes at him, hoping that it is enough to hide the blush that rises to her cheeks when she realizes that he’s actually right — he’s growing on her, damn it, and she is actually beginning to like spending time with him.

Though neither of these reasons are the ones behind her insistence that they go alone. "This is a journey that Killian and I should take together, just the two of us,” Emma says quickly, trying not to wince at how hopeful that sounds. “Besides, he’s an excellent swordsman and I’m a magic-wielder. I’m sure we’re more than capable of taking care of anything that we come across on this journey."

Finally, Mary Margaret smiles in response to this, and again Emma tries not to wince at how hopeful she looks.

"We should get home and prepare for this adventure, though,” Belle says, always the voice of reason. “Plus then the two of you can get ready to fly back home tomorrow."

“Can I ask you a favor first, ladies?” Killian asks, pushing away from the table, and Emma turns her attention towards him. “This is one of the places where one would go to procure new information, right?”

Emma nods, and he nods in return.

“What do I have to do to borrow a few books? To help me learn about the four hundred years of updated technological advancements that I have missed.”

Emma turns to Belle, who is already digging through her purse to find her employee ID. “Of course,” she says. “Whatever I can do to help.”

“I’d like to spend some time to peruse what’s available,” he says, making his way out of the room. “I’ll be back before too long.”

In what Emma realizes immediately is an out-of-character goodbye for him, he leaves the room without another word. She watches as he walks away from their room, heading away from their corner of the library, and by the time he has turned the corner and exited her line of sight, she realizes Ruby is trying to talk to her, though she heard none of it.

“What?”

“I said, what do you think you’re going to do?”

“What do you mean ‘what am I going to do’? I’m going to see what we can learn about him and this — this witch that cursed him to try to get him back where he needs to be.”

“What does that mean?” Mary Margaret asks, dropping the pen from her hand onto the notebook in front of her.

“You know,” she tries, twirling the end of her ponytail around her pointer finger. “He has to have something…” She shakes her head, not even sure exactly what she is trying to say. Not even sure what the excuse she is trying to make is. “… Somewhere he can… somewhere…” It’s still too much to try to take in, too much to try to take as seriously as her friends want her to.

When she looks up at Belle, she is also shaking her head. “If the stories are true, and if what he’s been telling us is true, he’s been a statue since the 1600s. That means he has nowhere, no one, no home. Nothing except us, the people that were there when the curse was broken.”

Emma shrugs, trying to avoid anyone else’s gaze. She supposes it could be worse; she at least has friends that are willing to help her figure out whatever the hell her life has become. If she was alone, just her and Killian, it would be a completely different story.

One where she never kissed a damned statue in the first place. Never broke a True Love curse on a drunken dare. Never brought an incredibly attractive man back to life to follow a prophecy, apparently.

“I just…” she tries, holding her head in her hands, and then repositions herself to lean back in the uncomfortable wooden chair, focusing her eyes on the ceiling. “I have no idea what any of this means. What am I supposed to do with him? How do I explain to customs that he has no passport because he was born in 1580-whatever and has been a statue for four hundred years when I want to go back to America? I barely make enough money to sustain myself, nonetheless this new person, who has none of the skills or knowledge he needs to get a job. Is he going to live in the spare bedroom for the rest of my life?”

Mary Margaret reaches over to gently run her hand across Emma’s back. “But he’s your True Love. That has to mean something.”

Emma grinds her jaw together, squeezing her eyes shut before snapping her head to the side to look at her friend. “Not at the moment it doesn’t. My relationship literally just fell apart. I wasn’t — I wasn’t even ready to find some gorgeous Berkshire guy to have a quick fling with and never speak to again, so I definitely wasn’t ready to break some bullshit one True Love curse on a drunk dare. You can’t just — love doesn’t just work like that.”

Ruby leans across the table towards Emma, worry painted across her face. “So what do you think you’re going to do?” she asks, her voice soft.

Emma crosses her arms on the table in front of her, resting her forehead on top of them. “At least I don’t have to leave for America in the morning,” she reminds them, simultaneously changing the subject. She really doesn’t know what to say. Thankfully, none of her friends push her any further.

"Besides,” Belle adds. “We don’t want to keep you two from travelling back home any longer than we need to."

Mary Margaret smiles, no doubt thinking of David and their two-year-old son back at home, but Ruby just waves her hand, dismissing the thought.

"All I have to look forward to back at home is going back to work, and even saying that I'm looking forward to it is a stretch."

"Ruby,” Emma groans, not wanting to have this argument again, but there’s no need once Mary Margaret speaks again.

“Whether you like it or not, Ruby Lucas, you’re getting on that plane with me tomorrow and going back to Boston."

Huffing, she crosses her arms over her chest, looking even more like a teenager when she adds a roll of her eyes. "Ugh, fine."

▫️▪️▫️▪️⭐▪️▫️▪️▫️ ▫️▪️▫️▪️⭐▪️▫️▪️▫️

tagging the crew: @let-it-raines @kmomof4 @welllpthisishappening @wellhellotragic @teamhook @gingerchangeling @ultraluckycatnd @resident-of-storybrooke @jonirobinson64 @nikkiemms @bmbbcs4evr @spartanguard @stahlop @jennjenn615 @xrandomdreamx @kday426 @courtorderedcake @kingofmyheart14 @aprilqueen84 @pirateherokillian @capswantrue @socmono @superchocovian @darkcolinodonorgasm

(it you’re not here and want to be, let me know!! – there will be a part two!)

#CSSNS #ITS TIME #statue fic #what happens in berkshire #my writing #my fics #captain swan #cs fics #cs ff #sometimes I feel like the title could be better #but it's been the same the whole time I've been working on it #and its become close to my heart

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incandescent-creativity · 5 years

Text

20 Questions Tag

tagged by @homesteadchronicles !

OKAY SO

I accidentally answered all of the ones Jake answered, before I saw he left questions for me at the end, and I didn’t want to waste all that time, so

This was originally a 10 Question tag, and I’m putting his questions first, but there’s 10 more below the cut because I say so.

1. When you find a book at the store, what about it makes you decide to buy it or put it back on the shelf?

Well, if it’s a book in a series or by an author I know and like, I’m going to get that. I barely look at the premise of new Stephen King books anymore.

But other than that, if the inside flap sounds like a good story, and if the first page sounds like something I can read and enjoy.

2. What would your book’s ideal cover look like, should you have access to any artist you’d want and any resources you would need to make it a reality?

I’ve already made mock covers, you can find them on the title slides of my comic sans presentations, so I guess they’d just look like those, but nicer?

Although, tbh, I’m a bigger fan of these SOLE fan covers by @writeouswriter. I think they capture the themes of the story better, and I might play around with remaking the SOLE cover soon, inspired by their work!

3. If you could rewrite one story - be it a book, game, movie, show, etc. - which would it be and why?

Two options:

One, the ending of Game of Thrones. I know that might be a cliche or expected answer, and I’m usually not one to critique works that I watch, but Jaime abandoning Brienne made literally no sense.

The other option is a book we’re reading for class: Phantoms, by Christian Kiefer. Inconsistent grammar, bad writing style, hardly any plot actually happening, fake deep sentences and weird descriptions... Ugh.

4. Have you ever given a story a second chance and liked it better the next time through? What caused your opinion to change?

Really, truly, changing the urban fantasy TREE Series to the high fantasy LORE Series was the best decision I’ve ever made. I went from feeling lukewarm about the story to feeling on fire, and it might be solely because of the opportunity to worldbuild so much.

5. What do you believe endears an audience to a character?

Relatability! A character has got to be relatable, at least in some capacity. That’s how you make good villains: you show that they are so far gone down whatever hole they’ve fallen into that they can’t be relatable anymore.

(Also what makes a good villain is making them just relatable and logical enough that you see where they came from. It’s a weird line that never appears in the first draft)

6. What kind of romances do you prefer to read about and/or watch unfold? (Soft and shy, hot and sexy, slow burn, enemies to lovers, etc.)

Soft and shy slowburn of best friends to lovers will get me EVERY TIME

Like do y’all remember Percy and Annabeth from Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series? That was the ULTIMATE romance of my childhood. I bet if I went back and read it, it would still hold up, too. Those two went to Tartarus and back with only each other. Peak Romance.

7. What type of AU’s are your guilty pleasures, be they for your stories or for others? (Modern, High School/University, Coffee Shop, Vampires, etc.)

I’ve never written a vampire story, but I think I’d like to try.

This was not the question, but I don’t really have any guilty pleasures! I write what I write and I write what I want and I hardly ever do AUs.

8. If only one age demographic would ever read your books, which would you choose and why?

“New Adult,” which I’m not even sure is a genre. Like, early 20 year olds.

9. If you could pay homage to one person in your life through your stories and/or characters, who would it be and why?

Probably myself?

These are my stories, and as much support as I’ve gotten from friends (and even the occasional family), at the end of the day, they’re most important to me, I’m the one who’s put the most work into them, and if I can represent and immortalize myself...

I think I’ll be happy.

10. If every reader walked away from your story having been changed in one significant way, what would you want it to be and why?

For the SOLE Project, I want readers to learn that isolating themselves will never solve anything, and will probably make things worse. Also, take action against climate change (but do it with other people).

For LiaHT, I want people to know it’s okay not to have all the answers, and be at peace with all parts of themselves.

For LORE, I want people to start treasuring the power of friendship and the power of hope.

---

SECOND BATCH

1. What are your character’s favorite foods or snacks?

Christian will snack on anything he can get his hands on. Nora likes cookies. Zach likes fruits and pastries, especially fruity pastries. Dr. Agau and Beth are (shockingly) very practical people: nuts, berries, cheese, handfuls of those... think of trail mix.

2. What playlists do you listen to when writing?

I use video game playlists! They’re usually wordless and motivating, which is nice. I like to use this playlist on Spotify, or this website (you can’t skip songs, but there’s also some weird metal and screaming songs on the playlist so like. Pick your poison).

3. Which OC is/was your favorite to create?

Dr. Agau is still my favorite, I think. She’s just so... I don’t know, in control? Obviously, she uses her control and power to abuse children, so she’s an awful person, but come on. Who doesn’t long for a sense of absolute control over circumstances in their life.

A close second are Ash and Zach. It’s fun to think of all the ways they balance each other and differ from each other, and the few areas they are similar in.

4. What is the first book you read that made you cry?

The only book that’s ever made me cry is the ending of Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman.

5. Do you hide any secrets in your books as a way of foreshadowing?

Not intentionally? The things I hide are mostly references to old drafts, like when Beth finds a body in Agau’s laboratories that’s named Kati (an old character who I cut out of the story).

6. What is the most difficult part of your writing process?

Starting.

Seriously, whether it’s starting a chapter, figuring out where to start the story as a whole, starting to resolve something, I just find beginnings... very difficult. I haven’t found a good formula for them yet.

7. Which of your characters would you like to meet or get to know irl?

I think Zach and I would get along fabulously!

I also have trouble with Matt’s character, and Hans’s, so maybe I could get to know those boys a bit better.

8. Was there a situation in your writing that you took from your own life?

I don’t take exact situations as much as I take feelings. All the pieces of my writing that are Beth having panic attacks, of Zach not knowing where he’s going with his life, of Nora stressing over school... Our circumstances may be very different, but the feelings are usually pretty direct.

9. Do your characters have reoccurring symbolism in their dreams?

Weirdly enough, I don’t think I’ve ever written a dream sequence for a character. I’ve written a nightmare, but only one, in all of my writing.

Huh.

10. Which Hogwarts houses would you sort your characters into?

Slytherin: Dr. Agau, Beth, Ash, and Maluka

Ravenclaw: Michael

Hufflepuff: Hallie, Hans, Zach, Olufemi, Finnigan, Nora

Gryffindor: Christian, Matt

Apparently I have a type.

#tagged in #about me

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hecohansen31 · 5 years

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“Of Superheroes and Superassholes” (Chapter 1)

A/N: This is my first multi chapter fanfic, so there will be more chpaters of this if you actually like it, I honestly had this idea after seeing “Endgame” and I actually discussed it with @lvngdvns (who created some pretty amazing headcanons about this, so if you want to check them out after this, I am sure she will be grateful, also they are absolutely worth a read… and a re-read, and … I mean Mal’s writing is amazing and her blog brightens my day, so…) and I decided to try to write down something.

Also before you start, here are some thing you need to know: Reader powers are pretty similar to Captain Marvel, meaning she got toxins in her blood which changed her DNA, making it adapt to something new, she doesn’t have the blast thing, but she is stronger, quicker and mo resistent (which comes in handy, according to Duncan and Michael…) meanwhile Michael is the bratty warlock he was at Hawthorne so he works primarily with magic (and sarcasm).

Duncan is a mix between Iron Man and Neal Caffrey (my writing buddy is pretty proud of me for this…).

So after this long introduction: don’t fear the smut will come in the next part (I just need to write it down…),

As always LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK? (because if I don’t get any feedback I automatically feel like I suck so… (also just hit me up to tell me I suck, I know…).

SUMMARY: Sometimes Destiny deals you horrible cards, and sometimes Destiny deals you two beautiful assholes to work with (+superpowers).

A superhero/secret agent AU comes your way.

Will the three agents manage to work their own problem to save the world (or will they straight up destroy it?).

WORDS: 2,9 K.

WARNING: No sex, or smut (there will be more in the newest chapters, I already am thinking about it), foul language, but also I feel like Duncan and Michael need their own warning.

She had never wanted superpowers, because as the motto said “with great powers comes great responsibility” which meant that no matter how many bad guys you beat up, there would be more from where they came from, so all your weekends plan had to be pushed aside and swept under the carpet, mostly if you worked into a secret agency to save the world.

And meanwhile she took her role very seriously, she had since toxins had changed her DNA, there was somebody who didn’t, and this made her work a thousand times more difficult, not to talk about the way it always put her in some dangers.

And all those reasons of stress had a name: Michael Langdon.

A blonde boy, enough powerful because of some arcane magical powers, not to talk about ripped AF (she looked him only to see clues for any kind of flaws or physical injuries she could use to her advantage meanwhile they fought in training).

To say she hated him was an understatement: he was against everything she believed in; faith, fair-play and avoiding straight up butchering their enemies in order to interrogate them and get some answers answered, and not have to dig up more things, with another few months of annoying research on her shoulder, since Langdon didn’t even touch paperwork.

She had been working on this case for three months, and she had managed to get infiltrated into the group of baddies that had decided to use poisonous toys to kill immigrant children, which was something she found disgusting, and not only had she managed to infiltrate and to meet their boss, but also the boss would tell her where the toys would be shipped.

But as soon as she walked in with Langdon as her body-guard he had started attacking everyone and although they had managed to take down the entire company, they had also managed to kill the boss so now they had no idea where and when the shipment would come.

And so, they were at the beginning again.

-I told you to wait- she screamed as soon as she opened the door to his office -Would it kill you to wait for my plan to work out? -.

-They don’t, (L/N)- he mumbled, simply, leaning on his elegant armchair an original vintage as the rest of the furnishing of his office, meanwhile hers was the most chaotic one but it was much more warmer than Michael, who had nothing personal on his walls, probably to protect himself, but the presumptuous attire of the entire office gave off what an arrogant prick Michael was -… they never work, (L/N), they were doubting you and they were preparing themselves to bring you down-.

-No, it would have worked it out, if you had managed to follow it, it is simple, Michael! – she felt the blood rushing into her veins and her skin glowed, something that happened since the toxins had entered her body and instead of killing her, changed her DNA, giving her new strength and powers.

She had never gone overboard with her powers because of rage, no matter how much Michael infuriated her, it was something she prided herself of, whereas Michael always was uncontrolled and more and more time some intern had to follow a trip to the hospital because of broken bones and other “minor” injuries.

So. it was a bad idea to start now and she immediately calmed down, moving down her hands, flattening them against her thighs and cleaning the sweat off of them.

-… it was my case, you were under my command, Langdon, you need to hear me out- she tried to appear as calm as she could, but this put Michael on an even more apathetic status which prompted her to actually think about kick him in the balls to get a raise out of him.

-I will hear you out when you can finally formulate a plan that will actually work out-.

She was going to punch him, she was going to lose control and punch him and she wouldn’t have regretted it.

-Agents Langdon and (L/N)! – the sudden opening of the door made her snap out of the anger trance she was in, which prompted her to assume a more collected position, again her palms went to her thighs, digging the nails into the soft fabric of the black pants.

Langdon instead, didn’t assume a more sober position, he just raised his back in order to assume a fiercer pose, standing his head tall and high, like a winner.

They both stood at attention, before the general Goode, a tall and proud woman to whom they both knelt to, although Langdon didn’t do it with joy, since he thought that with all his magical power he should be the one in charge of the entire thing, but general Goode was smarter and more experienced than him, so he had to stick to her partnership with her.

-Relax, agents- she had a bitter expression and (Y/N) thought what would come next: a little reprise for the fact that they hadn’t solved nothing on a mission which costed the agency a lot of money and time -… I come bearing good news-.

And… that was not what she had expected.

-…you’ll have a new partner- which wasn’t good news.

She had worked for longer in the agency but only in her apprenticeship she had worked alone and in her first missions she had always been paired with Michael, since they were the strongest the agency had to offer and this meant that she somehow saw the working with somebody as the freaking worst torture you could ever endure.

And the same was for Michael who straight up snorted.

-… a new partner? – he asked, incredulously and she was halfway through hitting his face -… you found some other stupidly naïve superhuman, because, honestly, we are full-.

She didn’t want to agree with him, but, apart from the insult, she did agree with what he said.

-Sadly no, Mr Langdon, but I have something much better…- and then she moved aside and a tall guy, strangely similar to Michael, but with a much darker color in his hair, which fumbled down in elegant waves down his eyes, hiding them.

She was swiftly taken aback, as she had been when she first saw Michael, but whereas Michael was all boyish charm and well-cured elegance, the new man was the image of what an accomplished man looked like, all tough forms and a rude beauty.

He promised hot nights and sweet sweet love making.

-… Duncan Shepherd will help us with the social aspect of your work, since you both are unable to handle that- Cordelia huffed, clearly annoyed by the fact that they always ended up fighting themselves instead of the enemies.

And she understood Cordelia’s reason, but also… TWO HOT MEN WITH WHAT LOOKED LIKE THE BIGGEST EGO IN THE WORLD. (AND OTHER THINGS… but she was trying to stay professional).

She wouldn’t be ok.

-Cordelia… can we talk about it? – Michael tried that approach, but he was quickly shut down by Cordelia just mouthing a no, before walking out, suggesting to all of them to get to know each other.

She was fucked.

——————————————————————————————————————————

Duncan knew that agents could be assholes, he had had to deal with them for a very long time since they had somehow discovered something about his illegal way of gaining information through his app, and when Cordelia had told him about the deal that would get him no jail time just in exchange for his assistance at the “R&H Corporation”, he hadn’t realized he would deal with much more asshole-ish agents (more asshole-ish than him, which was straight up impossible).

Because his new partners mixed a bad attitude with a petty tongue and a sharp intellect, and whereas agent (L/N) was one to close in herself and avoid any critical thoughts on her plan, if it was not something she approved, Michael was much worse, being what many people would call “a straight-up brat”.

(L/N) was at least hard-working and he had somehow created a bond with her (she trusted his hacker abilities, alongside the suggestions on how to handle another person), Michael kept on being straight up rude and useless, if the mission didn’t suit his “thoughts”.

This meant that Duncan thought half of time how to kill him, the other half how to get (L/N) to loosen up and there was no time for the mission, although they still had to save the world apparently.

They were in the latest mission: a search for a drug lord, an easy mission, mostly because the man could be loaded with money but his men hadn’t superpowers or the social knowledge of Duncan, who had find them a way to infiltrate in the gang, actually through Michael.

But they needed to do some teamwork, because although they had solved every mission with less dangerous explosions than usual (at least according to a still unsatisfied Cordelia) they still lacked so much precision and attention to the other.

They were in their hotel room, the entire mission would start the following day and Duncan was surprised when he saw (L/N)’s white lingerie being revealed as she shed her shirt and pencil gown, and although he wasn’t complaining, he… was extremely surprised.

-(L/N) are you feeling hot? – he asked, meanwhile he reasoned with himself that he wasn’t blushing because he had an half-naked woman in front of him, but Michael caught what was happening before him and he laughed between his teeth, before he got a glare from the other man.

-Just changing in night clothes- and she reached down to unlock her bra, which prompted Duncan to again have a heart-attack; he was used to freaking women taking their clothes off at his command, what happened to him?

A beautiful and superpowered woman had happened and she looked stunning in white panties and a pretty simple bra.

-Go and change in the bathroom, (Y/N)- mumbled Michael, looking at her clearly distressed and annoyed but Duncan didn’t know if it was because he had to confront her or he was simply jealous -… or Mr Shepherd over here will have an heart attack! -.

He was halfway through seriously chocking that asshole, but then he saw the little blush on (L/N)’s face and the way she immediately ran away in the bathroom, the insecurity written all over her face and her swift movements, and even Michael seemed to understand, although he did nothing to sweeten his words.

But Duncan felt guilty and with the mission so near, he didn’t want (L/N) to feel bad.

He also realized somehow that Michael had called by her first name, an intimate gesture he didn’t understand but it might have meant for them to grow closer.

He moved to the bathroom, the door was close, not locked, but he still knocked, swiftly hearing a “give me one minute” and (Y/N) was back, wearing an oversized band t-shirt, something that he never saw of her, always having worn pencil skirts or elegant black pants and blouses, a little larger than what she needed, as if to hide herself, in neutral colors, the usual office attire but also specifically worn not to stand out, unlike Michael.

-It isn’t like you think- he immediately rambled out, and she strangely laughed a bit at the proverbial words, but then she was twisted again in her previous nostalgic state -… I am used to women being naked with me… but…-

-… I am not that sexy- she replied swiftly, looking at him as if she knew him better than he did, and then moving to the door to close it.

But he didn’t let her.

-… I was embarrassed because you are extremely sexy and my colleague and I don’t want to have dirty thoughts on somebody I have to work with- he knew he had just bubbled up a non-sense discourse and he thought that (Y/N) hadn’t understood anything, but she did and she was looked at him surprised -… I just don’t want anything to be awkward-.

The revelation seemed to shock her, but she didn’t say anything except nodding and try again to close the door, but he just had a last thing to ask.

-You think you are ready for tomorrow? – and this time she let out a full-blown laugh.

-I think I am, if you now let me brush my teeth and then get my beauty sleep! -and then he was pushed away from the door, with only a sweet but audible “goodnight”.

He turned away, smiling happily… maybe tomorrow they would avoid a straight up massacre.

——————————————————————————————————————————

He wasn’t nervous, Michael Langdon was never nervous.

Michael Langdon never gave his squad a reason to tease him.

And he never gave them a reason to doubt him.

(Y/N) had spoken with him before this, she would be working with Duncan, behind the scenes, and he needed to remember everything they had gone through, everything.

And he was thankful she had been the one to quiz him, their competitions always bringing out the best of him.

They had also exchanged some pretty horrible sarcastic snaps at each other, till Duncan had asked them to either stop or he would have to put a gag on both of them, which had prompted a blush from his chaste colleague and a “kinky” from him.

He knew that Duncan Shepherd wasn’t shy on what he liked and what he didn’t (although what he had seen the previous night ruined the perfect image of the dom! Duncan Shepherd) and he low key liked him for that, much more than his sexual-repressed other colleague, but none of his flirty comments had been caught by the man, although he could blame it on his decision to stay strictly professional.

Still the fact that that man didn’t fall to his knees to his wit, meanwhile he blushed at seeing his pretty colleague almost naked…

He and (Y/N) were used to get naked in front of each other, he didn’t mind it, their bodies were both weapons, mostly (Y/N) but sometimes in his dream strand of (H/C) would appear in his dreams… and he didn’t want to think like that of somebody as sexually repressed as his colleague, but sometimes it was stronger than him.

He blamed the stress.

(Y/N) was tough, from what he had read, spying her little CV on Cordelia’s desk, she had a tough upbringing and after the incident which changed her life she dropped any contact with her family and friends, a loner, and this led her to know better than fall to his charms and he had seemed to ruin any chance with her when he first spit his nasty insult.

Sometime when she and Duncan giggle about a friendly joke, he wished he hadn’t spoken to her like that.

But his work had nothing to do with regrets, and more regrets he avoided the more he would be safe on the job.

And he did everything right and the drug lord still outsmarted them somehow, hitting Michael and sending him KO, before almost putting a bullet through his head, his magic wasn’t working somehow, and he was going to be dead.

Till (Y/N) jumped out from literally nowhere, hitting the drug lord and getting a bullet in the stomach from one of his cronies, which Duncan promptly shot in the head, the life he had taken slowly appeared back in his eyes, but as soon as he saw her bleeding he promptly moved to get here but Michael just told him to cover their shoulders, she would make it.

-… she has been invested by toxins that didn’t kill her, COVER OUR FUCKING SHOULDERS! – and he swiftly moved to an already up (Y/N), although she clutched the wound she was swiftly up and kicking the drug lord, meanwhile a few others entered, and strangely Michael did find a way to use again his magic.

And he did his best to cover his wounded friend’s shoulders, hoping it would be enough.

——————————————————————————————————————————

So that was all, I really hope you liked it!

Let me know what you thought about it and any feedback is greatly appreciated! 😘✨

See you soon, lovelies! 😉

Eroine Penzel.

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elizabeethan · 3 years

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Watch the Sunlight Fade: 15 / 17

Or, alternate summary: I’m horrible at summaries, please just read it.

Something of a cross between a What Still Remains AU and a Sons of Anarchy AU.

A/N: get ready for some whumpy aftermath

Rated M

Get added to my tag list

Read the Rest

Read my Other Stuff

Read on Ao3

~~~~

Emma creeps through the building, eyes scanning each door for any indication of Elsa’s whereabouts. Robin told her in haste as she was leaving that Elsa lives in this building, too, but he failed to inform her of what unit she was in.

As she walks the halls, a door opens slowly and reveals the face of someone she recognizes and is relieved to see. “Tink, hi.”

“Looking for El?”

She nods. “Killian asked me to make sure she’s safe.”

“Is he okay?” she asks with concern. Emma almost smiles at how much his friend truly cares about him.

“I don’t know,” she shakes her head. “They really hurt him.”

Her voice is heated. She won’t get past the anger that boils the blood singing through her veins. They hurt the man she loves, and she isn’t sure how she’ll get past that fact without making someone pay.

“Well, let’s get the hell out of here so we can get him help.”

Tink shows her where Elsa’s apartment is and she knocks on the door, answered quickly and coldly. “Yes?”

“Elsa,” Emma greets, confused by her clipped tone, less confused to see that she looks entirely unharmed. “Killian wanted me to check on you.”

She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “I’m sure he did,” she says sarcastically.

“We have… we have a safe place for you. Come with us,” she tries. She doesn’t actually want to even bother convincing her, but she knows it’s what Killian wants.

“Safe? You’re full of it.”

She knew it. Killian feared that she had the information tortured out of her, unable to believe that she could have betrayed him with her own free will, but Emma had a sinking feeling that that wasn’t the case. Now, she thinks she’s right. “You told them,” she accuses.

“Yes, I did. He should know better than to try to betray the club like that.”

“He trusts you,” she tries. “He loves you because you loved his brother.”

“I love my family,” she argues vapidly. “Killian tried to destroy it by shacking up with you and killing one of our own. He betrayed Neal, just because he can’t get over what happened to Liam.”

Tink laughs, shaking her head, and Emma says, “They killed Liam! How can you not see that?”

“Don’t tell me what I can or can’t see. You don’t know anything; you certainly don’t understand the inner workings of the club or why Peter makes the decisions he does.”

Her thoughts are swirling in her head, moving too quickly as she tries to straighten out what Elsa says to her. She’s too forgiving, too accepting of what’s happened to the man she was supposed to love. Her actions have been too cruel. Someone who loves Killian wouldn’t have given him up; she wouldn’t be taking such a black and white stance if…

“You knew,” she accuses knowingly, without needing to ask. “You’ve known all along that they killed Liam.”

With a roll to her eyes, she says, “Liam’s actions no longer reflected his promise to the club. They did what needed to be done, and I understood that-- unlike you. The club has been my family long before Liam came around.”

“How could you…” she whispers, unable to say anything more. She can hardly vocalize how horrified she is to learn that someone she thought was sweet and innocent has been working against the people who love her all along.

With a scoff, she says, “I don’t have to explain myself to you. Go back to your real boyfriend, you slut. You’re lucky he even still wants you after all you’ve done to betray us.”

“You’re a monster,” Emma grumbles, backing away from her. “I don’t know how you can do this to someone who really loves you.”

The sting against her cheek is immediate and sharp, Elsa’s hand delivering a solid slap and making Emma and Tink gasp in unison. “The club loves me. They’ve taken care of me since I was a kid. Now get away from me before I tell Peter what you told me about a safe place,” she goads. “Go back home, and maybe you won’t get hurt.”

“Like Killian did? And Liam?”

“They got what they deserved. If you’re not careful, you will, too. I’m willing to look past this transgression, only because I know Neal loves you and thinks you’ll be a good candidate at carrying on the bloodline. But make no mistake; fuck up again and I’ll be taking this little conversation to Peter.”

Emma couldn’t have convinced Elsa to come with them if she tried, because she wasn’t even able to try. The door slams in her face before she has a chance to get another word in.

~~~~

His surroundings are barely visible before the pain sets in again.

It’s blinding, no matter what he does. Opening his eyes is painful. Keeping them closed is, too.

He doesn’t need to be awake to know where he is, either. The waves rocking the boat violently give away their location.

“I think he’s waking up,” someone says with a voice he doesn’t recognize. “Get over here.”

“Mate,” he hears from Rob, his voice vaguely recognizable through the fog in his brain. “Killian, come on.”

“You shouldn’t have let him sleep. He probably has a concussion.”

“You try stopping him.”

“Shut up,” he groans, his lip cracking again as he speaks. Each of the men by his side laugh in relief.

“Killian,” he hears Robin breathe. “You alright, mate?”

He winces as he tries to take in a grounding breath, his ribs protesting vehemently. “Where is she?” he asks, barely recognizing the sound of his own voice.

“Who’s that? The one looking for me?”

“Emma,” Robin confirms, and Killian forces his eyes open. He only hopes that the look he gives his friend is enough to relay his fear and anger at him telling this stranger anything about the woman he loves. Doesn't he know she’s in danger already? “Don’t look at me like that, mate,” he says, although Killian can detect a hint of relief in his voice at seeing his open eyes.

“What did you do?” he asks, unable to expend the energy it would take to say much more.

“This is David. You, and especially Emma, might recognize him as James Spencer.”

Killian groans as he lifts his head, the crushing pain of his headache almost unbearable. Truthfully, he thought he would be worse off. Sure, he’s quite certain several ribs are broken, and he worries that he might have a fracture or two in his cheek from how many times Cassidy beat on him, but the pain isn’t quite as bad as he expected it to be.

It’s still bloody excruciating, though.

“Spencer,” he answers, looking at the familiar stranger. “The cop?”

He nods. “You’re girlfriend’s good. I’m with the FBI now, deep undercover. I thought we’d buried everything.”

“Of course she is,” he agrees, trying to take a breath deep enough to actually fill his lungs. He digs his fingers into the thin mattress and winces. “So, what now? Where is she?”

“She’s meeting me here,” Robin tells him.

“You left her alone?” he asks angrily.

“You told her to round up Tink and Elsa. Begged her. I had to get you the hell out of there before they bloody killed you.”

“Why the hell would you listen to me?” he grumbles, rolling his eyes painfully. “How long has she been gone?”

Looking down to his watch, Robin answers, “About two hours. But she’s smart, she’ll get out of there alright.”

He can’t even answer, can’t even tell his friend how stupid it was to let Emma go off on her own, unprotected, before Nolan speaks up. “Your friend tells me you always seem to have a plan.”

“Give me some water and something to get rid of this damn headache and I’ll be much more amenable to talking.”

He can barely keep up with his surroundings, too disoriented and dizzy and in too much blinding pain to keep his eyes open or to form a coherent thought beyond his worry for Emma. He isn’t even sure how much time passes, how long it takes for the glass of water to appear in his hand.

“I checked you out,” David says after what must have been a few minutes, the water finally washing away the taste of blood from his mouth. “I have field training. I think you have some cracked ribs, but I don’t think your face is broken.”

With a sigh and a roll to his eyes, Killian says, “Well aren’t I lucky.”

The medication he gives him sets in after a few minutes more, numbing the pain slightly and making it so that Killian can finally breathe in enough oxygen to not feel like he’s drowning. Satisfied with the lessened pain, he takes another gulp of water and says, “Aye, I think I have a plan.”

“Go on.”

“Peter’s on a rampage, ready to destroy whoever he can, but I’m assuming that if you’re here, the Kings of Elsinore must be close.” David nods in agreement. “He doesn’t know they’re coming. He planned to attack them first. Have your gang found the Lost Boy’s clubhouse yet?”

“No.”

“Good. We can tell you where to find them and you can set up a raid with the FBI, take both clubs down at once. On one condition.”

A particularly forceful wave rocks the boat again, the one that’s all too familiar to Killian, and sends David stumbling to the right. Killian’s stomach flips once more. “What’s that?” he asks once he gets his bearings.

Despite his pain, and his desperate need for some chapstick, Killian smirks. “You’re going to help us get out of this mess.”

~~~~

It’s almost midnight by the time Neal finally falls asleep. His adrenaline and anger has kept him up, his anger directed at his plaything being taken from him rather than his girlfriend potentially being hurt before he finally crashes. He hasn’t even noticed her swollen, red cheek, too busy focusing on his rage.

She plays it up dramatically, acting like she’s relieved that he finally found out and got her out of the dangerous situation, while also terrified at the fact that it happened. Really, she knows she’ll be having a similar, but still drastically different, exchange with Killian the moment this is over.

She takes a final look around the apartment once he’s sleeping, looking for one thing and one thing only and unable to find it. She isn’t sure what he’s done to her only possession; the children’s book is the only thing she cares about aside from her friends' safety. But she isn’t surprised to know that he stole or destroyed it given his complete disregard for her well-being in any capacity.

She sneaks out the front door, content to never return, and creeps down the hall towards Olivia’s unit.

“It’s time,” she says once she gets there, her voice just above a whisper.

As they quietly tiptoe across the dock once they arrive, she briefly wonders how Robin will know of their arrival, before her question is answered for her. He pokes his head out of the cabin of a rather large yacht, and Emma scans the area before hurrying towards him.

“You made it,” he exclaims, taking her backpack and helping her onto the deck of the boat. “Where’s Elsa?”

“Where’s Killian?” she asks, willing to ignore his question and put her out of her mind a bit longer.

“Below deck. He’s awake.”

She’ll tell them about Elsa soon. Right now, she has more important things to worry about, and she can’t imagine bursting Killian’s bubble once again by telling him the truth.

Stepping down into the cabin is daunting. The boat reminds her of the clubhouse, weapons on display wherever they can fit. She wonders about how safe that can be, the clubs and knives and primitive looking tools bound to fall eventually with the way the waves are rocking the boat.

“Killian,” she exclaims, excitement to see him sitting up on his own taking over her resolve to stay strong for him. The tears are leaking from her eyes before she even realizes she’s about to cry, and she hurries towards him. The last time she saw him, he was so broken that she was worried she would lose him.

He breathes her in when she collides with him, wincing as she puts too much pressure on his ribs but not releasing his firm hold on her.

“You alright?” he asks her, his lips brushing against her neck as he speaks. Leave it to him to worry about her after he was beaten within an inch of his life. His hand reaches up to touch her cheek, the redness fading but evidently still noticeable enough, at least to a man who truly cares about her. “What did he do?”

“I’m fine,” she answers. She wants to crawl onto his lap and hold him in her arms for the rest of their lives, but she knows she can’t. They have to move. “Can we go now?”

“Where’s El?” he asks, confused.

Robin interrupts, not letting Emma answer, and says, “we can’t go yet, unless we want to get arrested. Emma, meet Special Agent David Nolan.”

Her eyes widen when she looks up and sees a man she recognizes, stunned to have his identity confirmed for her. “James Spencer,” she says, nodding her head. “So you are undercover?”

“I am. Props to you for figuring it out, although it’s a bit disconcerting.”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” she shrugs. The agent laughs. “Plus, I thought you were just a cop.”

“Close enough.”

“Emma,” Killian says softly, his hand closing around hers and squeezing again. “Where's Elsa? What happened to you?”

She bites her bottom lip when she looks into his eyes again and is met with his painful stare. It’s unfair that she has to be the one to tell him this. That a woman he thought was his family should betray him like this and she has to be the one to pass the information along and to see the look on his face when she does.

“Killian,” she answers softly. “Olivia and I went to her and tried to get her to come with us. We told her we had a safe way out, that we would help her escape. But she wanted nothing to do with us.”

He touches her face again, the concern written across his face pulling at her heart. “What happened?” he nearly whispers.

“She said some awful things,” Tink tells him. “Emma told her she was being stupid, essentially-- ripped her a new one for selling you out-- and El gave her a good slap.”

His fingers dance along her tender skin once more as he shakes his head in disappointment and disbelief. “She did this to you?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to tell you--”

His lips find hers effortlessly, his touch gentle and delicate and careful not to let things between them get too passionate while they still have an audience. She’ll have to tell him about Liam eventually, but it’s too much right now. He’s so broken, and she worries that telling him that his sister-in-law knew about his brother's death could put him over the edge when he has to focus on healing. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “I can’t believe she would--”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but we really should get moving. The SWAT team will be here soon.”

“SWAT?”

“Love, David is planning a raid on the clubhouse. We’re going to give him the club’s location in exchange for our freedom and immunity during any investigations.”

She lets her jaw drop in surprise, her expectations of their evening completely shattering before her. “Oh shit…”

“Aye,” Killian confirms. “We just need to figure a way to get them all to the clubhouse. We need Peter to call another family meeting, but me simply being gone likely wouldn’t be enough of a reason.”

“If I may,” David offers, Emma looking up from Killian’s distracting eyes at him. “Isn’t she the leader’s girlfriend?”

“She is called Emma, and if you think she is going back there, you might as well just haul me off to jail right now because I’ll bloody beat--”

“Killian!” she insists, placing her hand on his and squeezing to try and calm him down. “Just hear him out. He might be onto something.”

He turns to her, his cheeks flushed in his pain and anger. “I’m not sending you back there! You just left; I’ll die before I let anything more happen to you.”

She rolls her eyes, but it’s only to protect herself. The fact is, he did almost die in favor of letting anything happen to her. “No you won’t,” she says definitively. She stands from her place beside him and looks seriously at the agent. “What did you have in mind?”

“Emma--”

She turns around sharply. “After everything you’ve been through today, don’t you dare tell me I can’t do something to protect you. We can end this, Killian. We won’t be on the run; we’ll be completely free to live the lives we want.” Turning back to David, she asks, “Right?”

“She’s right,” he agrees, though he’s looking at Killian. “With all of your cooperation, I’m positive I can get you off scot free.”

“Killian,” she whispers, sitting back at his side and taking his hand once more. “I can do this.”

“I know,” he agrees immediately with a firm nod, a look of consternation on his pained face. “I’ve yet to see you fail. I just hate that I have to put you through this.”

“You’re not,” she promises. “I am. And I’ll be fine. I can handle Neal.”

“Aye, you’ve proven that much,” he smiles, his hand finding her cheek again. His eyes are starting to look heavier and heavier, whatever he was given for the pain taking over his consciousness again. “You’re a mighty strong lass.”

“You sound so much more British when you’re high,” she laughs, leaning over to kiss his broken bottom lip softly.

“I just happen to know you like my accent,” he flirts, and she giggles in response, pecking the tip of his nose.

“Alright, my love,” she whispers. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

~~~~

“Neal,” she whispers when she arrives in his bedroom. Their plan is a solid one, fully formed and ready to be put into action. That fact doesn’t make her any less anxious.

Killian gave David plenty of information on the club before she’d arrived. He told him about the millions in merchandise they’ve stolen, and where to find the pieces and the blueprints for evidence. He told them about the countless murders they’ve committed, including that of his own brother and where his body can be found. He told them about the illegal pornography business they’ve been running, and in exchange, David and his team will look past Olivia’s involvement.

Now, all that’s left is to gather the club for a family meeting and wait for the shooting to start.

She won’t be there, though. She and Killian made sure of that, making a plan just before he fell asleep and just after David left to make a call to his superiors.

“Neal, baby, wake up,” she says, appealing to his distorted senses and shaking his shoulders.

“What is it?” he asks grumpily, pushing her hands away.

“I found something.”

He groans and snaps, “Just tell me what it is.”

She clears her throat awkwardly and says, “I was able to pin Spencer’s last known location. He’s here, in Storybrooke. I think the whole gang is.”

He sits up suddenly, his eyes glowing meanly in the moonlight and making her shudder. “An attack,” he says, his tone definite, as if he’s the one who figured this out.

He doesn’t bother to even question how she found out, but she’s fine with that. “I think we should ask Peter to call a family meeting. This changes the whole plan, right?”

“You’re right,” he agrees. “Come on, get dressed.”

For once in her miserable relationship with him, she happily does as he commands.

~~~~

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